An underrated aspect of the horror festival is the programming process as you need to satisfy the demands of the genre faithful, whilst also providing palate cleansers since a weekend of nothing but horror is exhausting. After previously playing Grimmfest in 2019 with his movie, Artik, writer/director Tom Botchii returns to the Manchester festival with one such cleanser – a taut action thriller called Relentless.
To call the film an action thriller overlooks the story’s nuance as it’s a reactive genre piece that bounces across the map, evolving from one sequence to the next. At its core, it’s a cat-and-mouse chase between coder Jun (Shuhei Kinoshita), and the homeless Teddy (Jeffrey Decker). Digging deeper, Teddy finds Jun and first tries to pry his way in to his “home” by posing as a door-to-door salesman, but when that fails he returns with a shotgun he isn’t very good at using. The failed home invasion spills out into the streets until Teddy finally catches his prey, holding Jun captive in a rundown part of town where the pair reveal their connection to one another. The confrontation again spills out of the building and concludes with a sequence that’s spiritually motivated by deathmatch wrestling – barbed wire and all.
Whilst very bloody, action is a funny genre to place Relentless in as the designation suggests violence carried out by the capable and equipped, whether through skill or weaponry. The film compellingly deviates from both, largely due to director Botchii’s blocking which can only be described as clumsy, but intentionally so. Neither Kinoshita nor Decker are the stallions you’d find in a traditional action movie as they’re normal guys in an ugly situation, and the blocking reflects that. The combat sequences see the pair roll with the punches (and beyond), with the physical prowess you’d expect at closing time in a local pub, and while some may see this as a negative, for me it gave Relentless a relatability that other action movies sorely lack.
That this handsome (the cinematography is equal parts economical and imaginative), small-scale yet ambitious film is so expansive and rich, but was produced with a crew of less than ten people, is a real testament to the depth of riches that American indie cinema is revealing in 2025
Neither may be action-hero types, but that doesn’t mean they’re not put through the wringer in different ways, and Kinoshita in particular deserves praise here. The sequence involving a water bottle is punishing to watch: he drags himself, tied to a chair, inch by agonising inch across the floor to drink from a half-empty water bottle on the other side of the room. It shows the determination of both his character and his nemesis, and the commitment of everyone involved to create something that will stick with you. That sequence alone is tough, yet Kinoshita takes it to the extreme, creating a moment that’s bound to stay with anyone who sees it for years.
Another by-product of that everyman allure is the sense of humour pulsing through Relentless‘s veins, part of which comes from cameos by the team behind Human (StuPitt Films, who were also part of the movie’s compact crew). Another part of this comedic undercurrent is rooted in something I learned about while chatting with the director – drive-through car wash culture. This comes into play when Jun runs from the shotgun-wielding Teddy in the first act, part of their chase passes through one such establishment. One half of the sequence shows Human director Matt Stuertz and lead actor Jackie Kelly unsuccessfully wrangling with the car wash’s pay point while an overhead display shows an advert with a cheesy jingle and dance number, and you’d have to be made of stone not to crack a smile at this super 1990s-feeling advert. While seemingly throwaway, this is a key trait of Botchii’s movie as, although not designed as a comedy, it’s littered with little moments of levity that other writer/directors wouldn’t bring to otherwise intense material.
This brings us neatly to an aspect some may struggle with – not because it’s inherently bad, but because some have an issue with anything remotely political in these horribly divisive times. In the sequence where the depth of Teddy and Jun’s connection is revealed, a single line of dialogue is key to understanding Relentless – “no one is innocent.”. This opens up America’s deep history of racism, referencing the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II and the treatment of Asian people after COVID’s origins were discovered. Racism isn’t Botchii’s only line of attack as his script also takes umbrage with the “greed is good” mentality permeating the cultural identity of millions of Americans. You could argue the movie is about the unease born from Trump’s election to a second term, and with its timing that would be a fair conclusion, but a more accurate assessment would be that the movie’s underlying messages are evergreen. Hitting on the politics of the day is a valid strategy for frustrated creatives, but Botchii has imbued Relentless with a mentality that will feel just as relevant in five or ten years – a worthy feat since being topical also makes something disposable once that moment fades.
Whether Botchii’s Relentless is the perfect palate cleanser for 2025’s Grimmfest is in the eye of the beholder. From these eyes, it’s an action thriller that stands on its own two feet while offering something unique in a genre rampant with uniformity. That this handsome (the cinematography is equal parts economical and imaginative), small-scale yet ambitious film is so expansive and rich, but was produced with a crew of less than ten people, is a real testament to the depth of riches that American indie cinema is revealing in 2025 – a change of status quo that I hope sticks with us for a long time to come.
RELENTLESS HAD ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT GRIMMFEST 2025
