Official Synopsis
While searching for his missing sister in Northern Thailand, a fitness vlogger is introduced to the legend of Saming, a shapeshifting tiger that consumes and replaces its victims. Ignoring warnings from the locals, he ventures into the jungle, believing his sister vanished there. As his trek leads him deeper into the brush, his companions disappear one-by-one, and he finds himself stalked by a mysterious spirit in the form of his sister.
Review
First-time director Rungroj Park Rojanachotikul takes an online-influencer approach to kick things off with Saming (U.K./Thailand, 2026) before the characters have to abandon their screen personalities as they fight for their lives. Fitness influencer Louis (Louis James) and his travel vlogger friend Jear (Jear Humphries, who cowrote the screenplay with Rojanachotikul) team up with Louis’ ex-girlfriend Sarah (Sarah Alexandra Marks) and her actress friend Sandra (Sandra Juengling) to search for Louis’s missing sister, believed to be somewhere in the jungles of Thailand. Louis eventually waves off warnings about a shape-shifting tiger spirit that can assume human forms despite Jear’s concerns about their validity, and seasoned fear-fare fanatics can guess that his decision is a rather unwise one.
Local color in Bangkok and in the areas far from the city is on full display. James and Marks are seasoned actors and give strong lead performances here. The two have appeared together in director Howard J. Ford’s Thailand-set River of Blood (2024), for which Rojanachotikul was the cinematographer, and most recently in this year’s creature feature Bone Keeper (reviewed here). They are joined by newcomers Humphries, Juengling, and Thai talent in smaller but important roles, all of whom give fine supporting turns. Rojanachotikul follows most of the expected tropes of found-footage shockers, though the Thai setting and folk horror aspects add unique flavor to Saming.
Saming screened as part of San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival, which ran March 24–29, 2026.
