Earlier this week we celebrated Alfred Hitchcock’s birthday by ranking his films. Today we continue to celebrate the auteur’s work by listing indie films which remind us of his work. And because Hitchcock inspired so many filmmakers over the years with his innovative storytelling and crafty camera shots, we had a ton of films to choose from. The films below are the kind Hitch would have made if he were still live, or at the very least, films he would have enjoyed watching himself.

9 Indie Films That Remind Us Of Alfred Hitchcock

Tell No One

A married couple goes skinny dipping in a lake at night. After an argument, the woman swims to shore to clear her head. Suddenly, the man hears her scream and swims to shore to investigate only to be knocked unconscious by an off-screen culprit. Jump ahead eight years, and two bodies have mysteriously surfaced at the site where it’s believed the wife was murdered, reopening the case with the husband as the primary suspect. A classic cocktail of mystery, suspense and paranoia, Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One is a tense thriller with a knotty plot that harkens back to Hitch in its themes while satiating modern audiences with its brisk narrative momentum and elaborate action sequences. Francois Cluzet exudes intensity in the lead role, his frazzled charm making him a more volatile man-on-the-run than Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill (North By Northwest) or Robert Donat’s Hannay (The 39 Steps), though he’s no less riveting. Like any good Hitchcock film (or any good mystery, for that matter), Tell No One always keeps you guessing and never fails to surprise, all while continuously building an emotional foundation that makes the shocker ending feel like a shotgun to the chest. [Bernard]

The Usual Suspects

Alfred Hitchcock was masterful at creating mesmerizing characters who often danced on the edge of suspicion. Sometimes mysterious, sometimes charismatic, but always fascinating, these antagonists (to call them villains is a little too much) aren’t necessarily the kind to root for, but it isn’t a bad thing they get away with what they get away with for as long as they can. More than just foils, the greats include Madeleine Elster (Vertigo), Uncle Charlie (Shadow of a Doubt), and even Lars Thorwald (Rear Window) who, in Hitch’s hands, is captivating as little more than an object of observation. The modern indie film equivalent of these delicious baddies, a character Hitchcock would have had a blast with, is Verbal Kint, from Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects. What makes Kint, as played by Kevin Spacey, the archetypical Hitchcock antagonist is how ordinary he seems—the most usual of the usual suspects—until he weaves a hypnotic narrative tale about five villains, three heists, and one crime lord: Keyser Söze, a man whose reputation is so fearsome, he’s more than legendary, he’s mythological. Yet from Kint’s lips to the cops’ ears floats a story told with such subtle conviction and drenched in such rich detail, every last word is believable. Or is it? This is the Hitchcockian genius of him. Kint is known to be one of those five criminals and a man who simply cannot be trusted, but his feeble physicality is disarming. This allows his hypnotic storytelling acumen to take charge (Verbal is verbal, indeed). As Hitchcock would have wanted, Kint is a character the viewer should see coming, and yet fails to do so. As for the stunning reveal at the end, it’s Hitchcockian too, and one of the greats of movie history. [Michael]

Buried

Hitch wasn’t just the master of suspense, but he was also an expert at single location filmmaking (Lifeboat, Rope, Rear Window). Rodrigo Cortés applied Hitchcockian attributes in his 2010 indie thriller Buried, where Ryan Reynolds (his best performance to date) finds himself trapped inside a coffin with only a lighter, a cell phone, and enough oxygen for 90 minutes. It’s a gripping race against the clock shot entirely in a claustrophobic setting. While it contains a super simple setup, the film is full of technical challenges. But Buried makes great use of constrained space, using careful camera framing and a sharpened sense of hearing to obtain a high level of suspense, all while opting not to show any shots outside the coffin. A less ambitious filmmaker would’ve added some flashbacks or cuts to a grieving spouse. But not Cortés. By leaving these shots out, the audience remains isolated with the character and the results are so suffocating they’ll leave you gasping for air. Hitchcock would have admired such an impressive feat. [Dustin]

