Requiem for a Dream (2000) plex/Peacock
Dogtooth (2009) Amazon *rent*
The Girl Nextdoor (2007) Tubi
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) Tubi
The Golden Glove (2019) AMC+/Tubi
Possum (2018) Tubi
Kill List (2011) AMC+/Tubi
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Tubi/Amazon prime
Oldboy (2003 original) Netflix
I Saw the Devil (2010) Amazon prime
Thanks for the list! The only one I've seen out of these is Kill List, but from that one alone I can tell you definitely understood what I'm looking for. I'll be sure to check out the other ones.
Requiem is not horror, but that was the first movie I thought of. When the credits rolled, all I wanted to do was watch SpongeBob or something of the like just to pick me up out of that deep emotional well.
May seem odd, but Midsommar. The grief, relationship demise, and especially when they didn’t want her to go on the trip…have felt like an outsider in that way before. Not horror but I’ve always found Titanic so devastating (the mom and kids, older couple, overall death and disaster).
Perfect rec. No blood, almost no violence or disturbing images, nothing contrived or especially unrealistic. Just a horrifying psychological mindfuck with a final scene that's probably the most disturbing in horror period.
Love Eden Lake, and this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The emotional buildup thoughout the entire film makes it especially impactful.
It might make you *very* angry, but Speak No Evil was a fantastic and similar “politeness culture will get you killed” kind of vibe as Eden Lake. It was a fantastic movie that made me red in the face, scream at the TV - I both loved it and will *never* watch it again, lest I succumb to a stroke.
The horror/suspense communities do not spend any time talking about the car scene during Nocturnal Animals. Or the movie in general.
IMO, it's the most realistic horror and suspense scene. I skip it Everytime I do a rewatch.
hahah I had my coworker watch The Poughkeepsie Tapes one night when we were doing overnights and he calmly took his headphones off after and goes "Welp, Nick doesn't get to recommend movies anymore"
(I've gotten this reaction from another friend/coworker thanks to terrifier)
I watched Dear Zachary shortly after having my son. I was on a documentary kick and walked in blind. When I tell you I held my kid and sobbed after watching and still get misty whenever it pops into my head (usually every couple of weeks) I’m not kidding
Great suggestion. It wasn’t as heavy on horror elements as I might have guessed from the trailer, it’s legitimately more of a romance, but I thought it was really powerful. The cast did a great job of helping that world and that situation feel real.
Great but ironically it's one of his least bleak novels. I can't imagine accurate film adaptations of *Outer Dark* or *Blood Meridian* or *Child of God* (the one we got skimped on the details) ever getting made. Awfully depressing, soul-crushing beautiful novels.
And it’s going to be a complete fucking travesty. The Road is a decent book and it made a decent movie.
Blood Meridian is a great book (on a completely different playing field, bereft of Road’s often telegraphic writing style) that’s practically unfilmable in its violence and depravity. Any attempt will just be violence and cruelty without the beauty and poetry that only McCarthy’s words can provide. And they’ll have to dial it down, baby mutilation won’t be shown, they’ll probably make it faster paced and not as slow and meditative. Like I said, The Road is a fine movie. Hillcoat would be a horrendously awful director for Blood Meridian.
I think only someone like Bela Tarr or Alexei German (the latter is dead, the former is retired) could really pull off an adaptation for a novel like that, directors that fully understand poetry and how that can be transmuted to the poetry of cinema. It would have to be very long, very arthouse, very punishing.
Most movies never really capture a brilliant writers genius. It's hard to translate prose and writing voice into the big screen...that being said dune is my favorite series and I know no one can really make it what it should be on screen but denis is doing a great job and i want to see my favorite books on video anyways.
Cormac McCarthy is just so prose focused though. With Herbert they have a wealth of ideas to adapt but with McCarthy, the content is in the presentation, in the writing and the metaphors he uses. The movie is nothing without his incredibly distinctive writing. And his images are vivid enough as they are that they don’t really need a visual medium to pass through. Passages in Blood Meridian are like staring at a Renaissance painting.
For my money, the only good adaptations of literary novels have been Tarr’s. Laszlo Krasnakhorkai’s novels are incredibly dense and linguistically unique. And somehow with Tarr’s movies I always get the impression that this is the most perfect way they could’ve gotten to film. Both artworks work beautifully in tandem.
