If there was one genre in particular that 2015 excelled in, it would be documentaries. Every year there seems to be a standout or two, but this year the documentary category is loaded with worthy competitors. We’ve compiled the very best documentaries from this year, spanning a wide range of topics from prolific musicians, the War on Drugs, mountain climbing, sleep paralysis, and societal pressures of marriage in traditional Indian culture. Some are told in unconventional ways while others explore unique subjects, but all of these films contain riveting storytelling. The following documentaries are all worth checking out if you haven’t done so already.

Way Too Indie’s Best Documentaries of 2015

Amy

I tend to feel a ping of skepticism whenever a biographical documentary is made about a deceased pop culture persona so soon after their death. It’s hard not to assume it may be exploitive or disingenuous. So I had my doubts going into Amy even knowing Asif Kapadia had already proven himself a worthy documentary filmmaker. What unfolds is perhaps unsurprising, Amy Winehouse’s fame and death being as public as they were, but Amy isn’t the story you think it will be. Instead of yet another tragic addiction-led death of a young and talented star, the film uses the personal footage taken by Amy and her friends to reveal a young woman affected less by fame and more by the ill-intentioned people around her. The same psychology and personal trauma that inspired Winehouse’s remarkable music and fueled her soulful performances is what ultimately broke her heart and led to her death. What makes this stand out as a spectacular documentary is how expertly Kapadia turns the mirror around to show that the public spotlight thrust on Winehouse, and the rather transparent extent of her personal troubles, implies an amount of guilt on her fans and the public. It calls into question larger thoughts on the impact of our habits as consumers on other people’s lives, the sort of existential provocation only the best documentaries can produce. [Ananda]

Bending Steel

You haven’t heard of Bending Steel, but lucky you: I’ve seen it, I loved it, and I’m here to tell you about it. This weird, dark, startlingly profound documentary follows Chris Schoek, a hermetic New Yorker whose dream is to become a Coney Island strongman, like those bald, bulky, mustachioed guys you’ve seen on vintage freakshow posters. Chris doesn’t fit the bill—he’s lean, soft-spoken and shrivels up in front of a crowd—but he can bend metal with his bare hands, which is pretty amazing. The film tracks his progress as he works on his technique and learns to be a true performer, but the truly special moments involve Chris confessing his distaste for human contact, a troubling trait that may have developed as a result of his tragic relationship with his cold, unsupportive parents. As chilling a character portrait as I’ve seen all year. [Bernard]

Cartel Land

If Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario offers a slick, thrilling look at the bleak and despairing world of the War on Drugs, then Matthew Heineman’s Cartel Land can act as the gritty, real-world side of the same coin. Cartel Land follows two fronts of the drug war, but from the perspective of frustrated citizens instead of government officials: Arizona Border Recon head Tim Foley, and Jose Mireles, the leader of a vigilante group who fight off cartel gangs from taking over villages. Heineman keeps his focus on Mireles for the large majority of Cartel Land, mainly because it’s a remarkable story. Heineman captures incredible footage on the ground, getting in the middle of firefights and showing the intense pressure of living in the cartel wars on a daily basis, and at the same time observes Mireles’ group getting poisoned by the same interests that ensure chaos reigns at the border. Cartel Land is riveting, dark stuff, and its uncompromising look at the drug war as an out of control nightmare is some of the most important filmmaking to come out of 2015. [C.J.]

In Jackson Heights

With age comes experience, understanding, and a widened scope of the world around you. For all the exceptional documentaries Frederick Wiseman has been making since the ’60s, there is a weighted atmosphere in his latest one that could easily mark it as his magnum opus, because of all those things that come with age (Wiseman is 85 years old, by the way). In Jackson Heights is classic in how quickly three hours pass by; a kaleidoscopic look at a neighborhood in Queens, New York that boasts a record of 167 spoken languages. Though most of what you hear is Spanish and English, there’s a colorful enough array of characters from all walks of life that make the cultural hodgepodge the main anchor of the story. In another great year for documentaries, plenty of exaggerated praise drowns out the more humble and less sensationalist of the bunch. From these, Frederick Wiseman’s big-picture-perspective on the contortion and distortion of core, constitutional, American values stands tall. By letting the community of Jackson Heights speak its collective mind, most of the time during revealingly intimate moments, we become immersed with life itself. [Nik]

