JITTERS (2026)

3 stars

Miracle Media. Digital. Out Now

Here we have yet another horror film that opens with a distressed young woman clearly running from something or someone. In a tunnel – a voice taunts her speaking in rhyming riddles…

Cut to Taylor (Boo Miller) arriving home to find Tiffany (Jessica Impiazzi) – the girl we have seen being chased – sitting with headphones on, at a computer… mysteriously dead.

With police forensics at the scene, Detective Nick Collymore (Fabrizio Santino) is there investigating – despite being on some kind of suspension. Back in the office he speaks to his compatriot Officer Sam Harding (Anto Sharp), who shows him an online gamer video from the case he is working on — the guy kills himself with a nail gun. Collymore realises there may be a link to Tiffany’s death, as she was also playing online games.

As he looks into things he learns that Tiffany was the boyfriend of Ben Casey and they ran a software company that designed immersive games – and she was the brains of the operation. Interviewing Taylor he discovers that her friend had been showed a new product called Jitters – designed to creep you out.

The two detectives visit Timebomb, the company the dead girl was part of, and Casey claims they are not creating anything called Jitters – though they do have a holographic AI interface called Ilona, so may well have the relevant tech.

The medical examiner says Tiffany died from a massive adrenaline spike. She was literally scared to death. Due to a plot contrivance, Nick gains access to the game and comes face to face with the weird evil clown character Jitters. Who sets riddles for the game player… After interacting with it he starts to see odd things and more deaths occur which seem to be linked to the deadly software.

A timely horror mixing in AI and online gaming this a Brit production with a modern twist. Daniel Jordan is suitably creepy as Jitters, though did we need yet another clown based menace? It is proficiently directed by Mark Zammit and an improvement on his previous 2024 film WITCH. I do have one question however – does the lead actor actually talk like he sounds in the film… or was he attempting an American accent?

Steve Kirkham