There are countless reasons the Middle East has not been a hotspot of horror film output. Chief among them may be censorship, but the truth is that many of the countries in the area have a lot more to deal with right now than making movies.

Still, horror cinema has become a blossoming industry. Film as art has always been a renegade’s opportunity to make a political statement and horror can be an inexpensive way to speak your mind. Films like Omar Khan’s 2007 Pakistani horror mash-up Devil’s Ground, though highly flawed, worked as both an homage to Western horror tropes and a comment on Pakistani life. And the 2015 film Jeruzalem filmed its first-person found-footage right in the holy city.

Here we count down the five very best of the genre coming from the region in a podcast recorded live at Gateway Film Center.