Kombucha: The Movie

A mind-altering drink makes employees work themselves to death.

TL;DR

Luke Merritt lands a job at the cult-like Symbio Corporation, where a mind-altering kombucha turns employees into productive corporate cogs. Trapped in a fluorescent-lit cubicle farm Luke thinks the free breakroom kombucha is a perk—until it begins to change him. As the drink begins to erase his identity, his ex-girlfriend Elyse uncovers Symbio’s grotesque secret: a monstrous Mother at the heart of the company, churning out obedient clones. With Luke slipping beyond reach, Elyse must race to save him and destroy the source before the company consumes him completely. What starts with suspicious smiles and team-building ends in a bile-drenched metamorphosis.

Based on 2025 film festival reviews, Kombucha uses the trendy fermented beverage as both horror tool and corporate satire symbol. Director Jake Myers exploits kombucha’s inherently unsettling nature—made from tea, sugar, and SCOBY (nicknamed “Mother”)—to create a “compellingly horrific” premise about live cultures that biologically transform drinkers.

In the film, Symbio Corporation’s bespoke kombucha strains maximize employee productivity but cause nightmarish side effects, literally making workers “work themselves to death.” Critics note kombucha represents the “new coffee in start-up culture,” particularly in American tech companies where it’s available on tap. The drink serves as the perfect metaphor for how corporate culture consumes creative souls.

Reviewers praised how Myers transforms an already off-putting beverage into genuine body horror, with “gurgling sound effects, bodily fluids, and ooey, gooey moments” that will permanently ruin the drink’s appeal. The film balances its absurd “killer drink” premise with surprising seriousness, avoiding silly territory while maintaining dark comedy.

Reviews

Kombucha had its UK premiere at FrightFest 2025. It will be available to stream later this year in the UK. It is being released on December 2^nd on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital in North America via Jackrabbit Media. It is 93 minutes long.

Rebecca Sayce’s review in Filmhounds summarizes the plot.

I love the fact the company they work for is called “Symbio”. I’m guessing if they have a company magazine, it would be called SYMBIOSIS? That, and the fact they design bespoke strains of kombucha for each client. Now there’s an idea to conjure with!

The corporate world can be a strange entity to navigate with endless mind-numbing meetings, plastering on a fake smile for clients, endless spreadsheets, and office politics. In 2025 we see plenty of businesses try to foster a more employee-focused brand, showcasing their pristine office atmosphere, teambuilding exercises, and initiatives designed to bring us closer together. As we well know, however, this can easily be used by corporations to paper over the cracks within the business and the unhappy workers within. But what if it was used to hide something far more sinister? That’s what Jake Myers’ Kombucha explores by way of wild body horror and pitch-black comedy.

Adapted from Myers’ short film of the same name, Kombucha follows Luke (Terrence Carey), a struggling musician who reconnects with old friend Andy (Jesse Kendall) who offers him a potential position at the company her works for, Symbio, after attending one of his gigs. After Luke’s girlfriend, Elyse (Paige Bourne), puts pressure on him to put his dreams of stardom aside in favour of taking the job, to which he agrees after the couple split in a bid to win her back. He is immediately given the job after being referred by Andy and settles into office life alongside his co-workers and imposing boss Kelsey (Claire McFadden). She is insistent that he tries the company’s own brand of kombucha, a specialty product that they design bespoke strains of for each of their clients. He is reluctant at first but soon becomes hooked on the drink, and when he begins acting strangely and experiencing excruciating side effects, Elyse reaches out to the loved one of a deceased Symbio employee to get to the bottom of the company’s sinister motives.

Described as if David Cronenberg wrote an episode of The Office, Kombucha is a unique blend of body horror, dark comedy, and workplace mundanity that shows how a creative soul can be warped beyond recognition when the leave their dreams behind. Luke’s desperation to play music is slowly eroded by his colleagues at Symbio who dazzle him with bonuses and the opportunity to climb the corporate ladder, blinding him to the obvious red flags in their behaviour and intentions. Myers ratchets up the tension throughout as Elyse desperately tries to claw Luke back from the brink of destruction and the clutches of Kelsey, all the while injecting Kombucha with quick wit and clever throwaway comments that help foster the film’s surreal vibe.

