Every story in Appofeniacs leads back to one person: Duke, the young man whose deepfake videos set the film’s violence in motion. Aaron Holliday plays him, a character actor best known as Stache in Cocaine Bear. Chris Marrs Piliero’s horror thriller opened in U.S. theaters on October 2, 2026.
Most villains need a mask and a knife. Duke just needs an app on his phone, and his targets are ordinary people who never see the attack coming.
That is the film’s unsettling idea. A fake clip costs nothing to make, spreads in minutes, and cannot be taken back. Piliero shows how one lie travels outward, reaching strangers who believe it and act on it. The title riffs on apophenia, the urge to find patterns in noise, and the real horror is how readily people supply the meaning themselves.
Appofeniacs is the brainchild of Piliero, who makes his directorial debut. It also stars Jermaine Fowler, Sean Gunn, Michael Abbott Jr., Will Brandt, Paige Searcy, Simran Jehani, and Harley Bronwyn.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Jermaine Fowler Talks Playing Cool Antagonist in Appofeniacs | INTERVIEW
LRM Online’s Gig Patta spoke with Aaron Holliday about his role, his previous character portrayals, and AI deepfakes.
One of his earliest credits came in 2015, as Harry in Speakeasy to Me. Three years later, he landed a recurring role as Damon in HBO’s Sharp Objects, the Amy Adams mystery series adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel. He also appeared that year in Hulu’s space drama The First.
Holliday then became a familiar face in stories about young people. He played Killian in the coming-of-age film Pink Skies Ahead (2020) and Brandon in Amy Poehler’s Netflix dramedy Moxie (2021). In 2022, he appeared as Skye in the season two finale of HBO’s Euphoria. Around the same time, he took a leading role in For the Night, James Kimball’s directorial debut.
His breakout came in 2023 with Elizabeth Banks’ horror-comedy Cocaine Bear. Holliday played Stache, a member of the Duchamps, a knife-wielding gang of teenage delinquents named for their fixation on the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp. He shared the screen with Keri Russell and the late Ray Liotta, and the film’s box office success put him on a wider radar. That year he also played Rory in the Netflix series Glamorous.
In 2023, he joined Daniel Goldhaber’s reimagining of Faces of Death, a film about cycles of violence online, alongside Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery.
His recent credits also include The Wilderness (2025) and a guest spot in HBO’s I Love LA (2025), with Nickels among his upcoming work.
For an actor who first broke through as one of a gang in Cocaine Bear, carrying a film as its central menace is a clear step up.
Appofeniacs is now playing in theaters.
Watch the exclusive interview below. Let us know what you think.
For news and interviews, contact Gig Patta at gig@lrmonline.com. Follow https://x.com/GigPatta, https://www.facebook.com/OfficialGigPatta, https://www.instagram.com/gigpatta, or https://www.tiktok.com/gigpatta for all his posts and musings on entertainment.
