Creepy, creepy, creepy!
Last month, Exit 8 reached North American theaters after its Cannes debut in 2025. This month, another liminal horror picture, adapted from a web series, opens wide, threatening to unsettle millions of young people and jaded older people.
Typically, World War II-themed historical dramas play to an older crowd, so we'll see if this week's latest such adventure reaches beyond its expected demographic.
We've seen two other movies new in theaters: a psychological mystery and a "quietly suspenseful meditation." Our reviews are linked below, as part of our guide to all the genre films opening in movie theaters this week.
Backrooms
The film opens Friday, May 29, only in movie theaters, via A24.
Kane Parsons directs a big-screen adaptation of his web series, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. Look for our review later this week.
Official synopsis: "A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom."
Pressure
The film opens Friday, May 29, only in movie theaters, via Focus Features. Visit their official site for locations and showtimes.
Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon, Chris Messina, Damian Lewis star; Anthony Maras directed. Look for our review later this week.
Official synopsis: "In the tense 72 hours before D-Day, and the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, Pressure follows General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Captain James Stagg as they face an impossible choice--launch the largest and most dangerous seaborne invasion in history or risk losing the war altogether."
The Currents
The film opens Friday, May 29, only in movie theaters, via Kino Lorber. Visit their official site for locations and showtimes.
Our review by Kurt Halfyard: "The Currents respects and rewards its audience in a myriad of ways that I found invigorating. It is better than a cold plunge."
Official synopsis: "While visiting Switzerland to accept an award for her work in the fashion industry, Argentinian designer Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola) is seized by the sudden urge to jump off a bridge into an icy river. She survives the plunge and returns to Buenos Aires; she tells no one of the incident, yet a transformation has taken place within her.
"Left with a paralyzing fear of water, Lina finds it impossible to readjust to her former identity as a wife, mother, and artist. She distances herself from her husband (Esteban Bigliardi) and career, growing increasingly isolated and fragile as she confronts long buried existential questions.
"Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler, The Currents is a quietly gripping psychological mystery with dreamlike, hallucinatory threads that weave a portrait of a woman on the verge of unraveling."
Forastera
The film opens Friday, May 29, only in movie theaters, via Grasshopper Film.
Our review by Shelagh Rowan-Legg: "Spanish filmmaker Lucía Aleñar Iglesias crafts a quiet and intimate portrait of grief held very closely to the chest. Expanded from her short film, Forastera is a different kind of ghost story, one perhaps more about benevolence and longing that vengeance. It is more concerned with how we make it through those first troubling days and learn what it will take to live through the loss of love."
Official synopsis: "Teenager Cata (Zoe Stein) is summering at her grandparents' house on the Spanish island of Mallorca, swimming in the turquoise Mediterranean waters, teasing her younger sister, and flirting with a Swedish boy. But this vacation idyll is cut short when her beloved grandmother Catalina (Marta Angelat) abruptly passes away, hurling each member of Cata's family into mourning.
"One day, she slips into her grandmother's dress and feels an unexpected pull toward her clothes and belongings. As the boundary between the living and the departed begins to blur, Forastera (Spanish for "stranger") becomes a quietly suspenseful meditation on memory, grief, and the unseen forces that continue to influence our lives."
Pitfall
The film opens Friday, May 29, only in movie theaters, via Voltage Pictures. Visit the official site for more information.
Love the synopsis. Look for our review later this week.
Official synopsis: "When a young man is separated from his friends deep in the woods, he falls into a spiked pit, impaling his leg and leaving him trapped. But this is no accident, it's the beginning of a ruthless hunt. As the terrifying realization sets in, he must fight through pain, fear, and the shadows of the forest to escape... before his friends become the next target."
With Hasan, in Gaza
The film opens Friday, May 29, only in movie theaters, via The Cinema Guild.
Official synopsis: "Constructed from three MiniDV tapes shot in Gaza in 2001 and rediscovered years later, the film transforms recovered footage into a profound cinematic meditation on memory, loss, and the passage of time.
"Originally conceived as a search for a former prison mate from 1989, the film unfolds into an unexpected road trip from the north to the south of Gaza with Hasan, a local guide whose fate remains unknown. As the camera moves through Gaza's streets and landscapes, it records fleeting moments of everyday life--fragments of a reality now irreversibly altered. With Hasan in Gaza throws mainstream images of a people displaced into relief through the traces of absence bygone time evokes."
And one more, releasing for the benefit of home-bound movie fans.
Speed Demon
The film will be available Sunday, May 31, on VOD and Digital platforms, via Maverick Film and Complex Corp.
Katie Cassidy and William H. Macy star in a horror thriller. Look for our review later this week.
Official synopsis: "When Father Novak and Sister Lu board a train from Montreal to New York City, they weren't prepared for the danger and evil that would pursue them. After the train is taken over by the demon Asmodeus, Father Novak and Sister Lu must battle possessed passengers on a runaway train with Sister Lu forced to overcome her faltering faith and perform the first exorcism done by a nun."
Opening This Week celebrates the cinematic experience, in movie theaters and at home.