‘Compliance’ Brings a $100k Digital Surveillance Nightmare to Tubi FrightFest

In Compliance, the camera isn’t just recording the horror. It belongs, in effect, to whoever is watching. Webcams, security feeds, phones and hacked devices provide the viewpoint for Kyle Mangione-Smith’s feature debut, a conspiracy thriller in which personal data becomes ammunition and a young technology worker discovers just how little privacy remains once a powerful organisation decides it wants something from her. Following its US festival appearances, the independently produced horror will receive its UK premiere at Tubi FrightFest this bank holiday weekend.

Megan Wilcox makes her feature debut as Sam Cornell, a PR representative working for technology start-up UVisit. Sam is handed the unenviable job of containing the damage from a sexual assault scandal which threatens a multimillion-dollar deal, while attempting to support Sarah, the woman at the centre of the case, played by Lindsey Normington.

The situation soon extends far beyond corporate crisis management. A secretive organisation with considerable resources threatens to expose details from Sam’s past, coercing her into a violent conspiracy aimed at bringing down UVisit and its investors. With her options steadily disappearing, Sam finds herself participating in events whose consequences reach much further than the scandal she was originally hired to manage.

Mangione-Smith has built Compliance around contemporary anxieties over surveillance, data brokers, artificial intelligence, deepfakes and online misinformation. Crucially, its found-footage format places the audience less in the position of the people being watched than that of the unseen observer accessing their devices.

‘With Compliance, our goal was to make a film where the found footage and screen life elements of the film are not an afterthought, but the driving thematic force,’ Mangione-Smith said. ‘In other words, this story could not be told in any way but as found footage.’

Made for a reported $100,000, the production was shot across Los Angeles and Chicago over two weeks. More than 20 cameras were used, ranging from iPhones, GoPros and webcams to custom rigs constructed from real security cameras. Mangione-Smith also edited and graded the film himself, incorporating analogue video distortion equipment into its visual design.

Wilcox and Normington, whose screen credits include Anora, The Idol and Hacks, are joined by Charlie Wood, Neil Wachs, Richard Schenkman and Jonathan Scherk. The original score comes from DJ Speedsick, an experimental electronic musician who has also worked with FKA Twigs.

Mangione-Smith previously directed the short Annihilator, which won directing prizes at the Knoxville Horror Film Festival and Scumdance. He conceived Compliance in 2023 and wrote the screenplay over three weeks, subsequently forming Crisis Actor Films with producers Ethan Spotts and Henry Hanson to make the feature. George Matthews joined the production as cultural consultant and executive producer, with the project moving forward following a fully funded Kickstarter campaign.

The filmmaker has also cited Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink when discussing a strand of independent, internet-focused horror made by young LGBT filmmakers. Compliance is pursuing its own route through that territory, though, combining corporate misconduct and surveillance with a conspiracy that becomes increasingly violent.

Don’t miss your chance to see Compliance receive its UK premiere at Tubi FrightFest on Monday 31 August 2026 at 10.30pm. For tickets, visit: Frightfest.co.uk/