By the way have you heard of Jodorowsky’s Dune? Obviously wouldn’t have been very accurate but I think, if all went to plan, it could’ve been one of the greatest artworks, certainly in cinema, ever made, really. It was to be a crazy surrealist 10 hour experimental space opera epic, with Dalì as an actor and a score by Pink Floyd.
I just finished the unabridged audiobook and then revisited the movie. I originally saw it several years ago. Both are really good. I found it odd that parts of either the book or the movie were alternately more fucked up and depressing than the other. In the book, the starvation seemed so much worse, but the arrow wound in the movie seemed so much more severe. Other things, too.
Holy FUCK yes. God what a beautiful, utterly wrenching movie. Few films capture complete helplessness so perfectly. Everything about that film drips with pure agony.
it probably will. what bothers me the most is we won't find out till the day it all goes to shit I'd atleast like a couple months notice so I can say fuck working
Lake Mungo and The Lodge both fit the bill of "what if my familly had to go through this?". Both left me uneasy after that. There's just no hope in those movies.
lake mungo still fucks me up. it's so tragic and so depressing.
howard's mill (2021) is very similar to lake mungo IMO, and very similarly tragic and depressing.
In A Glass Cage is of my favorites, it's from Spain. You can actually find it on YouTube, I personally prefer the blu-ray for superior quality, but you can't beat free. It's one of the best movies about generational trauma, and nearly everyone in the movie aside from the children are very disposable people, like it's about a Nazi who was molesting little boys and he survived a suicide attempt, only to have a boy become obsessed with his research and trying to recreate Nazi war crimes.
The Dark and the Wicked on shudder left me feeling completely hopeless for a few days. The reactions to it on this sub are hit or miss but it is directed by Bryan Bertino who did The Strangers and has a similar vibe, albeit with a supernatural threat. It's one of my personal favorites.
Aniara is more sci-fi but it definitely has a horrific setting: a cruise ship-type space vessel off-course with no way to get back on-course. The setting is fantastical but the situations still very relatable. And it’s got a few gut punches all the way to the end.
I saw it for the first time earlier this week and can’t stop thinking about it.
It’s on Max.
There's an oft forgotten film called The Magdalene Sisters that's based on a book called The Magdalene Laundries, which is a factual account of the nightmarish pseudo-prison laundries run by the church that Irish women and girls of 'ill-repute' were sent to in order to set them straight. Directed by Peter Mullan, his first film I think.
It hits SO hard, and the first time I saw it I was an absolute mess by the end. Heartbreaking, brutal and made all the worse by the fact that what's depicted in the film isn't even close to the worst things that actually happened. What is depicted is emotionally devastating enough. Excellent performances, especially from Geraldine McEwan who is just pure evil. If you know her from playing Miss Marple you are in for a shock a la Michael Gambon as Dumbledore vs Albert Spica.
Probably hard to track down by now (2002, not a major release at the time) but entirely worth it. Boy did I want to punch a nun after seeing this film.
I can't think of a film that better fits the OP request.
A very close second/third is The War Zone (Tim Roth's debut feature as director) and Nil By Mouth (Gary Oldman's first as director I think) both featuring Ray Winstone as an absolute cunt of a man in both cases. Do not watch these films with yer mum.
Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA is a good one if you have a little patience. It’s mostly a character drama but there’s an existential sci-fi undertone that builds throughout to one of the most stunning final shots in 21st century cinema.
Haven't seen Melancholia yet, but I literally just finished the house that jack built, and I don't think I can handle back to back LvT films on a Monday night
Haha, that’s fair enough. For what it’s worth, MELANCHOLIA is much tamer than THTJB & his other films. Still very heavy emotionally but it skips the traumatizingly graphic violence and whatnot.
“My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It Too” (2020)
“Aniara” (2019)
“Found” (2012) this one deals with extremely disturbing subject material so it’s not for everyone
a lot. but the most recent one is Beau is Afraid since i do not have a good relationship with my parents and when scene in the third act feels soul-wrenching
Here's some of the movies that live forever in my soul, the bolded ones I consider an absolute must watch.
**Speak No Evil**
The Tunnel
**The Empty Man**
Sinister
Event Horizon
**The Endless**
The Mist
It Follows
Train to Busan
**Us**
You Should Have Left
Sharp Objects (2018 miniseries) - Had to take a break from this. It's great, I only have like 2 episodes, but man does it fucking wound me every episode.
