Not so horrid: This Halloween, indulge in these artistic, suspenseful horror-adjacent films for fans of character-driven storytelling -…

If youre looking to watch something a tad artful, tense and creepy this Halloween without the blood, guts and goofiness that define most scary movies, pull up a chair and feast on these horror adjacent delights.

Mostly villain-less and virtually blood-less, these cinematic gems from a trove of international filmmakers return movie-making to what it should be a character-driven feast for the senses, with nary a Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees in sight.

Your local video store (if that were still a thing) probably wouldnt even carry these dark character studies and psychological rabbit holes in their horror section, even though they borrow a certain fear factor from the genre.

Most of these mature takes are available on AMCs streaming service Shudder.com, but give the free Facebook channel Alter a try if youre curious about award-winning international horror shorts.

While accompanying a billionaire and his team to Mars, a French psychologist (actress and composer Helene Vivies) discovers a Russian cosmonaut unconscious on its rocky surface. The strange traveler has been thought to be dead for decades, and his sudden recovery ushers in the revelation that his unassuming savior could be the evolutionary key to the future of life on two planets.

Borrowing openly from 2001: A Space Odyssey and too many other spacefaring films to mention, this sophisticated and suspenseful television sci-fi series wobbles a bit toward the end of its second season, which introduces heavy-handed metaphysical philosophizing, a portal to a parallel world and a renegade robot.

Still, the two seasons each span 10 20-minute episodes, making Missions the perfect before-bed midnight snack. Directed by Julien Lacombe in French with an international cast.

Written, directed and deliciously scored by A.T. White of the British bubblegum pop-rock band Ghostlight, and filmed in smalltown Colorado, this horror adjacent-sensory delight has all the emotional weight of a Bon Iver music video thats suddenly been invaded by flesh-eating aliens.

Following the death of her best friend, a distraught young woman (Virginia Gardner of Marvels Runaways) breaks into her apartment to spend the night, only to wake the next morning to heavy snows, abandoned streets, tall stone monoliths and ghoulish extra-dimensional invaders lured and repelled by frequencies in the dead womans mixtapes.

Fans of last (good) man standing films such as I Am Legend and A Quiet Place will relish a fresh take on familiar themes, as well as a gorgeous indie soundtrack, compelling dramatic score and deliberately-paced storytelling that laser-focuses on intimate details.

It doesnt even feel jarring when a musical portal sends our girlishly reluctant heroine into a cartoon animation freefall, and another drops her outside her own movie set, where she spies on herself between takes. The melodramatic ending could use some rewrite, but thats largely true across the genre.

The party really revs up when the ghost of a Yiddish girl possesses the groom (Israeli actor Itay Tiran, who can writhe like a cat on fire) at an elaborate wedding in the Polish countryside, driving him to madness, even as the wedding party politely pretends not to notice. Could it be the family hes marrying into harbors a literal backyard skeleton or two?

An allegorical take on selective historical amnesia and one nations preference to bury its tortured past. Theres at least as much subtle humor as horror in the telling, which is laced with gorgeously poetic melancholy.

We must forget what we didnt see here, says the father of the bride, once the all-night revelry has gone completely sideways, because what we were eye-witnesses to was only the effect of a collective hallucination.

Dubbed by some to be Polanski-esque, Demon was co-written and directed in Polish by Marcin Wrona, who committed suicide in his hotel room as the movie was about to be showcased at Polands national film festival.

In the Spanish countryside, an overweight teen suffers deep humiliation at the hands of mean girls, including her childhood friend Claudia. Then a serial killer drives off with her clothes, forcing a long walk home wearing virtually nothing. This free horror short from the Facebook channel Alter hails from Spain, but theres so much tension and so little dialogue, subtitles wont be necessary. Written and directed by Spanish television writer Carlota Martnez-Pereda.

Deliciously subversive and unapologetically violent, this Amazon Prime conspiracy series follows a group of fanboys and fan girls on the hunt for a comic book that seems to lay out the future virus pandemics that will end the world. Not since The Walking Dead has a show hammered home so hard that anyone can be killed at any moment and every character is expendable.

John Cusack should win awards for his pitch-perfect portrayal of a biotech mogul with global ambitions, but the entire seemingly doomed ensemble cast is to die for. Created by Gillian Flynn, who wrote the novel and screenplay for Gone Girl.

Mourning the possible suicide of his fianc, a frumpy comic artist with a strange obsessive compulsive disorder takes an unplanned trip to Iceland, where locals suspect hes the reincarnation of an ancient sorcerer who can raise the dead.

Theres both mirth and mystery in this slow-burn love letter to a dead ex, but if youre waiting for scary demon hordes to jump out, dont hold your breath.

Barak Hardley (who co-wrote, produced and stars) pulls off an impressive acting feat, combining the comic persona of an overbearing American tourist with the more sympathetic character of a grieving almost-widow sorting through conflicting feelings about the self-destructive woman he never got to marry. Now throw an escalating mental illness down this psychological rabbit hole.

Filmed in Iceland, directed by music video director Brendan Walter, scored by Fall Out Boy lead singer Patrick Stump, and featuring an audio cameo by Weezers Rivers Cuomo.

Years after the tragic drowning death of his wife, a surgeon finds his life unraveling in bizarre new ways following a chance encounter with an emotionally-disconnected dominatrix who introduces him to erotic asphyxiation.

If youre looking for sexy cheap thrills, look away this beautifully-shot, atmospheric tale is all about sadness and longing and missing your teenage daughters rock recital because youve oxygen-deprived yourself into the trauma unit of your own hospital.

Still, as horror-adjacent character studies go, theres enough squirm-inducing tooth-pulling and wicked wax play to call this meditation on anomie almost scary. From Finnish director J.P. Valkeap, with a dented-wounded sort of love.

While not an official horror film, horrible things do indeed happen to a hapless drunk who is imprisoned alone, without explanation, in a hotel room for 15 years. When hes finally released after a decade of punching walls, his Punisher-style quest for vengeance is something straight out of a comic book, or in this case, the Japanese manga series of the same name.

Dubbed by some a neo-noir action/psychological thriller, this instant cult classic won the Grand Prix prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Its the second and most fully-realized installment in South Korean director Park Chan-wooks vengeance trilogy, which includes the bleak and forgettable Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and the darkly comic Lady Vengeance (also known as Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) (2005). Each clocks in at about two hours.

Packed with Hollywood stars like Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson, director Spike Lees 2013 remake of Oldboy bombed at the box office, earning $4.8 million, a fraction of its $30 million budget, one of the worst box office performances of Lees career. Actor Will Smith and director Steven Spielberg stepped away from a previous planned remake in 2009. In other words, stick to the Chan-wook version.

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Not so horrid: This Halloween, indulge in these artistic, suspenseful horror-adjacent films for fans of character-driven storytelling -...