WATCH: Nosebleed is the unhinged dark web thriller you won’t be able to unsee
The dark thriller 'Nosebleed' features the acting debut of a surprising queer star.
Mark
If you think the internet is a sh*tshow right now, consider the fact that most sites and social media platforms have content moderators who actually keep this place from being even more heinous. Yikes is right!
It’s hard to even wrap your head around some of the things these moderators must bear witness to (and we don’t recommend trying). One hopes the job comes with access to some solid therapy because otherwise that could really mess with your psyche.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Nosebleed is a bold new psychosexual thriller that follows that idea into the darkest corners of the dark web, a new queer short that questions how our ideas of identity and intimacy are shaped in our modern digital dystopia.
From writer-direct Gage Oxley, the film takes audiences inside the warped mind of Victor (British stage actor Adam Wadsworth), who works as a content moderator for one of the world’s largest social media networks. Due to the nature of his job, his life is the very definition of doom-scroll: and endless gauntlet of some of the most unhinged and inhumane things imaginable.
But Victor’s far past the point of being desensitized to it all: he’s perversely into it. So much so that, off the clock, he’s immersed himself in a deep-web subculture where hidden cameras, AI, and other technologies are used to create graphic and explicit content of his own, much of which involves the colleague (Firebird‘s Theo Walker) he can’t keep his mind off of.
So it should go without saying that Nosebleed is not necessarily an easy watch, especially as Victor descends into web-induced madness and obsession, leaving us wondering if he’s actually committing the monstrosities we see playing out on screen, or if they’re just the creations of his sick imagination.
Ultimately, it’s a story driven by the classic question: Are people born evil, or is that evilness shaped by the horrors of the world around us?
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“Nosebleed was born out of an urgent need to interrogate how intimacy, masculinity, and identity are being reshaped (and sometimes broken) by the digital spaces we inhabit,” Oxley said in a press statement. “The research for this project took me deep into the worlds of content moderation, deepfake culture, and the increasingly blurred line between reality and performance. From the outset, I knew this story had to be raw, unflinching, and deeply human.”
Aside from Wadsworth and Walker, the film also stars Kelli Hollis (Emmerdale Farm), Ali Hardiman (Wreck), Théodore Sylvain, Elliott Rogers, Cameron Summers, and familiar face that may surprise you: Colin Grafton—that’s right, the Olympic skater and former Dancing On Ice star who skated the The Vivienne and melted hearts when he came out as gay in early 2024.
Nosebleed marks a proper screen acting debut for the athlete—playing a character navigating celebrity through the lens of the internet—but one he couldn’t resist given he went on his own journey of self-discovery while being watched by hundreds of thousands of people on screen.
“This role is deeply personal for me,” Grafton previously shared. “As someone who’s spent much of my life performing, I’m drawn to stories that explore what happens when the performance stops—when we’re left with the truth of who we are Nosebleed is raw, provocative, and unafraid, and that’s exactly the kind of work I am excited to make my acting debut in.”
From Oxygen Films, Nosebleed is set for release in “winter 2026,” and though there’s no word yet on how or where you can watch it for yourself, you can bet we’ll keep you updated.
In the meantime, check out the film’s haunting new trailer below:
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