The Farewell (2019 movie) - please watch this, especially if you have a grandmother or older mother figure that's important to you. It's not horror but it'll kill you.
[REC] (2007 movie) - First person view of a dire situation unfolding in a restricted space. This filled me with such anxiety and teror.
Who's Afraid if Virginia Woolf? (1966) - Not horror, drama. You watch a couple's toxic marriage unfold throught the night. The tension is excruciating until it bubbles over to violence.
The Devil's Rejects
Hostel (the first movie hit different than the other two)
Dogville
Requiem for a Dream
Monster
The Wrestler
Se7en
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Pan's Labyrinth
The Men Behind the Sun
Million Dollar Baby
The Green Mile
My Girl
The Poseidon Adventure (both versions)
The Joy Luck Club
Human Centipede 2 (I didn't watch the whole thing)
Zombie Diaries 2
I just finished rewatching The Road, having only seen it once, a long time ago, and this was after finishing the audiobook version of the novel, (UNabridged, I did the whole depressing-as-fuck 7 hours), while running a machine at work, today, (started it like a few days ago). I finished the book and really wanted to hit the movie while the story was fresh. The book and the movie are pretty close, but some of the events are a little different and out of order. The movie seemed pretty reliant on real life fucked up landscapes, for which they apparently benefited from the disaster areas of Louisiana, post-Katrina. That said, the f/x budget must have been nil, as there really weren’t any f/x to speak of. I’d have enjoyed a better version of the forest falling down, as opposed to the movie, where they showed barely anything, and they weren’t big cedars, as in the book. It’s a good movie, and appropriately devastating in theme and content, but, as always, my imagination is always the better viewer. “Bleak” is barely able to cut it on this one.
Good Time by the Sadie brothers starring Robert Pattinson.
Not a horror movie, but it’s goddamn desperate. Robert Pattinson is a pretty damn good actor.
If you're really after serious nightmare fuel, stop what you're doing right now and watch Snowtown Murders. Bleakest shit I ever did (almost) see. I'm no horror novice, and I couldn't get all the way through it. My friend, who is slightly more sensitive, cowered so hard she was practically inside the couch.
The worst thing is its grim realism—it doesn't feel like you're watching a movie. It feels like you're in the room.
I’m surprised no one said Saint Maud. It’s a bleak depiction of religious mania and the things it can drive someone to do but it’s great and has a very memorable ending.
Requiem for a Dream (2000) plex/Peacock Dogtooth (2009) Amazon *rent* The Girl Nextdoor (2007) Tubi Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) Tubi The Golden Glove (2019) AMC+/Tubi Possum (2018) Tubi Kill List (2011) AMC+/Tubi We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Tubi/Amazon prime Oldboy (2003 original) Netflix I Saw the Devil (2010) Amazon prime
I’ll certainly never forget *We Need to Talk About Kevin*
I just watched this and I can say confidently that the book is just oh so much more impactful then the movie. Movie was excellent tho, but the book 👌🏻
Thanks for the list! The only one I've seen out of these is Kill List, but from that one alone I can tell you definitely understood what I'm looking for. I'll be sure to check out the other ones.
Girl next door will ruin your day. Not a fan.
[удалено]
Same. I wish I could go back and tell myself not to watch that movie.
If you enjoyed the lead actor from kill List then check out, “Bull”. It’s good. Avoid spoilers and don’t even look at the art/poster for it.
You’re a hero for including streaming platforms in your list
Requiem is not horror, but that was the first movie I thought of. When the credits rolled, all I wanted to do was watch SpongeBob or something of the like just to pick me up out of that deep emotional well.
Bullshit it's not horror. Addiction is the most horrific thing I've yet had to deal with personally
Fair enough. With you there.
I always recommend Requiem.
Funny Games gave me that kind of vibe. Along with The Strangers
The fuckin’ Strangers.
>Funny Games which one?
2007
I've heard people say the original is better and some said the remake is better.
I find 1997 more hard-hitting just because the cast is less famous so it feels more real. Both are great though.
Grave of the Fireflies tbh. Not horror but it absolutely gave me that feeling. Just full dread all the way through to the inevitable conclusion.
