Pete Ohs‘ Chilling Wellness-Core Horror Starring Zoë Chao, Jeremy O. Harris, Callie Hernandez, and James Cusati-Moyer
Produced by Callie Hernandez, Pete Ohs, Jeremy O. Harris, Josh Godfrey
WORLD PREMIERE AT SXSW FRIDAY MARCH 7
One of Rolling Stone’s 20 Most Anticipated Movies at SXSW 2025
As reported by IndieWire, Zoë Chao Freaks Out in Nature for Pete Ohs’ Genre-Hybrid Folk Horror Indie ‘The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick’ — Watch Teaser
A Film By Pete Ohs
Produced by
Callie Hernandez, Pete Ohs, Jeremy O. Harris, Josh Godfrey
Featuring
Zoë Chao (Nightbitch, The Afterparty)
Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play., The Sweet East, Slave Play)
Callie Hernandez (OBEX, Invention, Alien: Covenant)
James Cusati-Moyer (Inventing Anna, Slave Play)
Co-Written by
Callie Hernandez, Zoë Chao, James Cusati-Moyer, Jeremy O. Harris, Pete Ohs
Official Synopsis: After a traigic event, Yvonne drives down to her friend Camille’s bucolic new home for some time away. She’s welcomed by A.J. and Isaac, two new friends of Camille. The group promises a weekend of homemade meals from fresh, local produce and parlor games by candlelight.
But when Yvonne develops troubling symptoms from a tick bite, the rural paradise fades away revealing a breeding ground for a disturbing new life.
Multi-hyphenate filmmaker Pete Ohs (2022 SXSW breakout Jethica) returns with The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, another playfully label-defying genre mash-up shot in two weeks. Inspired by a trip to Western Massachusetts and the looming possibility of tick bites, Ohs and his collaborators built a story around the millennial terror of modern adulthood.
Fear and anxiety bring Yvonne (Zoë Chao) to the upstate doorstep of her friend Camille (Callie Hernandez) after a tragic accident propels her out of the city. What she doesn’t expect is to encounter new people, Camille’s fast-talking real estate agent friend Isaac (Jeremy O. Harris) and his ‘crunchy lifestyle’ enthusiast boyfriend A.J. (James Cusati-Moyer). Yvonne is welcomed with open arms and provided a house filled with organic produce, natural wine, and candle-lit parlor games. She attempts to unplug from her chaos-ridden city existence for the simple back-to-earth life that Camille has unexpectedly —and uncharacteristically— built for herself.
The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick harnesses queer eroticism and folk horror to take a look at modern existence and question how the fears of a generation of people reaching adulthood have impacted the ways in which they navigate the world. They’ve removed themselves from the natural cycle of life, but at what cost? And if one little tick bite could change all that, would you too run through fields of tall grass into an adulthood free of fear and anxiety.
