Your mom’s weird new boyfriend kicks off a terrifying family reunion in the low-budget spook ’em up Grin. As if a tense get-together wasn’t awkward enough already, eccentric Lucian (Simon Davies) has an idea to make it even stranger – boardgame night! Returning home from the States where she lives with her dad, Eva (Gareth Tidball) is forced to tolerate Lucian’s shenanigans for her mum’s sake, although matters take an altogether more sinister turn when he breaks out the boardgames. His choice of entertainment? The ominous-looking ‘Grin.’ As the game gets underway, so is unleashed a demonic entity set on consuming anyone who happens to be hiding a dirty little secret. And you thought Monopoly with mum and dad was a chore.
For Grin, as the story goes, kills the sinful among its players. And Eva is hiding a doozy. But what exactly has the creature latched onto? And how much does Lucian really know about the game’s murderous mechanic? As Grin begins to pick off the players one by one, Eva and her fellow survivors face a sudden dash to force the demon back into the bottle. In doing so, she’s forced to confront her own past – and the terrible secret she and her brothers thought long since buried.
Jumanji crossed with Hellraiser, the film boasts an impressive creature design in the horned clown lurking within Lucian’s boardgame collection. The Jack in the Box director Laurence Fowler (working with dad Geoff, who serves as the film’s producer) uses his monster sparingly, even if it’s to the film’s detriment at times – forcing us to spend time with the glowering, overly serious Eva and her family instead. Lucian gets a hard rap, but he’s the only one who seems to be having fun here.
The story is relatively familiar horror fare, but its execution is a cut above. In addition to the breathtaking monster work (think Pan’s Labyrinth on a budget) and practical gore, the remote country house is evocatively shot, contributing to a consistently chilly atmosphere.
A delicately constructed work of tactile folk horror, Grin will put a smile onto the faces of many a genre fan.
GRIN premiered at Tubi FrightFest on August 27th, 2026.
