Thor Moreno’s 2026 semi–found footage thriller Van Life presents a compelling premise that ultimately struggles to sustain its feature-length ambitions. The film follows Zoe (Kelsey Osborne), a law school dropout who abandons her conventional path to pursue solitude and self-discovery in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. When Zoe goes missing and an official search effort turns up empty, her brother (Adam Meirick) begins his own investigation. His discovery of Zoe’s abandoned cell phone offers a fragmented window into her final days — footage that gradually reveals her journey from quiet adventure to psychological and physical peril.

Drawing clear inspiration from the survivalist introspection of Into the Wild and the escalating dread of The Blair Witch Project, Van Life sets out to explore the dangers of isolation in an era where even solitude is mediated through digital self-documentation. Zoe’s travel vlog initially captures the beauty and tranquility of the Northern California wilderness, but as her recordings continue, the tone darkens, suggesting that something far more unsettling may be stalking her beyond the reach of her camera.

Osborne delivers a grounded performance that anchors much of the film’s early momentum, and the found-footage cinematography makes effective use of the region’s stark landscapes to create a persistent sense of unease. Unfortunately, the film’s pacing undermines these strengths. Much of the narrative unfolds at a languid pace, with genuine tension and horror elements not emerging until the final act. By the time the film’s more overt scares arrive, the earlier promise of its premise has largely dissipated. A post-credits scene offers little in the way of narrative or thematic resolution.

The film is also hampered by several distracting inconsistencies. Most notably, despite its title and repeated dialogue references to Zoe purchasing a van to facilitate her travels, she is instead shown driving a Subaru hatchback throughout the film. No van in the film. While this discrepancy does not directly impact the plot, it creates an avoidable disconnect between the film’s premise and its on-screen reality.

Additional logical gaps — including the improbable recovery of Zoe’s phone months after her disappearance in a snow-covered wilderness, and the apparent existence of an active vlog audience unknown to both her family and law enforcement — further strain the film’s credibility.

Van Life contains the foundations of an effective suspense narrative: a likable central character, an evocative setting, and a timely thematic focus on curated independence in the digital age. However, its execution rarely capitalizes on these elements in a way that justifies its runtime. The material might have been better served in a more concise format, where its atmospheric strengths could be emphasized without the burden of narrative sprawl.

Ryan Sickler is used to asking the question that people are afraid to ask: “Is there anyone here who has ever actually died and come back and would be comfortable talking about it in front of all of us?”

It’s not your typical comedy show crowd work but it has profound results. During his special “Ryan Sickler: Live & Alive” released on YouTube in October, a woman in the audience talked about a near-death experience as a child where she rode her bicycle in front of a neighbor’s station wagon. But Sickler pointed out that this remarkable level of candor in the audience is something he continues to marvel about. In fact, he said they did two shows the night they taped his special and during the second show two people in the crowd said they had near-death experiences.

“When I ask the question, I know there’s someone in the crowd that’s like, ‘There’s nobody in here that’s died and come back,’” Sickler said. “So now they’re all very excited to listen too. Like, what happened to this lady, or what happened to this guy? You know, there’s been some wild ones, some real funny ones out there too.”

Given how many comedy specials are being released on various streaming platforms, he says that “we have lost the specialness of the special.” But Sickler said since coming so close to death and being able to talk about it with candor and relatability, he is still calling his latest self-produced YouTube special, special. It now has more than 1 million views on YouTube. Sickler has been on the comedy scene for more than 30 years and released his comedy special “Lefty’s Son” in 2023. He also hosts the “HoneyDew Podcast.” His comedy career has often incorporated his lived experience with a rare blood-clotting disease called Factor V Leiden that almost killed him.

But these days, he’s grateful to be alive, to have been able to wake up when it looked like he might not, to watch his daughter continue to grow up and the laughs along the way. Sickler has long been candid about his chronic health issues with his comedy but he has found particular meaning in doing crowd work when he performs, that talks about death and what it means to live.

The Times recently spoke with Sickler about his special and how he thinks about his sense of health, humor and mortality.

What did you want to say this time around in your new special?