Packed full of gurgling sound effects, bodily fluids, and ooey, gooey moments, Kombucha offers some of FrightFest 2025‘s most stomach-churning moments with its practical effects that will certainly put you off the titular fermented beverage for good. Many films attempt to blend genres to create something unique, but few do it as well as Myers has done with Kombucha which perfectly balances its use of comedy and horror, offering a satirical look at B2B marketing and corporate culture while never forgetting to terrify and turn your stomach with grizzly lashings of blood and viscera.

Kat Highes’s review in Hollywood News

Gets straight to the point: drink the Kool-Aid (or is it the Health-Ade?) or lose your job. Cue the “nightmare side effects”…

Trendy beverage kombucha is a fermented drink made from tea, sugar, and a bacteria culture called a SCOBY. Also known as ‘mother’ and ‘mushroom’, SCOBY is a symbiotic growth of bacteria and yeast. It really doesn’t sound like an appealing drink and yet, legions of people swear by it. One filmmaker that is erring on the side of caution however, is director Jake Myers whose FrightFest film, Kombucha, shows the potential true horrors that kombucha could be making. 

Co-written by Jake Myers and Geoff Bakken, Kombucha tells of a mind-altering variant of the drink that encourages people to literally work themselves to death. Devised by Symbio, this variant of kombucha achieves maximum productivity from its drinker, but does come with a risk of potential death, depending on how well they adapt to its mysterious cultures. 

Right from the opening scene it is apparent that there is something not right at Symbio. A young woman clearly on edge, speaks with her mother on the phone. It is late at night and rather than making their pre-arranged dinner, she will be working late yet again. In today’s work-oriented society, that isn’t anything new, but the strange markings on her arms are, as is her reluctance to drink any of the office provided kombucha, favoring instead to take a look in the cleaning product cupboard. As cold opens go, this one is really good at grabbing the audience and making them want to understand what on Earth happened to cause this woman to make such a bleak decision. 

Having already set up the strange office environment, Kombucha then shifts focus to Luke (Terrence Carey), a struggling musician. He has dreams of fame and fortune, but they have yet to manifest and his inability to relinquish these desires is causing issues between him and his partner, Elyse (Paige Bourne), who wants him to get a job and ease her burden. After being given an ultimatum, Luke finds himself recruited by Symbio, whose hiring process and starting salary appear too good to be true. Shortly after arrival, Luke realizes that in order to keep his new position, he’ll have to drink the Kool-Aid, or in this case, the kombucha. At first elated by the focus the drink gives him, the side effects are pure nightmare fodder.

Kombucha plays off of films like The Faculty, and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers as it tells of people seemingly changing personalities overnight. With the premise being essentially that of a killer drink, it is easy to expect that Kombucha would fall into silly territory, a la killer-jeans movie Slaxx. Instead, Kombucha is more serious in nature, but still open to having the occasional laugh. In taking this approach, Kombucha somehow becomes more enjoyable than if it had embraced its super silly potential. This is thanks in no small part to the work of both lead actor Terrence Carey, and Claire McFadden as his overzealous boss, Kelsey. 

To fully explain the directions that Kombucha takes would ruin its magic, but this is definitely a film for those who like movies that are unafraid to get a little strange with their ideas. Far more than just a pod people knockoff, Kombucha is the perfect symbiosis of mystery, comedy, body horror, and drama. 

Joel Harley’s review in Starburst Magazine

Focuses on the fact the director “must really hate kombucha”. Now, whatever gave him that idea?

Finally, a horror film for people who are inexplicably grossed out by the idea of kombucha. Saddled with a mind-numbing day job, musician Luke (Terrence Carey) buys into the company’s free kombucha scheme in an attempt to meet his quotas. The gunk has the desired effect of enhancing Luke’s productivity, but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Adapted from Jake Myers’ short film of the same name (he must really hate kombucha and office work), Kombucha expands on the ideas and subtext, going bigger, harder and gooier than before. A cross between Office Space and David Cronenberg before he became A History of Violence and Crimes of the Future‘s David Cronenberg, Kombucha is a snarky comedy-horror satire for those frustrated artists out there who have been saddled with a sucky day job. It’s a slow burn, but Myers is successful in adapting a short film to feature length without it feeling padded out or as though anyone is stalling for time.

