Meander

Meander (Méandre, 2021) is a French sci-fi horror from Mathieu Turi that you can watch online on iFILM. Lisa accepts a ride from a stranger and wakes up trapped inside a narrow tube. A bracelet on her wrist counts down, and every few minutes fire scorches the section right behind her.

Forward is the only direction. She crawls through one death trap after another — acid, spikes, freezing water, blades — and stopping means burning. Gaïa Weiss carries almost the entire film alone, crammed into a metal pipe, soaked and scraped and running on fear. The tube starts feeding her fragments of her own past, and it slowly becomes clear that this gauntlet is tangled up with the death of her young daughter, not just some sadist's random game.

Turi shot nearly the whole runtime inside that cramped tube and still keeps you locked in for all 87 minutes, which is no small feat. If you like single-location survival in the vein of Cube or Saw but built around one woman and her grief, this hits the spot. Claustrophobes, maybe sit this one out. Stream Meander (2021) online on iFILM.