Timecrimes

When one thinks of Hitchcock-inspired films, works of science fiction usually aren’t the first to come to mind. Nonetheless, Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo’s 2007 Timecrimes, proves that Hitch’s impact stretches to all corners of the contemporary cinematic realm and can even be found in the likes of foreign language time travel flicks. Like other modern films containing narratives dealing with the manipulation of time (such as Shane Carruth’s Primer and Bradley King’s recent Time Lapse), Timecrimes has a relatively complex plot that unfolds gradually and only fully presents itself to viewers during its third act. Vigalondo’s film follows a married ogler by the name of Héctor (Karra Elejalde). One quiet afternoon, after spotting a naked woman through a pair of binoculars, he wanders over to get a closer look; by the time he reaches the woman, she’s unconscious, slumped against a large rock, and suddenly Héctor is stabbed with a pair of scissors by a second, masked person. From there, the storyline only becomes more obscure though it certainly evolves in a fascinating and original manner. All originality aside, the Hitchcockian influence is surely present and can be found in qualities such as Timecrimes’ increasingly guilt-ridden protagonist and its utilization of voyeurism, in a similar vein as Hitch’s famous Rear Window and Psycho. [Eli]

Mulholland Drive

Many deem David Lynch a singular artist. Out of his influential oeuvre a whole new adjective was born; one that’s used to describe any picture cloaked in a mysterious, off-kilter atmosphere. So it’s interesting that this one decidedly unique filmmaker’s greatest film, the mesmerizing Mulholland Drive, borrows so directly the themes, aesthetics, and particles from Alfred Hitchcock’s most critically lauded film, Vertigo, in order to help create what’s arguably the most Lynchian atmosphere and story to date. Naomi Watts’ career-making role of a wide-eyed dreamer is an amalgamation of various Hitchcock “classic blonde” heroines, striking the biggest resemblance with Kim Novak from the 1958 classic. Not only is the 1950s aesthetic that provided the contemporary backdrop to Vertigo prevalent in the old-fashioned Hollywood look to Mulholland Drive, but it’s weaved into the thematics as well. Together with fear, manipulation, and spiraling madness, all of which permeate the tone of both pictures. Lynch contorted the very same type of suspense that Hitch mastered in his day; using audience’s’ imaginations and subconscious as a plaything to create unforgettable and influential art. [Nik]

Match Point

While Woody Allen has continued to churn out a movie a year for most of his career, his recent films seem to have narrowed in scope, losing some of the sharp-witted satire that marked many of his earlier films. One film that has poked through this listless drought is Match Point, a flick that saw Allen test the waters of the thriller genre, and most importantly, play homage to the godfather of suspense himself. Allen has never been afraid to wear any particular film’s influences on his sleeve, and Match Point is no exception. The premise alone is rife with nods to Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train, a film that centers on a tennis star, murder, and, most importantly, chance, which in Match Point is redubbed as luck. The nods don’t stop there. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Chris, a handsome, talented charmer with sociopathic tendencies, much in the style of classic Hitchcock villains: men who can literally get away with murder. Most importantly of all, is Scarlett Johansson, the beautiful blonde temptress, the source of all this lust, the carrier of the unwanted child, the catalysis of everything. To put the sexual politics of Allen’s work in question is to be a conscious and critical filmgoer (which we all should be), but while off-putting and dated, the film stays true to its influences, for better or worse. [Gary]

Chuck & Buck

While maybe not an obvious selection for a Hitchcock-inspired film, Miguel Arteta and Mike White’s thoughtfully constructed and hilarious micro-budgeted black comedy, Chuck & Buck, owes a lot to the popular works of Hitchcock including Psycho and Rear Window. Chuck & Buck follows the reunion of two childhood friends, writer Mike White in the role of Buck and filmmaker Chris Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie) plays Chuck who now goes by Charlie. After Buck’s mother passes away, the two friends awkwardly reconnect at her funeral which is followed by Buck following Chuck (and his wife) to Los Angeles. Buck tries desperately to fit himself into Chuck’s life as his obsession becomes increasingly more sexual and invasive. Instead of taking the path of someone like Brian De Palma (whose fantastic Blow Out I nearly chose for this list) where the Hitchcock influence is more authentic and direct, Arteta and White twist the voyeuristic themes and Norman Bates-like qualities of Buck to a wildly different effect. It plays up these qualities pushing them to levels of uncomfortable and sometime gut-busting laughter as the film brilliantly satirizes the irrational homophobic fear that can exist in straight men. [Ryan]

