The 2010s were full of brutal, gruesome movies.
But not all of them got the attention they deserved.
From psychologically disturbing dramas to gory horror flicks, these are the darkest
movies of the past decade that nobody is talking about.
Right off the bat, we're giving props to Philip Seymour Hoffman for creating a genuinely creepy
L. Ron Hubbard-inspired character… and for having an amazing mustache.
Make no mistake, The Master isn't about Scientology.
Except that it's totally about Scientology.
The movie was released three years before Going Clear came out in 2015, and it definitely
plays as a fictionalized version of Scientology's founding.
It also stars the phenomenal Joaquin Phoenix, who may have brought his real-life experience
growing up in the Children of God cult to the role of Freddie.
Freddie is a young soldier who's suffering trauma after World War II, and he's spiraling
out of control.
We're almost thankful when he accidentally comes across a group known as the Cause by
sneaking onto their boat.
He's taken under the wing of a writer, who leads the group through intimidation and sheer
charismatic will.
"Say your name."
"Freddie Quill."
"Say it again."
"Freddie Quill."
"Say it again."
"Freddie Quill."
Despite warnings that this guy is making everything up, Freddie sticks with the group and comes
to depend on it for his emotional fulfillment.
He struggles with doubt, but he never seems fully able to leave.
What makes the film so disturbing is Phoenix's brutal performance as a raging, confused alcoholic
who's trapped in a web of lies and manipulation, and The Master serves as a powerful reminder
of how much damage cults can do.
With most horror films, there's usually a clear villain and a clear victim.
Excision, however, messes with its viewers until it's no longer clear who the audience
should root for, or who's to blame for the slaughter.
AnnaLynne McCord went way against type to play Pauline, a misfit high schooler who dreams
of being a surgeon.
But Pauline's more than a little obsessed with body parts and blood, and speaking of
the red, gooey stuff, there is a lot of it.
We're talking buckets of blood and graphic dreams that leave Pauline hot and bothered.
And the blood in the "real life" scenes is so realistic that even horror fans with an
iron stomach might gag.
Needless to say, Pauline's life is a little bit weird.
The people at school think she's insane.
Her mother knows she needs help, but instead of getting her psychiatric care, she turns
to religion and classes designed to make Pauline a proper lady.
Even worse, her sister suffers from cystic fibrosis, and there's nothing Pauline can
do to help her.
As she grows more desperate and isolated, Pauline tries to find a way to improve her
life, even if it means going after people with a scalpel.
Some agoraphobes are nice people with a problem.
Others are unhinged lunatics keeping their younger sister captive and maybe torturing
their neighbors.
That's the case in Shrew's Nest, an upsetting film that debuted in 2014 and largely flew
under the radar.
It's a period piece set in Spain in the 1950s, so it's great for horror fans looking for
a lot of blood being thrown against super prim settings.
Macarena Gomez stars as Montse, an insane woman in her late 20s taking care of her younger
sister after their father never returned from World War II.
Montse is deeply religious, envies her younger sister's beauty, and takes morphine to keep
herself from fully devolving.
But everything changes when a handsome neighbor injures himself and begs them for help.
Montse tends to him, and slowly but surely, she starts to grow possessive.
His recovery, and leaving the two of them, may be what pushes them over the edge, and
naturally, Montse doesn't ever want him to leave.
As The Hollywood Reporter puts it, the film is a nice combo of Misery and Whatever Happened
to Baby Jane?, with a bit of, quote, "old-style guignol" mixed in.
In other words, you can safely expect a bit of blood.
The world seemed to love The Handmaiden at first.
It received great reviews and won big at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and the British
Academy Film Awards.
Its association with Amazon Studios brought it even more notoriety.
But then it faded away from view, and people forgot all about the gloriously gruesome poisoning
scenes the film had to offer.
You've never seen cigarettes kill someone the way that they do in this movie.
The Handmaiden is a period piece set in 1930s Korea, and the whole movie is gorgeous, probably
because it's from the same guy who made Oldboy.
The handmaiden at the heart of it is Sook-hee, a poor woman hired to help sway a wealthy
countess to marry a con man.
But when she learns about the countess' life, she doubts her plan and contemplates switching
sides.
There's a legitimately interesting story in the film of two women falling in love and
working to evade their oppressors.
But they're surrounded by sadistic people after their money and bodies.
If they're going to have any say in their futures, they'll have to play dirty, and yeah,
things get very dirty indeed.
Undoubtedly the pulpiest movie on this list, Nurse 3D, or just Nurse as it's sometimes
called, is also likely the least famous.
It glided under the radar in 2014, going from theater to video in less than three months.
It was panned pretty universally, and star Paz de la Huerta sued the filmmakers, saying
that the movie ruined her career.
That's great stuff.
"There are two sides to every story.
Some would see this chapter of my life as the work of a sick woman."
De la Huerta plays Abby, a nurse who spends her spare time killing men who are unfaithful.
She's sadistic in both her killings and in her relationship with fellow nurse, Danni.
Abby wants Danni to depend on her and love her, and she grows infuriated when the object
of her obsession starts to have a life of her own.
Drugging Danni for scandalous pictures is just the beginning of keeping the young woman
under her thumb.
As the movie goes along, Abby's killings get more elaborate and gruesome, giving the term
"man hater" a new meaning.
Granted, the movie isn't exactly Citizen Kane, but if you're looking for a cheery gorefest,
then it's definitely the one for you.
There's creepy, and then there's kids-in-danger creepy.
