Movie Review: ITCH!

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM

ITCH! Movie Poster | ©2026 Trinity Content Partners/Seven Tales

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jay Kang, Olivia Kang, Monica De Oliveira, Steven Alonte, Mia Ventura Lucas, Patrick Michael Valley, Douglas Stirling, Ximena Uribe
Writer: Bari Kang
Director: Bari Kang
Distributor: Trinity Content Partners/Seven Tales
Release Date: April 21, 2026 (VOD, U.S./U.K.)

Despite the exclamation point in its title and the playfulness of having the look of a “scratchy” print at the start and finish, ITCH! is absolutely not a comedy. It is and isn’t technically a zombie movie, in that people are lethal before death, a la the 28 … LATER franchise. Here, victims of a disease of unknown origin eventually scratch themselves and/or others to the point of bloody expiration.

The opening sequence shows us Jay, played by ITCH! writer/director Jay Kang, pulling out his own fingernails with pliers in an attempt to halt his self-mutilation.

Still here? If so, ITCH! then flashes back to what Jay doesn’t know yet is the first day of the deadly pandemic. He is the widowed father of little Olivia (Olivia Kang), who stopped speaking after the death from cancer of her mother Monica (Monica De Oliveira, seen in flashbacks).

Jay isn’t handling single parenthood very well, hiding little bottles of liquor that he can down at a moment’s notice. He works at his father’s (Steven Alonte) hardware store on a rough-looking street in New York, but today is Jay’s first day back after his wife’s passing.

Jay is in charge, as his father is staying home to tend to Jay’s ailing mom. Former employee Miguel (Patrick Michael Valley) insists that he is owed back pay. Current employee Lisa (Mia Ventura Lucas) has a bad attitude.

A few crises later, Jay, Olivia, Miguel, Lisa, Miguel’s hot-tempered niece Gabriella (Ximena Uribe) and average-guy customer Henry (Douglas Stirling) try to protect themselves with the store’s metal shutter pulled down, while the outside security camera gives a taste of the havoc occurring just outside the shop’s front door.

With near-strangers thrown together in the midst of this kind of apocalypse, facing danger inside and out a business establishment, it’s hard not to draw comparisons with DAWN OF THE DEAD. ITCH! looks to be even lower-budget than George A. Romero’s film, although the gore effects are solid.

Rather than consumerism, Kang uses the set-up primarily to explore family relationships. Besides the father/daughter bond between Jay and Olivia, Miguel and niece Gabriella are close, and Jay and his father are in close communication. There is also exploration of what people do and do not owe one another in an emergency, something that gets a little more thoughtful treatment than in many other similar scenarios.

Kang gives a contained, understated performance and young Olivia Kang is effective as the silent child. Stirling is notable as the ambivalent Henry.

ITCH! has got so much going on that it sometimes loses sight of its theoretical chief menace – an uncontrollable need for relief tied to self-destruction – but it still hangs together well enough as both horror and drama.

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