The Next Reel Film Podcast
Talk to Me
A cursed hand. A grieving teenager. A party trick that goes terribly, supernaturally wrong. Pete and Andy close out Horror Debuts with the Philippou brothers.
June 25, 2026
Horror Debuts was part of a Season 11 dedicated to women directors—and this series was its horror chapter. Six debut horror films from female filmmakers and directing teams, spanning Austria, Iran, Australia, Poland, the UK, and the early 1970s United States. Each one announced a new voice arriving fully formed.
A cursed hand. A grieving teenager. A party trick that goes terribly, supernaturally wrong. Pete and Andy close out Horror Debuts with the Philippou brothers.
This series is over. We’ve covered Messiah of Evil, Goodnight Mommy, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Babadook, The Lure, Saint Maud, and Relic. What did we think of these horror debuts?
Our Horror Debuts series comes to a close with Rose Glass’s Saint Maud. Pete and Andy find themselves divided on this psychological horror about religious obsession and isolation.
Members voted Natalie Erika James’s Relic as a Horror Debuts bonus pick. Pete and Andy dig into this quiet, dread-filled haunted house film about three generations of one family.
Two carnivorous mermaid sisters wash ashore in an alternate 1980s Poland in The Lure. Pete and Andy continue Horror Debuts with Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s genre-bending musical horror debut.
So many people love Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, but does its grief metaphor go too far? Pete and Andy dig into its craft, its divisive reception, and its unlikely second life as an LGBTQ+ icon.
A lonesome vampire stalks a fictional Iranian ghost town on a skateboard in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Pete and Andy continue Horror Debuts with Ana Lily Amirpour’s black-and-white debut.
Twin boys suspect the bandaged woman home from the hospital isn’t their mother in Goodnight Mommy. Pete and Andy continue Horror Debuts with this gorgeous, unsettling feature debut.
Before American Graffiti and Howard the Duck, there was Messiah of Evil. We open our Horror Debuts series with Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck’s tangled, hallucinatory 1973 cult curiosity.
Horror Debuts was part of something larger. Season 11 of The Next Reel was dedicated to women directors, and this series was its horror chapter. Six films in 2021: Messiah of Evil (1973), Goodnight Mommy (2014), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), The Babadook (2014), The Lure (2015), and Saint Maud (2019). Relic (2020) followed as a member bonus. Season 15 adds Talk to Me (2022).
The filmmakers come from Austria, Iran, Australia, Poland, the UK, and the early 1970s United States. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala's Goodnight Mommy. Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, an Iranian vampire western shot in California. Jennifer Kent's The Babadook. Agnieszka Smoczynska's The Lure, a Polish horror musical about mermaids. Rose Glass's Saint Maud. Natalie Erika James's Relic, a haunting meditation on family and loss that particularly resonated with both Pete and Andy. And Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's Messiah of Evil, the strange 1973 debut that opened the series.
Talk to Me, added in Season 15, is the exception—a debut from the Philippou brothers rather than a female filmmaker. It earned its place on the strength of the filmmaking alone. Their visceral portrait of youthful recklessness and supernatural consequence is brash, affecting, and hard to shake.
What makes this series rewarding to follow is what debut films reveal. Without the safety net of an established reputation, first-time directors in horror tend to commit completely to a vision that simply cannot be tentative. Every film here has that quality, even when they share almost nothing else.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Next Reel's Horror Debuts series complete?
The current run reached eight films with Talk to Me in Season 15—but debut horror from bold new voices keeps arriving, and Pete and Andy may well return to this series in a future season.
Which films are in The Next Reel's Horror Debuts series?
Eight films across two seasons: Messiah of Evil, Goodnight Mommy, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Babadook, The Lure, and Saint Maud in Season 11 (2021), plus Relic as a member bonus that same season; and Talk to Me in Season 15 (2026).
Where should I start if I'm new to The Next Reel?
The Babadook or Saint Maud are strong entry points—both widely seen and both generating the kind of deep conversation the series is built around. If you want something more unexpected, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is unlike anything else in the series.
Is there a wrap-up episode for the Horror Debuts series?
Yes. The Retake: Horror Debuts episode walks through the full series—what worked, how the films held up, and what Pete and Andy made of the directors and their debuts. It's available to everyone and makes a natural companion piece once you've heard the individual episodes.
Become a Supporting Member
The movie ends. The conversation goes further. Members of The Next Reel get every episode early and ad-free in their own private podcast feed, plus bonus episodes, exclusive Discord channels, and access to live recording sessions. Become a member at TruStory FM.
Related Listening
If the Horror Debuts series brought you here, you might also want to explore The Next Reel's Horror series—a broader look at horror cinema across the show's history. It's a natural next step for anyone who came to the genre through one of these debut films.