Related Issue
Fall 2026
The Arts
The Horror of Sound
By BAM Staff / Fall 2026
September 4th, 2026
The directorial debut of Henry Chaisson’s Recluse is “a sound-driven, gothic haunted house thriller” that screened at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Written and produced by Chaisson ’16 (his wife, Katharina Windemuth ’16, produced and designed the costumes), the film “centers on Joan, a sound recordist who heads back to her father’s estate in the wake of a devastating fire,” according to Variety. “Tracing a series of ghostly audio fragments, she uncovers a buried family secret.”
Courtesy Henry Chaisson
Joan’s character “was inspired by me as a kid recording things on cassette tapes,” Chaisson said on Gotham Geek Girl’s YouTube channel.
As a kid, while ghost- hunting at his grandparents’ house, “one time I caught a voice and still don’t know… Was it a neighbor or a cousin messing with me, or was it genuine? It haunts me, for sure,” he told Caroline Colvin, a film critic from Dread Central.
With Recluse, Chaisson returns to familiar territory—the horror genre. He was previously a writer and producer for the film Antlers and the Apple TV+ show Servant.
