Trigger Warning: The opening sequence features flashing lights and quick-cut imagery that may be triggering for photosensitive individuals.
“DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME!”
– Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) in Young Frankenstein.
In storytelling, there are two pretty distinct methods of approaching the concept of destiny. In one, destiny is something that’s absolutely inevitable, irrelevant to a person’s choices, what is meant to come to pass will come to pass. This has been immortalized by ancient stories like Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, where, the active attempt to avoid a terrible destiny makes it come to pass. In another, destiny is something that can be fought and defeated through sheer individual will. This has most recently been explored in the Kōhei Horikoshi manga and anime My Hero Academia (Boku no Hīrō Akademia), where, the once-locked death of the series’s greatest hero is obstructed through the shared positive energy of fighters and witnesses. In fiction, destiny is a thing to grappled with for control while acknowledging that some things are also meant to happen regardless of the steps taken to get there. This is a cornerstone of filmmaker Kevin Hamedani’s (Zombies of Mass Destruction) new sci-fi darkly comic thriller, The Saviors, which had its world premiere in the Spotlight section of SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026. Wielding a darkly comic satirical blade, Hamedani asks important questions regarding the strangers we let into our homes, the truths we keep from ourselves, and the inevitability of humanity’s capability for violence when aspirational action is viewed as soft.
In order to subsidize their mortgage and assist with upkeep costs, Sean and Kim Harrison (Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler) use their on-property guest house as an Airbnb. The couple is already under stress and at a breaking point when their latest guests, siblings Amir and Jahan (Theo Rossi and Nazanin Boniadi), arrive. At first, the siblings appear just like any other house guests, but as more and more things they say and do draw Sean’s attention, a strange suspicion grows. Are these good-natured, though odd siblings who they say they are or is Sean’s profiling part of a larger systemic issue?
Adam Scott as Sean Harrison in THE SAVIORS. Photo courtesy of Highway 10.
The script from Hamedani and co-writer Travis Betz (Lo) is a smart one in the manner in which it presents everything that’s going to set the audience on edge. From the mixed-race couple wherein one side (Scott’s Sean) comes from a racist background to the complexities of homeownership in a turbulent economy to the designation of what an enemy looks like, the script layers each aspect atop the other gently, but firmly, so that the audience is given time to acclimate to each increase in tension. Whether we like it or not, the struggles we all face in the day-to-day are connected to global issues, and that is the case here, as well. This means that Sean and Kim are already teed-up before Amir and Jahan arrive as the two navigate their crumbling marriage that they can’t escape because they can’t afford to fix the house to sell it because Sean lost his job and can’t get a new one which is *also* why they no longer go on adventures and have fallen out of rhythm. It’s a lot; however, rather than dumping it all on us at once, these are things that are teased out while demonstrating how Sean is the one (of the immediate two) who still clings to hope regarding reconciliation. This matters because he’s also the one who draws conclusions about the Airbnb guests and can’t seem to get Kim on board. Her being skeptical is imperative to the story’s tension as we see what Sean sees, but she doesn’t, creating the sort of push-pull in which he may be right but is without an ally to confirm. In addition, from the jump, Hamedani and Betz establish an unsettling aura around not just Sean and Kim as singularly important, but their home as it relates to a larger concept. The photosensitive in the audience may struggle with the opening as the screen flickers and flashes with white light and varying imagery, a tone setting choice to put the audience off-kilter while also setting the ground work for what’s the come.
So, what does come?
Without spoiling the adventure, Hamedani and Betz are working with a canvas in a post-9/11 world that’s as post-racial as our own. Conservative thought is presented with all the hallmarks of the MAGA sect, while Liberalism (note: not Progressivism) continually succumbs to the paradox of tolerance. In the background, the screenwriters incorporate geo-political unrest involving an unseen, undescribed presidential figure whose use of Executive Orders has garnered enemies everywhere and protests to match. They smartly don’t cast the figure and no name is mentioned past the title. One may infer that this may be a means of maintaining an abstraction so as not to directly insinuate a specific U.S. figurehead, but the more reasonable assertion is that, much like everything else in the film, what drives the story is perception. Which U.S. President came to mind with the description of them? What does that say about you and how you view the world? Pulling back a bit, the title itself, The Saviors, speaks to this anchor concept because to call someone a “savior” implies someone else is a villain, that there is an individual or group operating with intent to harm, thereby necessitating someone to stand guard. Using the politics of today, to ask someone in MAGA what threatens them, you’re going to hear about many things with most presuming that immigrants are the problem. Since September 11th, Islamophobia has only risen with decent citizens being blamed for the actions of a few (supported through financial and military assets provided by the U.S. government, but let’s not focus on that, right?) and calls of “see something, say something” to increase safety activated citizens to report on their fellows. This creates division, transforming possible allyship to contention as the mere suggestion of connection to a terrorist is evidence enough (for some) of ill-will. (See: Japanese Internment Camps of World War II; uptick of attacks of the Asian population post-2020 due to perception of China’s involvement in spreading COVID-19.) If humans can turn their ignorance into someone else’s pain, they’ll find a way, which is what makes everything about The Saviors so devastating. It doesn’t matter how many times humanity has an opportunity to get it right, we’ll choose the lesser path every time. Even in fiction. Especially in fiction.
I’m gonna fight ’em off
A seven nation army couldn’t hold me back
They’re gonna rip it off
Takin’ their time right behind my back
And I’m talkin’ to myself at night
Because I can’t forget
Back and forth through my mind
Behind a cigarette– “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes
But The Saviors is a comedy, right? Thanks to the performances by Scott (Parks and Recreation; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Deadwyler (40 Acres; The Piano Lesson), Rossi (Carry-On; Emily the Criminal), Boniadi (Bombshell; Iron Man), Kate Berlant (Sorry to Bother You; Dream Scenario), Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting; Nickel Boys), Ron Perlman (Book of Life; Bunraku), Colleen Camp (Clue; Violet), and Greg Kinnear (Brigsby Bear; Mystery Men), we do laugh, perhaps even when we shouldn’t. More importantly, we sense menace in the same measure. Much of these cast members have dabbled, time and again, in horror, comedy, thrillers, science fiction, and dramas, moving back and forth across the lines, and now do so all in one film. It all, however, begins with the audience and whether or not they buy in to the world before them. With this astute cast, it’s easy to believe that Sean and Kim were once in love, that the siblings are strangers in a stranger land, and that their meeting is not as accidental as an Airbnb booking might presume. Why? Because Hamedani and Betz have deemed it so and, as arbiters of this world, their imaginations created a concrete destiny. With these actors as our cyphers, placed in situations that we may have been or will be placed in, the screenwriters ask us what destiny we would make in order to become saviors.
L-R: Adam Scott as Sean Harrison and Danielle Deadwyler as Kim Harrison in THE SAVIORS. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Admittedly, there are elements of the film that, having seen a certain number of satires in one’s lifetime (as well as having lived through 9/11 and its geo-political and cultural impacts), are somewhat predictable. This isn’t a slight on the film entirely because part of the point is engaging the audience in crafting a deduction based on conjecture right alongside Sean with the main difference being that we can see everything he sees but from a different, less chaotic and dysregulated perspective. It does hinder the conclusion from landing with the intended impact, but not from generating the potential discussion points from those willing to engage the concepts. The Saviors has something to say about heroes and villains, the need for people to always position themselves in the best light, and certain inevitabilities. All it needs is someone to listen.
Screened during SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official SXSW Film & TV Festival The Saviors webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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