Lurker
2023 · 10m · USA
Directed by Savanna Wrobel
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, horror
A recent art-school graduate living with her penny-pinching parents faces an unexpected adversary that may be a ghost or a manifestation of her darkest self.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The ghost-or-self ambiguity is competent but familiar enough that it doesn't quite earn its surreal posturing — Wrobel's got the mood right, but the premise plays it safer than a post-school horror film should.
A tidy descent into psychological horror that understands its lineage (body horror, domestic dread, the uncanny in familiar spaces), though the editing rhythms feel slightly undercooked for the precision this register demands.
The sound design is what makes this work — that specific choice to let ambient dread bleed into silence, then violently back again, transforms what could be rote coming-of-age-meets-haunting into something genuinely unsettling on a ten-minute budget.