Listen to Me Marlon

Amy is rightfully regarded as one of the best documentaries of the year, but there is another doc with a similar approach that shouldn’t be overlooked. Listen to Me Marlon takes the recently discovered audio recordings made by legendary actor Marlon Brando and edits them into a look at his wonderful career and troubled inner-life. It doesn’t have the same large media aims as Amy, but perhaps gets more out of its complicated subject. With only the audio recordings to guide the story, it is among the most intimate artist bio-docs ever made. Listen to Me Marlon touches on some of the most crucial moments of Brando’s life, including his early rise as a superstar actor, his infamous Oscar win for The Godfather, and the tragic loss of his grown son. Due to his personal struggles and the bizarre film choices he made late in his life, Brando’s legacy has become easy to jeer, but Listen to Me Marlon is a beautiful tribute to the artist and the man, allowing his own words to tell his story and regain his humanity. [Aaron]

The Look of Silence

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is a more eye-catching and artistically adventurous than his follow-up, The Look of Silence, but steep yourself in the latter’s rhythm and atmosphere for its entirety and you’ll discover a movie that will haunt you, sit on your shoulders and whisper in your ear for a long, long time. Like its predecessor, the doc is filled with the stories of those affected by the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66, both perpetrators and victims. This time, we follow a man named Adi, who lost his brother to the slaughter and conducts a string of interviews with the men who were in charge of the mass killings. The stories are as shocking as they were in The Act of Killing, with Adi’s strength, forgiveness and dignity piercing the darkness like a beacon. Most affecting of all is the presence of the dead, who we feel through Oppenheimer’s evocative camerawork, which subtly suggests the deceased are watching Adi’s every move from behind the trees. [Bernard]

Meet the Patels

Easily the funniest documentary of 2015—and possibly even the most entertaining—belongs to Geeta and Ravi Patel’s Meet the Patels. The brother and sister duo document Ravi’s difficulties of getting back into the dating world after a long-term relationship fails. But this isn’t a one-note dating documentary. The situation gets complex (and more compelling) due to the clash between Ravi’s American upbringing and his family’s firm stance on traditional Indian culture, particularly the arranged marriage part. But rather than making the film on whether dating or arranged marriage is the best way to find a partner, Ravi gives both methods a fair try, and the results are hilarious. There’s humor found throughout due to Ravi’s comedic, down-to-earth personality, making Meet the Patels charming and a breeze to watch. It also benefits from remarkable editing, by cutting down a ton of home movie footage and combining it with unique animations that periodically replace talking head interviews. The documentary made a big impression on audiences and studio exeutives as well; Fox Searchlight acquired remake rights shortly after its release, and plans to turn it into a narrative feature. [Dustin]

Meru

It was a big year for the Himalayas on film. An amazing counterpart to the big budget epic Everest is the true story of a small group of adventure-seekers who looked to be the first to scale one of the massive mountain’s more difficult peaks. Stylistically, Meru doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before in documentaries—cinematography of the Himalayas is no longer unique, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as breathtaking. It does, however, expertly highlight just how amazing their adventure is and, similarly, how extraordinary it is for them to capture it on film. Perhaps I was just supremely in tune with the film, but I found myself incredibly aware of the filmmaking process throughout the film. This makes the journey all the more impressive, given the limited supplies the group brings and the extreme nature of Meru’s specific ascent strategy. And then there is the story, which is properly intense and full of incredible twists and turns. Filmmakers Jimmy Chin (who is a member of the climbing trio) and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi fill in the appropriate backstories to build the climbers as actually interesting characters—this seems simple, but so many extreme climbing films struggle to do this properly. You will root for these characters, not just for the drama of their endeavor, but because the full scope of their human journeys is compelling both on and off the mountain. [Aaron]

The Nightmare

There are scenes from Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare that I still think about even after several months since my initial viewing. I distinctly remember a chill running down my back when explaining to a friend the subject of this film: sleep paralysis. It’s a strange and terrifying phenomenon where sleepers are unable to move or speak while demonic creatures slowly approach. Ascher has the gall to interview his subjects suffering from sleep paralysis in their own bedrooms at night, which properly sets the mood and makes listening to their stories of night terrors all the more hair-raising. And while hearing people talk about their nightmares is one thing, Ascher adds a cinematic touch by showing re-enactments of these nightmares which really brings the testimonies to life. Some of these visualizations are a bit hokey (nightmares will always be scarier in our minds than on-screen), but it’s hard to shake images like the long shadowy figure with smoldering red eyes and sharp teeth. The Nightmare is the kind of film that sits with you long after the credits roll. [Dustin]