My first special was something that was a bit of a hybrid of stuff that had been out there and around, but I didn’t own it. It was out there on people’s platforms. They’re making the money off of it. And so I did a bit of, “Let me get this stuff on my channel where I can control it.” And then the other part of that special was becoming a new single dad, all those things this time, specifically, I really just wanted to talk about what had happened and the results after that. I follow these comedy accounts and in October, there were 31 stand-up specials that hit between Netflix, Hulu, YouTube. November was 30. This month was a little slow because the holidays, but it was still at 18 the last time I checked. So I don’t think there’s anything special about stand-up specials anymore. You’re in an environment now where there’s a stand-up special a day, people are doing that with podcasts. There’s so much content going on out there, and I feel like a lot of it is the same. So I this time wanted to just take something that happened very personal to me, this incident, and then tell the story, not only behind it, but what happened after and I was really proud of being able to just focus on that and make that into this special instead of just my observations on this or my thoughts on that. I’m a storyteller and I really think that’s what art is.

When did you realize you had the courage to write about this near–death experience?

I know I had the courage to write about it a long time ago. When I’m making people laugh at my father’s funeral and things like that, I knew I was comfortable being able to take on the material. But what I didn’t know was, could I make it funny? Could I make it relatable? Could I make this one thing that happened to this one person on this rock in outer space matter to anybody and make them care? Because it’s not like we all had this happen to us. This is just one thing that happened to this one dude. So that was really what I was more worried about, is like, can I get this message across and make it relatable, funny and entertaining at the same time? Which is why I threw in those really expensive light cues.

It can be very challenging to hear about these traumatic [near–death] experiences that people have had. How do you absorb that and not absorb it too much?

I’ve been doing this show for so long that it does start to wear on you a little bit hearing a lot of the trauma. So I created a new podcast a couple years ago called the Wayback, which is just fun, funny, nostalgia. So that also for me, was like, let’s not dig into the tears and let’s just laugh about growing up. So that was one way where I could still keep it in my lane and do my job, where I alleviate that a little bit. But the other thing, and I make fun of myself a little, is I’m like the paramedic at the party now. I’m the guy that’s like “You think that’s bad, wait until you hear this.” “This one guy …” “This one lady …” You know what I mean? So I’ve almost become sort of their voice, and I have absorbed it in a way that isn’t so negative, where I carry it home with me. I always forget the quote how it’s worded, but it’s something to the tune of, if we all stood in a circle and threw our problems in the middle, we’d all take our shit right back. It’s like you know what, that’s what you’re dealing with? I’m gonna go ahead and take mine.

How is hearing all these stories and connecting with the crowd and fans in this way [about near–death experiences] changed how you think about your own sense of mortality?

Even with my close call, like, that one angered me, because you start to think about things. You never know how you’re really going to go. You might have an idea if you’re getting older and cancer runs in your family, whatever, but the fact that you could go to a hospital for a simple surgery, they don’t listen to you, everything’s there in your paperwork. You’re your own advocate. You’re doing all the right stuff by yourself, and you’re among professionals, medical professionals, not Yahoos, and you can still have someone else make a mistake and your life is gone. That started me thinking a lot like, “Oh man, for no fault of my own, I could also be gone.” So I go day by day, and I try to be happy day by day. And I’m not going to lie, I also like to know I got a little something tomorrow too.

Do you think that incorporating death and near–death in your comedy helps people work through their own feelings about death and grief?

I only say yes to that because the amount of emails I get, the amount of feedback we get, the amount of guests that still continue to show up [to support] the Patreon. I’ve definitely found, I would say, a purpose in my people. If you’re someone saying you’re a jerk for laughing at this lady talking about cancer, we’re not laughing at her cancer. We’re laughing at something, some light that she found in the darkness of this and trying to have a moment here together, all about, “Hey, there’s some positive ways to look at things at your lowest.” So I know it’s helped people. I mean, we have, over the years, probably thousands of emails now. We have people telling us how much it’s helped. And I mean just through podcasting, I found out I have this blood disease. I was 42 at the time, and already been podcasting. There’s a lady I went to high school with. She’s like “Ryan, my son is 17. He started clotting.” I said, “Go ahead and check for this.” He listens to the podcast. This kid has it. I said, “Well, bad news. It’s genetic.” Now the whole family’s got to get tested. And if you have it from one parent, it’s not great, but having it from two is bad. The whole family gets tested. The parents have it. She’s got it from both her parents. So I can’t get over the fact that a woman I knew when we were children, 35 years later is like, “Hey, that thing you’re talking about on your podcast, my kids, my family, we all have it.” And then I’ve talked about another disease I also have, called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which is CMT. And from bringing that up, people hit me up on that like “I have it, no one ever talks about that.”

