Sex, Static, and Ritual: Custom (2024)Peels the Skin Off Analog Horror
Custom is the kind of movie that creeps up on you….more likes oozes onto you. Director Tiago Teixeira starts with two struggling art house (this is a kind description of floundering influencers) pornographers and a client who offers them a suspiciously huge payday to film bizarre rituals. From that point, reality begins to warp. What follows is a mix of analog grit, sexual tension, and horror imagery that feels both hypnotic and deeply unsettling.
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The analog elements alone are worth the price of admission. Ever seen a sex-dream sequence drenched in VHS static? Imagine greasy, sweaty frames flickering like a fever dream, balancing between “incredibly hot” and “utterly unsettling.” Teixeira leans into this analogue bliss with the camera practically sniffing nostalgia before turning that voyeuristic comfort into pure psychological horror. Its that whiff of nostalgia that turns the entire movie into a home video from hell.
Visually it is dizzying. The film skips between formats, genres, and textures so fast your brain rebels. One moment it is slick erotic dreamscape, then it turns into Barker style S&M hell, followed by a lean into Cronenberg body horror. It is a lot but I appreciate the huge swing Texiera is taking here.
Body Horror, Ritualized and Subversive
If Videodrome left you sweaty and paranoid, Custom burrows deeper. Bodies lose form along side the boundaries between a digital and analog world. The flesh is dirty, greasy, slippery. The camera holds tight on that texture. Cronenberg would nod. Lynch might grin and cackle in a corner.
There is an unmistakable Clive Barker influence. It has Hellraiser energy but never feels exploitative because Teixeira works hard to make the horror of the body powerful on its own. Still, you know exactly what channel you are tuned into. Discomfort, eroticism, disgust. That hybrid is Custom’s lifeblood.
It is not flawless. It is missing a quarter of something. Narrative clarity takes a hit when the aesthetic hogs the wheel. It is a thrilling blur for about 67 minutes, then leaves you dangling. Clever, maddening, and wanting more. There is not much of an ending from a narrative perspective. Some will really dig that. I needed something a little more to wrap it up for me.
Smart Horror That Is Also Very Horny
This is a horny horror movie. The intimacy coordinator should probably get a full producer credit because there is a ton of, sweaty, greasy sex loaded with tension. You might be aroused. You are definetly unsettled. .
That is the point. By dangling erotic breadcrumbs in front of you and then smashing genre expectations, Teixeira makes the body everything. It is about exploitation, performance, desire, and he makes that feel cosmic. Imagine True Detective’s grime-drenched underbelly with a staircase into another realm. The spiral up or down is the only escape from time’s flat circle. Custom is spiraling down. That is not a knock. There is a lot of interesting shit to explore down there.
Rituals, Cursed Films, and Audience Anxiety
There is a meta horror twist. The cursed-film motif gets tossed in with ritualistic performance. Your love of grainy analog becomes a liability. The nameless client promises money but their true intent stays hidden. What do they want from these people, these intimate bodies on tape? It is pure existential dread tail spinning into weirdness.
Your attention is the client. The audience. The expectations. They all get burned. The rituals are not just narrative. They are a thematic crucible for how we consume bodies and films. In fact there are moments where those naked bodies clad themselves in the very video tapes used to shoort them. Its pretty on the nose but it looks great!
Final Verdict: A “Three Quarters” Movie That Still Hits Hard
Custom is ambitious in a way that is rare. It is a debut feature that knows its aesthetic, makes your skin crawl, and leaves you wondering what just happened. That is the point. It is less complete than it should be, but that incomplete feeling kind of works.
Trigger warning: Sexual assault themes are present. Teixeira does not sugarcoat the darkness. If you are not brace-yourself material, keep something softer queued up.
If you love analog horror, freaky bodies, culty rituals, and too-close voyeurism, Custom is a solid three quarters of a feature. An exciting, different three quarters. Teixeira’s debut is a trip, a fever dream that trades resolution for resonance.
So grab the remote, dim the lights, and surrender to the grain.
Tyler has been the editor in chief of Signal Horizon since its conception. He is also the Director of Monsters 101 at Truman State University a class that pairs horror movie criticism with survival skills to help middle and high school students learn critical thinking. When he is not watching, teaching or thinking about horror he is the Director of Debate and Forensics at a high school in Kansas City, Missouri.