#31Days: Infirmary (2026)

content warning: foul language, blood

Edward is working his first night as a security guard at an abandoned hospital. The action is captured on the hospital's security cameras and the body cameras each guard is required to wear. As the night grows longer, strange things take over.

Infirmary is a found footage horror film from writer/director Nicholas Pineda and writer Katy Krauland. The pair definitely place an emphasis on backstory, establishing a clear motivation for Edward to sign up for this less-than-dreamlike job.

Edward is a discharged U.S. Marine Corps veteran. He was injured on active duty, neglected to tell anyone because it didn't seem that serious, and is now stuck in a world trying to prove his worth to a system that sees his disability as a liability. It's a strong setup to get the audience in the mindset of Edward and his willingness to go along with the escalating events of the night.

There's a distinctive visual style to Infirmary that plays on trends in analog horror. The hospital halls are lit in unappealing shades of green and yellow, creating an instant sense of unease. The footage varies in quality depending on what camera is showing the action; the body cams are much newer than the mounted surveillance cameras, providing clearer but less steady first-person footage of the world. Infirmary also leans into the vocabulary of analog horror games, with a wall of monitors to search through with a joystick and keyboard and action scenes at just the right angle to throw off your sense of direction. Timestamps at the top of the screen keep the pace of the night centered in your mind. How is so much happening so quickly?

Establishing a clear character and clearer backstory for the hospital comes at the expense of pacing. Infirmary is more tense than scary for much of the runtime. Pineda and Krauland answer a lot of the why—why should we care about this character? why is this hospital abandoned? why are we protecting it?—before really opening up the story to the present action. It's slow-paced, and that's not how a lot of modern found footage horror films work.

When the scares begin and things clearly take a turn, the film is terrifying. The cruelty of the abandoned psychiatric hospital almost seems to infect the world around it. Other employees wrapping up their duties act in strange and unusual ways. And what sits abandoned in the hospital looks ready to get up and walk out on its own.

Infirmary is streaming on Shudder.

#31Days is an annual tradition around here, even if the results aren't always published. For decades now, I've watched and reviewed a different horror film every day in the month of October. 2026 sees the return of the reviews to Sketching Details in real time.