Four friends parked in a car do a ceremony in the middle of the woods. It goes badly. Made by the preeminent Brooklyn comedy group, Simple Town, “Scary Car” is lo-fi horror comedy at its finest, a brilliantly executed account of an unexplainable occurrence. After a passionate conversation about U...

A retired magician turned aquatic fish salesman is visited by an obsessed fan. Ben Gordon’s “Stigmata” is a bizarre, fever-dream drama witnessing a man’s persistent effort to learn a forbidden spell. Brad Christian closes up his fish and supplies store for the night, but there’s a knock at the do...

A young woman becomes flustered when her boyfriend refuses to help prepare for an upcoming trip. Surreal moments begin to add up — Alex’s tooth falls out, an entire body of water lies just outside her window. Dauterman nails the feeling of a nightmare, say when your partner becomes inexplicably u...

Discharged from the hospital after a partial face transplant, Eva is struck with an intense curiosity about her donor. Shot in gorgeous, richly textured 35mm images, the film is minimally constructed but full of ideas. The miracle surgery seems to have taken — the surgeon is pleased and Eva’s ric...

A young adult must navigate the trials and tribulations of life and rejection from parents after shedding their skin. Asreen Zangana directs “Oh Dear Lord What is Wrong With Your Face?” a Super 8 black-and-white film looking at familial relationships through body horror. Surrounded with ominous m...

Two men in bloody shirts watch a French film and chat about Cheese-Wiz as a shell-shocked woman tries to make sense of it all. “Be Leaving,” directed by Brandon Wilson, is a surreal avant-garde film oozing with uncertainty as it reveals surprising doses of humor. Via deadpan banter, the two men d...

When three friends take a road trip to an idyllic forest and drop acid, one is lured into a mystic web of hallucination and nightmare. Jimmy Joe Roche directs “Skin of Man,” an experimental horror film that creates vivid textures with avant-garde technique. The black and white film is free of dia...

From the desktop screen of a 2004 computer, a child dissociates into conspiracy sites, malware, porn, and anon forums. ““(ಥ﹏ಥ) ✧_My parents are cia PSY0PS_!!!* ಠ_ಠ”,” directed by Haydon Mayer, takes us through deep corners of the world wide web and slowly away from reality. Greeting us in what se...

Deranged by a sudden death in the family, a young woman flees to the countryside in the hopes of establishing an idyllic rural life. Mick Robertson directs “How is the Dog,” a creeping psychological horror film where physical distance doesn’t seem to be enough for what a young woman hopes to evad...

A young girl connects deeply with nature while fearful of her brutish father. “Ciervo,” directed by Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma, is a coming-of-age animated film — a sensory exploration of girlhood, family life and country living, particularly on the themes of freedom vs. captivity, and hunter vs...

A man finds himself at a sketchy 24 hr dental clinic after having his wallet stolen and his tooth knocked out. “Central Dental,” directed by Lindsay Thomas Robinson, is an exercise in surreal atmosphere building, a noir-ish vignette, darkly clever and carefully composed. After getting mugged in a...

In the old American South, a misplaced black teen with a white adoptive family becomes curious about her roots after hearing birds for the first time. Shannon M. Sutherland directs “They Flew Like Blackbirds,” a magical-realist drama set in the deep south in the early 20th century. Found as a bab...

A mentally unstable young man takes care of his grandfather while alienating everyone else in his life. “Pricks of Sensation,” directed by Alex Sulock, is a disturbing portrait of a downward spiral, a pitch black fever dream tracking a man on the verge of snapping. Tending to his ailing grandfath...

The quest for virtual food — infinite pizza, zero calories — hits a snag when inventors mistake a short film for competition. Malcom Mills directs the strange vision, “VR Food,” melding horror, sci-fi, and dark comedy in layers of dream-state flashes. Malcolm and Mallory are working together on a...