Oscilloscope Labs Acquires 'Bagworm' for North America
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- Oscilloscope Laboratories acquired North American rights to "Bagworm," the feature debut from director Oliver Bernsen and writer Henry Bernsen, with a winter 2026 theatrical release set.
- Bagworm had its world premiere at the 2025 Sitges Film Festival — where it won the Panorama Section Audience Award — before its North American premiere in the Visions Section at SXSW Film & TV Festival.
- The film next plays the Fantasia International Film Festival and follows Carroll (Peter Falls), "a sexually frustrated hammer salesman" who steps on a rusty nail and spirals into questioning whether he or the world is falling apart.
- Peter Falls leads a cast that also includes Michelle Ortiz, Robbie Arnett, Corbin Bernsen, Stephen Borrello, Jessy Morner-Ritt, Sydney Winbush, and Francesca Galassi; Zoe Rosenberg produced.
- Damon Wise of Deadline called the film "a graphic and gruesome look inside the toxic world of the manosphere," framing it as a horror-genre take on toxic masculinity.
- Aaron Katz, Oscilloscope's VP of Acquisitions, negotiated the deal on the distributor's side and called the film "a feast for your senses," praising Oliver Bernsen's vision as "vivid and surreal" before adding, "Carroll for President 2028!"
Why it matters: Oscilloscope's pickup gives Bernsen's debut — framed by Deadline as a critique of the manosphere — a path from Sitges and SXSW wins to a winter 2026 theatrical release, a meaningful specialty-distribution win for a first-time genre director tackling toxic masculinity through body horror.