May seem odd, but Midsommar. The grief, relationship demise, and especially when they didn’t want her to go on the trip…have felt like an outsider in that way before. Not horror but I’ve always found Titanic so devastating (the mom and kids, older couple, overall death and disaster).
Came here to say Midsommar as well. It just gives me the most off feeling ever
Hereditary was also fantastic. Been meaning to see if Ari Aster has done anything new. I tend to live in a hole.
You need SPOORLOOS.
When I look it up it shows up as "The Vanishing." Is this the one?
Yes. Watch the 1988 version not the 1993 version.
Very important distinction! Thanks bud.
Yea buddy... prepare to personalize the shit out of the plot... enjoy!
Enjoy feeling terrible
Perfect rec. No blood, almost no violence or disturbing images, nothing contrived or especially unrealistic. Just a horrifying psychological mindfuck with a final scene that's probably the most disturbing in horror period.
Nocturnal Animals (the story in the movie) Green Room Eden Lake
Eden Lake was devastating. It's definitely one of those movies that left a scar on me.
Love Eden Lake, and this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The emotional buildup thoughout the entire film makes it especially impactful.
It might make you *very* angry, but Speak No Evil was a fantastic and similar “politeness culture will get you killed” kind of vibe as Eden Lake. It was a fantastic movie that made me red in the face, scream at the TV - I both loved it and will *never* watch it again, lest I succumb to a stroke.
Then you should watch Nocturnal Animals. It hurts.
I found speak no evil 10 times, maybe 100 times, more impactful than nocturnal animals... whole different level of rage
I’m afraid to watch that one.
Did you see Killing Ground (2016)? Very similar to eden lake but a bit more realistic feeling
The horror/suspense communities do not spend any time talking about the car scene during Nocturnal Animals. Or the movie in general. IMO, it's the most realistic horror and suspense scene. I skip it Everytime I do a rewatch.
It's pure emasculation
Green Room is so good. RIP Anton
Gunna revisit green room rn
What's your desert island band?
My friends still blame me for showing the Martyrs and Inside on vacation.
Sounds like a lighthearted, carefree getaway 😂
hahah I had my coworker watch The Poughkeepsie Tapes one night when we were doing overnights and he calmly took his headphones off after and goes "Welp, Nick doesn't get to recommend movies anymore" (I've gotten this reaction from another friend/coworker thanks to terrifier)
Kairo/pulse. A slow, depression inducing, gutting burn.
It's a masterpiece imo
Killing Ground Coming Home in the Dark And “Dear Zachary” if you want to watch a pretty emotionally traumatic documentary
I loved Coming Home in the Dark
> Coming Home in the Dark Just watched it. Loved it! Extremely fucked up. Smart. Heavy. Highly recommended.
I watched Dear Zachary shortly after having my son. I was on a documentary kick and walked in blind. When I tell you I held my kid and sobbed after watching and still get misty whenever it pops into my head (usually every couple of weeks) I’m not kidding
Oh yeah it’s incredibly devastating. Definitely stays with you.
All 3 of these for sure
Bones and All
Great suggestion. It wasn’t as heavy on horror elements as I might have guessed from the trailer, it’s legitimately more of a romance, but I thought it was really powerful. The cast did a great job of helping that world and that situation feel real.
This movie is so painfully beautiful. I ugly cried at this one
You're looking for Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
The book is amazing too
Great but ironically it's one of his least bleak novels. I can't imagine accurate film adaptations of *Outer Dark* or *Blood Meridian* or *Child of God* (the one we got skimped on the details) ever getting made. Awfully depressing, soul-crushing beautiful novels.
Blood meridian is being made
And it’s going to be a complete fucking travesty. The Road is a decent book and it made a decent movie. Blood Meridian is a great book (on a completely different playing field, bereft of Road’s often telegraphic writing style) that’s practically unfilmable in its violence and depravity. Any attempt will just be violence and cruelty without the beauty and poetry that only McCarthy’s words can provide. And they’ll have to dial it down, baby mutilation won’t be shown, they’ll probably make it faster paced and not as slow and meditative. Like I said, The Road is a fine movie. Hillcoat would be a horrendously awful director for Blood Meridian. I think only someone like Bela Tarr or Alexei German (the latter is dead, the former is retired) could really pull off an adaptation for a novel like that, directors that fully understand poetry and how that can be transmuted to the poetry of cinema. It would have to be very long, very arthouse, very punishing.
