The most exciting and visceral of all movie genres might just be the mystery.
You can't just casually watch a mystery film.
To get the most out of it, you have to be fully dialed in, tracking all the clues right
alongside the protagonist.
But if you've already played armchair detective for all the well-known mysteries, you might
be wondering what to watch next.
Here are some hidden gems even the biggest mystery buff may have missed.
You're probably familiar with the work of Macon Blair and Jeremy Saulnier, even if those
names don't ring a bell.
The two worked on the claustrophobic thrillers Green Room and Blue Ruin, both of which were
written and directed by Saulnier and featured memorable performances by Blair.
And in 2019, Blair penned the script for Saulnier's Hold the Dark, a moody mystery/thriller about
a wolf researcher who gets more than he bargained for.
Jeffrey Wright stars as a scientist who heads to a remote Alaskan town to help the locals
hunt the wolves believed to be responsible for the deaths of three local children.
But those wolves aren't what they seem, and neither are the townsfolk.
Every time you think you have a handle on what's happening, the film twists the knife
again and moves in an entirely new direction.
If you enjoyed Saunier's other films, then Hold the Dark will be right up your alley.
Almost everyone can agree that there are two things that will likely end in something very
bad happening to a person: the works of Stephen King, and hordes of rats.
In 1922, you get both.
In the film, Thomas Jane portrays a Nebraska farmer named Wilf.
His wife Arlette has inherited some land, and she wants to sell it and move to the big
city of Omaha.
There's just one problem: Wilf doesn't like that plan.
He's so against it, in fact, that he convinces their son Henry to help him kill Arlette.
"Only one thing I can do.
That… we can do."
They do the deed, but the story is only beginning.
Henry runs away with his girlfriend while Wilf stays behind in the creepy old farmhouse
and slowly becomes unglued.
Then, the rats show up.
Why are they infesting his house?
Are the horrifying visions he's seeing hallucinations, or is he actually being haunted?
Like all good mysteries, the questions keep building up.
Mystery films are all about paying close attention to pick up on every clue, and that goes double
for a film told in reverse.
The device instantly makes a mystery even more, well, mysterious, since viewers have
to hold key events in their head before finding out what led up to them.
Filmmaker Oren Uziel frames Shimmer Lake in that manner: The film opens with Andy waking
up in his basement, dropping the audience right in the middle of his confusion.
As the story unfolds, however, you realize that the events are being played out in reverse.
The ending comes at the movie's start, only for the film to wind up back at the story's
beginning a few days earlier.
Along the way, Andy's story intertwines with that of his brother Zeke, who happens to be
the local sheriff investigating a series of crimes that may or may not be connected to
Andy.
Despite its serious themes, Shimmer Lake relies on a cast known primarily for comedy, including
Rainn Wilson, Ron Livingston, and Rob Corddry.
Somehow the casting works perfectly, giving Shimmer Lake just enough humor to help you
get through all the mounting paranoia.
"You done?
"Yes he is, but that was a lot of stuff."
Over the last few years, Rami Malek has emerged as one of the best and most versatile actors
of his generation.
He's won an Emmy for his role as troubled hacker on Mr. Robot, an Oscar for embodying
Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, and he also found time to star in a compelling,
quiet indie mystery called Buster's Mal Heart.
Malek portrays a man named Buster who lives in a shack on a mountain.
He gets what he needs by stealing from vacation homes, and he passes the time discussing conspiracy
theories on a talk radio program.
Except that's only part of his story.
Viewers quickly come to realize that Buster hasn't always lived this way.
He was once a hotel concierge and a doting dad, until events tore his life apart and
sent him literally running for the hills, forever plagued by his secrets.
Presented through multiple connected narratives, Buster's Mal Heart is a surreal mystery that
will keep you guessing until the end.
The name Agatha Christie is pretty much synonymous with the modern mystery novel.
She wrote two long series of novels, one featuring ace elderly amateur detective Miss Marple,
and another about master investigator Hercule Poirot, the central figure of classics like
Murder on the Orient Express.
But you might not know that a major mystery factored into Christie's actual real life:
In 1926, she disappeared for 11 days.
The 2018 made-for-British TV movie Agatha and the Truth of Murder speculates on just
what the novelist did during her absence from society.
According to the film, she went full Marple and investigated a murder.
In this case, it's the real-life slaying of Florence Nightingale Shore, goddaughter of
famous nurse Florence Nightingale.
In a fun twist on the mystery genre, Agatha and the Truth of Murder offers up an alternate
history in which the storytellers become part of the story.
Life is pretty great for wealthy married couple Simon and Robyn.
Simon has a cushy job, and they just bought a gorgeous new house in LA.