Kombucha is playing with a lower budget than, say, The Substance, but both kombucha and having a day job are yucky enough that what it does deign to show works. As tortured artist Luke, Carey is phenomenal, demonstrating a big enough talent during the opening scenes that we can buy into his frustration at being turned into a dead-eyed, kombucha-swilling office drone. The effects, while on the cheaper end of the spectrum, still get the job done, veering between the otherworldly purple of Color out of Space and the oily slime of Society.

An office horror satire which will resonate with anyone who’s ever had to work a soul-crushing day job… or just really hates the idea of kombucha.

A user review on iMDb give it an 8/10

And asks the question that some in the audience might be asking after seeing the movie: “Will we drink kombucha again?”

A Body-Horror Satire on Corporate Family that Will Make You Sick.

What if a corporation wasn’t just a company, but an insidious narcissistic villain? Jake Myers’ Kombucha takes this premise and pushes it into a grotesque, darkly hilarious territory.

The film is a humorous disturbing satire on how companies keep you chained to your desk, enforce a reign of healthy living, and insist it’s all for your benefit-when in reality, the only thing they care about is squeezing every ounce of productivity out of you.

But what is kombucha, really? A fizzy tea brewed with a floating blob of bacteria and yeast-supposedly a cleansing drink.

Sounds like the perfect recipe for a healthy bad trip-and that’s precisely what toxic environments are. They welcome you in like family, only to trap you in a system that alters your perception of work, dreams, and private life, leaving you physically and mentally sick.

Are today’s new illnesses really the result of such dehumanizing environments?

Kombucha cleverly lays bare how corporations build a cult-like ideology: follow the leader or be cast out. Bullying, gaslighting, mobbing-these tactics convince you that you are the problem whenever you raise concerns or notice cracks in their so-called happy club.

Mistakes are quickly patched over to polish the company image, but the shadow of those lies always leaves a stain.

Kombucha isn’t just a satire of money-corrupted culture; it also skewers the wellness industry and the influencers who flood our feeds with promises of eternal youth and boundless energy.

These fads are dressed-up placebos, stripping us of our money while offering nothing lasting. Like fashion trends, they come and go.

Co-written by Myers and Geoff Bakken, Kombucha is a natural evolution of their 2023 short film of the same name. It blends satire, body horror, and comedy with some truly stomach-churning moments.

The story follows a struggling musician, Luke (Terrence Carey), who takes a cushy corporate job, only to discover that the company-provided drink has sinister side effects.

Much of the narrative unfolds in the sterile Symbio office, evoking comparisons to the series Severance for its manipulation and erosion of personal identity, while blending in Cronenberg-style grotesquerie and the greasy practical effects of the cult Society.

The cinematography is key, with grey-blue tones contrasted with warm orange hues that establish a clinical yet oddly inviting environment.

The gooey horror of the kombucha then provides a sticky, grotesque counterpoint. It’s a visual style at once snarky and slimy, perfectly embodying the theme of being consumed by work.

The film taps into a screenlife storytelling approach, using phones and digital communication as narrative tools to highlight our loss of human connection.

It’s a curious blend of nostalgic 1980s-style practical effects with the fast-pace of today’s tech world. This descent of corrupted victims heightens both the humor and the psychological manipulation, making the absurdity feel uncomfortably real.

Kombucha is a provocation. Myers invites us to reflect: heed it, or keep wearing your fake corporate smile.

The real question is whether we’ll keep drinking.

A longer article by Tom Swift in The Mancunian

From the University of Manchester, England’s publication of record, this October 20 review is a conversation with director Jake Myers and actor Paige Bourne following the film’s showing at  Grimmfest 2025.

Making its Northern UK premiere at Grimmfest 2025 was satirical horror comedy, Kombucha. The film, directed by Jake Myers, is about exactly what you might expect from the title, sinister kombucha. It is also an over-the-top, comic-take on office culture and trying to make it as a creative in a capitalist society. At Grimmfest, I spoke to director Jake Myers and star Paige Bourne about the film.

