For decades there has been a weird fascination with disturbing movies. Audiences are obsessed with the idea of being distressed by unnerving films, and often, they are labeled as “good” because they are very messed up. For modern audiences, we’re living in a golden era where nothing in cinema is impossible from a storytelling perspective. With few exceptions, just about everything is “acceptable” as long as it fits into a movie narrative, and it has the possibility of being interesting.
Decades of different approaches in various genres haven’t waned the obsession for unsettling movies that often materialize what was once deemed unfilmable. As follows, this is our list of some truly messed-up films in the psychological thriller genre free on streaming platforms that will haunt you for days, regardless if you have seen one too many of them.
10 ‘Compliance’ (2012)
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Compliance
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Directed by Craig Zobel (HBO’s The Penguin and Mare of Easttown, The Hunt), Compliance follows Sandra, a restaurant manager who receives a phone call from Officer Daniels. It appears an employee has been identified as a suspect for robbery. When Sandra identifies Becky, one of the employees, she locks her up and complies with all of Officer Daniels’ requests, regardless of how messed up they are.
Based on the unbelievable true story of the criminal who terrorized the country with the strip search phone call scam in the early 2000s, Compliance is a very unnerving and claustrophobic film that you will have a hard time forgetting. Not because it gets graphic but because you won’t believe how far it goes. It stars the always-reliable Ann Dowd in one of her best roles.
9 ‘Audition’ (1999)
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Audition
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- Release Date
- March 3, 2000
- Runtime
- 115 minutes
- Cast
- Miyuki Matsuda , Eihi Shiina , Tetsu Sawaki , Jun Kunimura , Ryo Ishibashi
In Audition, Shigeharu Aoyama can’t get over his wife’s death. However, his teenage son encourages him to try and find love again. With the help of a friend, Shigeharu stages a fake audition process and meets Asami, a young and beautiful woman he falls in love with. However, Asami has a very dark past that Shigeharu will find out about in the most messed-up of ways.
Takashi Miike’s Audition is one of the best horror films of the 1990s. It plays like a romantic movie until that fateful phone call that confirms that Asami isn’t the harmless angel we all thought she was. Perhaps you think that a film about a man trying to fall in love can’t be that messed up (regardless of the morally questionable process of an audition to find a partner), but a beheading and the cruelest usage of piano wire will convince you otherwise.
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8 ‘The Invitation’ (2015)
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The Invitation
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- Release Date
- March 13, 2015
- Runtime
- 100 minutes
- Cast
- Logan Marshall-Green , Emayatzy Corinealdi , Michael Huisman , Tammy Blanchard , Aiden Lovekamp , Michelle Krusiec , Lindsay Burdge , John Carroll Lynch
The Invitation tells the story of Will, a young man who’s still grieving after losing his son. He and his ex-wife Eden have parted ways, and they’ve restarted their lives. Eden invites Will and his new girlfriend to a dinner party and when they arrive, they see Eden is a completely new person. As the party continues, Will realizes Eden is part of a sinister group, and she wants all the guests to partake in something that will change their lives.
The Invitation has an almost playful approach in how it presents Will as a paranoid and envious man with a grudge. After all, his ex-wife is having the perfect life. When it all unfolds in the nerve-wracking third act, you will realize he was right to distrust Eden. Considering these things happen in real life, and the director doesn’t step outside genre boundaries, The Invitation is a very unsettling psychological thriller that could be based on something true.
7 ‘Martyrs’ (2008)
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Martyrs
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- Release Date
- September 3, 2008
- Runtime
- 99 Minutes
- Cast
- Morjana Alaoui , Mylène Jampanoï , Catherine Bégin , Robert Toupin , Patricia Tulasne , Juliette Gosselin , Xavier Dolan , Jean-Marie Moncelet , Jessie Pham , Erika Scott , Louise Boisvert , Isabelle Chasse , Emilie Miskdijan , Tony Robinow , Anie Pascale , Mike Chute , Gaëlle Cohen
Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs begins when Lucie enters a family home and brutally kills the two parents and their children. She then calls her friend Anna, who arrives and witnesses the massacre. Anna decides to help Lucie cover up the crime, but then she finds out why Lucie did this: It has to do with her traumatic past, and now Anna will become part of what happened to Lucie when she was just a child.
Martyrs is messed up from the very start. It never bothers to present its characters and build the premise from that. Instead, we’re supposed to accept there’s enough trauma in a woman’s past to justify a gruesome murder. Trust us when we say there is, and what starts as a mysterious psychological thriller easily finds its way into traumatizing horror. When it comes to the “messed up” aspect of the list, there’s nothing more shocking than Martyrs.
