Haunted house stories are a staple in the horror genre. But it’s not often that a haunted house film digs its way under your skin and stays there long after the credits roll. Enter Recluse, celebrating its world premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.

A Disturbing Return Home Fuels Recluse’s Story

Joan Wyatt, a young and troubled audio engineer, is called back to her childhood home following a bizarre accident in which her father, the famous artist Lawrence Wyatt, was engulfed in flames and left in critical condition. Joan has been estranged from her father for quite some time, so when his longtime housekeeper Lydia leaves a voicemail telling her that he likely doesn’t have a lot of time left, she ignores it. But then Lawrence himself calls, telling Joan that he’s been seeing her mother—who disappeared when Joan was a child—around the house.

Joan arrives to find Lydia armed with a crossbow to ward off Lawrence’s obsessive fans. Her father is bed-bound with severe burns, and is being cared for by a hired nurse around Joan’s age named Emily. Lawrence, who notoriously experimented with psychedelics and occult practices during his career, is barely coherent and keeps his face concealed underneath a crude plaster mask. He keeps asking about his “little spider.” It’s disturbing and deeply upsetting, especially since Joan already has a lifetime of trauma associated with the house. Now that she’s back, she begins to suspect that these “ghosts” aren’t metaphorical. Lawrence was not a good man… but something even more sinister may be lurking in the house.

Henry Chaisson Reinvents the Haunted House Formula

Recluse, written and directed by Henry Chaisson, is a masterfully crafted debut feature that takes familiar elements of the haunted house genre—like a remote mansion as the setting, traumatic family secrets, and supernatural mischief—and twists them into something fresh and, well, twisted.

Sasha Frolova Leads an Exceptional Ensemble Cast

Sasha Frolova stars as Joan, delivering a performance that is both believable and compelling. She’s easy to root for throughout the film, especially as she contends with her father’s unwaveringly loyal housekeeper Lydia, brilliantly played by Toby Poser. Mia Vallet’s portrayal of Emily is also noteworthy, commanding attention from her first appearance all the way to the end. Kimball Farley plays Lydia’s son and Joan’s friend Todd with the perfect balance of levity and tension. Frankie Seratch is enjoyable to watch as the opportunistic nepo baby art dealer Tom. Rounding out the cast is Xander Berkeley as Lawrence; even from behind a mask, his performance is intense and chilling. Berkeley even provided some of his own art to be used in the film.

Sound Design and Cinematography Create Unrelenting Terror

The cast is far from the film’s only strength, though. Sound design by Matthew Rollins will have you death-gripping your seat in the best way, and serves as an integral part of the story itself. Production designer Yulanda Yo-Rong Shieh and art director Ana María Kalvo absolutely nailed the set and made the Wyatt family mansion simultaneously sprawling and claustrophobic.

Finally, we have the beautiful and (appropriately) haunting cinematography by Bryce Holden, supported by the editing prowess of Nik Voytas, Josh Lobo, and Henry Chaisson. Not only did they maintain an air of unrelenting suspense throughout the entire film, but they also executed some of the most disturbing and bone-chilling jump scares I’ve seen in recent years.

Seriously: One of those jump scares made me feel physically ill. You’ll know it when you see it for yourself.

Recluse had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2026.

No, you can’t pray the gay away. For queer youth, a proper life following Christian values is essentially a life on the run; an eternal haunting. Still, under the influence of God, a life haunted until death still has a thicker silver lining compared to the early graves of the LGBT+ that face the risk of deliverance. Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature, Leviticus, explodes with eerie melancholy to a degree we aren’t often rewarded with in genre film. It’s been a while since the horror has been this dark, so beautiful, and so close to home.

Leviticus is a Bleak and Beautiful Queer Horror Story

A mother-son duo has just settled into a small town in Victoria, Australia. Based on the open landscapes filled only with shy intimacy, I’d assume it to be one of those townships where the population stays in each other’s business. Even more so when the weight of the town’s church becomes visible. A community of social and religious judgment built on eggshells is no place for a young queer person just trying to know love and acceptance without harm.

The title, “Leviticus,” uses a single word to describe the phenomenon that dresses the film. It’s in reference to the book in the bible commonly used to condemn the “act” of homosexuality. The subject is Naim, played by Talk To Me’s Joe Bird. While getting acquainted with his new community, he falls into a secret courtship with Ryan (Stacy Clausen). Sheltering their authentic selves from anyone and everyone, the boys enjoy their lustful and unbiased adolescence. They meet in abandoned settings at night, captured through small bits of light through dark shadows, to enjoy each other’s company until they are discovered. The camerawork of cinematographer Tyson Perkins is beautifully lonely. The frames capture desperation for some sort of stability, and are only broken by the thing that feels right: honest companionship.

Forbidden Love in the Shadows

Bird and Clausen’s performances as damned lovers is a wreck. Their dialogue is unassuming, but paired with their physical acting, most sentences are strong enough to make you want to go back to your car, stare into the empty parking lot for a minute, and maybe even weep a little before driving home. Together and alone, their bodies move through each scene with immense social anxieties in addition to the fear of the sinister and demonic conclusions chained to their ankles by the church.

Some are better, some are worse, but religious fearmongering is the avenue to queer prosecution by way of God. The most effective way to drive away homosexuality is to teach young followers to be afraid of themselves. Naim’s deceptively loving mother, played by Mia Wasikowska, has unwavering faith in the church, even as the bodies of young queer men and women are repeatedly discovered after agreeing to controversial religious prayer. Her performance is equally as frightening as the paranormal entity that moves the film, and comes with an objectively horrible feeling of familial heartbreak. It’s clear that Chiarella, who wrote as well as directed, chose each word to say a thousand. Exactly like the world we live in, humans often speak in tongues, but they can be situationally understood with ease.

Religious Horror and the Fear of Self

Ryan has been prayed over before, when the community learned of the mutual lust between him and another local boy before Naim. Soon after, Naim’s sexuality is questioned by his mother, forcing a meeting between him and the deliverance healer too. Deliverance looks like members of the congregation, men of God, and of massive homophobia, surrounding the subject while their bodies contort and convulse in agony. They invoke an evil entity onto the subject to keep them running from their sexuality for the rest of their lives, or until their demise. The demon, which only the subject can see, manifests itself as the person they desire most. If seduced by it, you’ll receive a brutal, unrelenting death. Otherwise, stay as far away from your desires as you can.

This concept of haunting will undoubtedly be met with comparison to It Follows, but unlike David Robert Mitchell’s interpretation, the supernatural mechanics don’t matter nearly as much as the focus to make the allegory, and the feeling that comes from it clear. The sturdy performances mentioned underneath dense, desolate lighting evoke fear in a different medium from victim to viewer. This villain is everything you’d want, and everything you’d think you deserve. Even without a drop of blood (which there is plenty of)- how awful.

Leviticus: A Slow-Burn Horror That Cuts Deep

If you can stomach a super slow and cyclical roundtable of napalm to the adolescent soul, consider Leviticus. If you’re the moviegoer who treasures the post-horror adrenaline high, this film is too low vibration for you. I’ll happily throw Adrian Chiarella his flowers, but I don’t have the stones to press play again.