AI Anxiety With Real Stakes

MOVIE REVIEWS
Jitters
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Genre: Horror, Thriller
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director(s): Marc Zammit
Writer(s): George Willcox
Cast: Fabrizio Santino, Daniel Jordan, Anto Sharp, Jessica Impiazzi, Lauren Budd
Where to Watch: premieres on UK digital March 16, 2026

RAVING REVIEW: JITTERS opens like a grounded procedural and almost dares you to underestimate it. Detective Collymore isn’t introduced as a horror protagonist. He’s introduced as a man, exhausted. A single father. A detective who’s seen too much and carries it on his shoulders. Fabrizio Santino plays him with restraint, leaning into exhaustion rather than melodrama. That choice anchors the film with an idea that’s locked into being something human before it spirals into something darker and disturbing.

The premise feels familiar on paper. A young woman’s death is ruled a natural cause. Collymore senses something is off about it all. The trail leads to an underground AI-driven game called Jitters that weaponizes players’ deepest fears. But what separates this from disposable tech horror is that it doesn’t rush to chaos. For long stretches, the film plays as a psychological thriller. It’s about grief, guilt, and obsession as much as it’s about digital manipulation.

Marc Zammit directs with patience. The early investigative build tension throughout, allowing the horror of what's below to feel more earned. The online world feels invasive rather than flashy. Screens glow in dark rooms. Voices hang around a second too long. The horror is built through implication. That’s where JITTERS is strongest.

The concept of an AI that studies your trauma and turns it against you is inherently unsettling because it feels plausible. The fear isn’t supernatural. It’s personalized. The game doesn’t just scare players. It exposes them. And as Collymore digs deeper, the narrative becomes less about solving a crime and more about confronting buried pain.

Santino carries much of that in his performance. His portrayal keeps the story grounded. Even when the premise edges toward heightened horror territory, he remains a believable force. There’s a quiet sadness to him that makes the stakes feel real. He isn’t chasing a villain for glory. He’s trying to hold his world together.

Where the film becomes more complicated is in the physical manifestation of what Jitters is at the core of the game. Ironically, the movie is more effective when Jitters remains an unseen presence within the game. As an idea, as a rumor whispered across online forums, as a presence operating through screens and coded messages, the threat feels invasive and unpredictable. There’s something genuinely unnerving about an enemy without a face.

Once Jitters steps into the frame, some of that psychological tension diffuses. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Daniel Jordan’s performance. He plays the role with commitment, and the character’s design isn’t careless. But the mystery surrounding him is more powerful than the manifestation. The thriller thrives on uncertainty, and giving the threat a tangible form makes it easier to categorize. I want to be clear that I don’t so much have an issue with seeing Jitters as I do with a lot of more budgetary aware horror characters, but the fact that he was so much more powerful as an unseen. Keeping Jitters as an abstract, more of a suggestion than a presence, would have sharpened the psychological edge. The version of the character we don’t see directly lingers longer than the physical one.

That said, the film never completely collapses under that decision. The detective storyline remains compelling enough to carry momentum. The father-daughter dynamic gives emotional grounding. And the AI angle taps into contemporary anxieties without feeling dated. The supporting cast adds a lot to the story. Anto Sharp and Jessica Impiazzi contribute solid performances that expand the investigation beyond Collymore’s personal arc. The ensemble doesn’t overshadow him, but they keep the world from feeling isolated.

JITTERS avoids overindulging in glitch aesthetics. The digital horror elements are present, but they don’t dominate every frame. That restraint works in its favor. It keeps the tone closer to that of a thriller than to spectacle-driven horror. Thematically, the film circles around control. Technology controlling fear. Trauma controlling behavior. Guilt-controlling decisions. It’s ambitious in that sense, even if it doesn’t fully dive into those themes as deeply as it could. There are moments when the script hints at sharper commentary on AI dependency and emotional vulnerability, but it stops short of delving further.

What ultimately keeps JITTERS from reaching higher is that it’s strongest when it’s quiet, when it leans into suggestion. When it trusts the audience to sit in uncertainty, whenever it pushes toward overt villain imagery, it becomes slightly more conventional. Still, as a modestly scaled British genre entry, it shows ambition. It’s clearly trying to blend procedural thriller with modern horror. And for large stretches, it succeeds. There’s a solid film here. One that understands atmosphere. One that benefits from Santino’s grounded performance. One that knows fear is most effective when it feels personal. It was even stronger if its central menace had remained something you could never quite see as clearly as we get to. JITTERS works best when it lets fear operate in the margins. And in those moments, it genuinely leaves you with a chill.

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[photo courtesy of MIRACLE MEDIA]

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