Top 5 Outside the Box Horror Movies

     You don’t need blood and guts to make a movie that absolutely terrifies the audience. Playing on people’s real life fears can be just as terrifying as zombies and vampires. These next five movies are more emotionally and psychologically scary to audiences than even some of cinema’s goriest movies.

5. Freaks (1932)

     After the success of Dracula (1931), director Tod Browning was given creative control over his next project. Browning would draw upon his real experiences in the circus and push the boundaries of the social norms of that time period with Freaks. Freaks is one Pre-Code Hollywood’s most shocking films. The film depicts circus sideshow “freaks” in their quest for revenge against two “normal” members of the circus after they attempt to swindle inheritance money out of one of the freaks. This film was so horrifying that the original version was never released and is now considered lost. Browning’s career was effectively dead as a result of the controversy. The film was groundbreaking because it depicted “freaks” as more caring and thoughtful than the so-called “normal” people who are depicted as the real monsters. Actual sideshow performers were cast in the film further adding to its surreal feel.

4. Misery (1990)

     Based on the Stephen King novel, Misery showed that horror movies could garner critical acclaim as well as award recognition. James Caan plays Paul Sheldon, a novelist who kills off the main character Misery in his best-selling book series. When Sheldon crashes his car and is severely injured, he is rescued by his number one fan Annie Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates, who just happens to be a nurse. Upon reading the novel where Misery is killed off, Annie’s dark side is revealed and Annie forces the bedridden Sheldon to work on a novel to resurrect Misery.  The film’s director Rob Reiner and screenwriter William Goldman actually toned down the graphic violence that Annie puts Sheldon through in order to highlight the psychological battle between the two characters. In fact, the violence in the film maybe even worse because it allows the audience to imagine the pain Sheldon is going through. This decision also emphasized how truly helpless Paul Sheldon is against Annie Wilkes. The film also shows that in our celebrity obsessed culture a deranged fan holding their favorite artist hostage is very realistic. The true highlight of the film is Kathy Bates’s performance as the deranged obsessive fan Annie Wilkes, whose sudden shifts from cheerful to pure unadulterated rage makes her one of cinema’s most memorable and horrifying villains. Bates would later receive the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.

3.  The Big Short (2015)

    The Big Short is based on the book by Michael Lewis which depicts the real events leading up to the Financial Crisis of 2008. The film follows four characters as they realize that the housing market is about to collapse which would trigger the collapse of the global economy. The characters bet against the market in order to profit off the impending collapse.  As the four characters investigate what has gone wrong with the economy, they discover to their horror that all of America’s financial institutions are completely corrupt and the government agencies in charge of regulating them are in on the action. The fallout on ordinary people’s lives are largely left out of the film for obvious reasons. We saw it all firsthand and a film could never truly capture the despair that many Americans went through in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis. Perhaps the most horrifying implications of the film is that the people who destroyed the economy and so many lives have, and never will be, punished for it because the government has been bribed to be on their side. These people are still in charge of our unregulated financial institutions and the house of cards could easily come crashing down again.

2. Rear Window (1954)

    Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window is simple, yet genius. The film stars James Stewart as photographer L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies, who is wheelchair bound after a knee injury and engages in voyeurism by using his camera to look at his neighbors through his window. One night while looking out his window, Jeff winds up witnessing what he believes to be a murder. Jeff recruits his girlfriend Lisa, played by Grace Kelly and his nurse Stella, played by Thelma Ritter to help him find evidence to help catch the killer. Despite Jeff’s noble actions to help catch a murderer, Hitchcock never lets the viewer forget that he should not have been spying on his neighbors in the first place. At the same time, Hitchcock turns us all into voyeurs as well by employing P.O.V. shots of Jeff snooping on his neighbors.

    1. Chinatown (1974)

    Chinatown stars Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes, a private detective that is hired to trail an adulterer. However, Gittes quickly unravels a political conspiracy for Los Angeles’s water supply, which leads to Jake discovering an even more disturbing conspiracy. Directed by Roman Polanski after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the Manson Family, this film reflects the mindset that Polanski was in at the time. Chinatown is bleak and its ending is as horrifying as it is hopeless.