Every October, Caity (Chiara Aurelia) and her father Paul (Morgan Spector) transform their upstate New York property into a locally beloved haunted house. It's a family business built on fragile footing: Paul is newly sober, and Caity holds everything together with the kind of competence that teenagers shouldn't have to carry. When Paul relapses, she covers for him the only way she knows how, by absorbing more than her share of the weight, finding solace in drinking and falling for a beguiling new employee named Hannah.

Writer-director Lindsay Calleran, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, brings a steady hand and intimate cinematography to this moody, upstate Gothic coming-of-age story. The haunted house setting is more than atmospheric; it gives the film a freshness that distinguishes it from its peers. Aurelia is riveting in every scene, anchoring the film's emotional core with a performance that never lets go. Spector is equally strong, and Zach Cherry offers a warm presence as one of Paul's sober buddies. What lingers is the feeling of watching someone trying to outrun a darkness that lives inside their own house.—Jarod Neece