Absentia

It all starts when a tragedy brings a pair of sisters together: After seven years of waiting, Tricia (Courtney Bell) is going to sign the legal documents to declare her missing husband dead in absentia, and younger sister Callie (Katie Parker) is there for moral support. The pressure of taking that final step, though, is having a weird effect on Tricia as the ghost of her dead husband keeps popping up. Then the actual guy – alive and not a ghost—shows up too scared to even tell people where he’s been and what happened to him. And his return is only the start of the family’s problems. Writer/director Mike Flanagan does a fantastic job of cranking the tension up to 11 throughout the movie without ever needing to resort to the kind of cheap tricks most horror movies are made of today. Instead, he gives us a character study of people who may or may not be going mad, which is 10 times more frightening.