The New Wave of International Horror: 5 Must-See Foreign Films Redefining Scary

The horror genre has always thrived on fresh perspectives, and the most inventive terrors of the 2020s are arriving from outside Hollywood. These five global standouts weave folklore, social commentary, and experimental filmmaking into unforgettable nightmares. Rather than remaking familiar tropes, they adapt them through cultural history, creating the type of horror that lingers long after the jump scares fade.

Why International Horror Matters Right Now

• Untapped mythology: From Taiwanese curse narratives to Senegalese shape-shifters, international productions draw on mythological wells that American horror rarely touches.
• Political fear translated into genre: Many of these films use supernatural stories to metabolize collective trauma—colonial scars, religious extremism, or environmental collapse.
• Craft innovations: Budget constraints often lead directors to invent practical effects, inventive soundscapes, or documentary collages that mainstream studio horrors overlook.

1. When Evil Lurks (Argentina, 2023)

• Director: Demián Rugna
• Availabilty (U.S.): Shudder, rent on Apple TV

The director behind Terrified returns with a possession film that upends exorcism logic. Rural brothers discover a “rotten” man—essentially a possessed incubator—and try to remove him before a demon births into the world. Rugna weaponizes Argentina’s rural landscapes and economic precarity: the demon spreads like contamination, exposing the fragility of social order when institutions refuse to help.

Standout sequence: A mid-film school massacre shot with chilling restraint proves that suggestive camera work can be more disturbing than explicit gore.

2. Impetigore (Indonesia, 2020)

• Director: Joko Anwar
• Availabilty (U.S.): Shudder, AMC+

A young Jakarta tollbooth worker inherits a remote village shrine and unwittingly unleashes a curse rooted in colonial greed and gendered violence. Traditional shadow puppetry influences the film’s production design, while Anwar punctuates folklore with razor-sharp social commentary.

Why it hits different: Indonesian horror leans heavily into folk magic, and Impetigore’s third-act ritual sequence is one of the decade’s most operatic set pieces.

3. The Medium (Thailand/South Korea, 2021)

• Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun, produced by Na Hong-jin
• Availability (U.S.): Shudder, Viki

Presented as a documentary about a shamanic lineage, The Medium tracks a family curse tearing through a northern Thai village. The film begins with gentle anthropological detail before devolving into terrifying possession footage captured by a roving doc crew. Its climax—one take of screaming chaos lit by handheld flashlights—feels genuinely dangerous.

Cultural hook: It visualizes animist spiritual beliefs rarely depicted in Western cinema, making every ritual detail feel consequential.

4. Saloum (Senegal, 2021)

• Director: Jean Luc Herbulot
• Availability (U.S.): Shudder, AMC+

Part western, part supernatural revenge tale, Saloum follows the Hyenas, a trio of legendary mercenaries, as they seek refuge in a mystical coastal camp. Their colonial past catches up—literally—and they must fight an ancient demon awakened by wartime atrocities. Electric neon lighting and a propulsive Afrobeats score differentiate it from any other horror movie released in 2021.

Genre fusion: Herbulot mashes up heist thrills, folk horror, and creature feature energy, proving that genre boundaries can be fluid while still delivering scares.

5. Attachment (Denmark, 2022)

• Director: Gabriel Bier Gislason
• Availability (U.S.): Shudder

A queer romance between a Danish actress and a Jewish academic unravels when dybbuk folklore, overprotective matriarchs, and the occult collide in London’s Hasidic community. The film balances tender love story beats with creeping dread, culminating in a possession finale steeped in Jewish mysticism.

Representation win: Jewish horror is rarely told from inside the community; Attachment gives agency to its queer protagonists while honoring tradition.

Honorable Mentions

• Incantation (Taiwan, 2022): A found-footage curse film shot as a video blog, leveraging audience participation to implicate viewers directly in the horror.
• Huesera: The Bone Woman (Mexico, 2022): A body-horror allegory about maternal ambivalence and patriarchal pressure.
• Speak No Evil (Denmark/Netherlands, 2022): A social-horror thriller about politeness run amok; watch it only if you have the stomach for a brutal final 15 minutes.

Cultural Context Primer

• Argentina: Possession narratives often echo distrust in institutions after decades of political upheaval. When Evil Lurks taps into rural communities left behind by modernization.
• Indonesia: Javanese mysticism and shadow puppetry inform Joko Anwar’s style—knowing that wayang kulit performances historically warn audiences about moral decay enriches Impetigore.
• Thailand: Animist spirits coexist with Buddhism in the north; The Medium grounds supernatural events in real shamanic practices.
• Senegal: Postcolonial narratives frequently merge folklore with critiques of neocolonial economics, a tension Saloum weaponizes.
• Denmark: Jewish folklore rarely takes center stage; Attachment combines it with diasporic diaspora anxieties about cultural assimilation.

Where to Stream & Pair

Hosting a Global Horror Night

1. Set the tone. Cue regional playlists—West African highlife before Saloum, Thai morlam folk for The Medium.
2. Snack pairing. Serve Indonesian kue lapis sweets or Argentine empanadas to connect senses.
3. Content warnings. Provide heads-up on themes like animal harm or ritualistic imagery to keep guests comfortable.
4. Post-film debrief. Use translation articles or director interviews to unpack symbolism.

Programming Your Own Global Horror Night

1. Pair by theme. Watch Impetigore and Attachment back-to-back to compare how different cultures treat curses as expressions of communal guilt.
2. Keep translation context handy. Subtitles occasionally gloss over idioms; pausing to look up referenced rituals deepens the impact.
3. Support legal distribution. Many of these films reach U.S. audiences through boutique streamers like Shudder, Dekkoo, or the Criterion Channel; subscriptions directly fuel more licensing deals.

Craft Takeaways for Horror Nerds

• Sound design is king. The Medium uses location-specific field recordings—buzzing insects, wind chimes, street markets—to ground the supernatural in tactile reality.
• Lighting as folklore: Saloum bathes demon encounters in saturated reds and golds, echoing West African textile palettes.
• Cultural specificity > broad metaphors: These films work because they lean into local customs rather than sanding them down for international viewers.

Final Scream

International horror proves that fear is universal, but the stories we tell to process it are gloriously specific. Whether you crave ritual-based possession stories or stylish mercenary myths, the global horror renaissance offers something new to jolt your senses—and your empathy—awake.