The annual Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans celebrates horror in all its various forms. From features and short films by emerging artists and genre film mainstays, live experiences, panels, and more, the Overlook Film Festival is a horror haven situated in the most haunted city of America. This year’s feature lineup had no shortage of upcoming films from major studios, Shudder, as well as horrors still awaiting distribution. While it proved impossible to make it to every screening (trust me, I tried), here are the highlights, in alphabetical order, of what thrilled and chilled me:

Affection
The directorial debut from BT Meza centers on Ellie Carter, portrayed by horror favorite Jessica Rothe, a woman who wakes to find herself in a house she feels isn’t her own, called by a name she’s certain isn’t hers, a husband, Bruce (Joseph Cross), she doesn’t recognize, and a daughter, Alice (Julianna Layne) she can’t remember. While her husband assures her that her memory issues, and subsequent body tremors and hallucinations are all symptoms of a traumatic brain injury from an accident, Ellie suspects that the truth may stem from something purposeful and far more horrifying. Meza’s twisty film, which has shades of M. Night Shyamalan’s work thanks to its pastoral setting and emphasis on belief, uses its small cast to great effect creating a sense of connection between the characters and mounting tension whenever that connection starts to strain. Rothe, celebrated for her physical acting abilities in the Happy Death Day films, has the opportunity to once again show off those particular set of skills, though this time there’s no laughter attached to what Ellie’s body is put through. With imaginative effects work, visceral body horror, and a compelling narrative, Affection is a promising career start.

Affection will be released in select theaters on May 8.

American Dollhouse

John Valley (The Pizzagate Massacre) puts a new spin on Christmas horror with American Dollhouse. When Sarah (Hailey Lauren), an aimless woman haunted by the past, inherits her childhood home she believes she can make a fresh start. Despite her brother, Michael’s (Tinus Seaux) warnings and reservations about the decaying house, and frustrations over his sister’s immaturity, Sarah believes the move will force her to overcome her traumatic upbringing. Unfortunately for Sarah, her ever-watchful neighbor Sandy (Kelsey Pribilski), an adult woman clad in an old pink sweatsuit, who acts like a little girl, is adamant that Sarah follows the same Christmas traditions as her mother and put lights up for the holidays.

Sarah’s brusque refusal, and apparent ambivalence towards curtains, puts her at odds with Sandy, whose own traumatic upbringing, leads to increasingly uncomfortable and unhinged confrontations. American Dollhouse, which director Valley described as a “proto slasher,” takes a knife to the traditional American family along with its rituals and values, and cuts it apart.

While Sarah is all too content to bury the pieces, Sandy desperately tries to stitch it back together and result is a bloody, frightening face-off between two women who have very different ideas of what it means to be home for the holidays.

Boorman and the Devil

John Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) is often cited as one of Hollywood’s biggest disasters, a critical and financial failure that helped usher in the end of the New Hollywood era. Despite the film’s many detractors, Boorman’s ambitious follow-up to William Friedkin’s iconic 1973 film is not without its fans, myself among them. But regardless of whether you like The Heretic or not, David Kittredge’s documentary, Boorman and the Devil, makes it a challenge not to at least be impressed by the level of skill and care that went into making the film.

Featuring interviews with Boorman, cast members Louise Fletcher and Linda Blair, crew, and film critics, Kittredge’s film feels like a comprehensive look at storied production of the film, the disastrous fall out, and where the film fits within the context of film history. The documentary is equally funny and heartbreaking and gives a true sense of what it was like, from director, crew, and actors, to make a Hollywood production while being split between studio demands, creative ambitions, audience desires, and personal goals. It’s a celebration of technical prowess, storytelling aspirations, and messes made in the process of art. And, as Kittredge said at the film’s screening, there’s something far more interesting about a big swing that doesn’t entirely work than a good film, because the former is an increasing rarity. Boorman and the Devil is ultimately inspirational, and a call for filmmakers to worry less about providing a perfect product, and instead focus on inventiveness and belief in the story they really want to tell.

Buddy

Casper Kelly, director of viral sensation Too Many Cooks, delivers what could be the next horror-comedy icon in Buddy. What begins as a typical Barney-esque, 90s TV program It’s Buddy!, in which four children, led by a large bipedal orange and purple unicorn named Buddy (Keegan-Michael Key), learn lessons in kindness and responsibility, soon devolves into a nightmare. Buddy is revealed to be not quite the friend the children thought he was, and he’s got a possessive nature and murderous temper when the rules of his world, populated by fearful, sentient furniture, a mailbox, and flowers, are disobeyed.

