Sundance Film Festival 2026 – ¡PIKA! (The Itch) is one of those films that surprises viewers with the number of twists and turns it takes. The short film is a dark odyssey that builds to one heck of a conclusion. It starts with a simple premise about a man who has an itchy rash and winds up at quite a bonkers conclusion.
Directed by Alex Fischman Cárdenas, with a script by Trout Cohen, the short stars Jose Medina as Lucas. During the opening minutes, Lucas wakes up with a horrible rash on his upper chest that just won’t stop itching. He opens the medicine cabinet and realizes he doesn’t have enough cream. Thus, he heads to the nearest pharmacy, but the man behind the counter tells him that if he wants more cream to stop the relentless itch, then he needs to pick up a package. However, obtaining the package and its strange contents isn’t as easy as it seems. The men guarding the package may or may not be criminals. This is the first major challenge that Jose faces, and from there, he confronts one obstacle after another. Even snagging the package doesn’t necessarily bring relief.
As the short goes on, and as Jose dashes down one street to the next, eventually winding up lost, his itch and rash worsen. Eventually, he’s rescued by his mother. To say anything more at this point would spoil the surprising and startling ending. Cárdenas throws a lot of curveballs in under 20 minutes. This is a fast-paced film that’s anything but predictable. At times, it feels like a heist movie, before returning to its body horror elements.
Besides the pacing and the unexpected plot twists, the short works well because of Medina’s performance. He portrays his character’s palpable desperation the worse the itch becomes. The lead doesn’t even have a lot of dialogue in the movie, but through his body language and facial expressions, he conveys his character’s anguish. You really feel for the guy and just want him to find some cream already. Regarding the source of the itch and what caused it, that’s never explained, but again, this is a short film that clocks in at under 20 minutes. So, some key plot details are withheld.
¡PIKA! (The Itch) is one of those films that doesn’t land where you think it’ll land. It’s better because of that. This is a surprising and entertaining short with quite the ending. Give The Itch a scratch.
