Editorials
Overlooked Indie Horror Films You Should Watch: Volume 5
The conveyor belt of modern filmmaking slows for no film, and it’s especially true for the ever-prolific genre of horror; in the time since this column started just a few months ago, dozens more horror gems have been released into the world.
Rather than let those fantastic and sometimes forgotten gems get buried under the avalanche of other new releases, it’s time to discuss a few more horror films that were deserving of much more recognition than they received.
Here are this week’s overlooked indie horror films worth watching.
And Uneasy Lies The Mind (2104)
When a man and his pregnant wife decide to take a winter vacation to an isolated cabin with a couple they know, a night of drinking and surprising personal revelations spin the four of them into a crazed fever dream of paranoia and violence and paranoia. And Uneasy Lies The Mind is an experiment of a film, and it was the first movie shot entirely on an iPhone.
Though some of the performances border on over the top and the dialogue is intentionally arch and somewhat stilted, those elements actually add to the dizzying and surrealistic feel of the film. Director Ricky Fosheim does a great job creating paranoia and growing unease, and the script is written by three of the four leads. An impressive accomplishment of DIY filmmaking that should be seen by indie horror aficionados.
Darkness on the Edge of Town (2014)
Beautiful cinematography and unconventional characters transform what could have been a straightforward tale of murder and revenge into a haunting and lyrical film. Director Patrick Ryan fills every frame of the movie with quiet dread, allowing long shots of still figures to stand in contrast to the stunning Irish landscape.
The lead actresses are excellent across the board, as is actor Brian Gleeson (the son of Brendan Gleeson). Though some might quibble with whether or not this is a horror, a thriller, a dark drama, or a violent coming of age film, passages of the film will undoubtedly be of interest to the right horror fan. The nearly wordless confrontation and knife fight in the bathroom is a spectacular display of visual storytelling.
The Happy House (2013)
A fun, funny comedy that plays on the tropes of the horror genre as well as skewering the young Brooklyn scene of 2013, The Happy House is a subtle, subdued film that nonetheless delivers some clever observations and a couple of excellent performances.
Writer/director D.W. Young populates the films with faces that were soon to break through. Aya Cash landed You’re the Worst a year later, Khan Baykal popped up in the recent thriller Always Shine, and Marceline Hugot was memorable for her wordless performance in HBO’s The Leftovers.
Rattle the Cage (2015)
When a contained horror-thriller can place a few characters in a single location and find a way to continue to heighten the tension of the story, there is nearly nothing better. Majid Al Ansari’s Rattle the Cage does exactly that, putting the protagonist inside a prison cell and his antagonist, the officer in the police station, psychologically torturing him.
As the psychopathic police officer Dabaan, Ali Suliman goes gleefully over the top, playing the villain with a perverse joy that sells every increasingly vicious act. Director Al Ansari’s camerawork is fresh and vibrant, keeping the location from becoming stale or boring. Well worth devoting time to hunting down.
Below (2002)
It’s shocking that a movie with such a good pedigree got lost in the mix and gets so little love from genre audiences (or mainstream ones, for that matter). Directed by Pitch Black’s David Twohy, from a script by Darren Aronofsky (?!), and with great performances from character actors like Bruce Greenwood, Holt McCallany, and Nick Chinlund, Below is a World War II horror-tinged thriller set on a possibly cursed submarine.
Always balancing between a reasonable explanation and a possible supernatural presence, Twohy’s film has tension to spare and a very good sense of humor. Early performances from Zach Galifianakis and Guy Ritchie regular Jason Flemyng bring some fun to the proceedings. A B-movie in the best way, the movie is spooky fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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