While the children, Freddy (Delaney Quinn), Oliver (Tristan Borders), Wade (Caleb Williams), and Hannah (Madison Polan) attempt to escape Buddy by entering the woods beyond the fenced-in clubhouse, a woman in the real-world, Grace (Cristin Miloti) feels a strange connection to the show, despite there being no record of its existence, and her husband Ben’s (Topher Grace) belief she’s gone crazy. What ensues is a gory and anxiety-inducing trip between the worlds of fiction and reality, that is at times exhausting in its hilarity and shocking in its gleeful mean-spiritedness. Kelly eviscerates the comfort found in childhood nostalgia and turns the lens through which children’s television is seen, askew.

Goody Goody

Raymond Creamer’s feature debut is another impressive entry to the pregnancy horror subgenre. Yet rather than take the familiar route and focus on the gestation period, or the aftermath in which a supernatural infant has arrived in the world, Goody Goody focuses exclusively on the actual labor, in which tensions are high, emotions are fragile, and there’s a literal life and death situation, involving two lives, at play. Inspired by a family member’s (successful) home birth, and historical accusations of witchcraft, Goody Goody is rooted in both science and superstition. In the film, a natural, home birth process, in which Goody (Samantha Robinson) and Jayson (Colby Hollman) are expecting to welcome their son into their secluded cabin home, takes a turn when their midwife, Sarah (Colleen Foy), senses something may be wrong with baby.

Beset by a snowstorm, and a loss of power, Sarah, and Jayson’s sister, Candace (Zoe Renee) attempt to control the situation, but it soon becomes apparent that their predicament is anything but natural. Creamer’s film builds patiently, creating a strong sense of atmosphere. The film is never dull thanks to great, assured performances, and the steadily ratcheting tension that balances the supernatural unknown and squirm worthy body horror with genuine hope and empathy that, at times, may even create a sense of security.

Goody Goody is set to release on Shudder later this year.

Hokum

In six short years, Irish filmmaker Damien McCarthy has gone from a relative unknown in the world of indie horror to the filmmaker behind one of the year’s most anticipated horror films. Those who have followed his career from his feature debut Caveat (2020), and one of 2024’s best horror films, Oddity, know that McCarthy offers a unique blend of Irish folklore alongside cursed objects scary enough to make the Warrens wary.

McCarthy continues that trend with Hokum, one of best horror films of the first half of the year. The film follows, Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), a depressed, and cruel, author who travels to Ireland, where his deceased parents honeymooned, to try to finish the last novel in his best-selling “Conquistador Trilogy.”

The hotel offers all manner of distractions, not least of which are local tales of a witch trapped in the hotel’s locked Honeymoon Suite. After a tragedy that preys upon Ohm’s previously existing guilt, he stays at the hotel after it closes for the season to search for clues. With the encouragement of local outcast and paranormal purveyor, Jerry (scene stealer David Wilmot), Ohm breaks into the blocked off Honeymoon Suite.

Despite Ohm’s lack of belief in the supernatural, which he dismisses as hokum, he is soon beset by horrors that prey on his worst fears and force him to consider if he deserves what’s happening to him. This is McCarthy’s approach to funhouse where all manner of things go bump in the night, and the jump scares are masterfully crafted, ranging from playful to shocking. In Irish fashion, the film builds upon the tradition of oral and written folklore and the importance of history and place, while still retaining a sense of age-old mystery that feels foundational to the land. With a strong central character arc, haunting imagery, and memorable set pieces, Hokum is a true bone-rattler that brings McCarthy’s voice to mainstream audiences.

Hokum will be released in theaters on May 1st.

Obsession

There is something electric about Obsession, not only in the way raises the hair on the back of your neck but how it leaves you with a charge that feels impossible to shake. Director Curry Barker, who gained a following on YouTube thanks to his anxiety inducing short films and comedy sketches, turns the dial up for his first theatrical feature, resulting in one of the most upsetting, unhinged, and shocking horror movies of the year thus far.

That will still likely remain the case by the end of the year, and as of right now, it’s not only my favorite film of the year but one I’m desperate to see again. The film follows Bear (Michael Johnston), an unconfident, somewhat pathetic, music store employee who is in-love with his co-worker and childhood friend, Nikki (Inde Navarette). Unable to find the nerve to tell her how he feels and ask her out, Bear uses a “One Wish Willow,” a supposed gag gift sold at a local crystal shop to wish that Nikki loved him more than anyone else in the entire world.

Surprisingly, the wish works, at the cost of Nikki’s personality and sanity, concerning Bear’s friends Ian, portrayed by frequent Barker collaborator Cooper Tomlinson, and Sarah (Megan Lawless). What initially seems like a dream come true for Bear soon becomes suffocating as Nikki refuses to leave his side. And then that suffocation becomes horrific as it becomes increasingly clear that the thing that looks like Nikki is no longer the Nikki that Bear loved. The details of that relationship are best left to be experienced in the film but the mental and physical changes that Nikki goes through have invaded my nightmares.

