The Nice Ones: Something Is Very Wrong With This Perfectly Nice Group of Friends

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The Nice Ones movie poster

There is something immediately suspicious about a horror movie called The Nice Ones. Horror characters are rarely rewarded for being nice, and this new British sci-fi horror film takes that idea in a particularly strange direction - instead of having a group of friends slowly become violent or possessed, The Nice Ones asks what happens when they become almost unnervingly pleasant.

Written and directed by Peter Stylianou, the film follows Kate, played by Joelle Rae, who heads to a remote countryside retreat with her boyfriend Dale and their friends, where it starts out as the sort of weekend that should involve drinking, catching up and probably somebody regretting booking the Airbnb, but things change after Kate sees strange lights in the sky, and before long, the atmosphere inside the house starts becoming increasingly uncomfortable for reasons that she can't quite explain, with people becoming calmer, more agreeable and almost excessively kind, leaving Kate increasingly convinced that something has happened to them while everyone else seems perfectly happy with the situation.

Joelle Rae Leads the Cast

Joelle Rae plays Kate, with Emrhys Cooper as Dale, where the pair are joined by Donna Preston as Martha, Ian Whyte as Hunter, Daniela Norman as Jade, Ayvianna Snow as Shelly, James Akka as Ben, Nick Lavelle as Jay, Tom Kelsey as Tom and Andrew Lyle-Pinnock as Danny.

Rae has appeared in projects including The Witcher, while Cooper has genre credits including Nosferatu - Preston will also be familiar to horror and fantasy viewers from The Sandman and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, while Ian Whyte has appeared in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as well as a number of large-scale fantasy and genre productions.

Ayvianna Snow is also credited as a producer on the film alongside Tony Currier, Andreas Olavarria, Taryn Procsal and Peter Stylianou, with Matthew Hammel and James Karis among the executive producers.

Peter Stylianou Makes Another Horror Movie

This is not Stylianou's first trip into independent horror either -  the London-based filmmaker previously directed Who Needs Enemies and The Lost, both of which were distributed internationally on DVD and major VOD platforms, and he followed those with the 2024 horror film Drained.

Stylianou is handling several jobs on The Nice Ones, serving as writer, director, producer and editor. Alexey Korobko is the cinematographer, while Lucy Turner is responsible for production design, Martin Edwards handles sound and Andy Fosberry provides the score.

The production is coming from RG Films and Snow Pictures, with Level 33 Entertainment handling sales and distribution, and The British Council's UK Films Database lists the completed feature at around 85 minutes, while the filmmaker's own development page currently lists a 93-minute version, so the final runtime appears to have changed during the film's production and release process.

The Nice Ones Release Date

The Nice Ones is scheduled to arrive On Demand in the United States on September 29, 2026, through Level 33 Entertainment. 



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