Peter Webber’s ‘DRAGN’ Brings AI Terror to Screens

Peter Webber is stepping back into darker territory with DRAGN, a sci-fi horror thriller that swaps period drama for relentless machine-driven terror. Best known for directing Girl with a Pearl Earring and Hannibal Rising, Webber’s latest feature arrives on UK digital platforms today, placing a group of office workers in the sights of an evolving artificial intelligence weapon that learns from every human encounter.

Starring James Paxton (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Twisters), Franz Drameh (Attack the Block, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), Carlos Bardem (Cell 211, Assassin’s Creed), Alice Pagani (Baby) and Lilly Krug (Plane), DRAGN unfolds against the isolated forests of rural Serbia, where an ordinary corporate retreat rapidly descends into a desperate fight for survival.

Paxton plays Tom Wilson, an unassuming American employee expecting little more than awkward team-building exercises and countryside hikes during a company getaway organised by Mantiz Corporation. Instead, the group becomes the target of DRAGN, an experimental military drone whose field test has spiralled catastrophically out of control.

As communications fail and escape routes disappear, Tom and his increasingly fractured colleagues discover they are facing far more than a malfunctioning weapon. Every encounter allows the autonomous machine to evolve, observing human behaviour and adapting its methods with chilling efficiency. According to the film’s synopsis, the drone’s first lesson is cruelty.

Webber, who also serves as co-producer, said the project grew from his fascination with the growing presence of drones and artificial intelligence in everyday life, using genre cinema to explore those anxieties rather than presenting them as abstract technological debates.

In his director’s statement, Webber explains that he wanted to create a fast-moving survival thriller inspired by the muscular science fiction and exploitation cinema of the 1980s, while also drawing atmosphere from films such as Stalker and Beyond the Black Rainbow. Rather than disguising the production’s modest scale, he says the filmmakers embraced its limitations to create a stripped-back, propulsive experience built around tension, action and practical momentum.

The supporting cast includes Jadran Malkovich as corporate executive Jacob and Alex Lane as the enigmatic Petros, with Lane also contributing to the screenplay. As the body count rises inside an abandoned military testing zone, Tom forms an uneasy alliance with Mantiz technician Zoja, played by Pagani, who gradually reveals the truth behind the drone’s creation and its disturbing evolution beyond its original purpose.

While DRAGN promises to deliver action, gunfire and survival horror, Webber suggests the film is equally interested in the increasingly uneasy relationship between humanity and the technologies it creates. Corporate indifference, machine learning and the erosion of personal responsibility all underpin the story, though the director is equally keen to stress that the film is designed first and foremost as an entertaining genre ride.

DRAGN is available on digital platforms across the UK from today, 6 July 2026. The official trailer is available to watch now.

DRAGN trailer