We have been waiting for the world to catch up to Hold the Fort. We saw this film at its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival back in the summer of 2025, and we have been thinking about it ever since. Now that it is hitting VOD on June 23, 2026, we finally get to talk about it properly, and we are more than happy to do that.
What Is Hold the Fort Actually About?
The premise is simple, and it is perfect. A young couple, Lucas (Chris Mayers) and Jenny (Haley Leary), move into a suspiciously affordable house in a suspiciously nice new development. There is a catch, obviously. There is always a catch. Once a year, a portal to hell opens up right in the middle of the neighborhood, and every resident is contractually obligated to defend the community from whatever crawls out of it. It is all in the HOA agreement. Lucas did not read it. Most of us would not either.
Writer-director William Bagley, whose previous feature The Murder Podcast (2021) planted the early seeds of this universe, has made something genuinely fun here. Hold the Fort runs at around 75 minutes; it moves fast, and it does not apologize for knowing exactly what it is. This is a horror comedy that leans hard into the comedy and still manages to deliver on the horror.
The Cast That Makes It Work
You could have the wildest premise imaginable and still blow it with the wrong cast. Hold the Fort does not blow it.
Julian Smith as Jerry, the HOA president, is the standout of the film by a significant margin. He is overzealous, deeply sincere, and absolutely committed to the bit. “He is my favorite character,” Meaghan said without hesitation, and we are in complete agreement.
Jerry is the kind of character who takes HOA governance so seriously that it becomes its own form of comedy, and Smith plays it straight enough that it works every single time. Arthur did note that Jerry gets somewhat sidelined in the latter half of the film after eating an unfortunate number of cheese sticks laced with muscle relaxants by a drug-addled neighbor named Leslie (Tordy Clark). His reduced role in the second half is probably the film’s biggest flaw.
Chris Mayers as Lucas carries a lot of the story’s exposition, but in the best possible way. He is the guy who did not read the contract, and so the film gets to explain everything to him in real time, which keeps things moving and avoids the typical clunky info-dump problem. You want to be annoyed at him for being so oblivious, but he is likable enough that you stay on his side.
Jenny, played by Haley Leary, comes across as the more sensible half of the couple. She is a nurse, she is pragmatic, and notably, nobody ever gives her grief for also failing to read the HOA paperwork. As Meaghan put it, “I think it’s because she’s more likable.”
Levi Burdick as Ted and Michelle Lamb as his wife, Annette, round out the neighborhood ensemble nicely. Annette’s contribution of homemade 190-proof moonshine to the Equinox party may be one of the funniest background details in the film.
The one character that lands slightly less is McScruffy, the hired weapons expert played by Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson. The concept of the character is smart; of course, this neighborhood would bring in a professional. But the execution tips a little too far into caricature. Arthur summed it up well: “a little bit too much.” The actor commits fully, so it is more of a writing issue than a performance issue.
Not Sure What to Watch?
Answer 4 questions, get curated horror movies to watch.
The Creatures, the Chaos, and the Practical Effects
Here is where the movie really earns its keep. Once that portal opens, Hold the Fort sends a wildly varied lineup of supernatural beings after the neighborhood, and the diversity of the monster roster is a genuine highlight.
- We have witches (they come every year, the neighbors are prepared).
- We have a werewolf that looks like someone in an old-fashioned suit, complete with big teeth and a snout, which is exactly the right kind of campy.
- We have spirit ninjas, which is exactly what it sounds like: a spirit that possesses a person, kills them, and then uses their reanimated corpse for kung fu purposes. They can only be killed with a peachwood sword.
- We have the Stickman, the film’s final boss, who is all wrong angles and blue and gooey and looks genuinely unsettling.
- And then there are the kamikaze bats, which are bats that fly into you and explode.
Arthur was thrilled about this.
It’s fucking hilarious!
He said, and honestly, he is right.
The practical effects throughout are impressive for a film made on a crowdfunded budget. The creature work is creative and consistent, and the gore effects hold up too. When things explode, and things do explode, they explode convincingly. The fight choreography is another thing worth mentioning.
The action sequences are readable and well-staged, which sounds like a low bar to clear but is something a lot of low-budget action horror genuinely struggles with. You can actually follow what is happening, and the stunts are good.
A Film That Knows What It Is
One of the things that kills a lot of horror comedies is tonal uncertainty. They try to be scary, then they try to be funny, and they never fully commit to either. Hold the Fort does not have that problem. It knows it is silly. It knows it is goofy. It is entirely at peace with that, and that confidence is what makes it work.
The comparison to Bagley’s earlier film is instructive. We watched The Murder Podcast right after rewatching Hold the Fort, and the growth between the two is clear. The Murder Podcast is fun, but it drags in the back third, and some of the pacing is uneven.
Hold the Fort is tighter, quicker, and the characters are more consistently likable. Bagley has improved as a filmmaker in a meaningful way, and what we see here suggests someone with a very clear sense of the kind of movies he wants to make.
There are also small touches of genuine emotion scattered through the film that caught us off guard. There is a character death that landed harder than expected, and rewatching it did not diminish the feeling. For a movie this deliberately silly, that is a real accomplishment.
The two films also share a universe, and the connection is a fun detail for anyone who watches both. A character from The Murder Podcast shows up at the end of Hold the Fort, moving into the neighborhood. This is the kind of thing that makes a low-budget indie universe actually feel worth investing your time in.
Our Take On Hold The Fort
We both landed around a 6.5/10 digs, which feels right. This is not a perfect film. One character overshoots the tone. Jerry disappears from the action for too long in the third act. A few of the one-liners miss. But the things it does well, it does really well: the concept, the cast commitment, the creature work, the pacing, the self-awareness. It is a fun summer horror comedy that moves fast, delivers laughs, and leaves you wanting more of this world.
Hold the Fort is available on VOD on June 23rd. If you want to find more films like this, check out our horror movie picker quiz. Four questions, and we will give you a curated list of recommendations. Stay scared and stay tuned.