Absentia

Absentia (2011) is director Mike Flanagan's feature debut — a lo-fi psychological horror you can watch online on iFILM, made years before he became a household name in the genre. Tricia has spent seven years waiting for her missing husband to come home. Now, with a new relationship starting and a baby on the way, she finally files the paperwork to have him declared dead in absentia.

Then her younger sister Callie arrives — and starts exploring the old pedestrian tunnel nearby. What she encounters there refuses to stay in the tunnel. As Tricia and Callie dig into the neighbourhood's past, a pattern of unexplained disappearances surfaces around that same underpass. Starring Katie Parker and Courtney Bell, the film earns its dread through absence and implication rather than anything shown on screen. That restraint is a deliberate choice — and a very effective one.

Shot on a Kickstarter budget of roughly $70,000, Absentia proved Flanagan could generate sustained unease with almost nothing. Stream Absentia (2011) on iFILM.