It’s a Wrap: LaSardo’s ‘Hypernormalized’ Locks In and Prepares to Haunt

Hypernormalized has officially wrapped principal photography, closing out an ambitious, globe-hopping shoot that spanned Los Angeles, Toronto, Tokyo, and Málaga, Spain—an international production that mirrors the film’s unraveling, reality-bending horrors.

Directed by Justin McConnell (Lifechanger), the project came together through a hybrid filmmaking approach: McConnell oversaw the Canadian leg on set while remotely directing additional units around the world. The global team included Tricia Lee (Silent Retreat) helming the U.S. shoot, Darryl Shaw covering Japan, and Adam Mason (Songbird) capturing the nightmare imagery in Spain.

The film follows a man tormented by violent nightmares and stalked by a creeping, otherworldly presence. As his sanity erodes, he becomes convinced that the entity haunting him is also terrorizing his tight-knit online friend group—scattered across different countries yet connected through screens, glitches, and shared dread.

Robert LaSardo (Nip/Tuck) leads the cast, joined by Michelle D’Alessandro Hatt (Lifechanger), Victor Miró, Hiroshi Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima), Matt Farley, Duane Whitaker (Pulp Fiction), Caryn Richman (Beyond the Gates), Adrian Patterson, Adam Buller, and McConnell himself.

Practical gore and creature effects come courtesy of FX artist David Scott (In the Tall Grass, The Blackcoat’s Daughter), grounding the film’s dream-logic terror in tactile brutality.

Hypernormalized pushes a hybrid narrative style, merging traditional cinematography with modern digital platforms—including VRChat, the world’s largest VR-based social space—blurring the line between reality, virtual identity, and the monsters hiding on each side of the screen.

“When I approached this project, I wanted to tell a globally-minded story steeped in the existential dread we all feel,” McConnell said. “It’s an art-collective style of filmmaking… the collective just happens to be scattered across the planet, and new technology finally lets us work like we’re in the same room.”

Produced by Unstable Ground and Federgreen Entertainment, the film is produced by McConnell and executive produced by Avi Federgreen (Frankie Freako, Deathstalker).