3 Hidden Gems Not To Miss At The 2025 Telluride Horror Show
By Correspondents Shay Wescott and Jack Hanley
It's finally here... The 16th Annual Horror Film Festival Returns to Telluride, Colorado, October 10–12, 2025!
As ever, the official Telluride Horror Show line-up announcement delivers horror fans some of the most anticipated and talked about films of the year.... and as lovers of independent horror films, it's no small feat that so many are debuts!
OF COURSE we're shaking with anticipation to check out GOOD BOY (featuring first time actor Indy, a possible Oscar contender who is also a dog!) and DUST BUNNY, the long-awaited feature directorial debut from visionary creator Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies), featuring the filmmaker in person, as well as the highly anticipated directorial debut of Chris Stuckman, SHELBY OAKS (making its CO Premiere.) But the TRUE horror would be to miss any of the incredible underrated gems of independent and international horror films we've come to appreciate from this incredibly curated festival. Here are three underrated recommendations we'd trade our soul to not miss...
I. VIEJA LOCA (Spain/Argentina) Dir. Martín Mauregui
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Winner of Best Director at Fantastic Fest!
What begins as a modest favor, a man agreeing to look after his ex-girlfriend’s ailing mother, descends swiftly into a claustrophobic fever dream. The senile Alicia, equal parts victim and warden, refuses to let him go, transforming a simple act of care into a psychological siege. It’s domestic horror as emotional purgatory - a slow, dreadful unmooring where guilt and obligation curdle into madness.
II. DOLLY (United States) Dir. Rod Blackhurst
“Feels like it belongs to a bygone era, where horror still felt dangerous and you weren't quite sure what would happen next from scene to scene.”
A young woman’s abduction spirals into a grotesque fairy tale of forced motherhood and survival, as Macy becomes the unwilling child in a deranged creature’s domestic delusion. Brutal and unpredictable, it feels like a feral collision of New French Extremity and 1970s American horror, the kind of film that reminds us terror was once thrillingly unhinged, and all too human.
FLUSH (France) Dir. Grégory Morin
“a raw, uncompromising burst of dark comedic intensity that lingers long after the credits roll.”
In a desperate bid to win back his girlfriend, Luke accidentally stumbles into a drug deal that goes spectacularly wrong, leaving him half-dead and literally trapped, head wedged in a filthy squat toilet as chaos erupts around him. What follows is a delirious descent through the criminal underbelly, equal parts nightmare and grotesque farce. Unrelenting and weirdly exhilarating, FLUSH is a midnight movie in the truest, most gloriously unhinged sense of the word. Don't miss this one.
Jack Hanley is a Boulder-based film scholar, podcaster, and critic. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Slamdance’s Indie Awards, and the Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and the founder of the Reel Horrors Film Festival. He is a frequent collaborator with the Colorado Festival of Horror, the Telluride Horror Show, and is co-director of the Reel Weird Film Festival. Follow him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com
Shay Wescott is the resident “queen of the weird” at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder. CO, fundraising for the arts by day and curating the Friday Night Weird weekly cult film series by night. A lifelong lover of independent film, she also assists in programming for the Boulder International Film Festival. She is a frequent collaborator with the Colorado Festival of Horror and is co-director of the Reel Weird Film Festival.