'Find Your Friends' Review
- John Odette
- Jun 8
- 3 min read
Release Date: 06/12/26 [Shudder]
Genre: Thriller.
MPAA: Not Rated.
Distributor: Shudder.
The Verdict: A Maybe
Shudder has brought another thrilling tale of rebellion and revenge with writer/director Izabel Pakzad’s Find Your Friends. I bring up Shudder specifically because the horror streaming service being at the forefront of the marketing, may set some viewers up for more traditional horror fare, and this film does not fit into that mold. This movie is thrilling and violent. But its horror elements do not lie in the supernatural or the mysterious, but in the harsh reality many young women face.
Helena Howard plays Amber, a young 20-something college student who sets out with her friends on a girls’ trip to Joshua Tree to party and enjoy each other’s company before college ends and they move on with their lives. Her friends, Lavinia (Bella Thorne), Zosia (Zión Moreno), Lola (Chloe Cherry), and Maddy (Sophia Ali), are all at the same crossroads and use drugs, alcohol, and casual hook-ups to find fun and pass the time.
Neighboring their desert Airbnb is Russell, played by veteran character actor Chris Bauer. He and other locals are hostile toward the girls, often citing the entitlement and superiority these girls, and all the partygoers from before, display, looking down their noses at the town residents. But while Russell is gruff and surly, other townsfolk go one step further to harass and endanger the women.
Amber, being the main character, is the vessel through which we experience our frustration, grief, exasperation, and eventual exhilaration. The film opens on a yacht party where Amber avoids a sexual assault, only to be disembarked from the ship after she attacks her assailant. She feels isolated and alone; her friends are both supportive and dismissive. They want Amber to be around; they just don’t want her to be a wet blanket and end the party early.
As the girls relocate to Joshua Tree for the remainder of the film, Amber’s growing fear takes root as the girls seek to party and indulge in drugs and alcohol. Flashbacks from her previous assault manifest in behaviors that Amber’s friends do not understand and frustrate the would-be male suitors at the club they attend.
The girl group fractures as Amber’s friends drift away. There is a tender scene poolside after a night of partying where Amber considers life after college, and more deeply, life after partying. “Drugs and chasing guys. Is that all there is?” Her friend bemoans the sentiment, “Why go to college and get a job to pay for a vacation, when you can just treat every day like a vacation?”
There is a lot to unpack in Find Your Friends: male entitlement, career responsibility, personal accountability, and social ethics. The horror here is that many male viewers may not key into, or, worse, be frustrated by, the portrayal of their male counterparts. There is not one redeemable primary male character in this entire film, aside from Chris Bauer in one scene. This is intentional to convey the bigger issue, and the film boldly states its thesis through Amber’s lens, making that notion clear. Women can and should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without the fear of being attacked or assaulted. When we don’t feel safe, we feel alone, and when our friends don’t believe us, we feel worse. One of the true horrors in Find Your Friends is that not every friend truly has your back. Sometimes you need to keep looking.
For fans of revenge films, party films, and women’s empowerment, they will likely sit through Find Your Friends and enjoy the ride, and at 90 minutes, this story flies by. There are some grisly, violent scenes, and all around extremely solid performances. Pakzad has made quite a debut, giving us an objective seat at the table that leans into the subjective in a blink. This is indeed a horror movie, and some audience members won’t see it that way. They should consider themselves lucky.
