u/_Norman_Bates

Here is my list of 2026 horror movies I saw so far, from best to worst. Has some spoilers:

Obsession - it’s been discussed so much that I don’t have anything very original to say. When I first saw it, I thought it was good and very entertaining, with some great horror elements (for me, Nikki’s behavior was the main source of horror). But then, I talked about this movie so much after watching it, because everyone has an opinion, and that gives it a lasting value.

Really everything about it works, it is smart in how it approaches the character of Bear exactly because he is not some extraordinarily horrible person and people’s opinions can vary in the amount of blame they assign to him. I think very few people, or almost no one, actually missed anything, but between the takes where he is a horrible person who should be blamed every step along the way, and a normal person whose worse instincts surfaced in an extraordinary situation, there’s a lot that can be discussed, and that’s what keeps people talking and keeps the movie relevant. (8.5/10)

Back Rooms - less perfect than Obsession but almost as good, in some ways even better. It just operates on a completely different level of horror. Here the story and characters are less important, though they're there, so the fact that on paper it wasn’t the greatest story doesn’t take from the whole level of existence it puts you in. I really felt, this is reality, this world is backrooms. Memories of memories, aesthetics without meaning, alien familiarity. It is a very original movie, and manages to say a lot about the world through its concept.

Of course, it is a movie, so it needed a plot and I think it did an adequate job of creating one that didn’t take away from the experience of it all, and even connected to the larger point. Nothing particularly bothered me, it just was nothing special, and at the same time I didn’t need it to be because events and people are just a backdrop to the space it all takes place in. That is pretty special. (8/10)

Buffet Infinity - considerably less good than the other two, and goes on for a bit too long, but I enjoyed it a lot. It had some excellent moments, the idea is simple and reminds me of some shit you think of with your friends and then develop into something borderline existential. The humor is pretty dumb, but in the bigger context that works and becomes part of the appeal, mostly it just feels like being stuck in the mind of someone enthusiastic about the idea they have (like shit I’d think of at the age of 14, the retro style helps recreate it too), and what we got is as far as that idea goes but I’m glad it got made. (7/10)

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - obviously a better movie than Buffet Infinity but for me, lesser horror. IT was good but I didn’t like it as much as I liked 28 Years Later part 1, which was a trippy horror fantasy. This was more grounded to a place and characters, and was less interesting. It had less zombies, but the bit about bringing that alpha back to a human mentality was not bad. Jimmies were ok, at least the main one was, but dominated over exploring the different elements and horrors of the world. Ok movie but nowhere near my top zombie movies, whereas the previous one gets a solid 4th place. I never cared about the original Days either, I think this one is better, so there’s that. (6.5 / 10)

Send Help - It’s a fun movie, not much of a horror, I agree with people who point to similarities with Triangle of Sadness though whatever, I didn’t think about it at all after but it’s not a boring watch. I think the most impressive element of it was making Rachel McAdams look a bit repulsive at first without any special effects, the tuna sandwich bit was hard to watch. (6 / 10)

Exit 8 - I really don’t know how to rate this movie, because if I didn’t play the game I would probably give it like 7 - 7.5 and put it there with the Buffet Infinity for the great idea. But I did play the game, I love the game, and I know that the best part about this movie is a very exact recreation of the game. I mean, everything that’s really original and interesting is basically the game itself and the movie is a walk through where you watch it played by a moron, because, despite understanding the rules, he’ll stop when facing the most obvious of anomalies and wait for something to happen. Aside from that the backstory idea is average, it works but it doesn’t add anything special for me, the part with the kid was not kind of messy after the flood the guy waited for to happen. Yeah it’s a fantastic concept, but just play the game to experience it. There’s also another game in the train which is pretty good too. (6/10)

Undertone - It’s not a great movie, nothing happens, the songs in reverse and the folklore element is not very original but it was kind of effective though it didn’t go anywhere interesting. I still didn’t hate it, I don’t know why I think just the lead character and that slightly claustrophobic setup with her mom came across as unusually realistic and convincing. It could have been much better if anyone bothered to do anything more with the story. (5.5 /10)