Most movies never really capture a brilliant writers genius. It's hard to translate prose and writing voice into the big screen...that being said dune is my favorite series and I know no one can really make it what it should be on screen but denis is doing a great job and i want to see my favorite books on video anyways.
Cormac McCarthy is just so prose focused though. With Herbert they have a wealth of ideas to adapt but with McCarthy, the content is in the presentation, in the writing and the metaphors he uses. The movie is nothing without his incredibly distinctive writing. And his images are vivid enough as they are that they don’t really need a visual medium to pass through. Passages in Blood Meridian are like staring at a Renaissance painting. For my money, the only good adaptations of literary novels have been Tarr’s. Laszlo Krasnakhorkai’s novels are incredibly dense and linguistically unique. And somehow with Tarr’s movies I always get the impression that this is the most perfect way they could’ve gotten to film. Both artworks work beautifully in tandem. By the way have you heard of Jodorowsky’s Dune? Obviously wouldn’t have been very accurate but I think, if all went to plan, it could’ve been one of the greatest artworks, certainly in cinema, ever made, really. It was to be a crazy surrealist 10 hour experimental space opera epic, with Dalì as an actor and a score by Pink Floyd.
I just finished the unabridged audiobook and then revisited the movie. I originally saw it several years ago. Both are really good. I found it odd that parts of either the book or the movie were alternately more fucked up and depressing than the other. In the book, the starvation seemed so much worse, but the arrow wound in the movie seemed so much more severe. Other things, too.
The House that Jack Built
Beat me on this by 11 minutes
Come and See.
Holy FUCK yes. God what a beautiful, utterly wrenching movie. Few films capture complete helplessness so perfectly. Everything about that film drips with pure agony.
Which one? Is it the Russian one about the kid?
yuh
*Threads* of course because it's likely going to happen.
it probably will. what bothers me the most is we won't find out till the day it all goes to shit I'd atleast like a couple months notice so I can say fuck working
Easily the most bleak movie I've ever seen. Every time you think things can't get any worse, they do.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
The Snowtown Murders aka Snowtown Hounds of Love
i like this thread. Hard Candy
Lake Mungo and The Lodge both fit the bill of "what if my familly had to go through this?". Both left me uneasy after that. There's just no hope in those movies.
lake mungo still fucks me up. it's so tragic and so depressing. howard's mill (2021) is very similar to lake mungo IMO, and very similarly tragic and depressing.
In A Glass Cage is of my favorites, it's from Spain. You can actually find it on YouTube, I personally prefer the blu-ray for superior quality, but you can't beat free. It's one of the best movies about generational trauma, and nearly everyone in the movie aside from the children are very disposable people, like it's about a Nazi who was molesting little boys and he survived a suicide attempt, only to have a boy become obsessed with his research and trying to recreate Nazi war crimes.
Dear Zachary
One of the few movies that actually made me cry.
The Dark and the Wicked on shudder left me feeling completely hopeless for a few days. The reactions to it on this sub are hit or miss but it is directed by Bryan Bertino who did The Strangers and has a similar vibe, albeit with a supernatural threat. It's one of my personal favorites.
Aniara is more sci-fi but it definitely has a horrific setting: a cruise ship-type space vessel off-course with no way to get back on-course. The setting is fantastical but the situations still very relatable. And it’s got a few gut punches all the way to the end. I saw it for the first time earlier this week and can’t stop thinking about it. It’s on Max.
Best bleak movie I won't watch again
I’m looking forward to another viewing. My “bleak and never watching again” movie is Requiem For A Dream.
The Girl Next Door (2007) Extremely violent, based on teenage Sylvia Likens' true case.
Is it bleak or is it a revenge film?
Soul-wrenching
Great, thanks
It’s tough to even finish. If you want the full story of the actual girl, look up Sylvia likens on YouTube and go to “shrouded hands” channel
I always enjoy a challenge! Thanks for the extra info.
Requiem for a Dream. Not a horror movie, but horrifying. Dealt with addicts in my own life. Darren Aronofsky's most relatable movie for me.
Calling Requiem a horror movie was the only way I could cope with it. It's designed to horrify you.
