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Joko Anwar’s The Siege at Thorn High imagines a Jakarta just a few years from now, in 2027, but the air is thick with old hatred. This is a city haunted by the ghosts of past racial riots, a place where societal wounds have been left to fester. We enter this world through Edwin, a man who takes a job as a substitute teacher at a notorious high school.

Thorn High itself is less an educational institution and more a high-security holding pen for the city’s most troubled youth. Edwin walks these oppressive halls with a quiet, personal mission driving him. Before he can find what he is looking for, the city’s simmering tensions boil over. A new wave of ethnic violence erupts, the school goes into lockdown, and the simmering conflicts inside its walls are trapped with nowhere to go.

The Slow-Burning Fuse

The film dedicates its first half to a deliberate,...

"Isn't it dangerous to teach there?"...

Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s The Siege at Thorn High has wrapped production and is slated for a theatrical release in Indonesia in 2025.

The film is produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Anwar’s Come and See Pictures, and was first announced as a Prime Video title in 2022 as part of the streamer’s Southeast Asian originals slate. Prime Video has since reeled back spending in Southeast Asia and laid off the region’s originals production team.

Set in the tumultuous near-future of Indonesia in 2027, The Siege at Thorn High follows Edwin, a young substitute teacher at a school for juvenile delinquents, whose own inner demons complicate his battle for survival once the school turns into a battleground.

Morgan Oey, Omara Esteghlal and Hana Malasan lead the cast of The Siege at Thorn High. Fatih Unru, Satine Zaneta, Dewa Dayana, Florian Rutters, Faris Fadjar Munggaran, Sandy Pradana and Farandika round off the film’s ensemble.

It’s wild how many new horror movies have already released here in the early days of 2023, and this week brings a whopping Ten more to the table between now and this coming Friday.

In fact, since we’re getting this article up a day late – my apologies! – four of the movies on this list are already available for you to watch at your leisure from the comfort of home.

Here’s all the new horror releasing January 17-January 20, 2023!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

Blumhouse has joined forces with Epix to “develop and produce eight elevated, standalone horror/genre-thriller movies exclusively for the network,” and up next from that collaboration is There’s Something Wrong With the Children, directed by Roxanne Benjamin (V/H/S, Southbound). The film was put up for rental on VOD and Digital outlets on Tuesday.

The cast for There’s Something Wrong With the Children...