NFT: Cursed Images (2026) Movie Review: An original premise squandered on half-baked thrills

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If there is anything more pretentious than crypto-dudes going on about how they made it big without having a shroud of humanity in their characters, it would be a gathering of the said crypto-dudes where they go on about how they got rich by just buying things at the right price. It’s a tough sell to have an entire movie around this set of people, but director Jonas Odenheimer said, “Hold my beer.”

“NFT: Cursed Images,” which is mostly set inside Kit’s (Patrick Shearer) flat somewhere in London, kicks off by introducing us to a gathering of these long-standing friends. James (David Wyman), the only non-crypto-savvy one of the group, has just returned to the city after being away post his breakup with Cas (Mariah Nonnemacher), who happens to tag along with Julia (Jasmine Clark), not knowing that it would be super-awkward meeting the guy who dumped her.

Julia is dating Nes (Nobuse Jnr), the know-it-all of the group, with a clear suggestion being made about him dabbling in drugs with the host at some point (although like James’ reasons to leave or his return, this part isn’t explained at any point whatsoever). There’s also Sarah, whom Kit is into and possibly wants to get back with, but Sarah has had it with his shenanigans, even though Kit treats her like one of her crypto-bros. Dan (Durassie Kiangangu), who hasn’t had the kind of success all of the others have had (and is quietly bullied for being poor by Nes), seems to be the only character out of the bunch that feels real.

Anyway, the film begins with a prologue where a couple is killed by the titular images before the gathering starts, and Odenheimer makes sure he uses James’ character to present an expositionary bit about what NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) really are. So, once the audience is up to speed, the plot kicks in. Kit receives a set of images that Sarah instantly recognises as a part of a collection known as Crypto horrors. The friends do not pay heed to this odd claim as Kit sends each of them one of the images that he randomly received. However, once all of them leave the party and head back home, the Cursed images seem to take shape and start haunting and later hunting each one of them.

Now, I’ve got to be honest here. Even though I have zero interest in anything Crypto, the premise intrigued me. The idea of online entities that could be seen as a metaphor for gambling, coming back to bite the owner’s existence, is fairly over-the-top but should work if handled well. However, Odenheimer squanders the potential of the premise on half-baked thrills that are so predictably timed and poorly spread across a tight runtime of seventy-four minutes that you are left with only vapid scenes that leave you frustrated.

There’s no logical reason given at any point for the images, their existence, or how these characters try to figure out how to beat them. It also doesn’t help that the film is full of convenient devices, like someone coming to the apartment door right on time to open it for two of the characters, or the sequence in which the images will start killing the group. Even if the film twisted one of these tropes and tried to go against the set parameters, it would have had some redeeming quality.

The creature design that the images turn into is fairly well-done for a low-budget film, but very little to nothing is introduced within the narrative to make them feel even a tad bit scary or remotely creepy. A final stretch in the film that comes after a lot of conventionally placed ideas tries to compensate for a lack of character development or plot inconsistency, but that, too, is dropped in the finale for a fairly tame takeaway that shoots the film in the foot.

The result is a film that offers nothing substantial in the name of horror, beyond that super-creepy streets of London, where the Uber drivers not coming to your exact location feels more dangerous than whatever the hell the filmmaker manages to conjure up.