A Peculiar Thud
2017 · 13m · United States
Directed by Ross Morin
Genres: horror, LGBTQ+, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
A man awakened in the night by a thud downstairs finds an intruder at his door asking to come in.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A home-invasion thriller that pivots on queerness and vulnerability instead of weapons and surveillance — it's the kind of genre subversion that shouldn't work but does, because Morin trusts the premise's weirdness enough to let it breathe.
The formal restraint here is masterful: confined geography, minimal exposition, and a slow accumulation of dread that echoes the locked-room anxieties of classical horror, though the emotional stakes feel distinctly contemporary.
The decision to play the intruder's request with genuine ambiguity rather than menace — that tonal choice in a single line of dialogue — reframes the entire power dynamic and makes the 13 minutes feel urgent in a way jump scares never could.
Reviews
What would be creepy in the daytime is downright terrifying at 3am. Add to the fact that the protagonist's safeguards (alarm system, locked doors, calling 911) failed to discourage the intruder (later a knife-wielding attacker), and the viewer is faced with a realistic nightmare.
Festivals
- Atlanta Horror Film Festival 2017