From wildly unconventional sci-fi creepers to twisted tales of demonic possession, we've
got a little something to unnerve even the savviest of shock-adoring cinephiles. These
are the most disturbing movies of the past decade.
If you've entered the earth-shattering rabbit hole of Jonathan Glazer's music videos, you
already know the director has a particular penchant for pushing boundaries with unsettling
imagery and ominous tones. One might even say Glazer revels in the bewildering as few
directors dare. It's only natural, then, that he'd continue weaving challenging images and
disturbing themes into his feature films.
Few would argue that Glazer hadn't already tested some serious boundaries with 2000's
searing crime drama Sexy Beast and 2004's psychosexual mystery Birth. But neither of
those films could even begin to prepare us for how Glazer would push things with 2013's
Under the Skin.
It's a full-on assault on the senses from its opening moments to its last. It features
a revelatory performance from Scarlett Johansson that's about as far from the MCU as you can
get. And there's a scene about halfway through that's so relentlessly unnerving you'll struggle
not to turn it off. Keep watching, though, because even if Under the Skin often feels
like a movie you survive more than watch, crossing the finish line on this extraterrestrial
odyssey is also one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences you'd ever hope to endure.
Argentinian filmmaker Gaspar Noé has made quite a reputation for himself over the years.
More than just about any other director with a film on this list, Noé has made it his
personal quest to shock and provoke. He broke minds and pushed viewers to the limit with
the hyper-violent, emotionally punishing reverse narrative of 2002's Irreversible, but it seems
he had a different sort of head trip in mind for his third offering, 2009's hallucinatory
pseudo-afterlife drama Enter the Void.
Noé opens the action with a drug-dealing French expat with a penchant for wild hallucinogens
meeting his end in a Tokyo bar. Upon death, his soul is cast free of his body and meanders
through the film with an unknown goal in mind. Noé captures said soul's every meandering,
post-life moment in an incredible point of view shot, his camera floating in and out
of moments, memories, and molecules like an omnipotent specter. And yes, that boldly stylistic
approach is as breathtakingly brilliant and immersive as it is doggedly disconcerting.
The result is a film that's as oddly calming and thought-provoking as it is vividly adversarial
not to mention as mind-bogglingly original as any film produced in the past decade.
When the director of one of the greatest horror movies in cinematic history claims your film
is the scariest movie they've ever seen, you know you've done something special. So when
the legendary William Friedkin the man behind The Exorcist started telling people that Jennifer
Kent's 2014 indie movie The Babadook will, quote, "scare the hell out of you," genre
lovers immediately took notice.
Friedkin wasn't lying. Possessed of a singular sense of eerie, The Babadook tells the story
of a single mother struggling to raise a son with some serious emotional issues. Of course,
given that the woman's husband died en route to the child's birth, it's clear that both
mother and son have some deep-rooted issues to work through. Those issues complicate their
lives even further when a horrifying children's book called Mister Babadook appears in their
home.
As Kent slowly begins to unwind her unholy creepfest, a surprising narrative begins to
take shape one that insightfully explores heavy emotional themes about surviving trauma
and the struggles of being a single parent with a devastating case of depression. As
it happens, The Babadook is also a first-rate monster movie with more genuine scares than
your average genre fare.
Yes, The Babadook will "scare the hell out of you," but it'll leave your heart in your
throat too.
According to writer-director Ari Aster, his brutalist 2018 shocker Hereditary is really
just a little family drama at its core. But that's sort of like calling Jaws a charming
tale of a fish out of water. So while we can't say that Hereditary isn't a family drama,
we also want to be crystal clear that Hereditary is definitely more than just that.
Still, true to Aster's statement, Hereditary initially presents itself as an atypical sort
of indie drama about a family in grief. As the film unfolds, a deep, dark past begins
to rise to the surface, and Hereditary spirals into a pulse-pounding supernatural nightmare
that you have to see to believe. Just be warned that you'll never be able to unsee it.
In case you haven't experienced it for yourself, we'll simply say you'll know the precise moment
when Aster flips the proverbial switch from family drama to full-blown family tragedy.
You'll know because the moment it happens is easily one of the most shocking in the
history of cinema. It's a brutal, exhausting affair, but if you manage to stick with it,
you'll bear witness to not just one of the great horror movies of the decade, but of
all time.
