13 Terrifying and Powerful Indigenous Horror Films You Shouldn’t Watch Alone

Indigenous horror isn’t just about the things that exist in the shadows or go bump in the night. It’s truth, memory, and the stories that refuse to stay buried, that we refuse to let stay buried. From the Arctic to the desert, from the spirit world to the living, Indigenous filmmakers are breaking new ground in horror with stories that scare and haunt every bit as much as they heal and empower.

Here are 13 must-see Indigenous horror films that will linger long after the credits roll and the screen goes dark. Don’t watch alone.

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1. Seeds – Kaniehtiio Horn

Ziggy, a thirty-something Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) woman, is offered her first gig as an online influencer, promoting for Nature’s Oath, a seed and fertilizer company. When her cousin summons her back to the rez, she is forced into a battle to save her people’s legacy.

2. First Voice – Mike J. Marin

A 9-1-1 dispatcher working from home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic must use his knowledge of the supernatural and traditional medicine to save a group of people and first responders who are trapped in a house with a malevolent spirit.

3. Ojichaag (Spirit Within) – Rachel Beaulieu

An emotionally devastated woman seeks comfort in her choice to end her life. As she faces death in the form of a spirit, she must decide to let herself go to fight to stay alive.

This short thriller is inspired by a true story. It depicts First Nations lore and Ojibway language in the form of a spirit. Marie, played by Joyce Delaronde (CTV Comedy Acting Good), a woman whose world has crumbled around her attempts to take her own life, only to find herself confronted by a Jiibay (a wandering spirit or ghost played by Curtis Howson of Winner and Deaner 89).

The apparition transports Marie to the spirit world and offers to help her live “the good life”. The Jiibay attempts to persuade her to let go and come with them, by sharing their understanding of their unjust life journey to this point. Marie must look at herself and ask why she’s been given this chance.

4. The Moogai – Jon Bell

A young Aboriginal couple brings home their second baby. What should be a joyous time takes a sinister turn, as the baby’s mother starts seeing a malevolent spirit she is convinced is trying to take her baby.

5. Uiksaringitara (The Wrong Husband) – Zacharias Kunuk

After a mysterious death, Kaujak and Sapa are separated despite being promised to each other at birth. With the help of spirit guides, efforts are made to restore harmony in this Arctic fairy tale set in an Inuit community.

6. The Legends of Eternal Snow (Khaar Kuyaar Nomokhtoro) – Alexei Romanov

When Khabyy is tasked with exchanging riches for the hand of a beautiful young bride for his old Chief, he does not anticipate the mission leading him back to a dark and haunted past. Accompanied by two other men, one bent on challenging Khabyy’s authority and the other softening to the bride’s strong will to escape, the group finds themselves battling the harsh Yakutia climate and barely surviving. Tensions rise throughout the long and arduous journey and when they seek shelter in an old abandoned hut, they discover it holds a subject of lore with which Khabyy is all too familiar.Alexei Romanov’s fairytale feature crosses genres of romance, drama, and horror, each element elevated by its setting in the unrelenting isolated landscapes of Yakutia.

7. Inkwo For When The Starving Return – Amanda Strong

Two lifetimes from now the world hangs in the balance. Dove, a young, enigmatic, gender-shifting warrior, discovers the gifts and burdens of their Inkwo (medicine) to defend against an army of hungry, ferocious monsters. Dove’s courage, resilience and alliance with the Earth culminates in a battle against these flesh-consuming creatures, who become stronger with each body and soul they devour. Inkwo for When the Starving Return is a call to action to fight and protect against the forces of greed around us.

8. Ghosts – Jeffrey Palmer

“Ghosts” tells the story of three Kiowa boys’ daring escape from a government boarding school in Anadarko, Oklahoma in 1891, to attend a ghost dance ceremony at a distant Kiowa encampment. After being whipped for, so-called, insubordination and feeling defeated, CHARLES, a rebellious teenager, plans to escape with an unlikely group of partners, the spiritual ZEPH, who has visions of his grandfather and an upcoming ghost dance, which is sweeping across Indian Territory promising the resurrection of their ancestors, and JUDAH, a trickster, who seizes the opportunity to join them and help them flee. “Ghosts” is an oral history of tribal alliance, resistance, and survival from the degradation of forced assimilation.

9. Dark Place – Kodie Bedford, Björn Stewart, Liam Phillips, Perun Bonser, Rob Braslin

Five simmering impactful, electrifying, horror stories pushing new boundaries in narrative and story lines, and firmly establishing new Post Colonial narrative “The Dark Place” focuses on “desire to unpack race relations and examine the impact endured by the Aboriginal first inhabitants through the eyes of the new generation of Australian filmmakers.

10. Skinwalker Cave – Steven Tallas

Three documentary filmmakers disappeared on the Navajo Reservation while trying to find Skinwalker cave. One year later their footage was found.

11. The Dim – Ginew Benton

When the relationship between Native American couple, Troy and Lisa, deteriorates into toxic shambles, Troy stumbles upon an inter-dimensional object that turns out to be more curse than blessing to himself, and all those around him.

12. Don’t Say Its Name – Reuben Martell

After environmental activist Kharis Redwater is called back to the living world by her mother Mary Lynn after a questionable “accident” that cost Kharis her life, an ancient spirit is reborn outside of a small northern town out of revenge for the loss of her daughter’s life. Kharis returns as a Wheetago, a ferocious creature that only gets hungrier the more it eats. Can an ex-military Park Ranger, Stacy Cole, and Police Officer, Betty Stonechild, call back their traditional teachings to stop Kharis before she continues to feed on all who get in her way?

13. Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) – Bretten Hannam

Siblings Mise’l and Antle, close confidants as children, have drifted apart as adults. When a malevolent spirit begins tormenting them, the siblings are forced to reunite and journey into Sk+te’kmujue’kati (the Place of Ghosts), a primordial forest that exists outside of time, to confront their violent upbringing.