A retired magician turned aquatic fish salesman is visited by an obsessed fan. Ben Gordon’s “Stigmata” is a bizarre, fever-dream drama witnessing a man’s persistent effort to learn a forbidden spell. Brad Christian closes up his fish and supplies store for the night, but there’s a knock at the do...

An online model with a huge following is being followed. Maxim Stollenwerk directs “Ilona's Bloody Body,” a dynamic, creeping drama tracking a young Bulgarian woman as she balances her profession as a cam-girl with her everyday relationships. She discusses details of her job and the realities tha...

A young adult must navigate the trials and tribulations of life and rejection from parents after shedding their skin. Asreen Zangana directs “Oh Dear Lord What is Wrong With Your Face?” a Super 8 black-and-white film looking at familial relationships through body horror. Surrounded with ominous m...

Four friends parked in a car do a ceremony in the middle of the woods. It goes badly. Made by the preeminent Brooklyn comedy group, Simple Town, “Scary Car” is lo-fi horror comedy at its finest, a brilliantly executed account of an unexplainable occurrence. After a passionate conversation about U...

A man is caught with his pants down when terrorized by a force outside his bathroom stall. “Someone’s In Here,” directed by Ben Kitnick, is a horror vignette, minimal, well-executed and open for metaphorical interpretation. A man dressed in Khakis, a polo, and a fleece vest, takes care of busines...

When three friends take a road trip to an idyllic forest and drop acid, one is lured into a mystic web of hallucination and nightmare. Jimmy Joe Roche directs “Skin of Man,” an experimental horror film that creates vivid textures with avant-garde technique. The black and white film is free of dia...

In a small east coast town, two teenage boys ruminate on their first stirrings of desire. “Albedo or Apples and Oranges,” directed by Yiro Hu and Sean Dahlberg, is a mood piece that explores longing without sex and the silences between friends. First, we observe Shane. He sits quietly in the pass...

A late-night conversation with an oracle launches a young Brooklyn woman on a quest to slay a vampire. Courtney Bush, Will Carington, and Jake Goicoechea present “Rejoice in the Lamb,” a horror-comedy hybrid where bits of spookiness surround a suspicious new addition to a friend group. Late in th...

After an evidently successful first date, Evan and Marceline head back to her place. “Welcome to Bushwick,” by director Henry Jinings, is about the nerves and perceptions of a man and a woman approaching intimacy for the first time. We pick up as the two young Brooklynites enter the apartment of ...

Anxiously convinced his flu-like symptoms could be something much worse, a luckless Brooklynite searches for medical care. Byron Leon directs “Sickly,” a tense ride through New York City that was unbelievably made before the Covid-19 pandemic. After coming down with a bad cough and a high fever, ...

A man finds himself at a sketchy 24 hr dental clinic after having his wallet stolen and his tooth knocked out. “Central Dental,” directed by Lindsay Thomas Robinson, is an exercise in surreal atmosphere building, a noir-ish vignette, darkly clever and carefully composed. After getting mugged in a...

A couple rebrands their struggling haunted house business amid the pandemic. “Spooky Town,” directed by and starring Omar Shaukat and Anna Suzuki, is a sign-of-the-times mockumentary that follows a hapless duo through badly executed attempts to frighten their customers. While they wait for their ...

The quest for virtual food — infinite pizza, zero calories — hits a snag when inventors mistake a short film for competition. Malcom Mills directs the strange vision, “VR Food,” melding horror, sci-fi, and dark comedy in layers of dream-state flashes. Malcolm and Mallory are working together on a...

Over the course of a tense Halloween week, a black man navigates his fraught friendships with white people. Cory Nixon directs and stars in “Blind,” a prickly satire on the sociopolitical climate of 2020 with its newly unlocked conversations on race, white fragility, and colonizer mindset. After ...

Struggling with a debilitating migraine, a mother sends her son to retrieve her prescription pills before she vanishes into nothing. “Goose Egg,” directed by Madeline Leshner and Zach Stone, is a darkly funny hybrid of B-movie thriller and lo-fi horror. After eating a hard boiled egg, a woman beg...

On a snowy night, a mysterious woman arrives at a hotel and captures the attention of a trio of men.“Through Her Eyes,” directed by Stella Gatti, is gothic noir based on the mythical archetype of Medusa. The glamorous woman with dark sunglasses and overcoat enters a candle lit lobby with faded ch...

A woman is having a mental breakdown in her bathroom when her past and future selves appear in the mirror. Ella May Sahlman and Kyle Kallman direct “Crimson Mirror,” experimental horror crafted with gothic flourish built around an intensely despairing lead performance from Flora Wildes. The young...

A young couple picks up a bench they found for free on Craigslist. Gus Reed directs “FREE bench MUST PICK UP TODAY,” a concise, unsettling drama about a church pew and the potentially dark forces behind it. The couple, played by Hunter Doohan and Davi Santos, scout furniture online for their new ...

A young woman travels to a remote Victorian home to be a caregiver for someone who may or may not be there. “Madame Upstairs,” directed by Evan Korycki, is an ominous drama filled with striking visuals and eerie atmosphere. When Georgia arrives to take care of Madame Bouchard, she’s unsettled to ...

After being mugged on Halloween night, Dave takes to his hotel room to report the incident to his credit card company and experiences an unsettling exchange. Starring Maxwell McCabe-Lokos (a director we featured with his 2017 film "Ape Sodom,") “All Shook Up,” is a wildly WTF short directed by Ev...

Jack returns home to find his family has sold their house without his knowledge, perhaps because he’s no longer the Jane they all know. Lio Mehiel directs and stars in “Disforia” (Heidi Hartwig co-directs), a psychological horror about coming out as trans, a haunting vision of alienation and dist...

A young couple works through an uncomfortable situation and a hidden truth. Robert B. Matuluko directs “How I Lost My Appetite,” a film that resists easy categorization but flirts with several forms: relationship drama, experimental film (there is no dialogue, only body language and eye contact) ...

A L.A. couple takes a shortcut down a steep staircase while playing a question-and-answer exercise designed to rekindle intimacy. “Hellmouth,” directed by Gus Reed, is a dramatic vignette that’s vaguely unsettling, almost dream-like in tone, and shouldered by performances from Rhian Rees and Shan...

On the outskirts of a Mexican village, a former elementary school teacher emerges badly bruised on the shore of a remote lake and must find her way back to town. “La Oscuridad,” directed by Jorge Sistos Moreno, is a visceral portrait of Marina, a woman left for dead. She somehow survives the orde...