Hokum - I don’t really get the hype about this movie. It is obviously nicely made, it looks good, good acting, conversations are well written and all. But the story is just so incredibly unremarkable that the fact that it’s objectively a better movie than many of the others on this list only enhances my disappointment. I can appreciate a shitty production that had some things going for it, but this is a clearly competently made movie that has nothing in terms of the story. I mean it has a story, it’s just a really bad story. Not because of any plot holes or bad execution, just because there’s nothing that makes it good, I legitimately don’t understand finding that a sufficient enough basis to make a “real” movie about, without trying to think of anything better. (5.5 / 10 but I want to give it a 2)

Dolly - kind of like American Gothic, a little bit of Barbarian. Some funny slasher scenes, the main villain is pretty successfully gross as a beefy doll face thing stuck in some inane childhood fantasy. It doesn’t get too far with creating a compelling psychological story, but maybe that’s ok because realistically that would be too ambitious and probably just be cliche. Has some gross moments, artsy style, nothing really too original and the story is very simple (the one “twist” is instantly predictable). I think that if you want to have a pretty superficial but fun slasher, they were onto something with the villain (though like i said, borrowed a lot from other movies), but then you need the twists to make it interesting, and this was too straight-forward. I would make it so that the girl selfishly leaves the mutilated boyfriend behind while he begs her to come back and help him, because she doesn’t want to risk it. It would be better than the guy sacrificing himself for her and finding his way through the woods with his jaw hanging just to help her, just to have her neatly survive in the end. It really needed some edge. (5.5 / 10)

The Bride - I had a longer review of this and my point is that the movie perfectly depicts what it feels like to be stuck with a drunk and annoying person until she finally passes out and shuts up. So from that point of view, there actually is some horror in this, because it’s a nightmarish experience. But the movie is not self aware and unfortunately the line between very annoying and complete horror is in this case thinner than it seems. (5 /10)

Passenger - not really interesting, bland story, very annoying main characters who don’t even die in the end. I guess the broad concept, or not even the concept, just the setting, could lead to a better story if it was completely different but it’s not. Maybe the nicest thing i can say is that it’s not pretentious. (5/10)

Saccharine - I liked the style of this movie, and it has some really grotesque moments, but the story really brings it down. I’m not even sure how to rank it. It’s just bizarre because it seems to constantly change the underlying mechanisms and pull in different directions, but not in interesting ways that catch you by surprise but in a way where it makes no sense. First, the issue is that the fat girl starts consistently losing weight by eating the dead woman’s ashes. But then also, the ghost of the dead woman makes her obsessively eat, though it doesn’t really matter since she is still losing weight. Then the issue is actually a pancreatic cancer she shares with the dead woman, so she needs to remove that for her to leave her alone, it’s not about the ashes anymore. Then she does that in the dumbest way possible, but that’s also irrelevant because she still ends up eating her girlfriend, which was what you instantly think would happen the moment she came to her house but should have happened before the whole random pancreatic tumor storyline.

I don’t think the movie even knew what it wanted to say, it’s as if 5 different people wrote their takes on the main idea, and then someone tried to pull all the takes into one movie but without any effort to connect them into a coherent story. (5/10)

The Mummy - I mean it is a ridiculous story to the point where it’s a comedy, probably every review of this movie points out the incredible stupidity of everyone involved, but it also feels like such a classic 00’s horror movie, something that 20 years ago or so would pass as good because no one expects it to have a decent story. It has some moments, but the happy ending really brought it down for me, that was too much. If you’re going to do a really dumb movie that serves as a vessel for some cheesy horror scenes, at least end it brutally. (5 / 10)

Marama - Technically a thoughtful story. Some really good elements. Decent acting. Cool gothic vibe. Deeper themes. Just very very very very very boring. I don’t know, a big part of me genuinely believes it deserves to be at least one point above the rest of these 5/10 movies, because it’s hard to explain why it’s not, but it’s not. (5/10)

Faces Of Death - This one is just annoying as fuck, thinking it has clever meta comentary (“we’re using the name of a cult classic to get noticed but it’s cool because we’re self-referential about it”) while having nothing to say. It’s one thing that the story is pretty insipid, the fact that the movie considered itself relevant and clever made it even stupider.

