Introduction

Seems like comedians really want to follow in the footsteps of Jordan Peele after his successful horror movies like Get Out, Us, and Nope. Writer James Murray, from Impractical Jokers fame, alongside fellow writer Darren Warmouth and director and writer Maclain Nelson, have teamed up to create a horror movie of their own. Based on their novel, DON’T MOVE is a horror thriller produced by Redline Entertainment and Impractical Studios and released by our friends at Well Go USA. Is this new horror from a pretty big comedy name full of scares or full of boredom? We find out in our review of DON’T MOVE! Big thanks again to Well Go USA for the review screening!

Story

DON’T MOVE starts off simply enough. Megan Forrester (Lyndsy Fonseca) ends up losing her husband and son in a horrible fire on an amusement park ride. Flash forward a year later and Megan is still dealing with their deaths, somehow keeping busy with work and lamenting she couldn’t save them despite saving other families. Haunted by their memories, Megan decides not to ignore a church camping trip from her local pastor, Pastor Rizzo (Tom Cavanagh), and see if maybe the fresh air and being away from her current world will help ease her spirit a bit. Yet Megan soon realizes that even being away from home still has their ghosts haunting her inside.

Led by their guide Paul DeLuca (Rob Riggle), the trip should be fun…right? Well, as Megan will discover rather fast, the trip will not be so fun when the group seems to have internal issues stemming from Pastor Rizzo’s daughter, her new boyfriend, and her ex, as well as the group knowing Megan has issues from her past. That all becomes secondary when the group ends up facing a dangerous threat: gigantic spiders.

DON’T MOVE has a good concept, spiders are scary and even scarier when they are large and capable of killing humans with an almost assassin-like ability. I wanted to like the story of DON’T MOVE, but unfortunately here’s where it begins to falter. First, I didn’t care for a single character in DON’T MOVE and their deaths had little impact on me. Megan was probably the only one I felt bad for, seeing as she lost her entire family in the darkest opening I’ve seen in a while, but aside from that, the story never kept my interest. It takes almost a full hour for the movie to really ramp up, aside from a few jump scares, and for a movie that is an hour and a half, that isn’t a good thing.

When the group finally fights back, I was almost in tears when a music montage played as the survivors gathered weapons. I think DON’T MOVE’s story will appeal to those who love cheesy and campy movies, but if you expect a true horror and thriller experience, look elsewhere. I won’t spoil the ending but just know they make it obvious how it will end, and it is laughably goofy but oddly works.

Acting and Cast

The acting in DON’T MOVE can be quite abysmal at times and very campy. I don’t think it’s entirely the fault of the actors and actresses, but they sure don’t try to imbue their roles with extra acting prowess. Actors like Rob Riggle I already expect to act incredibly goofy as he is in most of his roles, and it comes off with his usual high level of comedy, but in a movie about ancient spiders it is more annoying than enjoyable. Tom Cavanagh has his moments where he comes across good or trying too hard to be like a pastor, but he still has a great mastery of facial expressions and movements that help certain scenes. Russ (who plays Ricky Vargas) oddly starts off annoying but becomes one of the better actors in the movie when the main leads aren’t around, I’ll say. Hunter King (Emily Rizzo, Pastor Rizzo’s daughter) and her boyfriend Ryan (Joseph Lee Anderson) are the weaker actors in DON’T MOVE, and again not because I don’t think they can act, but I feel their roles don’t leave much room to do much good acting. If you see DON’T MOVE as a campy movie, the acting works wonders here, but if you try to see this as a horror and thriller of the modern age, it comes off as just bad.

Cinematography and Direction

Aside from Impractical Jokers, I’ve never seen Murray’s other ventures in writing nor Maclain Nelson’s other works, but I can tell they tried their best with DON’T MOVE, even if both the cinematography and direction miss more often than not.

Cinematography wise, DON’T MOVE looks low budget. The camera work, the settings, and the environments all look done by someone with a singular camera, despite clear attempts at being more. That isn’t helped by the spiders looking good at times and then almost comical when they attack the group through doors or openings. There are a few scenes where you see the spiders up close and I was actually impressed, and understood why everything else was weaker, but really they should have just kept those the specific scenes where the spiders attacked.

Direction also follows suit in being kind of mediocre. DON’T MOVE often fails to find the appropriate times for characters to fight or get into their personal feelings. Don’t get me wrong, there are times where I was okay with some of the deeper crisis happening inside Megan’s mind, but it wasn’t enough to say DON’T MOVE nails how it ebbs and flows.

Conclusion

DON’T MOVE isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but saying it’s good would be me lying. There is an audience for DON’T MOVE, those who love those old school horror movies that were filled with cheese and campiness, but in 2026 that genre isn’t going to appeal to all. Add to this that DON’T MOVE can be a tad boring early on with its setup, and only the last 40 minutes have anything really happening, which makes this film not all that fun. Still, I didn’t walk away hating DON’T MOVE, I just kind of wished it was a bit more.