Film

Hager

A taut German thriller about an undercover cop hunting a hallucinogenic drug called Abaddon, which plunges users into hellish visions. Atmospheric and darkly mystical, it wraps crime procedural around cosmic horror, building dread through folklore and pharmaceutical terror. For viewers who want their thrillers strange and their genre boundaries blurred.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a slow-burning undercover thriller where the dread comes from paranoia and a half-glimpsed mythology rather than jump scares, and you don't mind a plot that stays murky.

Skip it if you need clear answers and brisk plotting, since this one leans on atmosphere and ambiguity and may frustrate anyone wanting its mythology explained.

What it asks of you: At 78 minutes it moves briskly, but it keeps you in a hazy, unsettling mood and makes you piece together fragments rather than handing over the story.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Under the Skin2014

Hypnotic sci-fi horror that strips genre convention away, building unease through sound design and abstraction. Scarlett Johansson's performance is deliberate and glacial. The film trusts you to sit with uncertainty.

But Glacially paced and deliberately obscure. If you need plot clarity and conventional narrative beats, this will frustrate you.

Under the Skin poster

The Witch2016

A folk-horror masterpiece that uses period language and superstition to create genuine dread. It's grounded, claustrophobic, and operates by nightmare logic rather than jump scares. Every frame is composed like a painting.

But Deeply bleak and slow-burn. The ending offers no catharsis, and the film's psychological abuse is relentless.

The Witch poster

Ghostland2018

A French-Canadian horror film that layers trauma, perception, and the supernatural into something hallucinogenic and disorienting. Visually striking and emotionally brutal. It rewires what you think you're watching halfway through.

But Graphic violence and sexual assault in the narrative. The fractured structure can feel more clever than cathartic for some viewers.

Ghostland poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Hager

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Annihilation2018

Both films use a mysterious force that alters perception and drags users/explorers into incomprehensible depths. Neither offers rescue or redemption—only transformation.

A sci-fi horror about a mysterious expanding zone where physics and biology behave impossibly. Gorgeous, alien, and philosophically disorienting. It shares Hager's fascination with substances/phenomena that rewrite reality and render the human mind unreliable.

But Heavy on visual spectacle but light on explanation. The final act abandons plot clarity for existential abstraction, which infuriates viewers who want answers.

Annihilation poster
More like this (8)

Requiem for a Dream2000

Darren Aronofsky's descent into addiction across four lives. Propulsive, devastating, and visually inventive. The editing and sound design become instruments of psychological torture—you feel the drug's pull alongside the characters.

But Relentlessly grim with no redemptive arc. Some find the stylization overwhelming; others think it prioritises technique over humanity.

Requiem for a Dream poster

The Lighthouse2019

Two men, a lighthouse, and a slowly descending spiral into madness. Shot in black-and-white 1.19:1 aspect ratio, it's visually hypnotic and thematically dense. A folk-horror atmosphere wrapped in psychological claustrophobia.

But Impenetrable accents, deliberately obscure dialogue, and a runtime that feels longer than it is. The final act abandons narrative logic entirely.

The Lighthouse poster

Come True2020

A low-budget sci-fi horror about sleep studies that becomes increasingly surreal and disturbing. Haunting synth score, stark cinematography, and a mounting sense that reality is destabilising. Builds its own mythology quietly.

But Deliberately obtuse ending that many find unsatisfying. The slowness works only if you surrender to its rhythm.

Come True poster

A Dark Song2016

An Irish supernatural drama about grief and redemption disguised as an occult ritual film. Intimate, strange, and genuinely moving. It operates on emotional rather than genre logic, but the payoff is profound.

But Utterly dialogue-driven and slow-paced. Without faith in its emotional premise, you'll find it static and mumbled.

A Dark Song poster

We Are the Flesh2016

A Mexican film of feverish surrealism about two siblings and a stranger building a nest of transgression in post-apocalypse. Transgressive, carnal, and formally inventive. It's uncomfortable by design and unexpectedly moving.

But Graphic sexual content and incestuous imagery. The narrative is abstract; if you need plot, this won't deliver it.

We Are the Flesh poster

Goodnight Mommy2015

An Austrian horror film about two boys and their recovering mother that twists into nightmare territory. Unsettling family dynamics, an eerie aesthetic, and a final act that recontextualises everything before it.

But Derivative of better films in its genre. Some sequences feel designed to shock rather than unsettle; the twist can feel cheap.

Goodnight Mommy poster

The Vast of Night2019

Both are modest-budget genre films that build cosmic dread through investigation and mystery, trusting atmosphere over spectacle. Both feature protagonists chasing something unknowable.

A 1950s-set sci-fi mystery about a small-town radio host investigating strange signals. Shot like a paranoid thriller with Twilight Zone sensibility. The atmosphere is thick and the dread builds through sound and dialogue rather than spectacle.

But Very much a slow-burn procedural. If you want action or conventional climax, you'll be disappointed by its restraint.

The Vast of Night poster

Caveat2021

Both films from the same year use folk-horror, drug/curse logic, and fractured perception to trap their protagonists. Both distrust conventional narrative in favour of dread and strangeness.

An Irish folk-horror film shot in 16mm about a drifter hired to babysit on an island, where reality fragments into nightmare. Genuinely nightmarish and formally bold. It feels like watching someone else's fever dream—grotesque, poetic, and utterly singular.

But Aggressively abstract and hostile to plot. The image quality is deliberately degraded; some will call it atmospheric, others unwatchable.

Caveat poster

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