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Logline

PUPPET is a micro-budget horror film that draws parallels between being stuck in an abusive relationship and humanity’s current “stuckness” regarding A.I. regulations.

Synopsis

In the near future, climate-related quarantines are a normality due to the environmental havoc mass data centers have wreaked on the planet. The night before one of these shutdowns, Lucy decides she’s leaving her abusive husband, Sam, once and for all. She drives to a small coastal town to hide out at her grandmother’s empty beach house. While she’s in the bath, the front door opens. It’s Sam – he tracked her location. As he searches for Lucy, Sam slips on a puddle she left while escaping the bathtub and cracks his head open, dying instantly. Lucy, now trapped in the house with the corpse of her husband, for an unforeseen amount of time, freaks out. She strenuously pulls the body into her grandma’s “cat room” and shuts the door.

Thinking his death was quarantine-related, the government sends her a chip that, when in contact with anything the deceased owned, will embody that object with an A.I. version of the person. She absent-mindedly throws the chip in what she thinks is an empty drawer – but alas, there’s one lonely sock belonging to her ex still in it. As the chip and sock touch, Sock Sam is born. Sock Sam is a lot nicer than human Sam, so Lucy starts to believe she might actually get closure. However, as Sock Sam gains knowledge and sentience, he becomes more and more sinister – like human Sam. Sock Sam learns how to control every aspect of Lucy’s life. It’s worse than when she was with human Sam. Lucy must now try to find a way to destroy Sock Sam before he kills her to create himself a sock companion.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Joey Ally — Writer/Director/Editor/Producer/“Lucy”
Joey Ally (writer/director/editor/producer/“Lucy”)
Joey Ally is a New York-born, LA-based writer, director, actor, and musician who received her film education assisting directors Megan Griffiths and the dearly missed Lynn Shelton. Her feature debut, THE HATER, which she wrote, directed, and starred in alongside Bruce Dern, Meredith Hagner, Nora Dunn, Ian Harding, and Ali Larter, was distributed theatrically by Vertical Films and on Mubi. Her career began as a 4-year-old dancing with Big Bird on Sesame Street.

Her films THE HATER and LET’S NOT GET CRAZY were developed through the Sundance Institute’s labs. Joey’s award-winning shorts, Joy Joy Nails, Partners, and Minimum Wage, screened at Sundance, Tribeca, and online with Vimeo Staff Pick Premieres and The New Yorker. She also co-wrote and starred in Are You Still Singing, and starred in Uproot and Followers, all chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick.

A 2019 Adrienne Shelly Foundation Women Filmmakers Grant x Sundance Institute recipient, Joey is an alum of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, Tribeca/Chanel “Through Her Lens,” the Universal Pictures Directors Intensive, and Amherst College. Recently, QUEEN OF HEARTS, which she directed, co-wrote, edited, and scored, premiered at Palm Springs Shortfest 2025. She is represented by David Baggelaar at Good Fear Film + Television.

Liz Hara — Puppeteer for “Sock Sam”
Liz Hara is a Los Angeles-based writer, builder, and puppeteer. Cutting her teeth at Jim Henson’s studio, she has built puppets and costumes for many theatrical and film productions, including Avenue Q, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, and The Lion King. In 2015, she and her team won an Emmy Award for Best Costume Design for their work on Sesame Street. Liz also writes and puppet wrangles for Sesame Street, winning an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in 2018. She has also written for CBS’ Life in Pieces, Apple+’s Helpsters, HBO’s Esme & Roy, and Nature Cat and Odd Squad for PBS. Her newest gig is writing for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, the newest Marvel superhero cartoon for Disney.

Ian Harding — Producer/“Sam”/“Sock Sam”/“Greg”
Ian Harding is an American actor, author, and producer born in Heidelberg, Germany, and raised in Northern Virginia. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama.

Ian is best known for his role as Ezra Fitz — the charming love interest of Aria Montgomery — on the Freeform mystery drama Pretty Little Liars, which ran from 2010 to 2017. He quickly became a fan favorite, earning the Teen Choice Award for Male Summer Breakout Star in 2010, followed by back-to-back wins for Choice TV Actor: Drama from 2011 through 2015.

He has since starred in other shows such as Chicago Med, Long Slow Exhale and Ripple, which was ranked in the top ten shows on the platform in every region it aired. He also lent his voice to the show Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts which was nominated for an Emmy. He most recently starred opposite Lindsay Lohan and Kristin Chenoweth in Netflix’s “Our Little Secret” which has garnered 60 million global views since its premiere.

T.J. William — Cinematographer/Editor/Producer
T.J. Williams, Jr. is the son of a cinematographer, but the child of Seattleʼs independent film scene. At 13 years old he wore a Steadicam for the first time, and by his early twenties T.J. was working on two to three features a year in the camera department, and shooting commercials on the side. Twenty years later, T.J. is a two time Emerging Cinematographer Award Winner who cares deeply about the films he is given the opportunity to photograph. T.J. is a three time Alumni of Sundance, as well as of Tribeca, AFI Fest, BFI, Camerimage, and many others. His short projects can be seen online with The New Yorker, and Vimeo Premieres. His latest feature, THE HATER (Dir. Joey Ally) is available on Mubi, and his previous one, SADIE (Dir. Megan Griffiths) screened in competition at SXSW 2018. In 2019 T.J. was invited to participate in the Sundance Director’s Labs as one of four cinematographers. He photographs commercials for major brands domestically and abroad including Microsoft, Disney, Amazon, Samsung, Honda, Volvo, and a dozen others, but it’s the stories, and the characters within his narrative work that keep him coming back for more.

Adrienne Childress — Producer
Adrienne Childress, a Chicago native, is a producer and writer based in Los Angeles. Her credits span documentary, commercial, music video, and short- and long-form narrative content, with a central focus on working with directors and creatives whose voices are underrepresented in the industry. From 2015 to 2019, Adrienne managed and oversaw production for the Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute. In 2024, she continued that mission by consulting on the creation and execution of Netflix’s Proof of Concept Accelerator Program. Her feature films MY DIVORCE PARTY, starring Rumer Willis, is streaming on Amazon Prime, and THE HATER, starring Joey Ally, Bruce Dern, and Ali Larter, on Mubi. In 2019, Adrienne’s project GIRL CALLIN, a proof of concept she wrote and produced, was accepted as a part of Refinery 29’s Shatterbox Anthology Series and premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival in 2020.

She has produced Visual Impact Statements for victims of the Woolsey, Eaton, Palisades, and Maui fires, as well as the PBS documentary series A TOWN CALLED VICTORIA. Most recently, Adrienne produced the Sundance x Adobe content series “Festival Moments” for the 2025 and 2026 Sundance Film Festival

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact [email protected].