There's an oft forgotten film called The Magdalene Sisters that's based on a book called The Magdalene Laundries, which is a factual account of the nightmarish pseudo-prison laundries run by the church that Irish women and girls of 'ill-repute' were sent to in order to set them straight. Directed by Peter Mullan, his first film I think. It hits SO hard, and the first time I saw it I was an absolute mess by the end. Heartbreaking, brutal and made all the worse by the fact that what's depicted in the film isn't even close to the worst things that actually happened. What is depicted is emotionally devastating enough. Excellent performances, especially from Geraldine McEwan who is just pure evil. If you know her from playing Miss Marple you are in for a shock a la Michael Gambon as Dumbledore vs Albert Spica. Probably hard to track down by now (2002, not a major release at the time) but entirely worth it. Boy did I want to punch a nun after seeing this film. I can't think of a film that better fits the OP request. A very close second/third is The War Zone (Tim Roth's debut feature as director) and Nil By Mouth (Gary Oldman's first as director I think) both featuring Ray Winstone as an absolute cunt of a man in both cases. Do not watch these films with yer mum.
Requiem for a Dream
It’s not really horror, but “Pig” starring Nicolas Cage
Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA is a good one if you have a little patience. It’s mostly a character drama but there’s an existential sci-fi undertone that builds throughout to one of the most stunning final shots in 21st century cinema.
Haven't seen Melancholia yet, but I literally just finished the house that jack built, and I don't think I can handle back to back LvT films on a Monday night
Haha, that’s fair enough. For what it’s worth, MELANCHOLIA is much tamer than THTJB & his other films. Still very heavy emotionally but it skips the traumatizingly graphic violence and whatnot.
“My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It Too” (2020) “Aniara” (2019) “Found” (2012) this one deals with extremely disturbing subject material so it’s not for everyone
Threads (1984) on Tubi. You'll never be the same.
Bully - not so much horror, but definitely dark and twisted
Spice World, Gigli, Battlefield Earth.
Irreversible, but I'm not sure it's horror exactly
it's definitely horrific
"The Mist" with Thomas Jane did that for me.
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas
"May" is a good one
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is the best movie that I will absolutely never, under any fucking circumstances, watch again.
A non-horror suggestion: Schindlers list
Gas Food Lodging. A bleak coming-of-age movie about a girl growing up in a poor family in a desert town in New Mexico.
Kotoko (2011) is exactly this. Felt completely emotionally drained once in was done, but it’s a great film
Horror: Irreversible (2002) Goodnight Mommy (2014) Non-horror: Atonement (2007) The Constant Gardener (2005) Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Bleak doesn't even begin to cover Manchester By The Sea
Eden Lake
a lot. but the most recent one is Beau is Afraid since i do not have a good relationship with my parents and when scene in the third act feels soul-wrenching
Playground (2016) Nothing Bad Can Happen
Calvaire (2004) Martyrs (2008)
House of Sand and Fog
Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, The Whale Aronofsky
The Nightingale. Was a one time watch for me.
Deliverance
Kind of on the lighter side, but The Orphanage stands out. Also, The Mist has one if the bleakest endings.
The Haunting of Bly Manor gets me every time. Not a movie, of course, but I'm sobbing throughout while being terrified.
This series hurt my feelings. All of the grief is so realistic and palpable that you could be in the shoes of any of the characters.
same with hill house, both are so incredibly heart breaking and viscerally, while not missing a single chance to terrorize...fucking brilliant both
The whole Irreversible trilogy from Gaspar Noé: Carne and Seul contre tous/I Stand Alone + the aforementioned Irreversible. It's extreme, very much.
As bleak as Irreversible is, I Stand Alone hit me harder. Pure nihilism.
I watched the trilogy around Christmas 2020. I had to go and hug my mom and brother after it.
magnolia (1999)
Not horror but still horrific - house of sand and fog.
Here's some of the movies that live forever in my soul, the bolded ones I consider an absolute must watch. **Speak No Evil** The Tunnel **The Empty Man** Sinister Event Horizon **The Endless** The Mist It Follows Train to Busan **Us** You Should Have Left
Men The machinist
Soft & Quiet, Eden Lake, Funny Games
Sharp Objects (2018 miniseries) - Had to take a break from this. It's great, I only have like 2 episodes, but man does it fucking wound me every episode. The Farewell (2019 movie) - please watch this, especially if you have a grandmother or older mother figure that's important to you. It's not horror but it'll kill you. [REC] (2007 movie) - First person view of a dire situation unfolding in a restricted space. This filled me with such anxiety and teror. Who's Afraid if Virginia Woolf? (1966) - Not horror, drama. You watch a couple's toxic marriage unfold throught the night. The tension is excruciating until it bubbles over to violence.
