Psychological Horror/Thriller(Not Goreporn) +Sci-Fi-Thriller Films!

Hey there. A while back, I found a somethingawful.com thread with a load of great psychological horror films, and I rediscovered my love of weird movies. The thread is closed now, so I figured I would give back a bit, by posting summaries and reviews of some of my favorite movies.

The emphasis of this post is on mind-bending psychological horror/thriller, with a particular point to avoid senseless gore and torture that is all too common in horror movies. A post for films that use slow, creeping tension to produce spine-tingling discomfort and horror. Also, Psychological Sci Fi is welcome as well.

Please open up this thread, take a look at some movies and tell me what you think!

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

“Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire.”

Nothing is more touching than the romance of two children too young to understand what romance is. Oscar and Eli make an adorable, awkward pair in this surprisingly dark and touching film about abuse, compassion and sacrifice. Make sure you watch “Let the Right One In” and not “Let Me In”, the bastardized American version.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

“A descent into Hell is triggered when "Ex-Lord" Donald Brocklebank finds that he must leave Longleigh House for London to find a way to pay for the medical treatments for his wife Nancy. Alone, his over-protected, delusional, adult son, James, fancies himself in charge of the manor house with his terminally ill mother, and barricades the two of them into the house for a series of ever more panicked home treatments, mistakenly protecting her from the arrival of Nurse Mary and any outside help”

This is the only movie that truly scared me since I was a young onion. Despite its poor(ish) rating of 5.8 on IMDB, I found it to be far more profound and disturbing than many of the classic horror films like Rosemary’s Baby or Silence of the Lambs. There is something wildly perverse in the depiction of James’ delusions and derangement that makes me feel ill and uncomfortable. I don’t want to turn this into some kind of blathering about my own issues, but I think my fear of becoming retarded or brain injuries is what makes this movie so particularly intense. It’s a must see.

THE CONVERSATION

“A paranoid and personally-secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered.”

There is nothing wilder, more primal than watching a man’s fears destroy everything he holds dear. The Conversation is a thriller about a man who slowly comes to realize he has no one left to trust. It’s a spectacle to behold.

EVENT HORIZON

“A rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned...with someone or something new on-board.”

With a tagline like ‘Infinite Space, Infinite Terror’ I don’t blame you for clenching your buttocks in fear of another campy sci-fi slasher with an alien made of super sculpy. However, Event Horizon actually ended up being a very successful thriller-horror film set aboard a spaceship with a gravitational drive designed for faster than light travel. The depictions of horror and sadomasochistic death are, surprisingly, nuanced and very effective at creating an atmosphere of hopelessness.

I watched this movie with my friend, and we both agreed that the first half was Dead Space: The Movie.

SUNSHINE

“A team of astronauts are sent to re-ignite the dying sun 50 years into the future.”

Let your scientific mind go for a second before you sit down to enjoy this one, but be ready for weird. It’s hard for a movie to really have a twist that surprises me, but this one has multiple. You really get a sense of the claustrophobia and intense dread the crew of the Icarus II. The visual effects are expertly executed and the way that the horror is never fully revealed on the screen. There is something very otherworldly (no pun intended) about this movie. I highly recommend it.

I watched this with the same friend, and we both agreed that the first half of this film is Dead Space 2: The Movie.

VALHALLA RISING

“1000 AD, for years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness.”

This isn’t really a horror film at all, but it certainly fits into the place of psychological film. The violence is brief, but intense. If you are looking for a 300 style movie, but with Christian missionaries in the place of Persians, look elsewhere. The movie is long, slow and kind of dragged out, but it’s so beautifully shot that you can easily lose yourself in the scenery.

THE MIST

“A freak storm unleashes a species of blood-thirsty creatures on a small town, where a small band of citizens hole-up in a supermarket and fight for their lives.”

The movie is weirder than the summary lets on. Just like Psycho and Sunshine, the true identity of the monster isn’t shown at all, or it’s held until the very end. I’m not going to say something tacky about the real monster being fundamentalist Christians, but most of the tension and anguish is fueled by man’s panicking, hateful nature. This film has one of the most intense and brutal endings of any film I’ve ever seen. Watch it.

SHUTTER ISLAND

“Drama set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding nearby.”

This is what mysteries are all about. Shutter Island is a perfect film for portraying reality through the eyes of multiple people. The feeling of doom and suspicion is rich, and DiCaprio was a fantastic choice for the role of Teddy Daniels. Just like The Conversation, there is a real thrill in watching a man at his wit’s end.

MOON

“Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet's power problems.”

‘Moon’ is another space film that succeeds at creating tension between man and his environment. Sam Bell is alone on a spacecraft, and he’s been waiting to go home for what seems like ages. His loneliness is only compounded when his only companion is a semi-sentient computer named GERTY. In his searching across the surface of the moon, he makes a profound and bizarre discovery and witnesses the heartless nature of his mission.

MONKEY SHINES

“A quadriplegic man has a trained monkey help him with his paralysis, until the little monkey begins to develop feelings, and rage, against its new master.”