Of Men and War

Laurent Bécue-Renard’s Of Men and War stares directly into the wounded soul of a subject that’s rarely acknowledged and never explored. The Pathway Home, a therapy centre in California, helps treat soldiers with PTSD through group therapy sessions. Bécue-Renard films these sessions while also delving into some of the soldiers’ personal lives back home, shooting with a nonintrusive style that brings Frederick Wiseman (a director also appearing on this list) to mind. The therapy sessions provide a disturbing and powerful glimpse into the minds of these men, with each soldier providing a vivid account of the memories that paralyze them. Of Men and War doesn’t offer any answers, and while it ends on a hopeful note, it’s not exactly an optimistic one. Bécue-Renard recognizes the struggle these soldiers are going through is a lifelong process, and while his film doesn’t suggest therapy and emotional honesty are a cure, it does show their importance in providing the chance to deal with the psychological obstacles these men have to face every day. [C.J.]

The Royal Road

The title of Jenni Olson’s essay film refers to El Camino Real, the former 600-mile road that traveled across the Spanish missions in California. Olson uses this road to delve into topics both historical and personal: the history of California’s formation, an ill-fated trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles to meet a crush, the power of nostalgia, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, among other topics. Linking all of these seemingly disparate elements together is Olson’s personal experience and voice, narrating in a dry tone over grainy 16mm footage of California landscapes. Over its short runtime, Olson’s ruminations manage to cohere into a fascinating whole, one that’s impossible to not find relatable in some way. Unlike most recent documentaries, who seem intent on doing nothing more than dictating and informing, The Royal Road is an exception, a film that allows viewers the room to breathe and, more importantly, to think. [C.J.]

Seymour: An Introduction

Wisdom is acquired with age, and Seymour Bernstein, 85-year-old retired concert pianist-turned teacher and subject of Seymour: An Introduction, has plenty to go around. The documentary invites us to sit beside Seymour’s deep well of knowledge and philosophy, serenading us with elegant photography and a measured pace. Interviews with his adoring pupils are insightful and heartening, but nothing compares to the magic of Seymour recalling pivotal moments in his extraordinary life journey. There’s a musicality to the filmmaking that’s beautifully apropos and is doubly impressive considering the filmmaker, actor Ethan Hawke, is relatively young in his career behind the camera. This isn’t just a movie that makes you feel good; it makes you feel enlightened. [Bernard]

Another year, another Halloween, another batch of horror films coming out in theatres and festivals all over the world. Last year turned out to be a pretty interesting year for horror films, with titles like The Babadook and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night earning high praise from both genre and non-genre fans alike. This year the field seems to have gotten stronger, and with 2015 coming close to an end, I wanted to highlight the best horror films of the year. This list may come a little early, but with only a handful of horror films coming out soon and the strength of these nine movies, I don’t think it’s too outrageous to consider these the best of 2015 (but just in case, I promise to come back and add in Krampus if it turns out to be awesome). And besides, it’s all subjective anyway. Take this as a list of 9 really good horror films from this year that any self-professed genre fan should check out as soon as they can.

Backcountry

Review
Interview with director Adam MacDonald

Adam MacDonald’s directorial debut can feel like watching the first act of Funny Games in the wilderness. After an ominous opening, Backcountry establishes that its two leads (Missy Peregrym & Jeff Roop) will meet some sort of awful fate, but MacDonald takes his sweet time to reveal how and when these characters will suffer. Unfortunately, the film’s marketing took a less mysterious approach, so one look at the poster or trailer will let people know what to expect once MacDonald finally lets loose. But it’s a fun journey getting there, and once the film goes into survival thriller mode it has its fair share of legitimately horrifying moments. Watch Backcountry and you’ll probably steer clear of the woods for a long, long time.

Availability: Currently available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD.

