Pareidolia
2023 · 14m · Reino Unido
Directed by Aaron Truss
Genres: horror, mystery, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Sinead, a university professor who studies the subject of pareidolia, becomes convinced she is being stalked by an entity that hides inside her house. Meanwhile, a mysterious death draws the attention of a local priest, Father Cavanagh, who realises his past is starting to catch up with him.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The dual-narrative setup wants to be clever but lands safely—two separate mysteries folded together like a greeting card, when a real contrarian move would've let them collide in ways that unmake the genre itself.
Truss threads pareidolia as both thematic anchor and formal device with admirable restraint; the editing rhythm mirrors the protagonist's deteriorating ability to distinguish pattern from presence, positioning this squarely in the lineage of Carpenter and early Cronenberg where metaphysics becomes mise-en-scène.
The sound design choice—layering ambient hum underneath dialogue that gradually drowns it out—is the film's spine; it's a $0 decision that does the psychological heavy lifting most productions throw budget at.