If this is a particular trigger for you, skip this movie.
Evolution, like a lot of great European horror, progresses at a slow but lifelike pace.
It's only 81 minutes, but there's enough in this French film to keep everyone interested.
The star is Nicolas, a ten-year-old boy living on an island with his mother.
The whole island is populated by only adult women and young boys, the latter of whom receive
mysterious medical treatments.
It's supposedly because their bodies are "changing," which doesn't sound ominous at all.
Naturally, Nicolas has questions, even more so when he finds a red starfish in the water
attached to a dead boy.
Why is he there?
Why were the mothers writhing around on the sand late at night?
Are they even really their mothers?
The suckers on his mother's back don't put his mind at ease as Nicolas tries to figure
out what's happening to him and his friends.
Part fairy tale, part David Cronenberg movie, Evolution is a film that's hard to forget
and one that's equally hard to watch.
What would a list of dark films be without at least one story about cannibalism?
And when it comes to eating human flesh, movies don't get much gnarlier than We Are What We Are.
Released in 2013, this American horror film is a remake of a Mexican movie of the same name.
Both films focus on a family of cannibals suffering the recent loss of a family member.
In the American version, it's two little girls within the Parker family attempting to take
on the religious duties that were previously performed by their mother.
And by religious, we mean butchering people for slaughter.
"I just wish we were like everyone else."
"Well, we're not."
Eating people has been a tradition in the Parker family ever since the pioneer times,
when food was scarce and it was do or die.
But the world is opening up, and the Parker girls have reasons to doubt their ancient traditions.
Hormones make things more complicated, of course.
But an autopsy report outs their mother as a victim of a cannibalism-related disease,
and all those bones showing up in town are drawing even more scrutiny.
The girls have to decide which side they're on and if their father's anger is worth evoking.
It's a family drama by way of Hannibal Lecter, and it will definitely leave you feeling uncomfortable
the next time you sit down for dinner.
It's important to know that American Mary was written and directed by the Soska sisters,
the horror pros behind gems like Rabid and the game show Hellevator.
This movie is their lowest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes, tied with their more famous project
See No Evil 2.
In other words, they're no strangers to weird movies, and they aren't necessarily concerned
with doing works that are for everyone.
Or everyone's stomachs.
American Mary earned a cult following in 2013 for its portrayal of the very real body modification
subculture, albeit from a dramatized point of view.
The movie follows Mary, a dedicated medical student who finds herself doing under-the-table
body modification surgeries for extra money.
At first she's repulsed by people who take extreme steps to resemble Betty Boop, Barbie,
or even dragons.
But she changes her tune after experiencing violence at the hands of "establishment" doctors.
And as you might expect, her newfound skills come in handy when exacting revenge on her enemies.
Let's just say people don't die right away.
Released in 2010, I Spit On Your Grave is a remake of the 1978 film of the same name.
It's part of a specific subgenre of revenge horror that usually entails a woman undergoing
sexual violence and then taking revenge on her oppressors.
Some people call this type of film exploitative, while others find it cathartic or empowering.
Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie 33 percent from the critics, though audiences rated it
slightly higher at 49 percent.
Your personal tastes may vary.
The film starts out fairly calm, with a woman going out to the middle of nowhere to finish
writing a book.
She has a mostly nice solo vacation, punctuated by some weird encounters with local men.
"How's that line working for you?"
"I don't know, how's it working for you?"
But things take an incredibly dark turn when the men commit a terrible assault against her.
She then decides to take revenge after escaping with her life.
The rest of the movie is five bad men dying in horrible, horrible ways.
There are no heroes in this movie, and things get ridiculously brutal.
Shot in English and Portuguese, The Eyes of My Mother is a perverse answer to the question,
"What makes someone a movie serial killer?"
While the film isn't exactly mainstream fare, it did pretty well with critics, garnering
a 78 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The horror community has commended it for portraying a believable female killer in the
vein of May and The Devil's Rejects, and the slow pace and black-and-white shooting style
eases people in gradually, making the demented plot all the more effective.
The movie centers around Francisca, an unfortunate child who witnesses her mother being killed
and her father taking the man responsible captive.
Francisca learns about the pleasure of killing from the man, whom her family keeps imprisoned
for years.
She eventually becomes a troubled adult as her father dies, leaving her with the captive
killer... and eventually no one.
Her stunted way of seeing the world leads to more killing, child endangerment, and some
weird interactions with a skeleton.
When it comes to incredibly dark movies, they don't get much more upsetting than this one.
Released in 2017, November is by far the most beautifully shot film on this list.
This Estonian film quickly became a favorite on the festival circuit, and while it may
come across as weird and surrealist, it's just magic.
Sit back and enjoy it.
In fact, you might like it even if you're not looking for something scary, as the Los
Angeles Times described it as, quote, "funny, with a sly salaciousness all its own."
In true fairy tale style, the story begins with a young woman named Liina longing for
the love of a boy named Hans, who unfortunately doesn't feel the same way.
So Liina steals away to the forest to seek out a magical solution to her problem.
In a world where mystical beings constructed out of sticks roam the fields, this isn't
the craziest solution.
After all, Death itself walks around, the villagers have to trick the plague from coming,
and more than one person has sold their soul to Satan for extra help on their farms.
But Hans may be just as willing to use magic to earn the affections of his crush, a wealthy
aristocratic woman he considers to be perfect.
So if you're looking to conjure a dark and magical movie, then November is the perfect
film for any month of the year.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite films are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.