LOS ANGELES — The conceit of a single-location horror film is, on paper, a constraint masquerading as a budget line. Confine the cast to one room, lock the door, and let the threat press in from the other side. It is a formula as old as the genre’s scrappiest exemplars, and it is the one that Deadlocked: Dad of the Dead (2026) leans on with a comedian’s timing and an accountant’s sense of containment.

Written and directed by Casey Jackson and produced by Snow Story Productions, the 84-minute horror-comedy follows Iverson, a risk-averse accountant who accompanies his daughter on a routine work errand. The errand curdles into a zombie outbreak, and father and daughter take shelter in a restroom with a handful of strangers. The drama, such as it is, turns inward: a cautious man must shed his fears to protect his child. It is a small premise staged in a small space, and the film knows it.

What distinguishes the project from the crowded field of micro-budget undead pictures is its cast. Derek Theler, of ABC’s Baby Daddy, plays Iverson and also serves as an executive producer. He has spoken plainly about why he signed on: “I felt like I had to say ‘yes’ because I got the script on the exact same day that I found out that I was going to be a dad.” Around him the ensemble is unexpectedly deep — Hayley Law (Riverdale) as Bri, Melissa Peterman (Reba) as Carla, and the Oscar-nominated Eric Roberts as Walter, alongside Kausha Campbell, Stephen Conrad Moore, John Omohundro and Taylor Tunes. Peterman framed her decision as an appetite for the unfamiliar: “I said ‘yes’ to ‘Deadlocked: Dad of the Dead’ because I wanted to do something different.”

The picture also carries notable backing. Among its executive producers is Dee Bagwell Haslam, co-owner of the Cleveland Browns — a sign that this single-room comedy arrived with more institutional muscle behind it than its premise might suggest.

The road to streaming has been deliberate rather than splashy. The film reached digital VOD and DVD/Blu-ray on May 12, 2026, surfacing on Prime Video and Fandango at Home, with home video handled by X4 Pictures. It earned little in the way of critical attention — there is no Rotten Tomatoes critic score to speak of, and the film has, by any measure, flown under the radar.

That makes its next stop the more consequential one. Beginning July 1, 2026, Deadlocked: Dad of the Dead streams exclusively on Screamify. The date marks the first time the film is available on a subscription service, not a world premiere — a distinction worth holding onto. For indie genre work, the gap between a disc release and discovery is often unbridgeable; a curated horror platform offers what a sprawling storefront cannot, which is context. On Screamify, a one-room zombie comedy sits among peers rather than vanishing into an algorithm, and an audience predisposed to root for the small and the strange gets a reason to look.