Céline Roustan
Amy is missing. Her best friend Lola doesn’t want to sit at home and wait, so she puts on her yoga pants, grabs a tote bag and starts a search party with a guy named David, who Amy went on a hike with. In Best Friends With the Devil, writer/director Hugo De Sousa keeps the audience on the edge of its seat, with back-to-back twists and turns leaving us wondering at every moment what is actually going on, whose safety is at stake and what will happen next!
A friendship is at the core of De Sousa’s narrative, one that has evolved over the years. Truth be told, Amy and Lola are not as close as they used to be. “Like Lola, I’m not as close to some of my friends as I once hoped to be, and it has taken me a long time to accept that,” the writer/director confessed when discussing the guilt he feels over the fizzling out of these relationships, before explaining that he wanted “to make a movie about a character who completely gives in to this feeling”. He then pushed the concept to the max, both in terms of the story and the emotions at play.
Itching to make a genre film built around a simple premise requiring “minimal setup”, he came up with the idea of two strangers going on a hike. As a woman, going to an isolated place with a man you don’t know… what could go wrong?! Yet De Sousa manages to subvert expectations multiple times within Best Friends With the Devil’s ten-minute runtime.
The performance of Ellyn Jameson, as Lola, is crucial to the film’s success.
De Sousa expertly juggles the film’s genre elements and comedic tones. Working with DP Sarah Whelden (Stitches, Bury Your Fish), they use long takes to trap us on that hike with the two protagonists, with no escape possible, creating an unsettling feeling that enhances the overall anxiety of the film. The camera movements, along with the alternation between close-ups and wider shots, also complement the different narrative beats effectively. De Sousa also edited the film, using its varied visual styles to heighten all those delightfully abrupt tonal shifts. The editing is perfectly sharp, making both the comedy and the scary moments more effective, while giving the film a pace that holds your breath captive from beginning to end.
Ellyn Jameson, as Lola, is simply amazing. Her character conveys the emotional rollercoaster of the film, and she hits every narrative beat so compellingly, deeply engaging the audience as she moves from one emotion to the next in a split second. De Sousa is also on screen as David, the perfect companion to Lola, as his energy remains relatively constant throughout, which only maximises Lola’s reactions to each plot twist.
Best Friends With the Devil had its world premiere at the 2026 edition of SXSW. Ahead of its online debut today, it went on to be selected at multiple festivals, including the Palm Springs ShortFest, Fantasia and Salute Your Shorts. De Sousa is currently developing his feature debut, Drug Test Cowboy.