Fear is hereditary in Smother, an Austrian supernatural horror film that drags generational trauma into something far more sinister. Evoking the slow-burn dread of Relic, the film (also known as Heimsuchung) arrives on DVD and Digital April 7 via IndiePix Films.

The story centers on Michi, a recovering alcoholic who escapes to her estranged father’s remote countryside home with her eight-year-old daughter, Hanna. Hoping to repair the damage left by a drunk-driving accident, she instead finds herself trapped in a place where the past refuses to stay buried.

What begins as uneasy silence quickly curdles into something hostile. Memories claw their way back to the surface, and whispers of Michi’s mother—who died by suicide in the house—bleed into every corner. Hanna begins sleepwalking. A haunting drawing of a woman in purple appears without explanation. Locals mutter cryptic warnings about a presence that never left.

As shadows creep through the overgrown garden and the nights grow more violent, Michi becomes convinced her mother’s spirit is stalking them. But the real horror cuts deeper.

Plagued by visions and unraveling under the weight of paranoia, Michi slips back into alcoholism, her reality fracturing as fear mutates into something uglier. When Hanna nearly walks into traffic during a midnight trance, the truth hits hard: whatever is haunting them isn’t just in the house—it’s inside her.

Cornelia Ivancan, Lola Herbst, Lukas Turtur, Heinz Trixner, and Inge Maux star in the German-language nightmare. The film marks the feature debut of writer-director Achmed Abdel-Salam, produced by Lena Weiss and Eugen Klim of Glitter & Doom alongside Viktoria Salcher and Mathias Forberg of Prisma Film.