In the pandemic’s grip, early 2020s horror unearthed intimate dreads that mainstream slashers could never touch—gems now ripe for cult adoration.

The early 2020s marked a peculiar renaissance for horror cinema, one forged in isolation and uncertainty. As cinemas shuttered and streaming surged, filmmakers pivoted to low-budget ingenuity, crafting tales of familial rot, viral apocalypses, and folkloric body horror that bypassed blockbuster fanfare. These overlooked releases, from Relic to Late Night with the Devil, simmered on the fringes, amassing fervent online followings. Today, they stand as cult cornerstones, demanding rediscovery for their raw innovation and unflinching gaze into human fragility.

  • Unpacking the atmospheric slow-burns and visceral shocks of films like Relic, The Sadness, and Huesera that redefined pandemic-era dread.
  • Exploring themes of inheritance, contagion, and maternal monstrosity amid production hurdles and cultural shifts.
  • Spotlighting why these unsung entries, including You Won’t Be Alone and Late Night with the Devil, forged lasting legacies in indie horror.

Familial Rot in the Attic: Relic’s Inescapable Inheritance

Released in 2020 amid global lockdowns, Relic, directed by Natalie Erika James, captures the horror of dementia not through jump scares but through a creeping, architectural dread. The story centres on Kay (Emily Mortimer) and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) visiting elderly mother Edna (Robyn Nevin), whose home mirrors her mental decay—black mould spreads like forgotten memories, doors lead nowhere, and a stag-headed figure lurks in shadows. This Australian chiller eschews gore for metaphor, transforming the family house into a labyrinth of loss.

The film’s power lies in its mise-en-scène: cinematographer Michael Gheith employs tight framing and muted palettes, where sunlight filters through grimy windows like fading recollection. A pivotal breakfast scene, with Edna gnawing raw meat under the table, blends grotesque humour with pathos, underscoring generational burdens. James draws from personal experience—her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s—in crafting a narrative where inheritance is literal decay, the younger women marked by black stains echoing Edna’s affliction.

Sound design amplifies unease; creaking floorboards and distant thuds build tension without overt reveals. Critics praised its restraint, yet Relic struggled for distribution, premiering at Sitges before a quiet Shudder drop. Its cult status grew via word-of-mouth on forums like Reddit’s r/horror, where fans dissect its feminist undertones: women bound by blood, devouring themselves in cycles of care.

Compared to earlier inheritance horrors like The Others, Relic grounds supernatural hints in psychological realism, questioning where disease ends and haunting begins. Production faced COVID delays, forcing remote post-production, which honed its intimate scale. Today, it exemplifies how early 2020s indies thrived on specificity over spectacle.

Viral Fury Unleashed: The Sadness’s Extreme Contagion

Rob Jabbaz’s 2021 Taiwanese splatterfest The Sadness erupts as a counterpoint to slow-burns, delivering unrelenting ultra-violence in a rabies-like outbreak turning Taipei residents into sex-crazed sadists. Tony (Reggie Lee) and Kat (Lisa Yan) navigate the carnage, their romance tested amid disembowelments and assaults. Crowdfunded after Jabbaz’s short went viral, it premiered at Fantasia, shocking with practical effects that evoke Train to Busan crossed with A Serbian Film.

Key scenes revel in excess: a subway massacre where infected rip throats with teeth, or a rapist gang’s comeuppance in a blender of limbs. Effects maestro Steven Chuo employs silicone prosthetics and corn syrup blood, achieving a tactile goriness that CGI fakes lack. Thematically, it skewers urban alienation—pre-outbreak Taipei buzzes with indifference, mirroring real pandemic isolation.

Jabbaz cites Tokyo Gore Police influences, but The Sadness adds political bite, critiquing authoritarian responses via military indifference. Banned in some territories for extremity, it found cult love on streaming, sparking debates on boundaries in horror. Production wrapped pre-COVID but released into a world weary of plagues, its prescience amplifying impact.

Fans laud its unapologetic nihilism, yet it probes empathy: Tony’s heroism amid depravity highlights love’s fragility. In a genre bloated with zombies, this elevates the infected to agents of primal rage, cementing its place among forgotten 2020s extremes.

Maternal Monstrosities: Huesera’s Bone-Cracking Curse

Michelle Garza Cervera’s 2022 Mexican import Huesera: The Bone Woman twists pregnancy horror into folkloric nightmare. Valeria (Natalia Solián) hears cracking bones post-ultrasound, embracing a shape-shifting entity tied to the titular myth—a child-devouring witch. As her belly swells, hallucinations blur with reality: she snaps necks in rage, births impossible offspring.

Practical effects shine in transformation sequences; vertebrae protrude through flesh via animatronics, evoking The Brood. Cinematographer Damián García uses handheld frenzy for domestic invasion, turning nurseries into charnel houses. Themes interrogate motherhood’s societal cage—Valeria’s artist spirit clashes with wifely duties, the curse liberating her savagery.

Garza Cervera, a horror newcomer, infuses Catholic guilt; crucifixes mock salvation as Valeria devours placentas. Festival darling at Tribeca, it underperformed commercially but thrives in Latin American horror circles, influencing 2023’s maternal dread wave. Production navigated Mexico City’s bureaucracy, shooting in abandoned clinics for authenticity.

Its cult appeal stems from empowerment-through-monstrosity: Valeria rejects victimhood, emerging feral. Amid Barbarian‘s pregnancy hits, Huesera stands distinct for cultural specificity, a gem rewarding patient viewers with shattering catharsis.

