The summer of 2008 was a peculiar in-between moment in American youth culture. MySpace was still clinging to relevance, flip phones were more common than smartphones, and the Great Recession was casting a long, grey shadow over suburban living rooms. It’s this specific, jagged texture of that era that director Kylee Hill captures with startling precision in her new short film, Lizzzard, which lands today, August 19, 2026. At just twelve minutes, this drama feels less like a short and more like a fractured memory you can’t quite shake - a potent, restless snapshot of teenage aimlessness that refuses to romanticize its subjects.
Release Date & Where to Watch
Lizzzard officially premieres today, August 19, 2026. The film is currently available exclusively via the streaming platform A24 On Demand, which has been quietly acquiring a slate of high-energy short-form works from emerging female directors this year. If you’re outside the United States, check your local film festival circuit listings, as the film is expected to make the rounds at several international genre-adjacent festivals this autumn, including the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival and the Raindance Film Festival in London. For now, American audiences can stream it instantly in 4K, but given its intimate framing and dim, washed-out lighting, this is a film that demands a dark room and your undivided attention - no phone scrolling allowed.
Cast & Crew
At the helm is Kylee Hill, a director who has been making waves on the festival circuit with her previous music videos and experimental shorts, known for her tactile, grainy visual language and an ear for naturalistic, overlapping dialogue. With Lizzzard, she steps firmly into narrative filmmaking, and the shift feels seamless. The film is anchored by a breakout performance from Serin Dunne as Rachel, a coiled spring of restless energy, and Brie Musser as Hannah, her quieter, more observant counterpart. Musser’s performance is particularly impressive - she communicates volumes through a single, skeptical eyebrow raise.
The supporting ensemble is deliberately quirky, adding texture to the girls’ night. Billy McCormac and Elisha Kempf pull double duty as two separate characters both named Tyler - a wry, deadpan joke that never feels forced. Dylan Mosholder plays Brian, a clueless stoner whose attempted wisdom is immediately undercut by his inability to light a cigarette without dropping it. Hannah Dienhart shows up briefly as Gabby, a chaotic party guest, while Ashley St. Sauveur delivers a chillingly accurate portrayal of Hannah’s Mom - the kind of parental presence that hovers at the edge of a teenager’s world, simultaneously concerned and oblivious. The cinematography, handled by rising DP Mira Patel, uses long takes and shallow focus to keep us trapped in the girls’ orbit, never allowing us a comfortable wide shot to escape their claustrophobic boredom.
Story & What to Expect
The plot is deceptively simple: Rachel and Hannah are two seventeen-year-olds with nowhere to go and nothing to do. It’s a Friday night in a generic Midwestern suburb, and the air is thick with the static of unspent energy. They wander from a 7-Eleven parking lot to a house party that’s already fizzling out, and along the way, they engage in reckless, half-hearted dares. The title itself, Lizzzard, comes from a misspelled word Rachel scrawls in permanent marker on a convenience store bathroom mirror - a nonsense word that becomes a secret code for their shared rebellion and, ultimately, their alienation.
Expect a film that prioritizes mood over plot mechanics. The narrative is jagged, jumping forward in time with little regard for standard scene transitions, mirroring the way teenage memories are often fragmented. There is no sweeping score; instead, the soundscape is filled with the hum of a refrigerator, the distant bark of a dog, and the tinny, compressed sound of a 2008 pop song playing through a cheap car speaker. Hill has a keen eye for period detail - the layered camisoles, the chunky plastic bracelets, the way the characters hold their phones with two thumbs - but she never lets these details become a costume. The film’s emotional core is a raw, unspoken desperation. Rachel pushes for ever-more-dangerous outcomes - stealing a six-pack, walking across a busy highway at night, taunting the older boys - not out of malice, but out of a desperate need to feel something real. Hannah, meanwhile, is caught between loyalty and self-preservation.
Without spoiling the ending, the final two minutes deliver a sucker punch. There is a moment of quiet violence that is primarily emotional, not physical, and it lands with the weight of a freight train. The film doesn’t moralize; it simply offers a cold, unflinching look at what happens when youthful impulsivity meets a landscape that offers no guidance. The "Tyler 1" and "Tyler 2" characters serve as a Greek chorus of interchangeable masculinity, their indifference highlighting the girls’ isolation more effectively than any monologue could.
Why It's Worth Watching
Here is the truth: short films are the wild west of cinema, and most of them fail because they try to do too much. Lizzzard succeeds because it knows exactly what it is - a tightly wound, immersive vignette. It is not a narrative with tidy answers but a tonal exercise in dread and ennui. Hill is working in a lineage that includes the restless energy of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and the raw intimacy of Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me, but filtered through a contemporary, distinctly female gaze that feels fresh.
The performances are uniformly excellent, but the real draw is the texture. You can almost smell the stale beer and the chlorine from a nearby pool. The pacing is unforgiving - you will not get a breather - but the runtime is perfectly calibrated to maximize impact without overstaying its welcome. It’s a film that demands a second viewing immediately after the first, not because the plot is confusing, but because you’ll want to go back and study the subtle micro-expressions on Musser’s face or the way Dunne’s posture physically transforms as the night wears on.
In a year of bloated blockbusters and franchise fatigue, Lizzzard is a reminder of the power of small, specific stories. It captures a very particular kind of boredom - the kind that is both a time capsule and a universal truth. Whether you were a teenager in 2008 or are one now, the film’s thrumming anxiety will resonate. It’s a sharp, assured debut for a director to watch, and a compelling showcase for two young actresses who clearly have serious careers ahead of them. Go in cold, let the twelve minutes wash over you, and resist the urge to look away.
