Far and away the action title to beat at Fantastic Fest 2026, Half has a real shot at breaking out internationally and developing a worldwide following.
Ivy (Aiswarya Raj) and Ethan (Ranjith Sajeev) are twins; and thanks to an opening text, we also know that they are half-vampire daywalkers.
Somewhere in the Indian deserts, a murderous group of scavengers have perfected an operation to kill and pillage innocent travellers, selling their belongings to eke out a living.
Our twins and these scavengers are on a collision course that will turn Half into the bloodiest and most brutal fight film since The Night Comes For Us or Kill.
Honestly, one can’t accuse Half of an enormous amount of depth. This is a concept movie, and a showcase for what India’s Malayalam-speaking region of their extensive film industry can do. Producer Anne Sajeev and star Ranjith Sajeev made the trip to Austin to speak with the Fantastic Fest audience about their film, and Sajeev indicated a desire with this film to reach international audiences with a genre mash-up that would appeal to a worldwide audience. I’m here to say that she and director Samjad were pretty wildly successful in that calculation.
Conceptually, our villainous scavengers kind of create an aura of The Hills Have Eyes; coldly murderous villains who themselves are perhaps simply trying to survive in a barren region, but whose ability to murder and dispose of women and children is portrayed as exacting, efficient, and emotionless. Their villainy has become a well-oiled machine.
So when they perform their trap and kill operation on our twins, who are on a road trip to set up the mute Ivy at a new job she’s been hired for, we see them perform their operation, complete with complicity from the local police, and get back to their normal lives. Unfortunately for them, our twins are going to resurrect and wreak bloody havoc.
If there’s any kind of interesting dimensionality to Half, it lies in the idea that our twins are kind of young adults. And while they’re incredibly gifted at ripping through a small army of villains, this is also maybe the first time that they’re really testing and trying their powers after having been raised in an idyllic sanctuary by a loving mother who has passed away and left them to rely on one another. Their father, presumably a… vampire… is never really addressed in the film. Half tells a satisfying and complete tale, but very much leaves room for sequels and a deeper exploration of the origins of our ass-kicking heroes, and where their next adventures will take them. Here in Half, the fact that they’re daywalking vampires mostly only plays out in their ability to absolutely lay waste to swarms of despicable villains.
Since the action is the primary draw here, let’s chat about that a little bit. Filled with wild gore and gleeful creativity, Half is unafraid to lean into its horror origins as it flexes its action muscles. And the comparisons to The Night Comes For Us aren’t totally anecdotal as Fight Choreographer Very Tri Yulisman served as a fight choreographer on both films, as well as such recent luminary action classics as Beyond Skyline and The Raid 2! In other words, this Indian crew brought in a true expert to work with their team to bring the action up to an astonishing level of execution. Sajeev told us that the film shot somewhere between 130-140 days, which is absolutely luxurious compared to, say, how many days a film like Beyond Skyline would have had to shoot… which was probably closer to 30. That time is extremely visible on screen, with complex and gory fights and kills that are captured with a sense of glee and fun.
Half never has us questioning loyalties or pondering the real world implications of all this bloodletting. No, it establishes its villains as irredeemable, sets its heroes up as righteous seekers of vengeance, and then winds up the clock and lets the mechanisms of revenge rip. There are mini-bosses and variety in the fights, from car chases to siege elements, with practical gore kills and villains occasionally learning a shortcoming of our heroes’ powers and attempting to exploit them. But the primary pleasures of Half are primal, and our late night audience was gasping and screaming at all the moments this filmmaking team intended.
Depth be damned, Half is one of the most rip-roaring pure adrenaline movies I’ve seen at Fantastic Fest 2026 and likely that I’ll see all year. Here’s hoping it gets some kind of significant US distribution, and that a sequel is imminent as well. If The Night Comes For Us meets The Hills Have Eyes sounds like a mash-up you never knew you wanted to see, Half proves that we really did need this in our lives all along. What it’s lacking in depth, it more than makes up for in style, energy, and breathtaking kills and choreography. With these daywalkers on the hunt, no murderous hillbilly is safe, and audiences are all the better for it.
And I’m Out.