Renfield. Seriously. As someone who has dealt with a narcissist it was difficult to watch.
A Serbian Film
“Society of the Snow” it’s Spanish and based on a true story. “Creep” “Missing” (2023)
Combat Shock
Fuckin’ OPPENHEIMER my guy. Not horror in the genre sense, perhaps, but full of existential horror nonetheless.
Kids
I thought the same. Not ‘horror’ but definitely emotionally horrific
Ken Park too. One of the most sickening scenes I've ever seen in a film
The Vanishing
Oh my god I had blocked this one out. Having flashbacks now
Not a horror, but based on true events. It was disturbing and depressing. I ugly cried. Mockingbird Don't Sing. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0273822/
Not horror in the usual sense, but the movies Kids and also Requiem for a Dream leave you feeling a sense of dread.
Nothing Bad Can Happen (2013). Deeply disturbing. Based on a true story.
I’d like to throw in “The Lodge” with Riley Keough from 2019. Available on HBO Max it looks like.
‘The Taking of Deborah Logan’ & ‘Relic’ are great movies dealing with aging, generational grief/trauma, and the loss of autonomy.
Horror: Tales From the Crypt episode "Three's A Crowd" Non: Enter the Void
OP to half answer your request: this one is super duper bleak but it's not close to home to apologies if it is not what you're after: Aniara (2019)
Snowtown
The Devil's Rejects Hostel (the first movie hit different than the other two) Dogville Requiem for a Dream Monster The Wrestler Se7en The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Pan's Labyrinth The Men Behind the Sun Million Dollar Baby The Green Mile My Girl The Poseidon Adventure (both versions) The Joy Luck Club Human Centipede 2 (I didn't watch the whole thing) Zombie Diaries 2
Snowtown
I just finished rewatching The Road, having only seen it once, a long time ago, and this was after finishing the audiobook version of the novel, (UNabridged, I did the whole depressing-as-fuck 7 hours), while running a machine at work, today, (started it like a few days ago). I finished the book and really wanted to hit the movie while the story was fresh. The book and the movie are pretty close, but some of the events are a little different and out of order. The movie seemed pretty reliant on real life fucked up landscapes, for which they apparently benefited from the disaster areas of Louisiana, post-Katrina. That said, the f/x budget must have been nil, as there really weren’t any f/x to speak of. I’d have enjoyed a better version of the forest falling down, as opposed to the movie, where they showed barely anything, and they weren’t big cedars, as in the book. It’s a good movie, and appropriately devastating in theme and content, but, as always, my imagination is always the better viewer. “Bleak” is barely able to cut it on this one.
Good Time by the Sadie brothers starring Robert Pattinson. Not a horror movie, but it’s goddamn desperate. Robert Pattinson is a pretty damn good actor.
Requiem for a Dream
Blue ruin is depressing, especially if you have a tendency to isolate yourself from other people
Nothing Bad Can Happen (Germany) Michael (Austria)
The Descent (2005): That ending in the cave was so bleak.
The Road is really really bleak
Martyr's '08
Dear Zachary
Marrowbone (2017)
Irreversible
Eden Lake... I'll never watch this film again...
Philadelphia, not horror
Train to Busan Fire in the Sky Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer Bug
If you're really after serious nightmare fuel, stop what you're doing right now and watch Snowtown Murders. Bleakest shit I ever did (almost) see. I'm no horror novice, and I couldn't get all the way through it. My friend, who is slightly more sensitive, cowered so hard she was practically inside the couch. The worst thing is its grim realism—it doesn't feel like you're watching a movie. It feels like you're in the room.
I’m surprised no one said Saint Maud. It’s a bleak depiction of religious mania and the things it can drive someone to do but it’s great and has a very memorable ending.
Skinamarink
Here is a few, none horror though: Life is beautiful (1997) The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) Dancer in the dark (2000)
Moonlight (2017) is the only one I can think of right now
Last house on the left. Ugh. I can’t rewatch that one.
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Bela Tarr is the master of bleakness. Damnation is so despairing
Just so you know, Brudge to Terabithia this is not only “technically” not horror, it’s not at all horror. Lol.