NoSeeUms (2025) | Film Review

Please note, there will be spoilers within this review.

When a college student Ember is invited to join her white friends for a fun weekend at the country home of school Queen Bee Abigail, she finds the place unsettling and oddly familiar. Drawn to an unkempt grave in the backwoods, Ember begins to be plagued by buzzing, biting, vicious almost invisible, black bugs known throughout Florida as Noseeums. Along with this constant irritation, she starts having premonitions of grisly death and bewildering, chilling flashbacks. Soon, the shocking lore of the land becomes clear as restless spirits seek a festering retribution for past crimes, and Ember embraces long overdue vengeful acts.

A weekend getaway descends into a spectral nightmare.

First and foremost, it would be apt to take the opportunity to explain that Noseeum is derived from the informal name across Florida, Noseeum, for Ceratopogonidae insect. In the same Gnat family, Noseeums are also known as midges and sand flies - essentially, very small flies that have the capacity to bite and cause aggressive itchiness and lesions due to the bodies histamine production against said bites.

No-See-Ums (2025) marks the feature directorial debut of Raven Carter (previously directed the short film, White Washed (2024) and the feature writing debut(s) of Hendrick Joseph and Jason-Michael Anthony.

The feature follows Ember (Aleigha Burt), recovering from a breakup and embarking on a weekend of - thought-to-be - rest and relaxation with her college(?) roommate, Tessa (Jasmine Gia Nguyen) and her friends. Upon arrival, Ember is plagued by premonitions from the astral plain linked to an increased flurry of ceratopogonidae.

What appears to be a passion project and akin to Carter’s previous work, No-See-Ums attempts to tactfully explore - albeit, with the subtlety of a sledgehammer on a nail - cultural and racial themes. Almost every scene, from the opening introduction of Ember in a classroom, to the justification of the final scene, takes every opportunity to emphasise social hypocrisy and injustice through generic archetypes. 

NoSeeUms had it's World Premiere at FrightFest last night (23rd August, 2025)

As a result, the characters become incredibly one-dimensional imitations and / or caricatures placed in moments to either deliver dialogue, or push into the next scene. In some instances, characters - such as Abigail (Tabby Getsy) - are reduced to nothing more than generic stereotypes e.g. a stereotypical member of a white aristocracy. The performances suffer as a result of the poorly crafted dialogue and; in some scenes, the direction.

With no base of comparison, Burt’s performance as Ember leaves a lot to be desired, although appearing capable in some scenes, her consistently cringeworthy facial expressions and verbal, call-and-response, dialogue create a considerable lack of likability for the character. At times, it was difficult to understand whether Ember was actively being confrontational, purposefully appearing arrogant to the characters around her. You’d think this would be reserved specifically for Getsy’s Abigail, who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Of the four main characters embarking on this weekend retreat, Nguyen’s Tessa is the closest to a likeable character. It would be remiss if we were not to mention Tyler Bibb, Earl the Handyman, for the most genuine performance, despite the substandard dialogue.

I’d like to say, the film attempts to subtly explore the four characters as mouth-pieces for sects of society, notably, the white privileged (Abigail), the working class enabler (Lexi, portrayed by Jessie Roddy), the reticent (Tessa) and the targeted (Ember). But it fails to do so.

Through the film, two of the four characters take opportunities to belittle, or ridicule Ember, whilst the third - Tessa - makes every attempt to compromise and / or present a supportive front for Ember. This is undercut by the revelation that Tessa had slept with Ember’s ex boyfriend. It’s unknown whether this was what lead to their breakup, or whether it was after the fact.

And although this was the only moment within the film that I instinctively reacted to, it felt out of the blue due to the lack of information e.g. Tessa showing any inclination that this had happened, the delivery via tell-over-show (as opposed to show-don’t-tell) and the general indifference for any of the characters.

Whilst shoehorning as much social commentary into the dialogue as possible, the film attempts to explore an interesting concept that I feel would have been the redeeming feature - if done successfully.

The film introduces the real-world concept of property ownership via the Heirs Property strategy and its instability, specifically regarding records of historical property theft from black ownership by white Americans. An interesting basis that is the crux of the haunting / astral plain connection to Ember and flawed by the would-be justification for the climax of the film.

I say, would-be, as although it can be agreed; the theft and historical treatment of people of colour across the Western world is intrinsically egregious, the death of descendants and - as described in the films own synopsis - 'white friends', is not a justifiable solution.

Tilly, the rightful owner of the property, makes an appearance sporadically in Ember’s premonitions and pops up now and then. It just so happens - through poor development and writing - that Ember is a descendant of Tilly, whilst Abigail (whose father now owns the vacation home) is a descendant of the people who killed and stole from Tilly.

Such a coincidence they end up at the same school, despite Ember's mother moving them around to escape Ember's recurring psychological health problems. Such a coincidence that Ember's roommate is friends with Abigail, the Queen Bee of the college. SUCH a coincidence that Abigail decides to take them to that exact house, that Ember's relative had previously owned, despite owning several other properties (as mentioned in the 'white girl road trip' moment prior to reaching the property).

Coincidence? I think not... although it's never explained in the film, so it was purely an underdeveloped logic from the writing process.

Regardless, and like most of the film being pushed from scene to scene illogically, we needed to get Ember to the house for Tilly to initiate the climax of the film, sending swarms of midges to kill all of the characters, with the exception of Ember, Earl and Ember’s friend (that wasn’t invited to the weekend retreat) Jasmine (Chase Johnson). 

In regard to the story of the film, as mentioned above, it attempts to make a connection with films that have successfully approached similar content and themes. FrightFest have coined the phrase, ‘Where GET OUT meets CANDYMAN’. Unfortunately, this is both disingenuous and misleading.

I say this, as; whether you enjoyed them, or not, both films explored similar sensitive themes, but did so with subtlety and a structure refraining from relegating their characters and / or dialogue to nothing more than mouthpieces. Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) explored racial injustice and white privilege through an extreme allegory, whilst Candyman (1992, Rose) highlighted social / political imbalance and associated historical injustices through relevant dialogue, characters and settings - it demonstrates the show-don’t-tell methodology.

NoSeeUms (2025) | Film Review

Perhaps the connection was made on a simpler basis, of Ember travelling to a secluded house with ‘white friends’ and encounters a species of insect? In that case, Jurassic Park (1993, Spielberg) is ‘Where FINAL DESTINATION 3 meets THE LAND BEFORE TIME’ - because it’s a theme park… and there are dinosaurs…

If you’re looking for good horror elements - aside from the script itself - you’re out of luck. As mentioned, the film attempts to explore premonitions of the astral plain and a handful of jumpscares to boot. Unfortunately, unlike a midges bite, the stingers fall flat and are constantly accompanied by the poorly edited soundtrack, or the egregiously obnoxious use of blue bottle flies buzzing.

The CGI midges make each scene they're featured in, look less like Candyman and more like Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010, Nguyen). At times, the midges are a matte across the screen, moving with the camera as opposed to naturally.

The cinematography is likely the only saving grace of the film. The drone shots at the opening and framing of certain scenes are well done and shots with movement are smooth. Unfortunately, like the cliches littered throughout the film, there is nothing else noteworthy to comment on.

The film isn’t great, but nor is it awful - it’s not the best debuting feature, but it’s certainly, no where near, the worst. My critique may be construed as inherently negative, but it comes from a place that enjoys films that utilise allegories and dares to explore sensitive themes. It’s obvious that the team are aspirational and have a message they wish to explore and share within their productions. Perhaps with more development, more fine tuning and refining their dialogue and structure, their future films could deliver on the subtlety needed to convey these themes.