The problem with a great opening scene can be that the movie has an uphill battle trying to sustain it. But for a confident filmmaker like Joko Anwar, that’s not a problem. Beginning in Jakarta before traveling to the furthest reaches of rural Indonesia, Impetigore starts with Maya (Tara Basro) and Dini (Marissa Anita), a pair of bored tollbooth operators, slowly realizing they’re under attack by machete-wielding, out-of-town visitors. They survive only to learn their attackers are from Maya’s hometown, where she’s inherited a house. When she returns to claim it, she discovers the village has a horrible secret. What follows brings in everything from ghosts to skinless babies to an elaborate shadow puppet performance as Maya and Dini discover that the modern world they call home hasn’t put some of the spirits past to rest.
Where to watch: Shudder, AMC+
Relic (2020)
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In this remarkable debut film from Australia’s Natalie Erika James, Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote co-star as, respectively, Kay and Sam, a mother and daughter who return to Kay’s childhood home after the disappearance of Kay’s mother and Sam’s grandmother. Once there, they find reports of disturbing behavior and a mysterious black mold that starts spreading anywhere. At once a spooky haunted-house movie and a remarkable depiction of what it’s like to deal with a parent suffering from dementia, Relic earned strong reviews in 2020 but had its release cut short by the onset of the pandemic.
Where to watch: AMC+
Censor (2021)
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The early ’80s saw Great Britain gripped by panic about “video nasties,” horror movies deemed so inappropriate for impressionable viewers that a public outcry led to some being pulled from video store shelves. Set at the height of that moral outrage, Censor stars Niamh Algar as Enid, an employee of the British Board of Film Classification who spends her days meticulously scrutinizing images of extreme violence. To Enid, it’s just a job, until she’s asked to watch a movie that echoes her own troubled history. The first film from writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond, Censor raises questions about why we’re drawn to watch horror—questions that the director knows she can’t begin to answer, and the ambiguity makes her mesmerizing film all the more disturbing.
Where to watch: Hulu
Keith Phipps
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