Green Room

Review

A punk band, a room, a dead body, and a bar full of neo-Nazis. That’s all Jeremy Saulnier needs to set up his latest film, which finds the band barricading themselves in the eponymous green room once they witness a murder at the bar. The bar’s staff (including Patrick Stewart, pulling off an understated yet intimidating performance) starts launching one attack after another to kill the witnesses, and the band simply tries to survive. Saulnier’s biggest achievement here is how realistic the film feels; no one makes any stupid moves, and that makes it easy to put yourself in these characters’ shoes. It makes things unbearably tense, especially when things get violent. Even the most hardened horror fan might find themselves having a hard time handling Green Room, which is low on gore but extremely high on ruthless brutality.

Availability: A24 plans to give Green Room a wide release in early April, but expect it to pop up at different film festivals until then.

The Harvest

John McNaughton, director of the horror classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, returns to the genre with something very different. A surgeon (Samantha Morton) and her husband (Michael Shannon) take care of their ailing son Andy (Charlie Tahan), but the arrival of Maryann (Natasha Calis), a new neighbour around Andy’s age, causes Andy’s parents to irrationally freak out when she tries to befriend him. McNaughton and screenwriter Stephen Lancellotti have crafted a horror film that feels surprising in today’s landscape, preferring slow-building tension and character development to shocks and violence. The presence of hugely talented actors like Morton and Shannon helps too, with Morton having a ball chewing up scenery in such an unhinged role (this might be the closest thing we get to Morton starring in a Mommie Dearest remake). It’s a straightforward film, one dedicated to telling a good, entertaining story more than anything else, and on that front The Harvest is lots of fun.

Availability: Out now on Blu-Ray, DVD, VOD and Netflix Instant.

The Invitation

Karyn Kusama’s first film in 6 years (and her first indie since 2000) is one gloriously twisted treat, the kind of movie that delights in shredding your nerves one by one before it unleashes its full power. After divorcing his wife (Tammy Blanchard) and not hearing from her for several years, Will (Logan Marshall-Green) gets an invite from his ex to a party at her house. Once he arrives Kusama starts gleefully tightening the screws, slowly revealing one piece of information after another as the party’s vibe goes from awkward to “Get me the hell out of here.” Will doesn’t know if his suspicions of something sinister going on are real or fake, but Kusama makes it obvious that the situation is a ticking time bomb. And unlike a lot of films that fail to deliver when the bomb finally goes off, The Invitation’s visceral finale will have people covering their eyes and shouting at the screen in equal measure. Horror movies this exhilarating don’t come along too often.

Availability: After premiering at SXSW earlier this year, Drafthouse plans to release The Invitation in early 2016.

It Follows

Review

Just as the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, no best horror of 2015 list is complete without David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows. By now, you’ve either seen it or know the gist: young adult Jay (Maika Monroe) has sex with a guy and contracts some sort of curse that makes a shapeshifting entity slowly but surely follow her. Only she can see it, the thing can take the form of any person (including some severely creepy people), and if it catches up to her she’s dead. I may not be as crazy about It Follows as others who are already hailing it as the next horror classic, but it’s been a long time since a US genre filmmaker came up with a concept this good, and Mitchell’s direction—using 360 degree pans to heighten the paranoia and intensity—elevates the film well beyond most low-budget horror films from this year (the distributor was so surprised by the film’s critical and financial success it decided to bypass a planned VOD release for a wide theatrical run, an unprecedented move). To put it bluntly: if you’re a horror fan and you haven’t seen It Follows yet, what’s wrong with you?

Availability: Currently available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD.

The Nightmare

Review

The Nightmare might not be the scariest film on this list, but it’s certainly the one that will linger with people the longest. Rodney Ascher, the director of Room 237, sets his sights on the unique (or not-so-unique, depending on how you look at it) phenomenon of night terrors. Ascher interviews different people in America and the UK suffering from intense, vivid nightmares, but instead of delving into medical or scientific explanations, Ascher strictly focuses on each subject’s individual experience. Ascher’s re-enactments of the nightmares are lacking to say the least (think of the cheesy re-enactments from Unsolved Mysteries and you’ll get an idea), but it’s the testimonials that get under the skin. Even if the nightmares aren’t real, it certainly feels real for these people, and hearing the conviction in their voices (along with some of the downright eerie similarities between different stories) makes it easy to take their word. Ascher closes his film on a brilliant note too, suggesting that viewers might get start getting their own night terrors after watching The Nightmare. You have to give kudos to any director who can make people dread falling asleep.

