I found a list yesterday online that was titled “The Ten Scariest Movies on Netflix”, and on that list was Insidious 2. As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to write a list of scary movies to watch on Netflix, right now (as of 9/17/2014) because that list was such total and utter shit that I could not let it go uncontested. No, I will not link to it, nor will I say what site I saw it on. I will say that list was absolute shit, the writer had no clue what they were talking about, and I thought I would just contest it with a better list. Let the movies speak for themselves, as such. Keep in mind, I learned from the first time I wrote one of these and I date them in the headline now, in case some of the films are eventually no longer available. As of time if publish, all five horror films included here were available on Netflix instant. Alright, let’s do this.
Bill Pullman’s first man-period was an emotional doozy for him.
I often find it funny that people in America often scoff at other religious beliefs and practices, especially if they involve darker things that people do not understand. This Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street) directed movie is loosely based on a book of the same name about ethnobotanist and researcher Wade Davis’ accounts of going to Haiti and deeply researching voodoo (or Vodou) and the rumors around the practitioners ability to create “zombies” from living people. While the movie may take some liberties with the story (do we even need to say that anymore about book to film adaptations? Isn’t that a given?), it is still a very creepy movie about a sect of life that actually exists.
While some may see the date of release (1988) and think cheesy 80′s horror, that is not the case. The Serpent and the Rainbow is not the usual horror fare, and stands out from the crowd for that exact reason. Plus, there is ONE scene that you will never forget from this movie. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it. A very different kind of horror film, but one well worth a viewing.
Don’t let this pic fool you. While not an overly violent film, still an original and engaging twist on the zombie genre.
I liked The Returned when I saw it, and knowing little about it helped. While it IS a zombie movie, it really isn’t a zombie movie. If you approach it wanting 28 Days Later levels of mayhem, you will be bored. If you approach it from the human survival angle of something like The Walking Dead, you will appreciate it more.
The Returned is a movie about a plague that turns people into “zombies”, and how one couple deals with that as it becomes more and more apparent it is something they cannot avoid. What sets the Returned apart, and what made it so interesting, is how the infection sort of becomes a class war in the sense that rich people can afford an antidote (which can turn them back to humans), but poor people can’t. Also, the amount of antidote available clearly spells a problem for people, as demand and supply do not seem to equal out.
A very interesting and unique take on a genre and idea you have seen thousands of times. That, alone, merits a larger audience than this film seemed to get.
The dynamic of their relationship has a great deal to do with her own relationship with her son, which you will see at the start of the film.
I may have mentioned this one to you REMlins before, but I had to bring it up again for just how fucked up it is. A French movie about, well, perception (believe it or not) In Their Sleep is a movie about a woman who encounters a young man who is seemingly on the run from a mad man bent on killing him. She sees the obvious terror in his eyes and takes him under her wing for the night to protect him from this relentless assailant. Her own past (revealed in the intro of the film) explains why she does what she does and gives it deeper meaning. What we come to learn, of course, is that things are not quite how we first perceived them.
While I may have already given away too much, you will not see the brutality of this movie coming. It is up there with Funny Games and Calvaire for just how exhausted and emotionally manipulated you feel by the end of the movie.
Many panned this movie for how “bleak” it all ends up being, but life is bleak. We don’t all escape to the movies to sing and dance and pretend life is some fucking wonderful treasure. Some of us find beauty in deliberately going into a world that is worse than ours. That is what In Their Sleep is. Willingly going into a world worse than ours (that is an honest reflection of ours in the worst way), only to come out of it grateful for how normal your life really is.
Don’t worry. This pic is not a spoiler for the movie at all. You will NO idea where this movie is going, which is half the fun.
Finally! I love this movie, and feel like I have been waiting forever for it to be available on Netflix. Thing is, how do I even describe Detention? Think The Breakfast Club meets The Faculty meets Back to the Future. It is one of those “high school comedies” that is fast and fun and edgy, yet, at the heart of it, there is this twisted horror meets science fiction story that is pretty mind-bending.
To even try to explain Detention to you will only ruin this insane ride of a movie, so I think I will just hold back. It has a slasher story, a teen romance, funny and honest stereotypes of high school cliché’s, and a time traveling bear. Yes, a motherfucking time traveling bear.
Yup, so go watch that shit, right now. Lighter than most of the stuff I recommend, but no less awesome.
Not to be confused with this brilliant movie, called Last Days.
While I will admit, I am pushing it a bit here with a movie that falls more under “thriller than horror, The Last Days is a movie I found one night on Netflix, knew nothing about, and ended up really enjoying it. A Spanish film about a plague (has some similarities to The Returned, come to think of it) that ends up being a fatal form of agoraphobia. These are adults who cannot go outside, and over time, when they do, they die. This means society gets turned into a kind of anarchy, where people are killing each other for supplies and food because no one can actually go outside.
It is another end-of-the-world movie, but presented in a way we have never really seen before. It is an obvious allegory for how, as a society, technology has brought us all inside and turned us into mole people, and this is only set to become worse and worse unless we change it. The good part is, they don’t bash you over the head with that message. They let you find it on your own, which is nice.
While I want to give it some down points for its ending and an overly idealistic love story, at the heart of it, that is often why do most of the stuff we do. For love. Even if a jaded asshole like me doesn’t want to admit that.
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