With Aster's Hereditary immediately raising the bar for genre filmmakers young and old,
it seemed unlikely that anyone would top the film in terms of unadulterated, head-rolling
shock value for the foreseeable future. Seems the only person capable of even coming close
was Aster himself. While Midsommar may not quite match Hereditary in terms of shocks
and scares, it might be the better film in terms of emotional impact and mercilessly
ominous energy.
Of course, Aster told Vice that Midsommar is a relatively straightforward "breakup movie."
Believe us when we say that Midsommar is a "breakup movie" in the same way that Hereditary
is a "family drama." Which means that it's not really a breakup movie at all.
"No, no, no, please, please, please I'm not trying to attack you."
"It really feels like you are."
"Well then, I'm sorry. I just got confused."
The relationship in question belongs to Dani, played by Florence Pugh, and Christian, played
by Jack Reynor, and if ever there was a couple in need of a breakup, it's them. But nothing
is ever that easy in the worlds of Aster, and from the torturous opening moments of
Midsommar, the director is out to turn the screws of the pair's doomed relationship in
increasingly twisted ways. By the time the couple and their pals get to the titular Swedish
festival, fates are effectively sealed though nothing can even remotely prepare you for
the gory, sun-drenched mayhem Aster has in store for the rest of the film.
Like several of the filmmakers with frightful flicks on this list, Lars von Trier has developed
a bit of a reputation for making shamelessly confrontational films that tend to be difficult
to watch. Over the years, von Trier and his movies have been labeled many things by fans
and detractors alike. His 2011 sci-fi drama Melancholia finds the director at his most
nihilistic, and also at his stylistic height.
The film follows a pair of sisters played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Each struggles to keep their lives together as mankind has recently been made aware that
a big blue planet is on a collision course with Earth, and the world will soon cease
to exist. Melancholia opens with one of the saddest weddings ever committed to film. It
ends with the Earth literally being obliterated. The moments in between offer glimpses of lovingly
crafted moments of pre-doom bliss, and equally dour explorations of the sisters' lives once
they learn the end is nigh. Somewhere in the mix, von Trier delivers a lavishly photographed
and emotionally draining apocalyptic drama that's as hard to watch as it is to look away
from.
Prior to helming 2016's Doctor Strange, Scott Derrickson made a name for himself among genre
enthusiasts. He caught our attention with 2005's possession drama The Exorcism of Emily
Rose, but it was 2012's Sinister that proved Derrickson a horror purist of the first order.
The film follows the story of a washed up true-crime author played by the fantastic
Ethan Hawke. He moves his family into a house where a grisly crime has taken place so he
can research the events up close and personal. Unfortunately, when he finds an old box of
Super 8 films in his attic, the man and his family get a little closer to the truth than
anyone would've wanted.
Be warned that those 8mm films are likely to cost you a few nights of sleep. But they're
only a small part of what makes Sinister such a blackhearted delight. The film is at its
best when wallowing in ominous tones and gritty gothic imagery, and Derrickson makes the most
of Sinister's menacing aura. He takes a perverse pleasure in the film's slow-burn approach
and pulls the blood-stained rug out from viewers in a finale that'll have you peeking through
your sweaty palms.
It can often be quite difficult to decipher exactly what it is about a movie that gets
under your skin. In the case of Julia Ducournau's astonishing first feature Raw, it's a little
easier to figure out, because Ducournau essentially spends the entirety of the film's 100-minute
runtime unleashing a near-constant deluge of horrifying sounds and images and scenarios.
That's not to say Raw is a mile-a-minute, shock-for-the-sake-of-shock gorefest. Quite
the opposite, in fact. Ducournau takes a decidedly steady-handed approach to her film, doling
out the shocks as they come. She does all that while also quietly delivering a vicious,
unapologetically sexy college drama that legitimately turns the genre on its head.
We should tell you upfront that the film follows the trials of a young university student who
unexpectedly finds herself with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. But instead of reveling
in gory effects and schlocky scares, Ducourneau takes a humanistic approach to Raw's shocking
story. She uses the gore to bolster a witty, insightful character study that becomes against
all obvious odds a compelling coming-of-age drama about cannibalism.
We're not going to bore you by trying to explain what Shane Carruth's Upstream Color is about,
if only because entire thesis papers could be written on that particularly slippery subject.
We'd offer that Upstream Color is a film less concerned with what it's about than what it
can make you feel and there's seemingly no end to what Carruth can achieve on that particular
front.
