Justin Long stars in Barbarian. Image via 20th Century Studios. By Ben Brewster Published Sep 16, 2026, 11:03 PM EDT Ben Brewster is a filmmaker, critic, screenwriter, and actor whose work sits at the intersection of film culture, craft analysis, and storytelling.
He is a movie list contributing writer at Collider and a contributing writer for High on Films, where he covers contemporary cinema, independent film, and festival releases with an eye toward narrative structure, performance, and visual language.
Ben is an active film festival participant, having worked with Newport Film, the Nantucket Film Festival and as a screener for the Austin, Boston & Woodstock film festivals. He brings to that work a programming instinct shaped by years of close engagement with independent and documentary cinema. This comes with a deep investment in the kinds of films that rarely find their way into the mainstream conversation without someone willing to advocate for them.
His background spans documentary and narrative filmmaking, film marketing, and production, including work with award-winning directors. This as well as developing his own indie production company, Lilac Creative Studio, through which he develops and produces original work across fiction and nonfiction forms. His debut documentary, Diamond in the Rust, is an examination of economic redevelopment and displacement in the Queens area of New York City. The film was recently accepted to the Unisphere Film Festival, the Defense of Democracy Film Festival, and the Urbanite Arts & Film Festival. This would mark his first festival recognition as a director. In addition to his writing and programming work, Ben hosts Beneath the Bloom, a film podcast exploring the work behind the scenes in cinema, and the struggles one can face to make a movie become a reality. The show reflects the same sensibility that runs through all of his work. A conviction that film is not merely entertainment but one of the most powerful tools human beings have for understanding each other.
Across mediums, his work is driven by a deep belief in film as a communal, transformative art form.
on Google Preferred Source Google News Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Listen Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap Zach Cregger 's Resident Evil hits theaters September 18th, and after Weapons and Barbarian, expectations could not be higher. Cregger has quickly become one of the most exciting creative voices in modern horror, someone who understands terror as a slow, patient build built on expectation rather than the jump scares that dominated the genre for quite some time. Sony clearly believes he's the right person to finally crack a franchise that has struggled to translate its video game roots into a quality theatrical experience. This new take follows Bryan ( Austin Adams ), a medical courier who stumbles into an outbreak at a remote hospital and is forced to fight his way out through hordes of infected creatures over one nightmarish night. Cregger is fresh off of 2025's Weapons , a critical and commercial smash that grossed over $269 million worldwide and earned Amy Madigan an Oscar. He arrives with more industry goodwill and creative leverage than almost any other horror director stepping into a video game adaptation ever has. That combination of proven craft and creative trust and license is ex…