Monkey Shines isn’t a brilliant, horrifying or psychologically breathtaking piece of artwork. It’s just a weird, weird movie. That being said, it’s very good at what it does. Find a man who has invested a great deal of his time and passion into his body, a true athlete. Take away everything that he worked for and give him a helper monkey. A psychic one. Go watch it.

THE SHINING

“A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.”

I’m not going to spoon feed you this one. If you haven’t seen the shining, you need to do this. Go watch it. Now. It’s a goddamned classic. Stanley Kubrick directed it. Jack Nicholson is in it. Go watch it.

SESSION 9

“Tensions rise within an asbestos cleaning crew as they work in an abandoned mental hospital with a horrific past that seems to be coming back.”

This is an excellent movie in all regards. Sure, there is a bit of overacting, but the pacing and the incredibly potent feeling of dread and pain is enough to power through any FUCK YOU’s that might throw you off. Also, it lent one of the most incredible interesting visuals to Silent Hill 3:

There is just something about the excitement of urban exploration and the thrill of being essentially alone in such a strange place that creates a great sense of fear and the itching, jerking feeling of oh-fuck-did-that-thing-just-move-I-gotta-IGOTTAGETHEFUCKOUTTAHERE.

THE MACHINIST

“An industrial worker who hasn't slept in a year begins to doubt his own sanity.”

Profoundly dark and beautifully shot, The Machinist displays an incredible propensity to generate a sickening sense of discomfort. Maybe it’s the fact that Christian Bale went from the hulking mass of manflesh to a featherweight machine-shop worker just for this film that makes watching it seem so much more surreal.

REPULSION

“Left alone when her sister goes on vacation, a sexually repressed young beauty goes insane with surreal fantasies of seduction and rape.”

Artfully shot and deeply perverse, Repulsion is the first of Polanski’s loosely tied trilogy of the horrors of city/apartment living. Being shot entirely in black and white, the lack of color lets the viewer experience the more nuanced signs of fear, loathing and wild, sexual delusions. The pain of beauty is the nemesis in this classic film. I highly recommend it.

JACOB’S LADDER

“A traumatized Vietnam War veteran finds out that his post-war life isn't what he believes it to be when he's stalked by horned, tentacled creatures, men in suits and an apparition of his dead son.”

This is easily one of my favorite films ever. It was the first film to ever use the ‘body horror’ technique of blurred, shaking heads. As noted on IMDB: ‘All SFX were filmed live, with no post-production. For example, to achieve the famous 'shaking head' effect, director Adrian Lyne simply filmed the actor waving his head around (and keeping his shoulders and the rest of his body completely still) at 4fps, resulting in an incredibly fast and deeply disturbing motion when played back at the normal frame-rate of 24fps.’

You can see this in Marilyn Manson’s music videos for Tourniquet and The Beautiful People and the rapid head-shaking is used throughout the Silent Hill series, particularly after the 3rd installment. I can’t quite pin down what it is about this imagery, but it is certainly more frightening than any other type of effect I’ve seen.

Jacob’s Ladder truly changed the way I view horror films, and relit my love of the genre. I honestly can’t recommend it highly enough.

ERASERHEAD

“Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.”

Eraserhead is, without a doubt, the most bizarre film I’ve ever seen, followed closely by BEGOTTEN. It’s incredibly difficult to accurately describe what makes this film so stark and depraved, so all I can say is that you need to watch this movie with an open mind. No, you won’t finish this movie and feel good. You’ll feel like your brain just ate something rotten. You’ll be confused and disturbed. The symbolism isn’t clear; the metaphors aren’t spelled out for you. This movie is on the verge of being complete chaos for the sake of being complete chaos. It’s a classic unlike any other. It must be seen to be believed.

ROSEMARY’S BABY

“A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life.”

The beautiful, fragile Rosemary, pregnant and glowing, is trapped in an incredibly bleak, spiraling abyss. Her husband might have impregnated her with less than loving intentions, her doctors are frauds and there is the persistence of the deathly mysteries of her apartment. Something is amiss, and it’s not until the birth of the child that she discovers how deep the rabbit hole goes.

BEGOTTEN

“God disembowels himself with a straight razor. The spirit-like Mother Earth emerges, venturing into a bleak, barren landscape. Twitching and cowering, the Son Of Earth is set upon by faceless cannibals.”

Okay, I’ll admit it. I used to be a huge Marilyn Manson fan. I still think he’s a genius and a talented artist, but after he shut down the fansite that I logged 7k+ posts on, I’ve held him in contempt. While he may be a flagrant asshole, he’s shown me some really incredible movies. BEGOTTEN is one of them. The film is shot in black and white, but not like any The Wizard of Oz black and white. According to IMDB, ‘Approximately eight to ten hours of optical work - re-photographing, visual treatments, and filtering - was required to produce one minute of film. The total postproduction period for the 78-minute movie was eight months.’

The opening scene of God’s death is so drawn out, so astonishing and so wicked; it might turn off most viewers. If you can press on through some of the darkest and most densely symbolic images of the death of God, you’ll be rewarded with one of the strangest movies ever made. Go watch it.

Whew, that was a lot. Okay, that’s all I have for you! Tell me what you think!

Winslow