![Sci-fi comedic thriller “Into the Sky” has you looking upward and inward in equal measure. [Fantastic Fest]](https://www.mogazmasr.com/uploads/2026/09/22/sam-richardson-2cd19556_800w.webp)
Sam Richardson is front and center in Into the Sky, a sci-fi comedic thriller that had its world premiere during Fantastic Fest 2026. He plays Bobby, a man who has spent the last year waking up in random places covered in blue goo after repeated alien abductions.
The premiere matters because the film arrives with Richardson in a lead role that leans into comedy without leaving the loneliness at the center of the story behind. Bobby is not just getting snatched into the sky again and again; he is also still looking for Brittany, the wife he cannot find after the latest abduction.
Drew Mylrea and Evan Buxbaum co-directed and co-wrote the film, and their script pushes Bobby’s story beyond a simple alien setup. The movie folds together an abduction story, a romance story and the realization that not being alone can change how a person survives what is happening to him. That gives Richardson a role built on reaction, denial and the kind of exhausted acceptance that comes after a year of impossible events.
That acceptance is also the film’s friction. Bobby treats the abductions like something to get used to instead of something to fight, even though they point to deeper problems in his life. He has already lost track of Brittany, and when he discovers that his home is now a rental occupied by Nico, the new reality keeps shifting under him. Nico is stressed over the upcoming nuptials of her brother, Chance, and Genevieve, and Bobby also runs into Jaden, who is being abducted too, which turns his private nightmare into something shared.
Richardson, who has shown range in Ted Lasso, After Party and Werewolves Within, gets a character who can be read as the K.C. Green This Is Fine Gunshow strip made flesh. That is what makes Into the Sky more than a premise picture: Bobby keeps insisting on living inside the mess instead of naming it, and the film seems to understand that the real question is not why he is being taken, but what he has been avoiding every time he comes back.
What remains unresolved is also what gives the premiere its weight. Bobby’s abductions are still unexplained, and Brittany is kept at a distance, seen only through his point of view. For now, Into the Sky has introduced its version of a man stranded between alien contact and a life that will not wait for him to catch up.
