Crash Land is the feature film debut of writer/director Dempsey Bryk. Starring Gabriel LaBelle, Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk, Noah Parker, and Abby Quinn. The film premiered Mar. 13, 2026, during the SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, TX, at the Alamo Lamar Theater.
The film follows a ragtag group of self-proclaimed amateur stuntmen, though the title of ‘stuntmen’ implies legitimate employment in entertainment, which is absolutely not the case for our heroes. Rather, since there is little else to do in their tiny hometown in rural Canada, these young men spend their days shooting Jackass-style stunt videos to pass the time. They fantasize about a reality where ‘doing stunts’ is a full-time job, but for now, they’re jumping over stuff on their BMX’s, hitting one another in the testicles, and lighting flatulence with BIC lighters purely for the love of the game—That is, until tragedy strikes.
The film takes a dark turn almost immediately (although not too dark; this is a comedy, after all) when one of our young heroes, Darby (Billy Bryk), passes away unexpectedly, and his friends must find a way to deal with the loss. With Darby being so young, and their days before he passed largely being spent goofing off, Lance (Gabriel LaBelle) and Clay (Noah Parker) fear their friend’s legacy will amount to nothing. So, they do what any one of us would do with endless video clips of our late best friend performing super sick stunts (and not dying almost every time!) and set out to make an actual, real movie, with Darby as the main character, cutting together new footage with his previously recorded stunts. Their genius plan involves rallying their eccentric friend Sander (Finn Wolfhard) to direct the project, and the only girl in town who can tolerate them, Gemma (Abby Quinn), to play the love interest. Under the guise that every great movie has girls in it, in reality, Gemma is the unsung hero of their in-movie film project, pushing the boys to perhaps write some semblance of a script, and possibly even try to make it emotionally resonant!
The 90 minutes or so that follow seamlessly blend humor with classic, heartfelt coming-of-age themes, and the film manages to tackle the subject of grief in a manner much more mature than one might expect from filmmakers so young (or from a film with this many buttcheeks onscreen). Not just grief in losing a loved one, but the grief everyone experiences as they transition into adulthood. Watching our young heroes, living in that weird liminal space between graduating high school/college, and whatever is next, when weeks on end could be spent wasting time with your equally directionless friends, felt like a punch to the gut—especially when the inevitable happens, and the film’s protagonists begin to drift apart as the story progresses, each moving towards building their own lives independent from one another. A tale as old as time, and Crash Land captured that feeling perfectly.
(Left to Right) Abby Quinn, Noah Parker, Gabriel LaBelle, Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk, and Demspey Bryk at the red carpet premiere of CRASH LAND outside the Alamo Drafthouse Theater in Austin, TX on Mar. 12, 2026. Photo by The Knockturnal/Calvin Zimmerman.
As the credits rolled at the premiere, the young stars gave a talkback about the experience of making the film. Jokes were passed back and forth, many at one another’s expense (something about someone drinking pee?), and I couldn’t help but be endeared by the way these young artists paralleled their onscreen counterparts—at the end of the day, they really are just a bunch of friends that made something cool, together. It is clear where Dempsey got his inspiration.
