The Rebrand
**Seen at the 2025 Renegade Film Festival
Found footage is such a niche style for a film, it’s kind of shocking that someone could possibly find a new way into it. This isn’t to say that Kaye Adelaide (who directed the delightful short film, “Don’t Text Back,” several years ago) is reinventing the wheel with the story she tells in “The Rebrand,” but people actually survive and seem well-adjusted at the end, so that’s new.
Here, we are following a eight and a half month pregnant videographer (Nicole, played by Naomi Silver-Vézina) as she goes to a remote home for a shoot. She has been hired by LGBTQIA+ influencers Thistle (Nancy Webb) and Blaire (Andi E MacQueen) to remake their image after an unfortunately shared moment gets them cancelled. They hope an in depth documentary about their lives will smooth over the rough edges with their audience, but as Nicole gets deeper into their lives, something just doesn’t quite feel right with the couple.
If you are familiar with the found footage narrative form, you’ll recognize some of the tricks. A character never without their camera (even though they probably should be). Using surveillance cameras in the home to capture evening moments of potential terror. The cameraperson getting moments between a couple that should be private. It’s all here- as well as the need to be livestreaming all the time- and it all works in the way Adelaide constructs the film. One of the things that is most enjoyable about “The Rebrand” is how shallow Thistle and Blaire feel even as they try to project depth. It’s pure skewering of influencer culture, as is their hobbies, including Blaire’s paintings. Nicole seems to be pure damage control for them, and they hope to entice her with what they have to offer at every step so that she might be susceptible to even some of the crazier ideas they have. Nicole has enough awareness to know it’s probably a good idea to get out of there, but Thistle and Blaire do things- and plant ideas- that make it difficult for her to leave. When the real horror moments come in the third act, it’s not quite as effective as the truly satirical moments Adelaide stages earlier in the film, but there are some things she does that really bring together the terrifying and unsettlingly hilarious that I enjoyed, including using- as a framing device- a true crime podcast called Crime Queens (hosted by Tranna Wintour) that sets up what we’re about to watch effectively. Because the more violent moments of horror don’t necessarily jibe with the dark comedy throughout the rest of the film, “The Rebrand” doesn’t quite have the third act momentum you’d hope for, but its conclusion more than makes up for it. This is worth checking out.
