Lil Rel Howery and Tiffany Haddish's Haunted Heist premiered at Fantastic Fest 2025, and it brought audiences a unique story filled with horror, comedy, and a good sprinkle of heist action. The movie follows four estranged friends who reunite at a house, which then turns into an unexpected robbery that gets even crazier when ghosts enter the picture.
The cast of the film spoke with The Direct's Russ Milheim at Fantastic Fest 2025 about how the movie manages to juggle the many genres it has going for it.
Lil Rel Howery explained that this movie is "truly a horror comedy and a heist movie" but has "a lot of different things happening at the same time." At the end of the day, the actor admitted the movie has to "lean into something to take the lead," and in this case, it was the comedy.
The cast members we spoke to include Lil Rel Howery (director, "Ron"), Tiffany Haddish (Shari), Brett Gelman (Alton), and Ari Dayan (Majorie). Their comments can be read below and seen in the full video of our interviews. Haunted Heist does not currently have a release date set. Another big horror movie that made a splash at Fantastic Fest 2025 was Neon's Shelby Oaks, directed by Chris Stuckmann.
The Cast of Haunted Heist on Their Film Leaning Into Multiple Genres
The New Movie Leans Into Heist, Horror, and Comedy All at Once.
On the red carpet of Haunted Heist at Fantastic Fest 2025, The Direct's Russ Milheim asked the cast of the film how the movie manages to balance horror and comedy while also being a heist story. Lil Rel Howery was proud to say that this is "truly a horror-comedy and a heist movie:"
Lil Rel Howery: This is truly a horror-comedy and a heist movie. It's a lot of different things happening at the same time, which I hope I don't weird people out because there's a lot of things happening at the same time, but it's leaning into everything. It's leaning into comedy. It's lean into the mystery, leaning into the horror. So we're playing with a lot of different things, but we're letting comedy lead the way with it, too. And I think that's what makes this movie special.
Howery added that at some point, "you have to lean into something to kind of take the lead," which in this case was the comedy:
Howery: It's tough because, in a weird way, you have to lean into something to take the lead. And sometimes you don't make that decision till later. And we kind of basically made that decision to lean into the comedy and let it build from there, right? But it was crazy. But the way we shot it, we shot away. We had an opportunity to kind of lean into whatever we wanted, to delete it, and then we made a decision, and the comedies became the leader.
On the film being a heist, comedy, and horror without losing any of those elements, star Tiffany Haddish admitted she isn't sure how the whole thing turned out. Still, everyone had a blast bringing it to life:
Tiffany Haddish: Kay, I'ma be honest with you, I haven't seen the whole entire thing, so I don't know if it loses [any of them], though I did live it. I'm gonna tell you this. I lived it, and it was super fun to make, and it was super fun, even in the scary moments; we were laughing. So I'm not sure what y'all gonna get, but I can tell you this: the crew had a good time. I had a good time.
Sometimes the ghost pops out here, this pops out there. And then, you know, you're playing imaginary and you're like, but there's nothing there. And then, hopefully, the CGI people, the special effects people, make that thing actually scary. And it's not just this tennis ball that I'm looking at... I personally felt like there was a healthy balance.
When we were shooting it, it felt like it there was a lot of me being scary, and I genuinely was scared, because where we were shooting at it was creepy. We were at Berry Gordy's old mansion. There were still pictures of Michael Jackson up on the wall and a lot of the people that's dead now, and I felt like we were being watched.
Brett Gelman: I mean, that's exactly what it does. I mean, with horror and comedy, it's sort of, I think, it just can very appropriately go hand in hand, because it's really bringing the same technique into effect. We have set up in the punchline. You know, set up and scare, whatever you want to call it, and really, there's something very scary about comedy sometimes, and something very funny about horror sometimes.
So, blending all of that is really fun. And then you got the heist element to really be driving both of those things with story. You know, heist is just essentially story, and then you fill in the in the color, with the comedy and the horror.
Ari Dayan: It's really comedy-heavy. So, I mean, they kind of work very well together, because the horror world and the comedy world is all about timing, so you have four incredible comedians who are total geniuses, and you'll be titillated in every way... It was a blast to make, and I think you'll have some amazing jump scares.
The full red carpet interviews with the cast of Haunted Heist at Fantastic Fest can be viewed below:
For more Fantastic Fest 2025 coverage from The Direct, see our interview with the cast of Paramount Pictures' upcoming killer chimp movie, Primate.