Despite being early in his career, Barker has a seasoned sense of what will scare audiences and make them laugh as he taps into modern social anxieties. Part of this comes from his ability to wear multiple hats as a filmmaker. His skills as an editor are displayed by an almost preternatural sense of timing to create the strongest emotional reaction. His ability to write characters that sound exactly like people you know, engaging in conversations that could be overheard anywhere, grounds the film in a reality that almost feels claustrophobic. And of course, there are the actors and Barker’s ability to showcase their unique talents.

The entire cast is great, but Inde Navarrette’s performance is so incredible that it left me shaking and ultimately leaving the theater with tears in my eyes that were brought on by both laughter and fear. The faces she’s able to pull off here, and the way that she’s able to change the pitch of her voice are so uncanny and alarming that the performance itself almost feels supernatural. It’s going to be one of those roles we’re going to be talking about for a long time to come, and this is a film that deserves to be seen on a big screen with a crowd who can gasp, laugh, and scream alongside you.

Obsession will be released in theaters on May 15.

Saccharine

Natalie Erika James (Relic, Apartment 7A) brings body horror to the weight loss drug industry in Saccharine. In the film, med-student Hana (Midori Francis), frustrated with her weight and overcome by a crush on her gym’s trainer, Alanya (Madeleine Madden), turns to an experimental, non-FDA approved, weight loss pill shared with her by a former high school classmate. Unable to afford the cost of the pills, Hana uses her school’s lab to reverse engineer the ingredients and discovers the pill is composed of human ash. Desperate to be found attractive by Alanya, and unable to control her binge eating, Hana begins incinerating parts of the cadaver she and her med-student group are dissecting for class.

Despite concerns about her rapid weight loss from her friend Josie (Danielle Macdonald) and Alyana, Hana starts to gain a dependency on the pill that she can’t quit, despite the fact that she begins seeing the ghostly figure of the cadaver she’s been using, a figure which grows increasingly larger, and has more impact on the world of the living as it begins to consume Hana from the inside. Thematically, the film is sure to cause some interesting debates as it provides a myriad of, not always agreeable, ideas and depictions to wrestle with in terms of body dysmorphia, and body acceptance culture. But wherever you land on the film’s messaging, there’s no doubt that James’ film is beautifully shot, with no shortage of overlapping, visceral images, and feeling of dread that allows Saccharine to offer solid scares for the Ozempic age.

Saccharine is set to be released on Shudder later this year.

Trauma, or Monsters All

Larry Fessenden, one of the premier voices in the indie horror scene, and a filmmaker who has inspired numerous others at this festival, closes out his monster quadrilogy with Trauma, or Monsters All. The film brings together the vampire Sam (Fessenden) from Habit (1995), Frankenstein of the Hudson, Adam (Alex Breaux) from Depraved (2019), and the wolf man of Talbot Falls, Charley (Alex Hurt) from Blackout (2023) for a monster mash nearly 30 years in the making. When a young biracial writer, Cassandra (Laetitia Hollard) moves to Talbot Falls to work on her book about revolutionary scientist and inventor George Washington Carver, she soon finds herself drawn towards the town’s local history and rumors of monsters after seeing a Frankenstein’s monster-like figure outside her bedroom window.

Compelled to dig deeper and report on her findings, Cassandra publishes an article about the town’s history, putting a target on her back for those who would rather ignore the past, and threatening the security of both Adam and Charley, who have found a mutual peace on the outskirts of town. Meanwhile, the vampire Sam comes into Talbot Falls after hearing of these other monsters and stirs up trouble by turning Charley’s beleaguered love-interest, Sharon (Addison Timlin), into a vampire. And the sinister Polidori (Joshua Leonard) returns to collect Adam, who he sees as his business asset. As Cassandra finds herself an outcast in her new home, and hunted by a racist group of ne’er-do-wells, and the monsters she exposed, she and her love interest, Agnes (Aitana Doyle) are forced to reexamine their responsibilities to history and themselves.

Trauma is an ode to the Universal Monster films of the past and even includes a recreation of the poster art of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) during a battle between Adam and Charley. But in true Fessenden fashion, the film is also more than that in terms of how it relates to society. It challenges the very notion of a monster as it relates to modern America. Race, sexuality, history, and the environment all play a crucial role in what stories are told and how they’re told.

The film suggests we’ve become distracted by false enemies while the real monsters reside right in front of us, and in the highest seats of power in the country. While remembering our history is crucial, it’s the work of great individuals, like Carver, who we can turn to in an effort to better shape our future. There is revolution that can be found in science and art, and not simply the history of oppression in America. Trauma has shaped who we are as people and as a country, but in order to move forward, and truly change things, we’re going to have to let some of that go to heal and unite as a force that’s smarter and better equipped than the true monsters. Fessenden’s latest continues the threads begun with his first feature, and initial Frankenstein film, No Telling (1991), and offers, if not answers, then at least ideas on how to combat the modern horrors we’re all facing.