Myers starts by giving me a beautifully succinct description of what the film is about. “Kombucha’s about a drink that makes people work themselves to death at a company.” “Why not try and keep it as short as possible?” he says. The film’s other elevator pitch log-line is David Cronenberg meets office space, less literal than what Myers offers but hints more at the film’s comedic tone.

It is obviously pressing to discuss the drink itself. “I think kombucha is like the new coffee in start-up culture, especially in America on the coast. Like, tech start-ups will have kombucha on tap,” he tells me, but also that “it transforms the chemistry of whatever it’s sitting is the SCOBY [Symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast] does.”

For Myers and screenwriter Geoff Bakken, the drink is there as a perfect symbol for both corporate culture in the US and an off-putting horror tool. “It’s all these live cultures that you put in your body and that change you biologically. It’s a compellingly horrific angle on the drink that makes it seem like something that Cronenberg might have come up with himself.”

We then talk about influences. I offer up Alex Garland’s FX series Devs as something that visually aligns with the film, which Myers was delighted by. “That was exactly what we went for. No way. Like, Devs was in the slideshow, the pitch deck that we had for our camera department. Devs was a huge influence for the look of the film because we wanted to elevate it beyond the aesthetic of a B movie.”

In fact, the Garland influence runs deeper than just that. Bourne says that the film she is drawing from for most of her performance is Ex Machina. “When we were preparing, Ex Machina is what we talked about a lot, just to get the tone right – because I mean the plot is insane, our big bad is like sentient bacteria and that could have gone very badly treating it really seriously and not like leaning into like jokiness in the humour, but really leaning into the anxiety, and letting the humour come from the release of that anxiety was really essential.”

Any horror-comedy has the tricky job of tone management. Myers talks about how one of the ways he tries to keep it under control is letting the horror be scary and have the comedy come from the corporate satire. “The focus on some of the corporate lingo, when you put a spotlight on this thing that has been normalized […] it makes it feel weird. It makes the familiar ridiculous.”

The office setting for Myers is also what grounds the film. “I listened to an interview with Jordan Peele and he said, What makes Get Out work is that everyone can relate to it because everyone has this intense fear of meeting their partner’s parents for the first time. It is this relatable hook. And I think that what makes Kombucha work is I think so many people have a fear of not finding purpose, a fear of starting a new job, a fear of losing that job, and the fear of, yeah, letting that job ferment you, into something that you no longer like.”

The mention of Jordan Peele seems like a pertinent one, as the film draws many of its actors from the Chicago comedy scene. “Comedic actors are so good at, number one, buying into a big concept and being like, yeah, all right, I’m on board with this,” Bourne tells me. “[they’re] attuned to understanding when it’s appropriate to kind of give a little wink at the audience of when something comedic is happening and when it’s not, and we need to just lean into the horror elements of it.”

The Kombucha itself is not the only bad of the film. Without spoilers, there is a creature in the film pulling the screens, which given the low-budget nature of the film I was surprised to see. Whilst it seems pretty seamless, Myers tells me it was anything but behind-the-scenes.

“We were going to do the entire thing practically, but it didn’t work. The prop arrived late, we needed it a few days earlier and because of how tight the schedule was we just couldn’t fix it. I hope I didn’t show it on set, but I just wept the entire ride home that day. But I called my friend Kyle from Third Beacon [a Chicago VFX company], and I told him about the setup, and I said, Can we do X, Y, and Z? Because I’ve worked in VFX before, I was like, I think we can fix this. And to his credit, he said, let’s make it happen. So I hopped on the assembly line, let him take the lead, and I feel like we were able to pull off a big bad that didn’t ruin the film.”

I asked Bourne if the lack of practical effects made the acting process harder. “It was tough,” she replied, to a knowing laugh from Myers. Although the studio space itself helped, Bourne explained. “It’s like video panels on the ceiling and all the walls around you. And doing that instead of a green screen was so helpful to get an idea of… how is this room? How creepy is it? As opposed to just like, well, try to explain this to me as you pretend to act against absolutely nothing.”

The aspect of the film that came more naturally was the idea of struggling to balance artistic goals with corporate interests. “The audition scene that I was sent was Luke [Terrence Carey] and Elise’s [Bourne] breakup scene from the beginning of the movie” – a scene where the two central character’s relationship falls apart over the tension between pursuing music and being financially stable.