Sure, their marriage is strained to the breaking point because of some fertility issues, but
otherwise they're doing peachy.
Well, at least until they run into an old high school friend of Simon's named Gordo.
It's an innocent encounter, but the plot thickens when Gordo begins showing up at their house
unexpectedly, forcing Simon to confront him and, basically, tell him to shove off.
Soon after, Gordo's inner creep emerges via a series of sinister and disturbing acts.
Of course, if that was the whole story, there wouldn't be much to watch, but this film is
a gift that keeps on giving.
Written and directed by Joel Edgerton, who also stars as Gordo, The Gift is the kind
of cat-and-mouse mystery where you're never sure who the cat and mouse are at any given
moment.
Is Gordo a crazed lunatic?
Is Simon holding onto more secrets than he's letting on?
You won't hear any of the details from us, because the twists are way too juicy to spoil.
For 12 years on Murder, She Wrote, retired teacher turned mystery writer Jessica Fletcher
solved hundreds of surprisingly grisly murders in and around her picturesque hometown of
Cabot Cove, Maine.
Well, what if somebody rebooted Murder, She Wrote, only to make it about a teenager instead
of an older person?
That's kind of the premise of Annabelle Hooper and the Ghosts of Nantucket.
In this breezy whodunit, teenage mystery writer Annabelle Hooper and her friends take a vacation
on Massachusetts' lovely Nantucket Island.
There, they stumble upon an ages-old local ghost story that they simply can't help but
take a crack at solving.
Annabelle Hooper and the Ghosts of Nantucket is a fun, lighthearted detective story perfect
for those nights when you just aren't in the mood for a serial-killer-level mystery.
Goldstone is a stylish, slow burn detective drama that takes a familiar set of tropes
and places them in a whole new setting.
Instead of a grizzled detective who works out of a dingy office with a saxophone always
playing in the background, this noir takes place in the present day in the Australian
outback.
The grizzled detective part is right on the money, though.
"It's for you."
After uncovering corruption in his hometown, detective Jay Swan heads to the tiny town
of Goldstone to locate a tourist who mysteriously disappeared.
In true detective fashion, Swan sticks his nose where it doesn't belong and arouses aggressive
retaliation from the corrupt local government.
There's a lot of sun-parched Western flair and good old-fashioned noir driving Goldstone,
all of it anchored by Aaron Pedersen as the soulful, booze-swilling Swan.
Thanks to the success of The Silence of the Lambs, the '90s were rife with dark, disturbing,
and elegantly made mysteries about detectives trying to hunt down truly twisted murderers.
Think Seven, Kiss the Girls, and Copycat, and you get the basic idea.
In the spirit of such unsettling cat-and-mouse mysteries is the 2019 film Beneath the Leaves.
Detectives Brian Larson and Erica Shotwell are tasked with capturing a thoroughly crazed
bad guy named James Whitley, who kills his victims and then steals their fingernails.
He's played to the absolute hilt of creepiness by Doug Jones, who's perhaps best known for
playing the creatures in The Shape of Water and Pan's Labyrinth.
The race is on for the cops to somehow find and stop this terrifying madman before he
can claim another innocent victim.
Let's face it: Some of the best films out there, mystery or otherwise, come packaged
with subtitles.
In that vein, you can't go wrong with Miguel Angel Vivas' Spanish-language mystery thriller
Tu Hijo, or Your Son.
It's the story of a young man named Marcos who is nearly beaten to death outside of a
nightclub.
That sends his father, a surgeon named Jaime, on a quest for vengeance against the people
who put his son in the hospital.
In the role of Jaime, Spanish star Jose Coronado steals the show, delivering a truly multi-layered
character who walks a fine line between vigilantism and straight-up darkness.
He's doing bad things for good reasons...until those reasons aren't so good.
Your Son isn't the easiest watch, but it's never short of thrilling.
Directed by Liz Garbus, Lost Girls is based on the shockingly true story that unraveled
in the aftermath of the disappearance of a Long Island woman named Shannan Gilbert.
Searching for her, police discovered the remains of multiple women believed to be the victims
of a serial killer.
The emotional center of Lost Girls is Shannan's mother, Mari, who decides to investigate the
mystery herself after the police prove less than eager to fully dive into the case.
The film straddles the line between true crime and fiction, using the public story as a backdrop
for an intimate character study.
The focus of Lost Girls isn't on hunting down a serial killer, but rather on a mother's
war with a criminal justice system that doesn't seem to think her missing daughter is worth
the manpower.
"It is our job as mothers and sisters to make sure these girls are not forgotten."
It's a gut-wrenching film, and even though the ending of this mystery is already in the
public record, its twists and turns will still keep you glued to the screen until the credits
roll.
Thanks for watching.
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