Dear Watchers,If you like witchcraft and stalkers and all-around creepy vibes, you’re in luck. Our horror expert, Erik Piepenburg, has a couple of selections that will keep you on edge and keep you guessing, but might also make you think. Read his thoughts on both movies below, then head here for more of his picks. Happy Watching. ‘Lurker’
Where to watch: Stream “Lurker” on HBO Max. “Obsession” sucked up a lot of horror movie air this year. But I got way more out of another obsession: the one that drives this taut and dark-sided thriller, the debut feature from the writer-director Alex Russell. Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) is a Gen Z nobody. Oliver (Archie Madekwe) is a Gen Z pop star of modest acclaim who’s eager to hit the big time. When the two meet at the Los Angeles clothing boutique where Matthew works, they become fast friends, and Oliver asks Matthew to join his team. Among that group is Oliver’s business manager Shai (Havana Rose Liu), who sees immediately what Matthew doesn’t: that Oliver will be done with Matthew soon. Apparently none of the characters in this film ever watched “All About Eve.” Because if they had, they would have realized that the more unassuming the aspirant, the darker the ambition. Russell smartly underplays the homoeroticism between Oliver and Matthew, the better to position his formidable film as an Everyman cautionary tale. Pellerin is mesmerizing, effortlessly convincing us that Matthew is kindly and likable but also monomaniacal and weaselly. The real monster here isn’t Oliver or Matthew. It’s the scent of fame. ‘CAMP’
Where to watch: Rent or buy “CAMP” on major platforms. Trauma, belonging and witchcraft wrestle with each other in this strange and sublimely supernatural summer camp drama from the writer-director Avalon Fast. Haunted by a tragic accident in her past, Emily (Zola Grimmer, wonderful) takes a job as a counselor at a Christian camp “for damaged kids kinda like you,” as her father puts it. There, she meets a group of young weirdo women — a terrific ensemble played by Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis and Ella Reece — who take Emily under their wing. They’re more interested in getting buzzed than in living for the Lord, which suits Emily fine. When the group initiates Emily into a secret circle, it dawns on her that what she’s joined isn’t a friend group. It’s a coven. Fast’s film may sound like “The Craft” redux, but it’s far more rebelliously Sapphic and surreal. (Eily Sprungman’s cinematography is downright spectral.) Stylistically, the film sits at the intersection of uncanny naturalism and otherworldly menace, similar to Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s unnerving “Woodshock.” Max Robin’s fantastic ambient-drone score is the perfect soundtrack for a disorienting coming-of-age story about the perils and rewards of finding your tribe.
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