“I understood their whole dynamic immediately, because I’ve had almost the same conversation in my own personal life of like, yes, I have these intangible creative dreams and desires, but I also have even more tangible bills to pay at the end of the day. And so this really tapped into the horror of like how much of myself am I willing to sell and give up to a corporate job so that I can continue to fund the dreams I would much rather be pursuing?”

To round-up, the pair told me what was next in store. Bourne tells me she has a lot of indie projects around Chicago on the go, and Myers is directing a slasher next year about “a woman that hunts down the guys who developed a dating app using their own dating app.” He also hints at a Kombucha sequel that is “in the works.”

William Earl’s Review in Variety

‘Kombucha’ Is a Bloody Satire of Startups and Grind Culture: ‘Everyone Is Feeling Corporate Burnout’

“Kombucha,” the new horror-comedy film from director and co-writer Jake Myers, has been in the works for years, but the office culture satire is hitting even harder during the current economic climate.

“It really does feel like this hits at a cultural moment,” Myers says. “In a way that I think causes some people discomfort, but also they can laugh at it.”

Myers, who wrote the film with Geoff Bakken, has delivered a uniquely modern take on corporate grind that does not shy away from body horror. In the film, an anonymous yet recognizable tech company offers new employees lucrative starting wages, doing something, as well as a potent kombucha that ends up making them work to death.

After debuting at Dances with Films in June and playing at festivals like FrightFest and Grimmfest, “Kombucha” was cheered on by industry insiders and fellow filmmakers during the Friday feature slot at FilmQuest in Provo, Utah, on Oct. 24.

“Kombucha” began life as an unlikely idea, given that Myers would need money to make it, and those purse strings are often held by the kind of businessmen the story satirizes.

“Geoff gave me three different script ideas, and ‘Kombucha’ … it seemed like everyone is feeling corporate burnout,” Myers said. “I don’t think anyone dreams of one day creating value for shareholders, and I loved the idea. It was a feature script at first. I said, ‘I don’t think anybody’s going to fund this as is. I don’t think that there’s going to be a producer — instead of private equity investors — that is going to be able to imagine it.’ So we worked together, we wrote a seven-minute short, toured with the short and then talked with Take Care Productions in Chicago. We said, ‘Hey, tax incentive, keeping it at this budget range. I think it’s something that we can actually pull off in Chicago with the Second City talent here.’”

Myers was ultimately able to play with fresh ideas of corporate culture, as he considered this film to be a satire of startups vs. standard cubical fare.

“I found it really refreshing in this idea that we’re all going to be productive, and it felt a little ‘woo,’” Myers said. “Kombucha is on tap at so many startups in different places. That’s why that drink felt really important. This idea of corporate family and these rituals felt culty in a way that I enjoyed. I’ve worked at startups before, and all of those things happen. You do feel love bombed at first, but you also feel the fear that any day we could do a mass layoff. It’s a terrifying but relatable sentiment, and I really liked that hook.”

Myers was also thrilled to successfully shoot the feature in Chicago, where he lives.

“I think Chicago has so much talent,” he says. “I don’t think there are any divas in Chicago. I don’t think there’s that culture at all. Everyone has this attitude of, ‘We’re going to get this done. We are going to solve this problem together.’ And I think there’s a little bit of a chip on our shoulder to prove that we can make a movie that can hold its own with the bigger cities and markets. I just like Chicago people.”

As for Myers’ future plans, he’s working on a tech slasher with a killer logline (“a woman with a mask uses a dating app to hunt down its developers”), but he sees real potential for another serving of “Kombucha.”

“I think we’re going to do a ‘Kombucha 2,’” he says. “It’s going to be down the road a little bit. We have to iron out the script, but we have an outline, and I’m going to work with Geoff again. I’m thinking more wellness cult, a little bit of NXIVM and branding, and multi-level marketing in there.”

Hrvoje Milakovic’s review in MSN

A Taste of Madness: The Trailer for ‘Kombucha’ Is Here

A new indie horror-comedy called Kombucha is stirring up attention for its dark take on modern office life.

The film, directed by Jake Myers and co-written with Geoff Bakken, looks at what happens when wellness culture and corporate ambition go way too far.

