Them

Them (Ils, 2006) is a French horror film from David Moreau and Xavier Palud, ready to watch online on iFILM. A young couple goes to bed in a big house outside Bucharest and wakes up to the sound of someone starting their car in the yard.

Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy) teaches French to local kids; her boyfriend Lucas (Michaël Cohen) is writing a novel. Their house sits alone with forest pressing in on every side. First the phone line dies, then the lights, then hooded figures start flickering through the rooms. The movie barely explains who these people are or what they want, and that blank is exactly what makes it terrifying. It runs a tight seventy-three minutes, mostly handheld and close to real time — no breathing room, no musical cues telling you when to flinch, just footsteps and creaking floorboards.

The opening claims it's based on a real incident, a point people still argue about online. A year later Hollywood put out the similar film The Strangers, but this original is meaner and more stripped down. If you don't need monsters or buckets of blood, only pure animal dread of whatever is already behind you, this delivers. Stream Them (2006) online on iFILM.