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SELF-HELP opens with a setup that feels all too believable in the modern age: a daughter watches her mother slip under the influence of a mysterious figure, and in desperation, she infiltrates the very group that threatens to consume her family. From there, director Erik Bloomquist and co-writer Carson Bloomquist craft a story that is part cult horror, part family drama, and part commentary on the manipulation of trust. It is a film rooted in modern anxieties, dressed in familiarity, but clever enough to find fresh angles.

Where DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS lured audiences with sleek elegance and erotic menace, Harry Kümel’s companion piece from 1971, MALPERTUIS, plunges headfirst into a labyrinth of myth, madness, and surrealism. Adapted from Jean Ray’s novel, it is a film that wears its strangeness proudly, offering an experience that feels more like wandering through a fever dream than following a conventional narrative. With its star power, elaborate production design, and ambitions, MALPERTUIS is both a fascinating artifact of European genre filmmaking and a divisive entry that continues to split audiences to this day.

DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS isn’t the kind of vampire film that lures its audience in with sharp teeth and spurts of blood. Instead, it glides into view with a quiet elegance, letting its atmosphere wash over you like waves against the Belgian shoreline where the story unfolds. From its very first moments, there’s a sense of unease lurking beneath the polished surfaces, as though the film is more interested in seduction than shocks. Harry Kümel, working at the height of his career, crafted something that plays as both a piece of Gothic horror and an artful exploration of desire, repression, and control.

In 2003, Platinum Dunes, the studio newly founded by Michael Bay, took a gamble: remaking Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror landmark THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. At the time, the decision sparked anger among purists who believed the original should remain untouched. What followed was a grisly, unapologetic reimagining from director Marcus Nispel and screenwriter Scott Kosar. It would not only become a massive box office success but also ignite a wave of horror remakes throughout the 2000s (for better or worse). Two decades later, the film remains as divisive as it was at release — but it’s hard to deny the impact it left.

When Platinum Dunes rebooted THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in 2003, the film split audiences but proved the franchise still had teeth at the box office. Only three years later, the studio doubled down with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING, a prequel meant to show how Leatherface and the Hewitt family’s reign of terror began. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman and written by Sheldon Turner and David J. Schow, the result is a relentlessly grim entry that aims to be the nastiest of the Chainsaw films yet. Whether that approach works depends entirely on what you want from this series.

Some horror stories rely on monsters, and then there are horror stories that reveal the monsters we’ve been taught to carry within ourselves. SKIN, written and directed by Urvashi Pathania, belongs squarely to the latter category. SKIN makes an immediate impression as a short film that utilizes genre tools to dissect a very real and corrosive issue: colorism and the pressures imposed on women of color to conform to Eurocentric ideals. This is the third indie film I've seen in the last two months that tackles this subject in one way or another, each equally as powerful with its own unique twists.

WE DO OUR BEST is a short film with the weight of something much larger. At just fourteen minutes, it’s easy to imagine this story getting lost in the crowd. Yet, once its premise is laid bare — a mother helping her daughter pose as an older woman for one night out in Manhattan — the emotional core proves impossible to shake. Written and directed by Hannah Rose Ammon, it’s a deeply personal story that has been transformed into something we can all connect with.

THE INNKEEPERS is a horror film that refuses to chase the easy scares, instead embracing atmosphere, character depth, and long stretches of unease before unleashing its most frightening moments. Directed and written by Ti West, this 2011 indie film has slowly grown into a cult favorite, largely due to its commitment to being a slow-burning ghost story. Now, with its 2025 release by Second Sight Films, the film has a chance to reach a new generation of viewers who may not have experienced its subtle yet lasting impact upon its initial release.

The second season of ANNE RICE’S MAYFAIR WITCHES wastes no time throwing its characters — and its audience — into a gothic spiral of inheritance, power, and consequence. Picking up after Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario) gave birth to the embodiment of the entity Lasher, the story sharpens its focus on what happens when the supernatural curse of a bloodline grows before our eyes. As Lasher accelerates unnaturally from infancy to adulthood, the Mayfairs face the full weight of their family’s dark pact, and the results are more sinister and volatile than anything hinted at in the first season.

When Jess Franco took the director’s chair for THE VENGEANCE OF DR. MABUSE in 1972, he wasn’t interested in adoration. This is no faithful continuation of Fritz Lang’s hypnotic criminal mastermind, nor even a straight adaptation of Norbert Jacques’ novels. Instead, it’s a rebranding — a “Mabuse” in name only — that allowed Franco to indulge his pulp obsessions: exotic assassins, seedy nightclubs, grotesque henchmen, and half-serious sci-fi conspiracies. The result is a brisk, 76-minute cocktail that feels like a collision between a Euro-crime programmer and a feverish jazz improvisation.

From its opening moments, LILLY LIVES ALONE presents itself as more than just a haunted house story. Martin Melnick’s debut feature blends small-town paranoia, generational trauma, and surreal horror into a fevered spiral where certainty becomes impossible. This isn’t a film that divides the natural from the supernatural. Instead, it traps the viewer inside the same disorienting headspace as its protagonist, where the only constant is unease.

BRUTE 1976 drags the viewer back to an era when horror didn’t wear a polished facade. It was hot, sticky, bloody, and dangerous—cinemas that smelled like sweat and gasoline. Marcel Walz taps into that grime-soaked decade with a vision that’s both homage and rebellion, creating a film that feels like it crawled out of a barn in the middle of nowhere and refuses to let you look away. This isn’t just a throwback; it’s a statement that horror still has the power to be feral and utterly unforgettable. With one of the most jaw-dropping lines ever spat on screen—“Killing makes me so wet?”—BRUTE 1976 makes it clear that its goal isn’t comfort, it’s infamy.

RECESSES is one of those shorts that proves you don’t need scale to make an impact. Dylan Trupiano sets the entire story inside an elementary school office, a space that feels both normal and yet charged with tension. It’s a quiet film on the surface—just a secretary and a boy waiting after a disciplinary incident—but the undercurrent is what gives it power. By the end of its fifteen minutes, it leaves you with the kind of silence that demands reflection.

PLASTIC SURGERY opens with the clinical stillness of a hospital, a space where routine and chaos constantly exchange places. This is the final shift for Dr. Terra, a physician preparing to step away on maternity leave, but her farewell to work quickly turns into something stranger. The emergency isn’t the kind with flashing alarms—it’s an invisible threat already embedded in her patients’ bodies, and perhaps in her own. Writer/Director Guy Trevellyan builds his short film on a foundation of real-world research into microplastics, crafting a story that resonates globally.

CLOUT is a short film that doesn’t waste time dressing up its message. Jordan Murphy Doidge has taken a simple but modern idea—what kids will do for online attention—and turned it into a story that feels immediate, unsettling, and believable. Instead of overwhelming the viewer with statistics or exaggerated warnings, the film illustrates how one teenager’s need for validation spirals out of control. That choice makes it far more effective than a lecture could ever be.