Sucker
2021 · 8m · United Kingdom
Directed by Alix Austin
Genres: dark comedy, drama, horror
Sam discovers her sister Caitlin has been infested by a monstrous gigantic leech creature that is slowly sucking her life force dry, and the sisters quarrel over how to deal with the parasite as it turns its telepathic takeover on Sam.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A leech-as-mind-control-parasite that feeds on familial obligation instead of just blood—now that's the kind of premise that makes you sit up. Austin takes the body horror expected beat and pivots it into something genuinely unsettling about how we let people drain us, which is exactly the subversive move that separates this from another creature-feature.
The film's formal restraint—shooting the infestation mostly off-screen, letting tension live in dialogue and the sisters' deteriorating trust—shows a clear lineage to elevated horror that knows when to withhold the image. It's a studied choice that elevates what could've been exploitation into something with real thematic weight.
The decision to make the leech's presence felt primarily through Caitlin's vocal performance—the subtle shift in cadence and affect as the parasite gains control—is what keeps an 8-minute premise from collapsing; Austin commits to that one performance thread and it becomes the entire visual language.