Folk Witchery Reimagined: You Won’t Be Alone’s Shapeshifting Saga

Goran Stolevski’s 2022 Macedonian-Australian folktale You Won’t Be Alone unfolds in 19th-century villages, where witch Milka (Noomi Rapace, de-glammed) possesses young Maria (Sara Klimoska), hopping bodies in a odyssey of sensation. Carloto Cotta and Anamaria Marinca join the ensemble, their forms twisted by prosthetics into beasts and lovers.

Noora Noro’s effects blend makeup with subtle CGI for metamorphoses, a wolf-child birth scene pulsing with Cronenbergian eroticism. Soundscape—rustling leaves, guttural cries—immerses in pagan rhythms. Stolevski pens poetic narration, Maria’s voiceover pondering humanity’s cruelties from outsider eyes.

Influenced by Balkan lore akin to The Witch, it critiques patriarchy: men rape and abandon, women nurture amid famine. Shot in remote Bulgaria, production battled weather, enhancing rawness. Berlinale premiere yielded middling reception, but Blu-ray cultists praise its meditative horror-poetry.

Legacy lies in sensory horror—Milka savours milk, sex, violence—questioning if civilisation dulls joy. A forgotten entry, it enriches 2020s global folk revival.

Demonic Talk Shows: Late Night with the Devil’s Retro Terror

The Cameron-Cairnes brothers’ 2023 faux-found-footage Late Night with the Devil recreates 1977’s Night Owls, host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) summoning devil via guest Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), a girl possessed post-cult murder. Live broadcast descends into chaos: levitations, incinerations, melting faces.

Effects homage 70s TV grain—analog glitches via practical pyro and puppets. Lighting mimics era fluorescents, shadows birthing horrors. Themes satirise fame’s Faustian bargain; Jack’s cancer-curing pact echoes Watergate cynicism.

Crowdfunded success, it exploded on Shudder post-SXSW. Production recreated studios meticulously, actors improvising panic. Cult status surges via Dastmalchian’s Emmy-calibre turn.

In 2020s found-footage glut, it innovates with period polish, a devilish delight reclaiming airwave scares.

Crafting Nightmares: Special Effects in the Shadows

These films’ effects wizards elevated micro-budgets to visceral heights. Relic‘s mould via silicone casts physicalised metaphor; The Sadness‘ gallons of blood (over 200 effects shots) demanded ingenuity sans stars. Huesera‘s bone prosthetics, moulded from dental casts, crunched audibly for authenticity.

You Won’t Be Alone favoured makeup over digital, Rapace donning prosthetics daily. Late Night‘s puppet Lilly, rigged for contortions, stole scenes. Amid CGI dominance, these practical triumphs honoured The Thing lineage, proving tactile gore endures.

Challenges abounded: COVID quarantines halted Relic VFX; Taiwan’s humidity melted The Sadness gels. Yet resourcefulness birthed icons, influencing indies like In a Violent Nature.

Echoes in the Culture: Legacy and Influence

These gems seeded subgenres: Relic boosted dementia horror; The Sadness inspired Asian extremity exports. Streaming algorithms buried them initially, but Letterboxd and festivals revived buzz. Remakes loom—Speak No Evil‘s Danish original (2022) prefigured Hollywood’s 2024 take.

Cultural ties abound: pandemic timing amplified contagions; #MeToo echoed body autonomy fights. They bridged 2010s elevation horror to 2020s extremes, proving indies sustain genre vitality.

Director in the Spotlight

Colin Cairnes, co-director of Late Night with the Devil, embodies the Aussie horror resurgence. Born in Melbourne in 1978, he studied film at Victorian College of the Arts, cutting teeth on shorts like Sick (2005), a twisted domestic thriller. With brother Cameron, they helmed Scattershot (2008), a zombie road movie, before genre pivots.

Breakout came with 100 Bloody Acres (2012), a black-comedy chiller about fertiliser-making siblings, earning FrightFest raves for its Fargo-meets-gore wit. The Killing of Angel Street? No—next, Black Water: Abyss (2020), crocodile Jaws variant starring Jessica McNamee, tackling climate dread in flooded caves.

Late Night (2023) sealed acclaim, blending The Exorcist with Network; Dastmalchian and Laureate Metcalf? No, Ingrid Torelli shone. Influences span Poltergeist to Kurosawa. Upcoming: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven adaptation. Cairnes champions practical FX, mentoring via IF:SA. Career spans commercials, TV like Doctor Doctor, but horror defines him—a meticulous showman reviving retro chills.

Actor in the Spotlight

David Dastmalchian, magnetic lead of Late Night with the Devil, rose from obscurity to horror staple. Born 1984 in Snowmass, Colorado, he battled meth addiction post-high school, finding solace in acting at The Theatre School at DePaul. Breakthrough: The Dark Knight (2008) as mental patient, then Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Horror arc ignited with Ant-Man

villain but deepened in Villains (2019), dual psycho role. Birds of Prey (2020), Dune (2021) as Piter De Vries earned Saturn nod. The Suicide Squad

(2021) Polka-Dot Man stole hearts; Macabre Fare? No, Late Night (2023) showcases talk-show gravitas, Emmy buzz.

Filmography: Prisoners (2013), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) as sadistic Cushing. Writes comics like Count Crowley. Married, sober since 2005, he embodies resilience—geeky everyman turned genre king.

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Bibliography

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James, N.E. (2020) ‘Directing Relic: A Personal Haunting’. Shudder Blog. Available at: https://www.shudder.com/blog/natalie-erika-james-relic (Accessed 15 October 2024).

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