What have you found to be one of the positives — besides surviving — of your near–death experience?

Gosh, so many. I have a child, so getting to see her grow and really taking care of my health and things. Not that I wasn’t before, but just I dove in even deeper. I went and got what’s called a gallery test for prescreening for cancer. I started doing all these blood works and like, “Let’s go find out everything you know, because I didn’t find out that I had this blood disease until I was 42 when I clotted.” I’m living my whole life, not even knowing I have this thing and and if I don’t clot, there are plenty of people out there that live to 100 years old and have it. It’s really made me appreciate life and trying to take things day by day. I also was living in a little single-dad pad at the time. We had no central air. We had tandem parking. We were above dumpsters. Our laundry was outside in a room with quarters. And when I got home — I’m still on a walker — and I was like, “What are we doing? We’re going to die without central air? Are we going to die with a bucket of quarters on the fridge? No more.” And so I moved my home, I moved my studio, I did all these things that are, like, the biggest thing you can do in life. We’re going to roll the dice, scared money don’t win, and we’re just going to go for it. Also, as a comedian and anybody in entertainment will tell you, a lot of times you work scared, you hold that money and you wait until the next thing comes. And also, as a single parent, you know we got to budget. And I was like, no more. We’re not going to go out and buy 10 Porsches. We’re going to be responsible. But I was on point with let’s go get a living will and trust. Let’s make sure we have that life insurance policy. Let’s make sure we have all the proper paperwork and stuff done before we do anything like go on a vacation, you know, let’s get this done now and get it done proper.

What do those conversations look like, if you have them at all, about encouraging your male friends to go to the doctor or encouraging them to take care of themselves, physically and emotionally?

I would say the conversations go something like this. My younger brother is like, “Hey, man, I just went in for a test, and they’re telling me I got to have an old school triple bypass,” and then that’s what we all get tested. “Hey guys, I found I got a blood disease.” “Oh man, we all better look into it now.” That’s usually how it goes. I don’t know many men who are proactive. There are a few of us these days. But it’s usually something horrible happens and then we’ll be proactive about everything else.

Do you have male fans who also say “I [saw] your special … I went to your show, and it made me go [to the doctor]”?

Yeah, but I’m saying, though, it still took them to come see a professional clown to get them to go to the damn doctor. I actually have been very good about going, because everyone in my family died. So I’ve been proactive in the sense that I go get two physicals a year. I’ve been doing that since my 20s. I always tell my doctor, if I can go buy expensive sushi, if I go buy weed, if I go buy all these things, I can put money into myself here and come see you a second time and pay for all that. So I do two physicals a year, and I’ve been doing that forever. But I’ve never done any sort of like gallery test. And now we’re in our 50s, so we got to go get the prostate and all that. That’s when you start hearing about that stuff. There’s a lot of ignorance that goes into it as well. I just had a guest here on the “HoneyDew” and said he didn’t go to a doctor or anything for over 20 years because he was just scared of what they were going to tell him. He was scared to get the bad news. You can kind of get the bad news and you could turn that into good news. It doesn’t need to be deadly news.

How do you know when you’ve been too open?

It usually tends to be a personal thing where someone’s like, “I don’t really appreciate you bringing that up.” So I don’t anymore. I’m always cognizant of [saying] like, “Hey, would it be cool if I talked about this or whatever?” I feel like the question you’re asking me would have been great for me just before I started, like, the “HoneyDew” and stuff because this is what I really want to talk about. Everyone wants to talk about the best and bring their best and I just really do want to hear about, you know, the trauma bond. I want to hear about the worst times in your life. I want to know because, honestly, that tells me so much more about you than you verbally talking about you. You know who you were in those moments, how you reacted, how you behaved, how you’ve adjusted. Those things really end up defining who you are, and that’s more what I want to know about. I don’t want to know your best polished version of yourself.