Stoker

The screenplay of Stoker is what most recalls Hitchcock’s work. Revolving around a teenage girl (Mia Wasikowska) and her prickly mother (Nicole Kidman) mourning the loss of a father and husband as a mysterious relative (Matthew Goode) slowly moves into the picture, the plot draws comparisons to Shadow of a Doubt, but Director Park Chan-Wook makes it his own uniquely twisted beast. While the story pays clear homage in the structuring of gradually built dread and distrust, Park’s offbeat and richly sensual direction marks the singular vision of a true auteur. Through detailed mise-en-scène and slick, haunting visuals, we are steered through an unsettling vision of sexual awakening and hereditary depravity. The film crawls under one’s skin as it pries open narrative and thematic doors initially closed tightly. The film resembles Marnie in its Freudian hang-ups and Frenzy in its relative grittiness, and although it’s far bleaker and bloodier than Hitch had the ability to be in his time, something tells me that fans of his distinct brand of psychological terror would be tickled by this one-of-a-kind experience. [Byron]

Misery

It feels almost as though any horror, thriller, or psychological suspense film we could possibly think of and include on this list would feel obvious in some way. There isn’t a great movie out there among these genres that doesn’t herald back to something Hitchcock either invented or did so well it merited emulation. But in terms of Hitchcock signature moves, Rob Reiner’s 1990 Misery uses all the very best. Single-location by way of a secluded country house. Slow zooms into character’s faces as anxiety builds giving a sense of claustrophobia. And of course, a main character with alarmingly obsessive tendencies. Hitch knew that love could be a far scarier emotion than hate. Vertigo taught us the price of obsessive love, and Misery’s Annie Wilkes is a fan whose love of a book series is more than a little unbridled. Rear Window established that a character immobilized and trapped in a small space is more horrifying than any dark castle, and Paul Sheldon learns just how harrowing four walls are when your ankles are smashed to bits. Those who appreciate the simmering, confined, tension-filled thrillers Hitchcock made his name on, will find themselves satisfied by Misery. [Ananda]

The end of the year is always the best time for the Criterion Collection. Not only do we typically see the major releases and box sets for the holiday season each November, October brings us world-renowned and classic horror flicks just in time for Halloween. In previous years releases have included The Uninvited, Eyes without a Face, The Vanishing and Rosemary’s Baby. This year, the Collection is releasing not one, but three haunting thrillers that are sure to delight any horror fan. The month also includes a Gen X landmark of gay cinema and an Italian classic starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

My Own Private Idaho

Gus Van Sant – Available October 6

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Henry plays, My Own Private Idaho is a searing and complex emotional drama updated for a particular time and place. Van Sant had already made his name known in independent circles with his debut Mala Noche, but his follow-up established him as one of the world’s best young filmmakers and one of the most important voices in gay cinema. The film stars River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as teenage prostitutes, drifting through the Pacific Northwest on the fringes of society. Van Sant already had his trademark style and complex social themes in fine-tuned form. The Criterion Collection previously released the film on 2-disc DVD back in 2005—ten years later, it is definitely worthy of a Blu-ray upgrade.

Special Features:

• New restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Gus Van Sant, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Alternate Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack
• Illustrated 2005 audio conversation between Van Sant and filmmaker Todd Haynes
• The Making of “My Own Private Idaho,” a 2005 documentary featuring cast and crew
• Kings of the Road, a 2005 interview with film scholar Paul Arthur on Van Sant’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight
• Conversation from 2005 between producer Laurie Parker and actor River Phoenix’s sister Rain
• Audio conversation from 2005 between writer JT Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette
• Deleted scenes
• Trailer
• PLUS: A book featuring essays by film critic Amy Taubin and Leroy; a 1991 article by Lance Loud; and reprinted interviews with Van Sant, Phoenix, and actor Keanu Reeves

The Brood

David Cronenberg – Available October 13

Before the Canadian master of horror was making weird psychological dramas with the star of a teenage vampire franchise, he was making weird and bloody flicks about vampires and other creatures. The Brood is perhaps the best of his early low-budget films—and certainly one of his creepiest. The film involves two Cronenberg horror staples: a disturbed woman with a bizarre ailment receiving radical psychological treatment, and a group of disturbed mutants terrorizing her young daughter. And better yet, it stars horror icon Oliver Reed as the unconventional psychotherapist running the Somafree Institute. The Brood is grimy, unpleasant and bloody horror made by one of the genre’s best filmmakers. This marks Cronenberg’s fifth entry in the Collection.

