As the year continues to deliver a potent slate of movies possessed of unholy terrors,
nefarious characters, and beastly delights, we're happy to chronicle each and every one
of them for you.
These are the most disturbing movies of 2019.
Director and screenwriter Dan Gilroy last teamed up with Jake Gyllenhaal for a caustic
media satire about an overly ambitious young man trying to break into the gritty world
of crime journalism.
Nightcrawler seamlessly blended biting satire with a distinctly dark sensibility, even using
horror movie tropes to give the action a nightmarish, post-modern quality.
Featuring one of the best performances of Gyllenhaal's career, Nightcrawler proved to
be one of 2014's best films.
In fact, the gruesome, gritty film was such a success, the pair teamed up once again for
Gilroy's latest satirical confection...the supernatural thriller Velvet Buzzsaw.
You'll be happy to know they deliver another scathing indictment on capitalist culture…although
Velvet Buzzsaw is a far campier and cheekier experience.
"I think sober hasn't been good for him."
"Well this was done fifteen years ago.
Piers was in the full bloom of alcoholism here."
The film revolves around the fickle, opportunistic world of modern art.
We meet a vapid circle of taste-makers out to get rich by selling off a recently unearthed
stack of paintings.
The catch?
These paintings were created by a madman whose spirit resides in each work of art…and now
the ghastly ghoul seeks revenge against anyone who tries profiting from his work.
Yes, the plot is as silly as it sounds.
And yes, Gilroy fully embraces that silliness throughout the film.
He also tempers the mood with a heaping dose of menace that transforms his parody into
a brooding, bloody beast of a film.
Attention, body-horror fans…All body horror fans, please report to Netflix immediately,
and add Richard Shepard's The Perfection to your queue immediately.
Rest assured: even the biggest gorehounds may get a little bit more than they bargained
for when they watch Shepard's harrowing psychological thriller.
At the center of this twisted tale are a pair of cello prodigies, played with sinister zeal
and sensuality by Allison Williams and Logan Browning.
The opening moments of The Perfection find the musicians at dramatically different points
in their lives.
Williams' star has faded after she walked away from music to care for her dying mother.
Meanwhile, Browning's star shines bright within the music world, particularly in the eyes
of the pair's haughty instructor.
"I mean, I'm sorry. Am I the luckiest man in the world?
I don't even drink and I feel giddy drunk.
My two most perfect students together."
When Charlotte finally finds herself free of her familial obligations, she immediately
tries to work her way back into the music world that she was forced to leave.
An initial, seemingly mutual attraction between the pair quickly puts both women on a road
trip...which rapidly devolves into a body horror nightmare that would make David Cronenberg
cringe.
And that's just the film's opening act.
From there, well...things get a bit nuts, with Shepard and crew twisting the unwieldy
narrative in increasingly unsettling ways.
The Perfection proves itself to be a first-rate, lavishly executed thriller…with a menacing
energy that's sure to satisfy the bloodthirsty appetites of horror fans everywhere.
By now, you're probably familiar with Jordan Peele's pitch-perfect horror film Get Out.
And if not, well...we urge you to go and watch it immediately, because it's just as amazing
as you've heard.
In fact, Peele's Oscar-winning debut was so incredible, there were some very legitimate
concerns that he'd suffer the sophomore slump that plagues so many other directors.
Those worries only mounted when he announced that he'd be returning to the horror genre
for his followup.
Of course, all those concerns were quickly laid to rest when Peele unleashed the bone-chilling
first trailer for Us.
And five minutes into the director's latest socially conscious fright-fest, you know you're
in for something wholly original, and wholly horrific.
Much like its predecessor, Us is a bold, incisive, witty genre confection that happily wears
its influences on its sleeve.
And yet somehow, it still doesn't look, feel, or play like any horror film you've ever seen.
As far as the plot goes, it's a relatively simple tale that finds a family being terrorized
by evil versions of themselves.
But much like Get Out, Peele has much bigger fish to fry.
Expect plenty of narrative twists and turns along the way.
"Who are you people?"
"It's us."
We won't spoil anything here…but you should brace yourself for a near-suffocating sense
of existential dread.
And some serious bloodshed, too.
With so many acclaimed genre offerings hitting theaters, it's safe to say we're experiencing
a golden age of horror films.
And since Stephen King is behind some of the biggest hits in the bunch, it's also safe
to say we're living in a golden age of King adaptations.
While we anxiously wait for It: Chapter 2 to hit theaters, we can at least hunker down
and enjoy the grisly, emotionally punishing new adaptation of King's best-selling novel,
Pet Sematary.
If you remember Mary Lambert's merciless 1989 adaptation, you're probably still suffering
from nightmares involving scalpel-wielding, undead infants.
The film offered a gritty form of horror that made you want tp shower after the credits
rolled.
If you're wary of the new Pet Sematary, be warned that it's lost none of that grittiness…but
it features several important narrative changes that are bound to disturb and disorient you
even more.
The main thrust of the story remains the same.
A family moves to Maine, tragic deaths ensue, misguided resurrections follow, and undead
mayhem reigns.
What sets this mayhem apart is that a child happens to be behind much of the bloodletting.
There's a relentless sense of atmospheric anguish throughout Pet Sematary, and the film
really catches fire once the dead start to rise.
The film culminates in a horrifying, heartbreaking finale that's bound to leave you gasping for
air.
In the mood to be punished?
Have a look at Dragged Across Concrete starring Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson.
"A single red ant could have eaten it faster."
The film stops just short of reaching over and punching you in the face in its committed
attempt to shock, provoke, and condemn whoever dares to sit through it.
