Starring: Nika Feldman, Preston Miller, Arik Roper, George Crowley, Fred Schneider

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Teri (Nika Feldman) is a punk who speeds away from her South Carolina hometown in search of more excitement in the New York City scene, where she plans to try to score interviews with bands for her zine “Skid Marks.” Hoping to avoid her biological father, who left her family after coming out as gay and moving to the city, bad luck forces her to his door, and she must reckon with the fact that she was misled to believe he abandoned her.

Shot mostly on digital video in the late 90s, Esther Bell’s film played at the New York Underground Film Festival, then briefly on the Showtime network, but has yet to be available streaming or on home video. Also noteworthy: the cast includes Fred Schneider of the B-52s, Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) with cameos from cult filmmakers Sarah Jacobson and Bill Plympton.

Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi, Lenore Aubert, Jane Randolph, Glenn Strange

In the first of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello’s horror vehicles for Universal Pictures, the inimitable comic duo star as railway baggage handlers in northern Florida. When a pair of crates belonging to a house of horrors museum are mishandled by Wilbur (Lou Costello), the museum’s director, Mr. MacDougal (Frank Ferguson), demands that they deliver them personally so that they can be inspected for insurance purposes, but Lou’s friend Chick (Bud Abbott) has grave suspicions.

Starring: Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Mel Ferrer, Francisco Rabal, Maria Rosaria Omaggio

A TV reporter (Hugo Stiglitz) spreads the news of radioactive monsters, growing in number with every victim.

Starring: Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay, Matt McCoy, Ernie Hudson, Julianne Moore

Co-hosted by writer Jourdain Searles

Desperate for a nanny after her second child is born, Claire Bartel (Annabella Sciorra) is immediately impressed when Peyton Flanders (Rebecca De Mornay) shows up looking for a job. Peyton seems ideal: tuned in to Claire and the baby’s needs, without a family of her own and more mature than the other contenders. But when everything begins to unravel for the Bartels, Claire realizes that Peyton may have other motivations driving her.

A sharp domestic thriller with more cringe content per second than even the most lurid of 90s erotic-tinged fare, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is a terrorfest of motherhood anxieties and expert-level gaslighting.

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Starring: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel

US premiere

Content Warning: This film contains graphic sexual content and violence

If you’ve experienced Gaspar Noé’s incredible IRREVERSIBLE, you know that it’s an assaultive and brilliant look at the psychological damages caused by sexual violence and blood-lusting revenge, one presented as a backwards narrative that unconventionally reveals its characters motivations. Their actions, as well as the nihilism of the film itself, take on a whole new dynamic here, with Noé presenting the narrative in its proper chronological order, giving an already singularly powerful masterpiece the ability to cause a newfound dose of visceral devastation. —Matt Barone

Starring: Kyle Gallner, Holland Roden, Chris Mulkey

World premiere; Q&A with director Laurence Vannicelli

Emmett (Kyle Gallner, JENNIFER’S BODY, DINNER IN AMERICA) enters into a nightmarish game of therapy with his wife Anya (Holland Roden, Teen Wolf, Channel Zero) who has inexplicably taken on the persona of his estranged and recently-deceased mother. Bizarre and creepy in equal doses, this psychological thriller from director Laurence Vannicelli (co-writer/EP of 2019’s PORNO) will keep you guessing if this is truly possession or just a twisted battle of wills? —Joseph Hernandez

Starring: Jena Malone, Cooper Koch, Mark Patton

Q&A with director Carter Smith

A quick, easy drug run orchestrated by his best friend Dom is supposed to send Ben off to his new life in California with some extra cash in his pocket. They arrive at the pick-up location to find Dom’s cousin drugged up and her intense, take-no-bullshit girlfriend Alice (Jena Malone, DONNIE DARKO, THE NEON DEMON) calling the shots. She insists the only way to get their money is to smuggle the drugs past the state border by way of ingesting them. Then it all goes to hell. A new queer nightmare from Carter Smith (director of THE RUINS), SWALLOWED is a dirty and disturbing, body horror love story featuring a delightfully unhinged supporting turn from Mark Patton (SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET). —Joseph Hernandez

Starring: Riley Dandy, Sam Delich, Jonah Ray

East Coast premiere; Q&A with director Joe Begos

All that record store owner Tori wants to do this Christmas is drink and hook up—simple enough, right? Apparently not, thanks to a decorative, human-sized robotic Santa Claus that’s come to life for a nonstop rampage of murder and destruction. Picking up where he left off with his 2019 double bill of BLISS and VFW, modern exploitation maven Joe Begos returns with a relentless and stylish Yuletide adrenaline rush that’s part slasher and part ode to ’80s techno sci-fi/horror like THE TERMINATOR. —Matt Barone

Starring: Casper Van Dien, Elyse Dinh, Vivien Ngô

East Coast premiere; Q&A with director Corey Deshon

Held against her will inside an isolated house deep in the woods, a young woman has no choice but to challenge the interpersonal dynamics and self-imposed rules of her captors, a three-person nuclear family that believes the air outside is toxic and that the apocalypse has arrived. Meticulous with its mix of dread and psychological complexities, writer-director Corey Deshon’s unique debut upends familiar doomsday cinema tropes with intelligence and audacity. —Matt Barone

Starring: Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, Sarah Adina Smith

New York premiere; Q&A with directors Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead

Two neighbors in a future Los Angeles join forces to record and document an otherworldly phenomena taking place in one of their apartments. Now major players in the Marvel Universe sandbox, genre film darlings Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (SPRING, THE ENDLESS) have returned to their independent sci-fi roots, adding another cosmic mindfuck to their resume. —Joseph Hernandez