Following her justly acclaimed documentaries (The Mole Agent, The Eternal Memory) that play like dramas and a scripted feature inspired by actual events (In Her Place), Chilean director Maite Alberdi continues to blur, smudge and gleefully mess with the lines between fiction and fact in her latest, the by-turns highly comical and then suddenly moving A Child of My Own (Un hijo propio).

Revolving around a news story from the early 2000s that brings Alberdi north of the equator for her first Mexican-set feature, Child layers interviews with the actual participants in this strange tale with a scripted and performed re-enactment of the events. But don’t worry, this is nothing like the tacky reconstructions one often sees in made-for-TV docs to break up the monotony of talking heads telling the story, thanks in part to Alberdi’s deft narrative footwork. It helps that the cast is led by the immensely engaging Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña, who stars as Alejandra, a young hospital administrator who fakes a pregnancy and takes drastic measures to assuage her intense maternal longings. And also shut up all the pesky relatives who keep asking her about when she and husband Arturo (Armando Espitia) are going to start a family of their own.

Recalling Kitty Green’s darker but similarly genre-tweaking doc Casting JonBenet, this starts with a flurry of edits showing different actors trying out for the role of Alejandra, nicknamed Ale, our complicated protagonist. Montalvo Peña’s audition gets across in just a few minutes Ale’s distinctive blend of perk, pluck and pastel-pink girlishness spiked with a generous dollop of disassociated delusionality. From there, the film goes into a mostly straightforwardly chronological account of how Ale and later Arturo get into the desperate situation they eventually find themselves in.

As (staged) footage unfurls of Ale and Arturo dancing at their wedding to “Unchained Melody” (we get to see the real thing later on), Ale explains how even at this, what should have been the happiest moment of her life, she sensed that Arturo’s mother didn’t think Ale was good enough for her son. A sly freeze frame reveals a scowling mother-in-law (Ángeles Cruz), looking very grumpy indeed. The confetti has barely settled before the extended family of aunties and cousins start asking when they’re going to produce a child. Unfortunately, poor Ale has two miscarriages in short succession, and eventually an OB-GYN at the hospital where Ale works warns her that she may never carry a child to full term.  

Just after a third pregnancy also miscarries, Ale meets a young woman named Mayra in a hospital waiting room and the two get talking. A single mother of one child already and due around the time that Ale would have had her baby, Mayra is unhappily pregnant. She’s come to the hospital seeking an abortion, although she’d prefer to “give [the baby] away rather than throw it away.” Ale suggests that Mayra passes over her baby to her when the time comes, and Mayra implausibly agrees.

To keep the deception going, Ale starts eating for two, piling on the pounds, fortunately carrying a lot of her new extra weight in her midsection. Concerned that Arturo might figure out she’s not knocked up, she puts him off when he tries to get conjugal in bed (it could be bad for the baby, she says) and insists he doesn’t have to come to any of her pre-natal check-ups at the hospital. Armed with marabou-feather festooned pens, an in-depth knowledge of the hospital’s procedures and familiarity with staff on many wards, she manages to fake a hospital record for herself, obtain a fake ultrasound picture and generally keep the whole deception going until it all falls apart in a matter of days.

To reveal what happens exactly would spoil the film’s several canny surprises, but it’s worth noting that we get to spend considerable time in the last half hour with the real Ale and Arturo — at least enough time to appreciate how well the actors inhabited the characters. And yet there remains an ineffable quality, especially in Ale — a placid dreamy blankness, inimitable, touching in its naiveté, and a tragic flaw all at once.

DP Sergio Armstrong and his team ensure that the candy-colored palette pops just enough to suggest we’re not quite in the realm of reality at times, while frequent overhead shots and odd angles enhance the sense of discombobulation. Nevertheless, the documentary footage also has a polished sheen to it, minimizing the separation between fact and fiction in a way that feels respectful of the subjects, putting them on the same level as the dramatis personae.