Special Features:

• New restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director David Cronenberg, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New documentary about the making of the film and Cronenberg’s early work, featuring actor Samantha Eggar, producer Pierre David, cinematographer Mark Irwin, assistant director John Board, and special makeup effects artists Rick Baker (Videodrome) and Joe Blasco (Shivers and Rabid)
• New restored 2K digital transfer of Crimes of the Future, a 1970 feature by Cronenberg, supervised by the director, plus a 2011 interview in which the director discusses his early films with Fangoria editor Chris Alexander
• Interview from 2013 with actors Art Hindle and Cindy Hinds
• Appearance by actor Oliver Reed on The Merv Griffin Show from 1980
• Trailer and radio spot
• PLUS: An essay by critic Carrie Rickey

A Special Day

Ettore Scola – Available October 13

I wasn’t familiar with Italian auteur Ettore Scola until I saw his recent profile documentary on his idol and colleague Federico Fellini. That film, How Strange to be Named Federico is a bizarre blend of filmmaking styles and narratives, including a reflection on Scola’s work—with a major connection in star/muse Marcello Mastroianni. A Special Day is the duo’s most prominent work together, with the added bonus of Mastroianni’s oft-time co-star Sophia Loren. Perhaps the most interesting thing about A Special Day, however, is Mastroianni and Loren, two of the most beautiful and stylish people in the world at the time, play against type as a journalist and a housewife. They give among the most refined, down-to-earth performances of their careers in this WWII era romantic drama.

Special Features:

• New restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Ettore Scola, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with Scola and actor Sophia Loren
• Two 1977 episodes of The Dick Cavett Show featuring Loren and actor Marcello Mastroianni
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Deborah Young

Kwaidan

Masaki Kobayashi – Available October 20

Nobody does ghost stories better than the Japanese. Before the modern age of J-horror’s Ringu and Pulse came the classic Kwaidan. Made up of four short stories derived from Japanese folklore, it features ghouls and demons in Japan’s typical take on existential dread. Filmmaker Kobayashi is one of his country’s great unheralded auteurs—never considered in the light of Kurosawa, Ozu or Mizoguchi, but many of his films are staples among genres: Harakiri for the samurai film and The Human Condition series for wartime dramas are right there with Kwaidan for the horror genre. This also marks a Blu-ray upgrade for the film, which was released on DVD within the first 100 Criterion films all the way back in 2000.

Special Features:

• New 2K digital restoration of director Masaki Kobayashi’s original cut, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary by film historian Stephen Prince
• Interview from 1993 with Kobayashi, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda
• New interview with assistant director Kiyoshi Ogasawara
• New piece about author Lafcadio Hearn, on whose versions of Japanese folk tales Kwaidan is based
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch – Available October 27

Lynch’s masterpiece may not be initially thought of as a horror film, but there are few films that create such an intense level of dread. Oh, there’s also a homeless monster. Dissecting the weird world of Hollywood, it is full of colorful Lynchian characters and shattered dreams. Naomi Watts is fantastic as both sides of the Hollywood cycle: chipper ingenue looking for her big break and worn failure at the end of her rope. Endlessly watchable, not only for the impenetrable mystery, but also for Lynch’s brilliant direction, humor and sidewinding script. A long-time wish for many Criterion devotees, Mulholland Dr. finally gets a Blu-ray release in the Collection.