The story follows Luke, played by Terrence Carey, a musician who hasn’t had much luck with his career. After his relationship with his girlfriend Elyse (Paige Bourne) falls apart, Luke takes a job at a company called Symbio. The place is stylish, modern, and obsessed with positivity and health, at least on the surface.

Things take a strange turn when his new boss, Kelsey (Claire McFadden), introduces him to the company’s special kombucha drink. She insists that all employees try it. What seems like an innocent office perk turns out to be something much more dangerous. The drink has a disturbing side effect, it makes workers push themselves until they literally drop dead from exhaustion.

Kombucha mixes sharp humor with horror to explore the pressure and emptiness that often come with today’s workplace culture. It pokes fun at the idea of “team spirit” and “corporate wellness” while showing the darker truth behind them.

The film also stars Jesse Kendall, Zoe Agapinan, Charin Alvarez, and Rachel Benson. It promises a mix of laughs, chills, and uncomfortable truths about what people give up in the name of success.

Early reactions describe Kombucha as “a smart, crass, and entertaining horror comedy that hits close to home for anyone who’s ever been stuck in a soul-crushing job.”

Kombucha will hit theaters on December 2.

The InsightTrendsWorld Review

Kombucha: A Deep Dive into Corporate Burnout Satire

What is the ‘Corporate Burnout Satire’ Trend: The Rise of Anti-Grind Culture Horror

The film ‘Kombucha’ taps into the pervasive feeling of corporate burnout by fusing tech startup culture with body horror and satire, resonating deeply with the current economic climate.

• The Universality of Burnout The core concept of the film, which was developed over several years, is hitting harder now due to its direct commentary on the modern professional experience. Director Jake Myers notes that the discomfort felt by some viewers is mixed with relatable humor, confirming the timing is culturally significant. This suggests a growing appetite for entertainment that validates and satirizes the high-stress, low-fulfillment reality of contemporary work life. The universality of this sentiment makes the satire broadly applicable beyond specific industries.
• A Bloody Satire of Startups and Grind Culture ‘Kombucha’ is explicitly a horror-comedy that uses grotesque body horror elements to critique the anonymous, yet recognizable, tech company environment. The central plot device involves a potent kombucha drink provided to new, well-paid employees that ultimately makes them work themselves to death. This blending of genres—satire and body horror—serves to exaggerate the destructive nature of modern corporate demands.

Insight: This trend reflects a widespread cultural fatigue with endless productivity cycles and mandatory workplace enthusiasm.

Why It Matches the Moment: The Cult of Corporate Family

The film effectively captures the current moment by dissecting the toxic positivity and underlying insecurity inherent in the startup ecosystem.

• Startup Culture Tropes as Culty Rituals Myers deliberately chose the setting of a startup, not a standard cube farm, to satirize the “woo” mentality of hyper-productivity and faux-wellness. Elements like kombucha on tap represent the superficial perks used to mask intense pressure and demanding expectations. These rituals of corporate family are presented as “culty” by the director, implying a sinister, manipulative element beneath the surface.
• The Terrifying Relatability of Precarity The director highlights the love-bombing that employees experience at the beginning of startup employment, contrasting it sharply with the constant, terrifying fear of sudden mass layoffs. This paradox—feeling both valued and completely expendable—is a powerful and relatable emotional hook for the film. The financial instability and arbitrary nature of modern employment provide the terrifying foundation for the horror elements.

Insight: The audience is ready for cinematic critique of workplace rituals that promise fulfillment but deliver anxiety.

Detailed findings: Production Strategy and Festival Success

The production of ‘Kombucha’ was strategically executed as a low-budget feature utilizing local talent and tax incentives, which led to strong festival recognition.