We'll simply say that the film follows a woman who after being parasitically hypnotized by
a thief and having her entire life looted is left with a ruined future and no memory
of what happened. She meets a man with a similar story, played by Carruth, and as they futilely
try to piece together their individual miseries, they stumble upon a truth beyond imagination.
What follows is nothing short of a deeply paranoid cinematic assault on the senses that
simply has to be experienced to be believed. Upstream Color is a decidedly unnerving experience
that will have you scratching your head for days, months, even years after the credits
roll.
Set in an isolated, mountainous region of Europe circa the 15th century, Lukas Feigelfeld's
gothic nightmare Hagazussa propels itself forward at a sub-glacial clip. While the film
succeeds at capturing the slow pace of life in the hills, Feigelfeld also uses that pacing
to cast a hypnotic sort of spell over viewers.
That won't be broken until the film's stomach-churning final moments. En route to that beyond-brutal
finale, Feigelfeld uncorks a pitch-black folk tale about a single woman with a pagan past
trying to survive the wilderness and raise her infant daughter in relative peace. Of
course, when your neighbors live in constant fear of magic and spirits and witchcraft,
the natural world is far from your most dangerous foe.
While it's certain to test the patience of those seeking to sate their bloodlust with
schlocky scares, Hagazussa's final act is certain to haunt the minds of any viewers
who make it to the end for years to come.
If history has taught us anything, it's that Hollywood loves a good story of rebellious,
smart-whip youths running amok. While classics like Rebel Without a Cause, A Clockwork Orange,
and Spring Breakers have kept the bar for such films raised perpetually high over the
years, Corey Finley's Thoroughbreds proves there's still room for one of cinema's favorite
subgenres to grow.
At the center of Finley's dark dramedy is a pair of upper-crust Connecticut teens who
exist on opposing ends of the emotional spectrum. Lily, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, feels everything
too strongly, while Olivia Cooke's Amanda is incapable of feeling anything.
"Like you don't have any negative feelings?"
"Like I don't have any feelings. Ever."
When the estranged friends are reunited, they find that they're each losing control of their
lives, and are uniquely equipped to help each other out.
That help comes at a cost, as the girls' one shot at liberation involves a deviously violent
plan. While it propels Thoroughbreds' narrative forward, it's hardly the focal point of the
film, with Finley instead using it to craft a penetrating character study about a pair
of brilliant but tragically fractured young minds.
Horror movies are essentially designed to take audiences into the dark corners of the
world and show them the unspeakable things that happen there. Sometimes that dark corner
is a physical place, as in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Other times it's a place in
the mind, like The Cell. Nicholas Pesce's grisly debut The Eyes of My Mother is the
rare case where mind and place converge to explore one of the darkest corners ever captured
on film.
The film's opening moments are surprisingly serene, with a girl and her family living
in relative peace on an isolated farm. But Pesce takes a sledgehammer to that idyllic
life early in the action. When he does, The Eyes of My Mother goes dark in ways that words
simply cannot convey ways that ensure the film will stay burned into your brain for
all eternity.
We'd wager you've heard whispers of the film's vivid depictions of violence, torture, and
gore. While the film, shot in stunning black and white, is unflinching in its depiction
of such acts, the most gruesome deeds tend to occur offscreen though that only heightens
viewers' reactions. Pesce further deepens the darkness by using the fragile, emotionless
beauty of star Kika Magalhães against viewers in service of turning The Eyes of My Mother
into a character study about trauma and soul-consuming loneliness.
Speaking of soul-crushing loneliness, it's the main culprit at work in the relentlessly
bleak possession film The Blackcoat's Daughter, directed by Oz Perkins, the son of Psycho's
Anthony. That being said, there is a mysterious evil force running amok in the film that may
or may not have claimed the soul of the central character and forced her into committing unconscionable
acts of violence.
Possible demons and possessions aside, loneliness and isolation are the real driving forces
at play in The Blackcoat's Daughter. The film unfolds largely on the grounds of an all-girls
Catholic school somewhere in the far distant north. When two of the girls, played by Kiernan
Shipka and Lucy Boynton, are stranded there over winter break, things get weird very quickly
with the younger girl apparently being possessed by some unseen demonic presence.