Special Features:

• New restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director David Lynch and director of photography Peter Deming, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with Lynch, Deming, actors Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, composer Angelo Badalamenti, and casting director Johanna Ray
• Interviews with Lynch and cast members, along with other footage from the film’s set
• Trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an interview with Lynch from filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley’s 2005 edition of the book Lynch on Lynch

We’ve got yet another giant-sized show for this week on the Way Too Indiecast! Joining your regular host, Bernard, on today’s podcast are three familiar faces, plus one very special, very indie guest. Indie filmmaker Kevin Chenault joins the show in our first segment to talk about his latest movie, Different Drum, as well as share his favorite road trip movies along with Bernard and Way Too Indie head honcho, Dustin Jansick. After the break, we say goodbye to the boys from the midwest and welcome in Ananda and Zach to talk about the highlights and lowlights from the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, which just wrapped up. Plus, as always, our indie picks of the week!

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (2:30)
• Different Drum (10:40)
• Favorite Road Trip Movies (14:30)
• Tribeca Wrap-Up (33:18)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Of Horses and Men review

Different Drum review

Along the Roadside review

2015 Tribeca coverage

TransFatty Lives review

(T)ERROR review

Among the Believers review

The Wolfpack review

The Overnight review

Grandma review

Slow West review

Subscribe to the Way Too Indiecast

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• and don’t forget to leave us a rating and quick review!

We get it, it’s the time of year when theaters are pushing ghosts, creepy possessed dolls, and axe-murderers onto the masses. But that’s not everyone’s jam. No taste for the supernatural but still want that rush of adrenaline? We’ve got you covered. Here are 13 of the most formidably frightening films we could think of, guaranteed to set your skin crawling and max out your energy bill with how many lights you’ll need on. Forget those psycho villains, the wide world of cinema offers plenty more thrills without ’em.

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park was the first movie my parents went to see on their own before deciding to let my brother and I see it in theaters. Not a bad idea as I was 10 and he was 9 when it released in 1993. Even with their blessing, in my first viewing of the film I had to leave the theater during the iconic t-rex chase scene because the adrenaline rush was too much for little me. As one of Stephen Spielberg’s absolute masterpieces, what makes this tale of extinct animals brought to life so thrilling is the perfect combination of Spielberg’s expert pacing and detailed visuals. Incorporating some of the first truly successful CG elements with elaborately crafted mechanics, the film had children and adults alike wondering if Spielberg had actually recreated dinosaurs. In one of the film’s most panic-inducing scenes, two kids (who 10-year old me identified with a little too well) crawl in fear around a stainless steel kitchen to elude two smart velociraptors. Their clacking claws on the kitchen tile, their echoing barks, and roving eyes searching for their prey still cause me to breakout in a cold sweat. [Ananda]

Gravity

First off, watching Gravity outside of a theater is significantly easier to handle than when the endless vacuum of space is projected onto a huge eyeball encompassing screen. Second, I can say from experience that seeing this film on a first date may cause you to relate stressful feelings toward that person and may impede the success of future dates. As Sandra Bullock’s Dr. Stone spins uncontrollably into the dark depths of space when her astronaut team is hit by an unexpected debris shower hurtling at them, viewers are introduced to a nightmare they’d previously been unable to imagine without actual space travel exposure. The never-ending inertia of zero-gravity and the utter loneliness of space are so absolutely realistic as we remain fixed inside Dr. Stone’s helmet, floating with her. A true survival tale, every difficulty she encounters is petrifying. Forget “edge of your seat,” this film has you clinging to the seat back, feet lifted, doubting everything you ever learned about physics and solidifying that those silly childhood dreams you had of being an astronaut were really, really not thought out. [Ananda]

Rear Window

The official “Master of Suspense” excelled at films that weren’t strictly speaking “horror” but were always enthralling. The one that presents the most uncomfortable feelings of distress for me as I watch it is my favorite of Hitchcock’s, Rear Window. Jimmy Stewart’s wheelchair-bound photo journalist Jeff starts to notice his neighbor in the apartment complex across the way has been behaving quite suspiciously. A scenario made incredibly relatable as his daily observances seem to affirm his rising paranoia. As he and his beautiful girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) push boundaries, eventually breaking into the man’s apartment, Hitchcock leaves us feeling just as vulnerable as Jeff is when forced to watch as the man comes home during the break-in and catches on to Jeff. Using Jeff’s telescopic camera lens to focus in on the scene, there’s hardly a shot so chilling as when the burly man turns to look straight at Jeff, and the audience, instilling instant fear. [Ananda]

