Neill Blomkamp’s new zombie AI ‘film’ is just slop warmed over

Neill Blomkamp released Nightborne, a 13-minute sci-fi short loosely based on Peter Watts’ Echopraxia and produced through his new AI startup Barley Studios. The film uses human-modeled voices and faces, but every shot was generated with ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 text-to-video system.

The project highlights how established filmmakers are experimenting with generative video as a production pipeline, not just a visual effects tool. But the critical framing underscores a broader tension: AI shorts may demonstrate technical progress while still struggling to deliver creative credibility with audiences and critics.