And the 159-minute runtime feels even longer thanks to the film's slow pacing.
Dragged Across Concrete takes a pulpy, ultra-violent approach to cinema, depositing narcissistic,
morally compromised tough guys into a brutal and nightmarish world.
Vaughn and Gibson's racist, easily corrupted cops are the face of this particular nightmare.
As such, the film never seeks to make heroes, or even anti-heroes, out of either of them.
The film presents an incurably ugly world that many viewers will ultimately be uncomfortable
with…but if you're looking for an exceedingly disturbing night of entertainment, this film
is definitely an option.
Since its founding less than a decade ago, A24 Films has turned into a bonafide indie
powerhouse.
They've achieved this by producing a savvy blend of stark, human dramas like Moonlight,
Lady Bird, and Room, and artful genre fare like Ex Machina, The Witch,
and Hereditary.
This year saw A24 staying the course with this release strategy, kicking off 2019 with
Lee Cronin's paranoid chiller The Hole in the Ground.
If you're never heard of Cronin, it's because The Hole in the Ground is the Irish filmmaker's
first feature film.
Rest assured, it's a damn impressive debut, one that finds a young mother and her son
attempting to build a new life for themselves on the edges of a small rural town.
Unfortunately, their new home exists on the edge of a vast forest, and that forest contains
an ominous, expansive sinkhole, which may or may not be connected to the dramatic behavioral
changes in the boy.
"Tell me the truth."
"I am."
"Tell me the truth!"
"I am!"
"Stop lying to me!"
"I'm not lying."
Turns out, they are indeed connected, and that's not really a spoiler.
For one thing, this plot point becomes obvious early on in the film.
Plus, The Hole in the Ground is less concerned with shocking twists, and more intent on building
a bleak atmosphere full of fear and paranoia.
Cronin and company definitely succeed in that regard, coupling their atmospheric chills
with a haunting, slow-burn approach.
The film culminates in a finale that feels like the stuff of Kafka's nightmares.
Throughout his decades-long career behind the camera, filmmaker Gaspar Noé has been
labeled everything from a shameless provocateur to a cinematic visionary.
As you may have guessed from those labels, his films are just as likely to leave viewers
disgusted as they are to leave them utterly entranced.
Throughout his body of work, Noé doesn't seem overly concerned with how viewers react
to his movies so long as the films get some sort of reaction.
Following its 2018 international release and later 2019 U.S. release, it became clear that
Climax marked another wild cinematic experiment hellbent on pushing the boundaries of both
narrative decency and artistic ambition.
To be clear, Climax is a technical, artistic, and narrative achievement as potent as anything
Noé has ever created before.
It's also certain to force many viewers to run far away at the first sign of the madness
to come.
The real lunacy arrives about midway through Climax…right around the time the dancing
troupe at the heart of the film discovers that their beverages have been spiked with
a powerful narcotic.
That's about as much plot as we're comfortable giving away...not because we're scared of
spoiling anything, but because words simply can't describe the hallucinatory hellscape
that Noé unleashes upon you.
Just know that it's often difficult to watch the insanity unfold…and it's equally difficult
to look away.
Actor Robert Pattinson really outdoes himself in High Life, portraying a man desperately
trying to survive alongside his daughter, while both of them are lost deep in space.
Believe us when we say this film puts the "psycho" back in "psychosexual."
For those wondering how Pattinson's character wound up in the outer reaches of the galaxy,
it's because he was a very bad man on planet Earth.
Along with several other offenders, he signed up for a radical reproductive experiment instead
of dying in prison.
Let it suffice to say, that may have been the wrong choice.
Sound weird enough for you?
Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
This is a fantastically twisted movie, and at the center of all the insanity is one of
the best performances of Pattinson's career.
The gripping western-horror film The Wind finds plenty of genuine chills within its
hushed, haunted narrative.
The film revolves around a homesteader left alone amidst a sprawling prairie landscape
in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy.
The culmination of that tragedy plays a vital part in the film's overarching narrative,
and The Wind is at its most effective when the woman is trapped in total seclusion.
"The lord is my keeper…"
This is an almost perfect exercise in psychological horror.
In fact, the film is so effective, you're willing to overlook the fact that certain
elements of the dialogue and storyline leaves something to be desired.
Hagazussa is so slow-paced, it's bound to test the mettle of even the fiercest horror
fan.
But if you stick with the film, you'll eventually arrive at one of the most gut-wrenchingly
horrific finales in recent memory.
Set almost entirely in the mountainous terrain of 15th-century Europe, Hagazussa follows
an outcast struggling to maintain her sanity while living in almost total isolation with
her newborn daughter.
The film's pacing effectively lulls the viewer into a trance, making those bone-chilling
final moments all the more devastating.
It's totally okay if you've never heard of Possum.
The film never got a theatrical release stateside, and after a well-received yet limited run
in its native U.K. in 2018, it went straight to VOD for U.S. markets earlier this year.
And after you watch this emotionally grueling film, you'll see why the majority of viewers
will want to stay away.
But not you, right?
You're not afraid of anything...
A puppet features prominently in Possum, but not just any puppet.
This one is shaped like a giant spider with a monstrous human head attached…and it looks
a little something like this!
Coupled with the film's suffocating sense of dread, Possum is definitely an exceedingly
difficult film to watch.
Brace yourself for a harrowing tale of a man who's damaged beyond all repair by childhood
abuse and trauma.
The film is beautifully photographed and skillfully acted…but it's so relentlessly bleak, it
makes David Lynch's Eraserhead look like a walk in the park.
Consider yourself warned on this one, okay?
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