A Clockwork Orange

This 1971 Kubrick directed dystopian crime thriller is spine-chilling entirely because of the lurid actions of its main character, Alex. A sociopathic hoodlum, Alex leads his band of thugs on a crime spree that includes plenty of raping and pillaging. With the same creepy effervescence of a clown, Alex’s enjoyment of his actions and the way these scenes are drawn out and narrated with his cockney slang all add to the difficulty of watching it. From the gang’s outfits to their brutal actions, there is plenty of truly disturbing imagery. The moog-filled soundtrack by Wendy Carlos only adds to the ill-feeling. Not even Alex’s eventual capture and brainwashing lead to any sort of relief as the film leaves us with a sense that a “cure” for sociopathy is simply impossible. [Ananda]

Deliverance

This one’s for city slickers like me. Maybe it was my upbringing, or my longtime aversion to sleeping on the ground (others think “sleeping under the stars”; I think “sharp rocks on my spine”), but nature always frightened me. The four businessmen who choose to leave the concrete jungle and spend a weekend retreat floating down a river in the middle of nowhere in John Boorman’s Deliverance serve as filmic vindication of my fear of the great outdoors. (That’s how I look at it, at least.) While their excursion starts out pleasantly enough, the nightmarish events that await down the river subsequently ravage their minds and bodies, and while Boorman’s film is a pretty one (those trees…), it’s also given us some of the most iconically disturbing moments in movies. The film, starring the great Jon Voigt and Burt Reynolds, doesn’t fit squarely into the horror genre, but it’s as freaky as they come. Hillbillies give me the willies. [Bernard]

Requiem for a Dream

Darren Aronofsky’s quick-cut tale of addiction is one of the few films I’ve ever had to turn off and finish when there was more daylight to be had. Watching it alone isn’t just scary, the sensory overload may lead us sensitive folk straight into full-blown panic attacks. Following four different people, each with different drug addictions, it’s hard to decide which storyline is most traumatizing. For me Ellen Burstyn’s character, Sara, was most relatable as she starts taking over the counter amphetamine pills to aid in her obsession to lose a little weight. Her jitters, teeth grinding, and sedative-induced hallucinations aren’t even the hardest scenes of the film to watch, but a scene where she experiences the delusion that her own fridge attacks her will make anyone reconsider crash dieting. And then there’s all the heroin addicts that make up the rest of the characters. Not an easy watch, but the closest thing non-users will get to experiencing the actual horrors of drug addiction. [Ananda]

Hard Candy

Before David Slade made the hellish Alaskan vampire chiller 30 Days of Night (and later, one of those Twilight movies), he made a more subtly terrifying movie in his directorial debut, Hard Candy. The revenge fantasy stars Ellen Page as a 14-year-old girl who dupes a man she believes is a pedophile (Patrick Wilson) into letting her into his home. She then proceeds to outsmart and physically abuse the guy in gruesome fashion (the film came out when torture films like Audition and Hostel were cool), she threatens to expose him for the predator he is. It’s such a sadistic, monstrous film not because of gore or jump scares, but because of the psychological trauma we suffer along with the man as the girl toys with his precious…manhood. Revenge is messy, and deep down, although we hate to admit it, the whole “eye for an eye” philosophy exists on the ugly side of human nature. [Bernard]

127 Hours

Sometimes movies are scariest not when we’re shown the quick, flashy death of a faceless victim, but when we’re allowed to spend time with a person as they face death itself, feeling the weight of mortality sink into our bones and theirs, the character’s face growing pale along with ours. 127 Hours is the most extreme example of this there is. Based on a true story (which makes it scarier), James Franco plays real-life mountain climber Aron Rolston, who on a solo hike got trapped under a boulder in the middle of nowhere and had to do the unthinkable (with a small knife) to attempt to free himself from the crag. “What if that were me?” is the thought that’s on repeat as you watch Danny Boyle’s minimalistic meditation on the human spirit, and while most consider the film a story of heart and resiliency, the film plays more like a living nightmare for those like me who are scared shitless of mountain climbing, suffer from mild claustrophobia, and have never broken a bone. Much like Deliverance, 127 Hours demonstrates just how disastrous things can get when you’re out in the wild. [Bernard]