Availability: Currently available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD.

They Look Like People

Review
Interview with director Perry Blackshear and cast

The problem with low-budget horror is that a filmmaker’s reach can get bigger than their grasp. On the other hand, directors like Larry Fessenden or Ti West can make the most of their limited resources, proving that sometimes it doesn’t take much to freak people out. Perry Blackshear’s directorial debut They Look Like People is yet another example of taking the smart approach to a small budget. Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews) gets a phone call from someone saying that a war is coming; hideous creatures have slowly assimilated the human population Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style, and in several days they will shed their human form to take over the world. Wyatt flees to New York City in order to save Christian (Evan Dumouchel), his old (and still human) friend trying to make a life for himself. Blackshear’s film can get severely intense and unsettling, but it’s also a remarkable story about friendship, independence and the need to belong (or, at the very least, finding someone to connect with). It’s rare to see a horror film, especially a directorial debut, feel this intimate, and it’s well worth celebrating.

Availability: They Look Like People is seeking US distribution at the moment, but it’s screening at plenty of film festivals. Check out the film’s website to see if it’s screening near you.

Unfriended

Unfriended is not the first horror movie to take place entirely on a computer screen, but it’s the first film that really uses the format to do something that feels groundbreaking. On the one year anniversary of a high school student’s suicide (the result of intense bullying, both on and offline), a group of her “friends” get forced to join a Skype call from an account claiming to be the dead girl’s ghost. The classmates don’t believe it until the ghost starts picking them off one by one. Director Leo Gabriadze lets everything play out on the computer screen of main character Blaire (Shelly Hennig), and the film’s intense commitment to accuracy (no fake software here, every program Blaire uses is the same thing any average PC/Mac owner works with on a daily basis) makes it easy to get immersed. But beyond the film’s relatability (all by computer programs!), Gabriadze does an incredible job crafting a narrative entirely through watching someone browse their Macbook, and at certain points—like long stretches of silence as Blair clicks around—the film can feel downright radical in its approach. It’s a thrilling film, both as a straight up horror movie and what feels like an entirely new approach to narrative filmmaking. It’s probably the first time since Spring Breakers that a film this experimental snuck its way into thousands of theatres.

Availability: Currently available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD.

We Are Still Here

I won’t lie: when I first saw Ted Geoghegan’s debut feature We Are Still Here, I wasn’t sure what to think. Yet now, months after seeing it, out of the hundreds of movies I’ve seen this year, this one hasn’t left me. Taking place in the late ’70s in New England, a couple (Barbara Crampton and Andrew Sensenig) grieving the loss of their son move into a new home. Things start going bump in the night, but this is no ordinary haunting, and soon things get wildly out of control. Part of We Are Still Here’s appeal is that Geoghegan operates on an entirely different wavelength than any other genre director in the US right now. Its slow build up and ’70s setting will draw comparisons to Ti West’s House of the Devil, but the hilarious, splatter-happy final act feels more in line with Lucio Fulci and European horrors from several decades ago. It’s a fascinating mix of influences, combined with a mythology that Geoghegan uses to increase the scale of his film without sacrificing its claustrophobic atmosphere. And it has two great performances by Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden, two horror legends who get nice, big roles here. It’s a fun film that, despite its clear love for retro horror, is one of the more singular genre efforts to come out this year.

Availability: Currently available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD.

Honourable Mentions

Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario isn’t a horror film by any means, but it’s one of the most intense experiences I’ve had this year in a theatre. On the opposite end, The Editor and What We Do in the Shadows are absolutely hilarious (one a Giallo throwback, the other a mockumentary about vampires), but they’re comedies first and horrors second. Sion Sono’s Tag also fell into the “not horror enough” category, even though its opening act could easily fit on this list. And this year at the Toronto International Film Festival I had a fun time with anthology horror Southbound and Sean Byrne’s The Devil’s Candy, which will hopefully find their way to a screen near you in the future. Also worth mentioning: The Blaine Brothers’ Nina Forever, which should go down as one of the most demented horror films of the year.

On this very cerebral installment of the Way Too Indiecast, Bernard, Ananda and Zach have a meeting of the minds as they review Pixar’s latest animated adventure, Inside Out. The gang also pick their favorite “movie minds,” characters whose psyches, philosophies and/or thought processes they find particularly memorable, fascinating, frightening or even downright pathetic. Plus, an overview of our Best Movies of 2015 So Far list, and our Indie Picks of the Week.

