MOVIE REVIEW: Littermates
Images courtesy of That's a Fish Productions and the Dances with Film Festival.
LITTERMATES—- 2 STARS
The premise of shelter-in-place isolation–brought on by any number of possibilities from a global pandemic to a foreboding war or zombie apocalypse— is almost always an effective setting for several types of “bottle movies.” Stellar examples of the past prove that one can squeeze anything from a comedy of irascible people stuck together to a heavier thriller or drama comprised of relatable people haunted by the external unknown calamity that has forced their internment. Littermates, a jury prize winner at the 2026 Manchester Film Festival, tries its hand at making this conceit count, and makes its North American premiere at this weekend’s Dances with Films Festival in Los Angeles.
Bending its timeline slightly, Littermates introduces us to a trio of people taking Polaroid photos in the yard of a sturdy and idyllic country home in England. The photographer is Chester (Oliver Woolf, also appearing this year in The Peril at Pincer Point), and he’s trying to position his two subjects and coax a smile. The two people facing the camera are Liam and Mel (Joey Bader of The Jester’s Song and Reception’s Kaylee McGregor) seems out of it and need the instruction. Their cute domestic moment is broken by an echoing alarm siren, which has Chester evacuating his two peers to a bunkered shelter, complete with gas masks.
That’s our first hint of an emergency and the lack of people in Littermates. The second is the constant pops of gunfire and booms of explosions heard in the distance. The film rewinds a bit to show how Liam and Mel got to Chester. Both are individuals rescued from wandering the forested countryside near this home, where Chester has the transportation means of a small helicopter at his disposal. Mel and Liam were found dirty, frantic, mute, and mysteriously bleeding from the nose. Liam was found first, and the film shows how the benevolent homeowner cleaned up and nursed the young man back to health. A second storyline chapter demonstrates the same kindness extended to Mel, completing the background of our introduced and united trio.
LESSON #1: THE INTRIGUE OF ISOLATION— Skipping early exposition, Littermates presents and postulates its unique quarantine arrangement, and, like any audience, our fight-or-flight appeal is drawn instantly. From our voyeuristic place, we carry and ask all the questions about what has happened. Why are these three people the way they are? How did Chester stay this protected and intelligent? For ourselves, we try to predict what we would do in the same situation while analyzing and judging the characters’ choices before us. This intrigue works just about every time.
At this large cottage, Chester has organized a home with boundaries and activities. Without knowing fully until later in Littermates, part of Liam and Mel’s condition is recovering or reestablishing language and mental functions through coaching from whatever they’ve been exposed to. These hindrances grant Joey Bader and Kaylee McGregor a little leeway to inject befuddlement and intentional childishness into their performances, creating a bit of a sibling dynamic between them. The necessary companionship of it all is thematically and performatively sealed by karaoke renditions of Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now,” a fitting head-tilt of a song.
LESSON #2: ESTABLISHING A TOKEN ECONOMY– Littermates is far from a prison environment or post-apocalyptic dystopia, but there’s a curious token economy system established by Chester. When Liam or Mel perform good deeds, complete tasks, or make learning goals, Chester, like an elementary school teacher, gives them coins he calls “nifties,” which can be cashed out in labeled jars with different listed totals for rewards like hot tub or trampoline time or a favorite meal. The highest price belongs to a “forest adventure.” While sweet to a degree and plays into Liam and Mel being competitive as new buddies using “pipsqueak” as a slur before profanity capabilities are regained, there’s a tingle in the back of our minds that Chester could be using this as a way to keep the rendered-immature simpletons docile and controllable.
That squint of doubt as a viewer is the main energy of Littermates, directed by short film specialist Scott Tinkman, making his feature-length debut, from his original screenplay partnered with Michael Woloson, who doubles as the cinematographer. Things seem too calm and mannerly, considering the chaos heard all around this property. You wait for someone to break the rules, have their carnal urges triggered, or come to their remembered senses sooner than someone else. Predictions creep up of who will crack psychologically, or when something more dangerous from the outside arrives to break up this warped serenity.
Littermates grants a little bit of that potential escalation, but it is often bogged down in the quirkiness of its proceedings. Avoiding spoilers, one of our two rescued wanderers does wise up faster than the other to change the plan, but much of the short running time still dwells on the minutiae. While cleanly shot and soundly edited, Tinkman and Woloson never twist the dramatic screws quite far enough to fully weird us out or induce a pulse-quickening level of panic. When reasons arrive that answer some of those initial questions of how and why everyone got here, that reveal does have much punch either. After that, even if Littermates flirts with dark comedy instead of suspense in its exercise of senility, sometimes trying to engage with where it’s going is like trying to reason with our cognitively delayed characters as the good ideas fly right past them.
Littermates has its North American premiere at the 2026 Dances with Films Festival on Sunday, June 21, 2026. The event is at 8:30 pm at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres located at 6925 Hollywood Blvd in Los Angeles, California.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1402)
