Earwig and festival picks

Horror conversation online this week split between streaming and the festival circuit: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s *Earwig* is circulating on Shudder as critics file fresh dispatches from New Directors/New Films 2026. (shudder.com) (inreviewonline.com) Shudder’s “Newly Added” page lists *Earwig* with the synopsis, “A woman’s deadly obsession unravels in Southern France,” placing the 2021 film back in front of subscribers as of April 2026. (shudder.com) The film itself is a British-Belgian-French co-production directed by Hadžihalilović and based on Brian Catling’s novel. British Council Film says it follows Albert, a caretaker ordered to watch a girl named Mia whose teeth are made of ice. (filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org) (en.wikipedia.org) At the same time, New Directors/New Films is running in New York from April 8 through April 19, 2026, with 24 features and 10 shorts in its 55th edition, according to Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. (filmlinc.org) (press.moma.org) In Review Online’s first festival dispatch, published April 13, put Adrian Chiarella’s *Leviticus* at the center of that discussion. The review describes a suburban Australian setting where two teenagers face a Christian fundamentalist community and a ritual framed as conversion therapy. (inreviewonline.com) Film at Lincoln Center’s lineup announcement called *Leviticus* the festival’s opening-night film and described it as Chiarella’s directorial debut. Deadline said the picture was set for its New York premiere at the festival. (filmlinc.org) (deadline.com) Another film in the same critical orbit is *Cold Metal*, directed by Clemente Castor. Film at Lincoln Center says the feature won the Prix Georges de Beauregard at FIDMarseille and explores suburban Mexico City through “subterranean spaces and subconscious minds.” (filmlinc.org) What ties these titles together is not a shared distributor or festival slot, but a shared audience: horror and art-house critics who move between repertory rediscoveries, streaming catalogs, and first-look festival coverage. Shudder is surfacing a 2021 title for home viewing while New Directors/New Films is introducing new work to New York audiences in the same week. (shudder.com) (press.moma.org) That overlap helps explain why *Earwig*, *Leviticus*, and *Cold Metal* are appearing in the same social-media conversation. One is immediately watchable at home, and the others are being defined in real time by festival reviews before any wider release. (shudder.com) (inreviewonline.com) (filmlinc.org)