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (2:15)
• Best Movies of 2015 So Far (6:19)
• Favorite Movie Minds (15:09)
• Inside Out Review (31:09)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Inside Out review
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence review
The Nightmare review
Two Days, One Night review
20 Best Films of 2015 So Far

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With only two features and one short, Rodney Ascher has established himself as a documentarian focused on the communal aspect of horror. His first documentary, the short film The S from Hell, played testimonies by people who were terrified by the 1964 Screen Gems logo at the end of various TV shows. He followed that up with his feature debut Room 237, about people with wild conspiracy theories about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. With both of these films, Ascher explored how a piece of media could conjure up such strange and specific reactions. What is it about The Shining that makes people speculate so wildly about hidden meaning? Why did a TV logo strike fear into the hearts of so many children? With The Nightmare, Ascher sets his sights on a similar idea, but this time he’s effectively transitioned from niche topics to something far more universal.

The Nightmare isn’t just about scary dreams. Ascher delves into the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, where people find their bodies frozen while some sort of demonic entity (or entities) terrorize them. Each person has their own unique experience getting scared senseless. Sometimes a person might only feel an evil presence around them. Other times shadow people or demonic creatures stand directly over them, looking like they’re moments away from attacking. Ascher’s subjects have a large supply of anecdotes about the times they’ve suffered from sleep paralysis, with some of them so strange it’s hard not to get creeped out.

Ascher doesn’t feel the need to delve into more than what the eight people he profiles tell him. It’s easy to want to hear from a medical professional or a neurologist to learn about what might cause such a horrifying event. Ascher doesn’t really see the need for it. Anyone who’s experienced sleep paralysis knows how vivid they are. Almost all of the interview subjects believe with absolute certainty that what they felt and saw was real, and it’s hard to argue against them. Much like The S from Hell and Room 237, Ascher is more interested in relating these subjective experiences, using filmmaking techniques to place viewers in the same mindset as his subjects.

This is where Ascher takes a big formal departure from his previous works. In Room 237, Ascher only played audio of his interviews over footage of The Shining, and by obsessively poring over sequences frame by frame it made it easy to understand where some of the out there theories were coming from. The Nightmare actually shows the faces of who Ascher interviews, usually shooting them at nighttime in their own bedroom. This is the first half of the film, with the other half dedicated to highly stylistic re-enactments of the different nightmares. The on-camera interviews feel necessary because they give these nightmares an authenticity that makes them all the more unsettling. Hearing about them is one thing; actually seeing the conviction and emotions from everyone as they speak makes it easy to understand why they’re so convinced that what happened to them wasn’t a delusion.

The Nightmare’s second half, where Ascher attempts to remake these stories into something cinematic, is where the film’s problems lie. Cinematographer Bridger Nielson makes these sequences look terrific, along with the talking head interviews, but they’re too cheesy to actually generate something as terrifying as what’s being told. Hearing someone talk about being paralyzed in their bed while large, black orbs start floating towards them sounds creepy, especially with the precise descriptions; seeing an actor cower as two poorly rendered CGI blobs float above them winds up being more of a distraction than a means of accentuating the horror. Dreams come from the imagination, and it might have been better to leave things there than try to represent them on-screen. At the end of the day, nothing will be as scary as what we conjure up in our own minds.

While these re-enactments don’t generate as much fear as simply seeing and hearing the real people tell their story as they experienced it, Ascher does bring up a fascinating idea through these sleek representations. All of them are shot through highly conventional and familiar horror techniques: canted angles, shadows, jump scares, and an ominous score. A scene early on has some people afflicted with sleep paralysis bringing up films like Insidious to show how elements come directly from common imagery associated with sleep paralysis and nightmares (one of the film’s lighter moments comes when one person praises Insidious for how it portrayed nightmares, but still found it to be a disappointment when compared to the real thing). These scenes make it easy to ponder just how much horror films and nightmares feed off each other, how one inspires the other in a sort of strange cyclical pattern.