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Elizabeth Olsen plays Martha, a girl who attempts to reunite with her family after spending years away on a hippy cult compound, in Martha Marcy May Marlene, an unsettling mind-fuck drama by Sean Durkin. In the role that announced her as a serious talent to watch, Olsen is a picture of mental collapse as her soul-sick eyes telling most of Martha’s twisted story. The always-excellent John Hawkes delivers one of his spookiest performances as the cult leader who strips Martha of everything, mentally and physically, damning her to a life of perpetual paranoia and torment. Indoctrination and loss of identity are horrible things to think about, and Martha makes you think about them from every angle until your blood curdles and you’re as deeply troubled as the poor girl on-screen. [Bernard]

Shock Corridor

It’s typically a beautiful thing when someone devotes their life to their craft, but Shock Corridor serves as a stark warning that, yes, there is a line, and if you cross it you may not come back. (You hear that, Shia?) In Sam Fuller’s mind-bending masterpiece, Peter Breck plays Johnny Barrett, a journalist who feigns mental sickness to get himself committed to an insane asylum where he hopes to solve a murder three inmates were the only witnesses to. Off the deep end he goes. It’s a decidedly melodramatic film with lots of over-acting and pretentious dialogue, but the wackiness of it all sort of makes it scarier, distancing the film from the firm ground of reality in a way that’s really quite disturbing. Barrett’s “fake it ’til you make it” approach may have gotten him into the looney bin as planned, though “fake it ’til you break it” seems a more apt phrase for what happens to his brain once he’s locked in. [Bernard]

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

So much of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is enchanting and fun and delightful that it’s easy to forget the crazy levels of creepiness it reaches in a handful of unforgettably weird scenes. For one, the kids who fail Wonka’s cleverly orchestrated morality tests meet their fates in ways so bizarre and twisted you could look at the film as a loose precursor to recent Rube Goldberg death extravaganzas like the Saw series. On top of that, there’s Gene Wilder’s climactic spluttering tirade that reminds you of that time your dad caught you drawing on the wall with crayons when you were a kid. Traumatic! And don’t get me started on that acid-trip boat ride. “Is it raining is it snowing? Is a hurricane a’blowing?” You’re freaking me out, man! Just give me some snozberries and let me off the boat! [Bernard]

Mulholland Drive

Choosing only one of Lynch’s films to include in this list proves quite difficult, we mentioned in our latest podcast just how frightening a phone call in Lost Highway was and I mention that almost every scene of Eraserhead gives me the willies, but the Lynch film that is so genuinely start-to-finish utterly unnerving that it almost classifies as horror is without a doubt Mulholland Drive. Every scene of this dream-like film is confusingly creepy, one of the earliest scenes even includes a man who literally dies of terror when a nightmare he had proves to be reality. And that’s why this film is so scary, it can’t be trusted. No character is set in stone (not all of them even know who they are at any given moment) and the storyline literally snaps part of the way through and starts again with a whole new set of rules. Trying to make actual sense of the film isn’t advised, but the tension is real in every feverish scene that makes up the whole. [Ananda]

Sleeping With The Enemy

The most terrifying scenarios in film, to me, are those based in very real situations. It’s a sad reality that spousal abuse is one such real situation and no film has left me more scarred by the extent to which a controlling abusive spouse will go then this 1991 thriller. In it, Julia Roberts plays Laura, a young wife whose marriage to an affluent physically abusive jerk becomes unbearable. Laura fakes her own elaborate death and takes off to start a new life in a small town. But her husband starts to doubt her death, obviously there was no body found, and starts the hunt for her. There are plenty of close-call hold-your-breath types of scenes but the most formidable aspect is that feeling a good thriller permeates viewers with, which is a total sense of the villain’s ceaseless energy to pursue his weak prey. The climax, where Laura realizes her husband has found her because her bathroom towels have been aligned in his obsessive perfectionist style, is an exercise in slow dawning terror. [Ananda]