• Strategic Short-to-Feature Model Recognizing the difficulty in securing traditional funding for a niche satire about businessmen, the director and co-writer initially created a seven-minute short film to tour and prove the concept’s viability. This short-to-feature path demonstrated the creative team’s resourcefulness and commitment to the story, overcoming financial barriers imposed by the very culture they sought to satirize. The partnership with Take Care Productions was key to keeping the budget manageable by leveraging tax incentives and local resources.
• Leveraging Chicago’s Collaborative Talent The decision to shoot the feature film in Chicago was a strategic and intentional move, capitalizing on the strong local talent pool, particularly from the Second City comedy scene. Myers praises the Chicago film culture for its professional, collaborative attitude, specifically noting the absence of a “diva” culture. This successful local production validates the city’s potential to compete with larger production centers and reinforces a regional cinema movement.
• Strong Festival Reception The film has garnered positive attention on the festival circuit, including its debut at Dances with Films and subsequent showings at FrightFest and Grimmfest. Its screening at FilmQuest was met with approval from industry insiders and fellow filmmakers, confirming its niche appeal and execution quality. This suggests the film has successfully crossed over from a small, local project to a recognized genre piece.

Insight: Resourceful, locally-shot productions can successfully tap into global thematic trends to achieve festival notoriety.

Summary: Key Themes and Future Plans

‘Kombucha’ is a blend of corporate satire and body horror, and its creators are already planning a sequel focusing on wellness cults and multi-level marketing.

• Critiquing Shareholder Value The film’s primary satirical target is the often-hollow goal of contemporary corporate work—generating value for distant shareholders—which Myers contrasts with genuine personal aspiration. By focusing on the cult-like elements of corporate family and work rituals, the film frames the modern workplace as an environment of enforced, and ultimately lethal, devotion. This critique is what Myers believes makes the film so resonant and darkly humorous to audiences.
• The Wellness Cult Sequel Director Myers is planning a sequel, tentatively titled ‘Kombucha 2,’ which will continue the thematic exploration of exploitative systems but shift focus to the wellness industry and related schemes. Specifically mentioning NXIVM, branding, and multi-level marketing (MLM) shows an intention to explore the intersection of personal aspiration and toxic exploitation in different but equally insidious contexts. This planned expansion suggests the original film’s concept has deep narrative potential beyond the initial startup setting.

Insight: The success of this satire suggests an emerging cinematic subgenre dedicated to critiquing toxic structures of modern personal and professional self-optimization.

Movie Trend: The Rise of Genre-Bending Corporate Critique

The film exemplifies a growing trend of merging niche genre conventions, like horror and comedy, to deliver sharp social and corporate commentary.

Insight: This style allows filmmakers to address uncomfortable societal truths through the safer, more palatable lens of extreme genre entertainment.

Trend Insight: The Inherent Horror of Precarity

The central theme of the film—being worked to death by an employer—highlights the pervasive contemporary anxiety surrounding employment precarity and burnout culture.

Insight: The film acts as a cathartic release by violently dramatizing the audience’s real-life fears about corporate exploitation.

Social Trend: Satirizing the Wellness-Washed Workplace

The choice of “kombucha” as the destructive element skewers the corporate practice of “wellness-washing,” where superficial health perks mask fundamentally toxic work environments.

Insight: This trend points to a desire to expose the hypocrisy of companies that prioritize employee image over employee well-being.

Key Success Factors: Audience Relatability and Production Efficiency

The film’s success is attributed to its highly relatable subject matter and the director’s effective low-budget, locally-sourced production strategy.

• Audience Relatability The film’s thematic relevance to widespread corporate burnout ensures an immediate connection with the audience, making the satirical elements land harder and the horror feel more personal. Myers recognized that few people truly aspire to “create value for shareholders,” demonstrating an understanding of the audience’s underlying dissatisfaction with modern work. This strong emotional resonance is a key driver of the film’s positive reception in the festival circuit.
• Production Execution By committing to a self-contained production in Chicago, the team avoided the typical pitfalls of high-budget, geographically fragmented projects, ensuring resource efficiency. The use of local Chicago talent, particularly Second City comedians, guarantees strong performance while capitalizing on the area’s reputation for having a collaborative, driven crew. The short-to-feature pathway was a low-risk method for gaining investor confidence in a difficult-to-fund concept.

Insight: Authenticity in social commentary, paired with pragmatic production choices, can be a winning formula for independent genre films.

Director Vision: Exaggerating Corporate Rituals into a Cult

Jake Myers views the film as a modern spin on corporate grind satire, specifically targeting the “culty” rituals and “love bombed” feeling of tech startups. His vision was to take the relatable fear of mass layoffs and the hollow promises of corporate “family” and amplify them into a bloody, body-horror scenario. He intentionally used props like kombucha on tap to represent the superficial wellness façade, ensuring the film’s exaggerated horror had a grounded, recognizable target.