Meanwhile, a parallel narrative finds a grieving couple picking up a desperate young woman
played by Emma Roberts at a bus stop, not knowing she's an escaped mental patient. These
narratives will eventually converge in wickedly clever fashion, and to utterly heartbreaking
effect. Perkins controls the action every step of the way with a steady hand and singular
vision, building a suffocating sense of atmospheric dread into every frame of the film. In doing
so, he delivers a deeply humanistic supernatural tragedy, and one of the darkest possession
films we've ever seen.
It's probably a bit unfair to label Darren Aronofsky's mother! a horror film, although
there's a palpable sense of unease running through the film, and patently horrific moments
throughout. If we're being completely honest, mother! doesn't fit neatly into any single
genre because there's never really been a movie quite like it before, and we're still
not sure how Aronofsky got such a brazenly over-the-top freak show made.
We're glad he did, though, because Aronofsky's frenzied tale of a couple's idyllic existence
being demolished by increasingly bizarre incurrences from the outside world is about as much devious
gonzo fun as you can have in a panic-inducing movie. Even if we've come to expect a certain
level of button-pushing from Aronofsky over the years, mother! finds the director pushing
boundaries further than ever. In doing so, he crafted a harrowing cinematic allegory
unlike any film that's come before... and likely anything that'll come after.
Sometimes it's not so much the story a film tells that makes one uneasy as it is the characters
who populate it. If you've already seen Dan Gilroy's searing news-cycle satire Nightcrawler,
you know full well that Lou Bloom is one of those characters. You also know that the reason
the character and the film itself is so unsettling is because of the abrasive energy Jake Gyllenhaal
brings to the role.
Though Gyllenhaal's work in Nightcrawler was ignored by the Academy, his turn as the morally
empty Bloom remains not just one of the best performances of that year, but of his career.
Nightcrawler may well be the best film the actor has ever starred in, and undoubtedly
the most disturbing.
The film unfolds among the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, and finds Gyllenhaal's Bloom
attempting to make a name for himself in the world of freelance crime journalism. As he
rises to fame, Bloom begins to eradicate the line between eyewitness to tragedy and willing
participant. Bolstered by crackling writing and direction from Gilroy, Gyllenhaal's performance
as Bloom transforms Nightcrawler from satire into a full-blown creepshow about a modern
vampire with a troubling taste for on-camera blood.
"When I say that I want these things, I mean that I want them, and I don't want to ask
again."
With boldly stylized flicks like Pusher, Drive, and Only God Forgives, Danish filmmaker Nicolas
Winding Refn has proven himself to be a filmmaker wholly obsessed with seedy pulp dramas dressed
up in stark, neon-drenched visuals. Though it remains a divisive film even among Refn's
fanbase, The Neon Demon is essentially the culmination of everything that's made Refn
such an intriguing artistic force.
Oddly enough, The Neon Demon also features one of Refn's least compelling setups: a pretty
young woman moves to L.A. in the hopes of becoming a model. The wickedness Refn spins
from that simplistic setup is nothing short of genre genius, with the city and everyone
who runs it literally feasting on the woman's youthful vitality even as they wax poetic
on what beauty really is. Visually arresting, amorally fanciful, and often gruesomely realistic,
The Neon Demon is basically everything Nicolas Winding Refn does well turned up to 11. Love
it or hate it, the film remains one of the more deeply jarring portraits of fashion culture
the movies have ever presented.
Structured as a near-kaleidoscopic look at tragedies past and present, Lynne Ramsay's
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film less concerned with the motivations of the fateful
act at its core a mass killing in a school than it is with the lives behind it. As such,
the film focuses much of its narrative energy on a mother, played by Tilda Swinton, and
her son Kevin, who will one day be the architect of the unthinkable tragedy.
The film follows the pair's troubled relationship from birth, and finds Swinton giving one of
the finest performances of her career as a mother who desperately tries to love her son
even as his psychopathic behaviors become more pronounced with age. It's a perilous
landscape, with Ramsay deftly walking the tightrope between humanizing and demonizing
Kevin even as the film explores the tragic mother who always saw the evil within.
As the film jumps back and forth in time, exploring the aftermath of the violence as
much as the prelude, a soul-shaking sense of dread takes hold, and We Need to Talk About
Kevin becomes a fractured mirror designed to reflect a sickness consuming the world
around us. Wisely, Ramsay offers no remedy, and instead leaves us to wallow in the mess
we as a society seem destined to keep cleaning up.
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