Reset is a 2025 science fiction film written and directed by Michael Yammine. Although Yammine, who previously served as the cinematographer on 2023’s Demon Behind the Glass, had directed a few shorts prior, Reset appears to be their debut helming a feature length film. The film would win multiple awards at 2025’s Amazing Fantasy Fest (in Buffalo, NY), including Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Special Effects Make Up. Reset was picked up for distribution by Uncork’d Entertainment and released to digital and VOD sites in August of last year. As of this writing, the film was available to rent on both Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video for about $5. However, there is a free-to-watch copy available on YouTube… if you don’t mind having to watch multiple ads every five minutes.

The film stars Adam Holley, who has also appeared in the aforementioned Demon Behind the Glass (which I’ve admittedly never watched) and 2022’s Three Days in the Woods 2: Killin’ Time (which I admittedly had never previously heard of). Holley portrays “Lucas”, a father tirelessly searching for his missing daughter, Eden (Lorelai Brown), whom he believes to have been abducted by aliens. As if this loss weren’t enough to break the man, his wife has seemingly left him as well. However, Lucas lives on a large stretch of land in a very small town, so it’s almost a given that some townsfolk might start rumors that both mother and daughter can still be found somewhere on the family’s properly. More precisely, under the family’s property.

As the viewer soon discovers, there are indeed strange entities lingering and loitering around the property. In fact, there are 2 distinct types. The first are slimy, almost reptilian (yet still quite humanoid) creatures with faces far too similar to Marvel’s “Venom” character that appear nightly to basically kick the shit out of Lucas. The other are a group of four beings of light who hover in the sky above and essentially sit back and watch while Lucas gets the shit kicked out of him. That’s not to say that Lucas doesn’t fight back, packing enough ammunition and explosives to take out a number of the slimy beasts along the way. That said, they just keep returning.

Each night sees Lucas waging his own personal war on his land against these invaders, continuously hoping that he will eventually find a clue that will reveal what happened to his daughter. Meanwhile, the viewer will spend nearly the first 30 minutes of the film waiting for any clue to just what the Hell is going on.

However, before we get that first clue, we get to meet the film’s other primary character; Ruth (Caitlin Westfall), a young waitress at the local diner, who drives out to Lucas’s home one evening to return a photo of Eden that he’d accidentally dropped in the establishment earlier that day. She arrives at the property just mere moments after Lucas has taken out one of the creatures with a homemade explosive, the fire still burning a short distance away. Through a series of bizarre events, Ruth finds herself trapped at Lucas’s farm and now a not-entirely-willing part of his on-going quest to learn what these creatures did with his daughter and why. Granted, the entire film is a series of bizarre with little connective thread made apparent, so that last sentence really isn’t saying all that much.

With another character now added to the plot, Lucas finally takes a moment to explain just what some of that plot is. Although he’s managed to kill or incapacitate some of the reptilian creatures on occasion, the evening always concludes with the floating “nightlights” instantaneously wiping out all evidence that anything had ever occurred each and every time, which Lucas refers to as a “reset”. (Hence, the film’s title.) This often includes wiping out the man’s memory, which is why he has learned to leave notes and recordings reminding him of what he has learned so far. As Ruth soon learns, it’s not her first time learning this. Because of this specific plot element, Reset has received quite a few comparisons to 1993’s Groundhog Day, but it’s probably more accurate to compare the concept to another 90s’ comedy, 1994’s Clean Slate (starring Dana Carvey).

To say that Reset is something of a “slow burn” might be an understatement. I’m pretty sure there an underground coal fire somewhere in Pennsylvania that would scream “Hurry the Hell up!” at the screen… if coal fires could scream or even watch movies. Yes, the action does ramp up quite significantly once a third character, one with no prior connection to the other characters, just randomly shows up. However, the plot remains so confusing and convoluted that it may not be enough to keep many viewers interested.

Reset has some really interesting ideas at play, but they unfortunate don’t come together to form something all that cohesive. By the time the film finally reaches its conclusion, the whole thing has become some bizarre and mostly ineffective parable on grief and learning to accept and deal with loss. As there are some generally minor  religious undertones, “parable” may be a more fitting term that I’d first conceived. However, Reset presents a case where it’s protagonist is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. So, what’s the fucking lesson here? Give up hope?

Reset does feature some really nice camerawork (particularly aerial shots), and Westfall gives a really solid performance in her debut role, but neither can really save Reset from garnering more than a “Meh” from me. I definitely can’t say that I disliked the film, and you very well may enjoy it more than I did. As such, I won’t tell anyone to “pass” on the film, but I won’t be recommending it either.