Holly

When 15-year-old Holly calls in sick to school, stating that something bad is going to happen and ten students subsequently die in a fire, some believe she might be in possession of otherworldly gifts. Once subject to bullying, Holly is now feted as a near-religious figure, who can lift the pain of grief and suffering just by her presence. But when money begins changing hands for her services, some are unsettled by this power and how it is being used.

Neither straightforward horror – although there are distant echoes of Stephen King’s Carrie – nor a slice of social realism, Fien Troch’s follow-up to her widely acclaimed Home (2016) starts out as a sensitive character study of its subject. A teenager who herself doubts she has any rare gift, but who nevertheless has an ability to comfort, as evinced by her tender relationship with her neurodiverse father. But as the drama pans out, taking in the wider community, Holly becomes a fascinating portrait of the lengths people go to in order to cope with the pain of grief and how in a society where everything has a price, even the most sacred things are commodified.

– Ian Haydn Smith