But Ascher isn’t all about making a thought-provoking documentary on what scares us. The Nightmare obviously wants to scare people, and even though Ascher can be hit or miss on the recreations, he does have a good share of unnerving moments courtesy of his subjects (I’ve avoided explaining too much about them here since it’s no fun to ruin the surprise). At one point someone mentions how episodes began to develop from simply explaining sleep paralysis to a friend. “Kind of like an STD, a sleep transmitted disease,” he says, and that’s where The Nightmare offers something far more wickedly fun than The S from Hell or Room 237. In those films it was easy to watch these groups of people with a bemused detachment. In The Nightmare Ascher suggests that, by watching this film and becoming aware of its subject matter, you might have unwittingly let this phenomenon into your own life. Just try having a good night’s sleep with that idea in your head.

Originally published on April 27, 2015 as part of our Hot Docs coverage.

May the Fourth be with you! For the second straight week, Star Wars news was all aflutter, along with the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, dominating the film newswire and raking in $187.6 million domestically. It wasn’t all good news this week, however, as we learned Josh Trank, best known for the indie hit Chronicle and the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, let his post as director of an upcoming Star Wars standalone film. According to Entertainment Weekly, it was Trank’s decision to leave the project, but it always stings when you see a talented young filmmaker get caught up in big Hollywood productions that aren’t seen through. After you’re done ogling all the new Star Wars character photos, check out the news you may have missed this week.

Cube Remake Coming from Lionsgate

Vincenzo Natali’s Cube remains one of the most striking and puzzling indie genre debuts. Eighteen years later, a remake is in the works, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Newcomer Saman Kesh is attached to the project, which is will take the original construction of the film and expand into the newly hot world of artificial intelligence and the increasing presence of a digital life. A pure remake of the stripped-down original wouldn’t work, so as far as a remake of a cult indie goes, this might not be so bad. Until the Cube remake finally comes around, you can watch Kesh’s acclaimed short film Controller for free on Vimeo.

Cary Fukunaga to Direct True-Life Tragedy for A24

Even before his work on the acclaimed first season of True Detective, Cary Fukunaga’s striking feature films Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre set the filmmaker up for a promising future. He now seems to be one of the hottest young talents after being called to direct the tragic story of Joe and Jadin Bell. First reported by The Film Stage, the upcoming drama is being scripted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Oscar winners for their adaptation of Brokeback Mountain. If you are unaware, Jadin Bell was an openly gay high school student who took his own life after being bullied by his peers and unable to find acceptance from those close to him. Full of remorse and grief, Jadin’s father Joe sets out for a walk across America to draw attention to this very typical problem. The film will certainly be Fukunaga’s highest profile, but also may be a shift in his career.

Cat’s Cradle Coming to TV

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most influential and popular novelists of my generation, though his work has never had much success on-screen. Besides a decent Roy George Hill adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five, the author’s off-kilter work really hasn’t been able to translate. IM Global is going to try to reverse that trend with an upcoming television series based on Vonnegut’s fourth novel. According to Variety, the novel is being adapted by Bradley Yonover (Swimfan) and Sandi Love, and will executively produced by Ilene Kahn Power (Traffic series) and Elizabeth Stanley. While it’s way too early to tell if Cat’s Cradle will make for a sustainable series or if this is the right team to make it happen, but we can hope.

Indie Box Office Update

While Avengers: Age of Ultron taking up most of the world’s screens this weekend, two indie newcomers had decent openings. First, Kristen Wiig comedy Welcome to Me opened on two screens with a $19,000 per screen average. Thomas Vintenberg’s adaption of Far from the Madding Crowd, starring Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts, had a $17,200 average on its 10 screens. These showings were the second and third highest per screen averages of the weekend, behind the obvious. Welcome to Me‘s mark puts it in the top ten for per screen openings in 2015. In its fourth week, Ex Machina had a small expansion to a total of 1,279 screens, but saw over a 50% decrease in its business. It’s hard to sustain $50,000+ per screen averages, after all.

Trailer of the Week: The Nightmare

Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 was an awesome deep dive into obsession and our Easter egg hunting theater-going society. It was also one of the most original documentary films of the past decade. His follow-up, The Nightmare (read our review from Hot Docs), debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and later played at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it has received some positive buzz. Though it may have the same spooky tone, The Nightmare takes on a much different setting, with subjects that experience sleep paralysis tell their stories of fright and helplessness. Before the film hits theaters on June 5, check out the first trailer below.