Indie horror movies: from a Pittsburgh shoot to an Oscar for Get Out

An independent film is one produced outside the major film studio system, usually on a much lower budget than a studio film. Indie horror is that idea applied to scares: films financed and made away from Hollywood, where the people making them keep control of what ends up on screen.

The genre's best-known starting point is Night of the Living Dead (1968). It was the first production of Image Ten, a Pittsburgh company, and it was financed by about 30 independent investors. George A. Romero, who directed it, told the Los Angeles Times in 1969 that shooting in Pittsburgh suited him for artistic reasons, according to the American Film Institute's catalog. In 1999 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry, a list of films judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

That model still pays off. Get Out (2017), written and directed by Jordan Peele, was made by Blumhouse, a company built on low-budget horror, for $4.5 million and released by Universal. It won Best Original Screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards and was nominated for Best Picture, and Peele became the first African American to win that award. Blumhouse says low budgets cut financial risk, which makes riskier projects possible.

Relay lists 234 indie horror films. This guide picks nine of them, made between 2007 and 2023 in Sweden, Norway, Brazil, Ireland, Wales and the United States, in release order.

What to look for in an indie horror film

• Money from somewhere else. The financing is often part of the story, from investors in Pittsburgh to a cryptocurrency token sale.
• One idea, kept small. A cabin, a hotel, an elevator, a fishing village. A single location keeps a budget down and a story tight.
• A familiar model, reworked. Critics measure these films against older ones, from Psycho to The Evil Dead.

9 indie horror movies to watch

House of Fears (2007)

A digging crew in Africa is murdered after unearthing a monkey statue. The statue turns up in a haunted attraction in Salem, Oregon, where friends sneak in the night before it opens, and each of them is killed by their own fear.

Ryan Little directed it from a script by its producers Steven A. Lee and John Lyde. It premiered at Shriekfest, a Los Angeles festival specializing in horror, on October 7, 2007. Reviews were poor: Dread Central gave it 1.5 out of 5 for bland characters and few scares, though HorrorNews.net praised the creature design.

Horror

---

Make-Out With Violence (2008)

Twin brothers Patrick and Carol Darling deal very differently with the disappearance of their friend Wendy. When she returns as a zombie, they secretly keep her in an empty house. ScreenAnarchy said the film "defies easy categorization" and called it "heartfelt, ambitious, and original".

It was the first feature-length film from the Deagol Brothers, a name used by a filmmaking collective. It premiered at the 2008 Atlanta Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature, then took best narrative feature prizes in Oxford and Nashville in 2009. It also played South by Southwest that year.

Comedy

---

Insane (2010)

Sarah, lost on a lonely road, checks into the Bridgeburn Hotel while another woman searches for her. The tagline is "Pay to check in, pray to check out." The reviewer Ninja Dixon said it "feels very Swedish, very IKEA", and the site Eat Horror said it closely resembles Psycho.

Anders Jacobsson and Tomas Sandquist directed it. Jacobsson had earlier directed, co-written, edited and shot Evil Ed (1995), a Swedish horror comedy about a film editor who goes mad while cutting a gory film series called Loose Limbs. It premiered at the Stockholm International Film Festival in 1995.

Horror

---

Elevator (2011)

Nine Wall Street partygoers heading to a company party are stuck in an elevator, and one of them carries a bomb that cannot be disarmed. Dread Central called it "taut, intense, and surprisingly violent", with a "blood-soaked third act".

It is a US-Norwegian co-production. Stig Svendsen, the Norwegian director, met the American writer-producer Marc Rosenberg in 2008 at an Italian festival, where Svendsen was showing his first feature, the children's film The Radio Pirates. About six months later they were filming in Los Angeles. "I always wanted to film in the US, with American actors," Svendsen said.

Horror

---

Wither (2012)

Friends spend a weekend at a cabin in the Swedish woods, and one of them looks at a creature hidden in the cellar. Dread Central describes it as a folklorish creature said to live underground whose gaze rips the soul from the body.

Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund directed it for Stockholm Syndrome Film, a Swedish trio that also includes David Liljeblad, and it premiered at the Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in 2012. Critics compare it to The Evil Dead (1981), directed by Sam Raimi. Dread Central gave it 4 out of 5 and called it "probably the best Evil Dead movie that isn't an Evil Dead movie".

Horror

---

Dark Sea (2013)

A strange contamination hits a Brazilian fishing village and turns fish into bloodthirsty creatures. Two fishermen bring a mutated man-fish back to the village, and the story also takes in a magic ritual and the "Lost Book of Cipriano". Screen Daily called it "a deliriously daft genre journey".

Rodrigo Aragão wrote, directed and edited it, and ScreenAnarchy said the trailer showed makeup effects "designed and executed by the director himself". It called the film his "third low budget gorefest in five years" and "his biggest production to date". His earlier films Mud Zombies (2008) and The Night of the Chupacabras (2011) form what the site called an "eco-horror trilogy".

Horror

---

Beyond the Woods (2016)

An Irish film set at a secluded holiday home on the eve of the opening of a fiery sinkhole that locals call "the Gates of Hell". Rue Morgue's reviewer noted that the cottage sits close to a sinkhole with a sulfur smell, and called the film "neither watchable nor unwatchable".

Seán Breathnach wrote and directed it. It premiered at the Indie Cork Film Festival in October 2016 and won a Best Feature (International) award at a London festival. In 2019 it was nominated for Best Thriller at the National Film Awards UK.

Horror

---

Dying to Play (2019)

Two wanted women decide to rob a wealthy, mentally unstable friend who lives in a fantasy world they made up as children. To take her money they must play a deadly game of make-believe. It was first shown as Braid, and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2018.

Mitzi Peirone wrote and directed it, her first feature in both roles. It was financed by a cryptocurrency token sale that raised a reported $1.7 million in two weeks, and was billed as the first feature fully funded by cryptocurrency. Peirone said she avoided studio financing and ordinary crowdfunding because she wanted "full creative control of the movie and needed final cut".

Horror

---

Older Gods (2023)

An American named Chris Rivers goes to a small, secluded cottage in the Welsh countryside to investigate his troubled friend's disappearance, and finds a dark apocalyptic cult. Lovecraftian horror, named for the American writer H. P. Lovecraft, is horror about the unknowable and incomprehensible: ancient forces beyond human understanding.

It is the feature debut of the writer-director David A. Roberts, and critics split on what kind of film it is. Film Threat gave it 8 out of 10 as "more of a drama about guilt and repression" and said it "never becomes scary". UK Film Review called it "a supernatural horror of Lovecraftian proportions" and averaged 4 out of 5.

Horror

---

Where to go next

• Found footage horror movies
• Slasher movies