6 ‘I Saw the Devil’ (2010)
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I Saw the Devil
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- Release Date
- August 12, 2010
- Runtime
- 144 Minutes
- Cast
- Lee Byung-hun , Choi Min-sik , Jeon Kuk-hwan , Cheon Ho-jin , Oh San-ha
Jang Kyung-chul is a serial killer who selects Jang Joo-yun as his next victim and starts his own ordeal when he kills her. Kyung-chul becomes a suspect, and Joo-yun’s fiance, Kim Soo-hyun, is the officer in charge of finding the murderer. When Soo-hyun finds the perfect clue, he subjects Kyung-chul to a sick manhunt in which the punishment arrives slowly but with the same force.
A South Korean import, I Saw the Devil, is a horrific thriller that bends the rules of the revenge subgenre, especially when Soo-hyun becomes a monster himself and unleashes what every vengeful person thinks about doing, but never does because of reason. That burst of uncontrolled wrath is perfectly portrayed in the extremely messed-up I Saw the Devil.
5 ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ (2011)
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We Need to Talk About Kevin follows Eva, a woman who lives by herself in a rundown house. Once a successful writer, wife, and mother, Eva is now a pariah in her small town. Told in flashback mode, the film narrates what happened to her family: it all started when her oldest son, Kevin, was born and evolved into a psychopath.
Lynne Ramsay’s controversial film We Need to Talk About Kevin is a hard film to revisit, even if you already know what Kevin did. The viciousness of his acts is worsened by the lack of reason or remorse. It’s not exactly a graphic film, but the little monster that is cinema’s worst son will still make an impression on you. It isn’t a horror film, but it will give you nightmares.
4 ‘Kidnapped’ (2010)
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Kidnapped tells the story of a family who move into a new and ideal home. Jaime, Marta, and Isa are unaware of what’s about to happen when the members of the moving crew turn out to be thieves, and they will put the family through a hellish ordeal while they get the money they’re seeking.
This underrated Spanish gem mostly fell off the radar for fans of the genre, but it’s still one of the best examples of a messed-up psychological thriller in modern cinema. It’s not afraid to indulge in gruesome violence, even if it involves sacrificing a few characters. It’s extremely distressing because not often are criminals depicted as nihilistic as the ones in Kidnapped, who follow up on their threatening and psychopathic behavior.
3 ‘Angst’ (1983)
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Angst
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- Release Date
- January 1, 1983
- Runtime
- 75 Minutes
- Cast
- Erwin Leder , Robert Hunger-Bühler , Silvia Rabenreither , Karin Springer , Edith Rosset , Josefine Lakatha , Rudolf Götz , Renate Kastelik , Hermann Groissenberger , Claudia Schinko , Beate Jurkowitsch , Rosa Schandl , Rolf Bock
A serial killer is released from prison. He still has cravings to kill, but it seems he has more control than he had before. Nevertheless, he surrenders to his dark desire to kill, and his first victims are the members of an innocent family who make him remember his traumatizing upbringing and the whole reason he became the monster he is.
Watching Angst is a test. It’s a relentless movie that’s not afraid to show the nature of a psychopath’s acts, and what comes right after the most brutal acts you can think of. The film’s cinematography will force you to step into the mind of a corrupted soul and witness his merciless rampage. It’s one of the most messed-up films to come from Europe during the 1980s.
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2 ‘Sleep Tight’ (2011)
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Sleep Tight
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- Release Date
- October 14, 2011
- Runtime
- 102 Minutes
- Cast
- Luis Tosar , Marta Etura , Alberto San Juan , Pep Tosar , Petra Martinez , Iris Almeida
Sleep Tight tells the story of César, a concierge in an apartment building in Barcelona who likes to make the tenants’ lives miserable. However, for Clara, he has special treatment. He sneaks into her apartment and hides under her bed every night. He drugs her with chloroform, moves around her stuff, and ultimately goes too far. Guess what happens when someone finds out about what he’s doing.
At first, César’s acts are not as “consequential” even though he’s acting like a ruthless psychopath. He’s simply not shown doing the unthinkable. Nevertheless, when the film enters its third act, the truth about César’s final objective becomes clear, and you will get nauseous when you realize what it is. Sleep Tight is one of the best foreign language thrillers in recent times.
1 ‘Bug’ (2006)
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Bug
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- Release Date
- February 21, 2007
- Runtime
- 102 minutes
Bug tells the story of Agnes, a waitress who’s still grieving over the disappearance of her son ten years ago. Agnes is also afraid that her ex-husband, Jerry, will find her and kill her; her paranoia gets the best of her every day. When she meets Peter, a drifter who’s also a bit paranoid, the two bond over what can only be categorized as folie à deux between two strangers who believe something is out to get them.
William Friedkin’s underrated masterpiece Bug is a trip of a movie written by actor/playwright Tracy Letts. Starring Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd as Peter and Agnes, respectively, the movie at first doesn’t acknowledge the fact that Peter is imagining things. However, at one point, Friedkin decides to switch over to the portrait of a delusional man whose mind harbors unimaginable monsters.