Cat Cam brings cats, pet cameras and supernatural horror together in a 2026 found-footage movie directed by Sara Werner.
There are plenty of horror films that have figured out dogs make excellent protagonists, but Cat Cam is here to make the fairly obvious argument that cats are probably even better at detecting something deeply fucked up in the house.
The 2026 found-footage horror movie, directed by Sara Werner and written by Hilary Helding, takes the increasingly familiar haunted-house setup and gives it a wonderfully simple twist – instead of relying entirely on handheld cameras or people wandering around filming themselves when they absolutely should not be filming themselves, the horror is captured through the pet cameras installed to keep an eye on a cat.
The film has already made its way through the festival circuit, including Panic Fest 2026, where it appeared among the festival’s feature lineup, and its festival run has apparently gone rather well, where the movie has picked up seven awards – it has now been acquired by X4 Pictures, with a VOD release scheduled for August 25, 2026.
The premise is wonderfully straightforward here, isn’t it?
Two cat owners install pet cameras around their new home before heading away on a trip, and once the cameras are running and the owners are away, they begin capturing things that suggest there is considerably more going on inside the house than a cat knocking things off a shelf at three in the morning – the official synopsis is keeping things deliberately vague, saying the owners make a terrifying discovery about why their cat has been acting so strangely.
Nug the Cat Is the Real Star
At the centre of all this is Nug, the cat who apparently has considerably better supernatural awareness than everyone else in the house, and the cast is led by Cronin Cullen, Jiavani, Bry Gallagher, Colleen Evanson and Michele Hart.
Nug is described as an “adorable feline protagonist”, while some descriptions also point towards the film being about forgiveness and trust, suggesting there is more going on here than simply throwing a cat into a haunted-house movie and waiting for it to stare ominously at an empty corner.
Sara Werner directs the film from a screenplay by Hilary Helding, who is also credited as a producer, while the production team includes Rob E. Bennett as cinematographer, Blake Hawk as editor and Rachel Rubenstein as production designer – it is also a notably small-scale production. Moviefone lists the budget at approximately $10,000.
From Panic Fest to a Wider Release
Cat Cam was part of the 2026 Panic Fest lineup in Kansas City, which ran from April 9–15 and featured more than 50 feature films alongside a large shorts programme., before the movie subsequently continued its festival run, including a Northern UK Premiere at GASP! Horror Festival in Manchester on June 28, where the festival described it as one of its potential highlights for cat-loving horror fans.
It also screened at Hysteria Fest 2026, where it received its St. Louis premiere – the festival response has been mixed from what I have seen, but certainly interesting, where some viewers have praised the creepy surveillance setup, the cat and the film’s sense of humor, while others have felt that the relatively slow pace doesn’t always generate enough supernatural activity.
That probably makes Cat Cam one of those films where your tolerance for watching a camera pointed at an apparently empty room for an uncomfortable amount of time is going to determine whether this is clever slow-burn horror or 95 minutes of wondering when the ghost is finally going to get on with it.
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