How far would you go to maintain a peaceful home? This is the quandary that Nicky, a single, mild-mannered woman and caregiver, faces after a group of young men move into the adjoining house. Nicky hopes that their first eardrum-bursting party is an anomaly, but what begins as her polite request to keep the music down quickly escalates into an angry series of confrontations that edge toward violence. Pushed to insanity after weeks of no sleep, she begins to contemplate increasingly severe means to find solitude. 

In Jed Hart’s debut feature film, he crafts a roller coaster of a ride, simple in its scenario but brilliantly tense in its execution. Hart acutely hones in on the mental deterioration that Nicky’s sleep deprivation provokes, building a maddening auditory depiction of her house of horrors. With noisy neighbors — relatable villains to millions of people — taken to new heights, Restless is a horror film for anyone who has ever craved quiet in their own home.––Liza Domnitz

Jed Hart