Insight: Myers’s vision successfully translates contemporary workplace anxiety into a literal, physical threat for maximum satirical impact.

Key Cultural Implications: The Normalization of Destructive Work

The film’s cultural implication lies in its direct challenge to the normalization of overwork, exploitation, and compulsory enthusiasm—the core tenets of grind culture. By showing employees literally working themselves to death, it implies that the contemporary corporate goal (creating shareholder value) is fundamentally destructive to the individual. The film provides a commentary that allows audiences to laugh at and confront the aspects of their professional lives that cause discomfort and fear.

Insight: ‘Kombucha’ suggests that modern work culture has become a passive form of self-destruction.

Creative Vision and Production: The Short-to-Feature Development Model

The creative process began with Myers and co-writer Geoff Bakken identifying corporate burnout as a universally felt idea, leading them to the “Kombucha” concept. Due to anticipated funding challenges for a satire of the business world, they strategically wrote and toured with a seven-minute short film first. This proof-of-concept secured the feature production deal with Take Care Productions, allowing them to utilize Chicago’s talent and tax incentives, making the project financially feasible and creatively distinct.

Streaming Strategy and Release: Festival-First Momentum Building

The film’s release strategy centered on building momentum through high-profile film festivals, including Dances with Films (June 2025) and FrightFest (October 2025). This festival-first approach is crucial for independent horror-comedies to generate critical buzz and attract distribution. Following its festival run, “Kombucha” is set for a Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital release in North America on December 2, 2025, and is expected to be available for streaming in the UK later in the year.

Key Trend Highlighted: Hyper-Niche Genre Satire

The film highlights the trend of hyper-niche genre satire, where filmmakers target highly specific modern phenomena (like tech startups and wellness fads) and use extreme genre conventions (body horror) to amplify their critique. This method ensures the satire is sharp, recognizable, and immediately relevant to a defined cultural moment.

Trend Implications Across Entertainment and Society: The Future of Satire

The success of ‘Kombucha’ implies that audiences and the entertainment industry are increasingly accepting and seeking out content that directly confronts and ridicules toxic societal structures, particularly those masked by positive branding (like “corporate family”). Socially, it indicates a collective breaking point with “hustle culture,” where cinematic representation serves as a public validation of this fatigue.

Key Insight: The Power of Local Production for Universal Themes

The production success in Chicago proves that strong, universally relatable themes, combined with efficient local talent and financial strategy (tax incentives), can lead to a feature film that successfully competes on the international festival stage.

Cultural Resonance: Laughing at the Love Bomb

The film resonates culturally because it captures the dissonance between the “love bombed” feeling employees get at the start of a startup job and the terrifying realization of precarity (the threat of mass layoffs). By turning these corporate experiences into a literal death sentence, the film grants audiences a safe way to process and satirize their own vulnerability within the employment market.

Insight: The film provides a darkly comedic outlet for anxiety about corporate control over one’s life.

Why to watch: A Bloody, Relatable Cultural Mirror

Viewers should watch ‘Kombucha’ for its unique blend of horrific comedy and deeply relevant social commentary on modern work life.

• Timeliness and Catharsis The film is timely and relevant, speaking directly to the widespread experience of corporate burnout and the pressure to be constantly productive. It offers a cathartic experience by acknowledging and exaggerating the feeling of being exploited by a company. Watching it provides a chance to laugh at the discomfort and absurdity of the “grind” mentality.
• Provocative Genre Execution For fans of genre cinema, the film offers a unique blend of horror and comedy, using body horror to deliver its satirical punch. This extreme approach to critique ensures the film is engaging and provocative, moving beyond standard workplace comedies. The use of a simple, relatable object like kombucha as the source of horror is creatively clever and memorable.

Insight: It’s a compelling, well-executed independent film that confirms the validity of anti-grind sentiment.

This film belongs to the lineage of entertainment that uses extreme circumstances or dark comedy to critique the corporate machine and its dehumanizing effects.

Insight: The success of Kombucha continues the tradition of using genre filmmaking to criticize the oppressive and often absurd nature of modern capitalism.