The lead actress was hard to watch, at least here I could believe why no one wants to believe the word she’s saying if for no other reason simply to annoy her. She is good at coming across as a reddit mod though. The biggest shame is that the plot based around someone who works for youtube and basically has to decide what gets censored could have been a good setup for a movie that wanted to make any attempt to tell a good story. There’s a better movie based around this concept, Censor, so if you like the idea but don’t want to watch total trash that congratulates itself on being trash, then that’s a good alternative. (4/10)

I still plan to watch Evil Dead Burn and the Camp one that just came out. Is there anything else that’s good that I missed? I’m trying to avoid total crap, but only semi-successfully.

Edit: typos, like making some movies/5 instead of /10

Here is my list of 2026 horror movies I saw so far, from best to worst. Has some spoilers:

Obsession - it’s been discussed so much that I don’t have anything very original to say. When I first saw it, I thought it was good and very entertaining, with some great horror elements (for me, Nikki’s behavior was the main source of horror). But then, I talked about this movie so much after watching it, because everyone has an opinion, and that gives it a lasting value.

Really everything about it works, it is smart in how it approaches the character of Bear exactly because he is not some extraordinarily horrible person and people’s opinions can vary in the amount of blame they assign to him. I think very few people, or almost no one, actually missed anything, but between the takes where he is a horrible person who should be blamed every step along the way, and a normal person whose worse instincts surfaced in an extraordinary situation, there’s a lot that can be discussed, and that’s what keeps people talking and keeps the movie relevant. (8.5/10)

Back Rooms - less perfect than Obsession but almost as good, in some ways even better. It just operates on a completely different level of horror. Here the story and characters are less important, though they're there, so the fact that on paper it wasn’t the greatest story doesn’t take from the whole level of existence it puts you in. I really felt, this is reality, this world is backrooms. Memories of memories, aesthetics without meaning, alien familiarity. It is a very original movie, and manages to say a lot about the world through its concept.

Of course, it is a movie, so it needed a plot and I think it did an adequate job of creating one that didn’t take away from the experience of it all, and even connected to the larger point. Nothing particularly bothered me, it just was nothing special, and at the same time I didn’t need it to be because events and people are just a backdrop to the space it all takes place in. That is pretty special. (8/10)

Buffet Infinity - considerably less good than the other two, and goes on for a bit too long, but I enjoyed it a lot. It had some excellent moments, the idea is simple and reminds me of some shit you think of with your friends and then develop into something borderline existential. The humor is pretty dumb, but in the bigger context that works and becomes part of the appeal, mostly it just feels like being stuck in the mind of someone enthusiastic about the idea they have (like shit I’d think of at the age of 14, the retro style helps recreate it too), and what we got is as far as that idea goes but I’m glad it got made. (7/10)

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - obviously a better movie than Buffet Infinity but for me, lesser horror. IT was good but I didn’t like it as much as I liked 28 Years Later part 1, which was a trippy horror fantasy. This was more grounded to a place and characters, and was less interesting. It had less zombies, but the bit about bringing that alpha back to a human mentality was not bad. Jimmies were ok, at least the main one was, but dominated over exploring the different elements and horrors of the world. Ok movie but nowhere near my top zombie movies, whereas the previous one gets a solid 4th place. I never cared about the original Days either, I think this one is better, so there’s that. (6.5 / 10)

Send Help - It’s a fun movie, not much of a horror, I agree with people who point to similarities with Triangle of Sadness though whatever, I didn’t think about it at all after but it’s not a boring watch. I think the most impressive element of it was making Rachel McAdams look a bit repulsive at first without any special effects, the tuna sandwich bit was hard to watch. (6 / 10)

Exit 8 - I really don’t know how to rate this movie, because if I didn’t play the game I would probably give it like 7 - 7.5 and put it there with the Buffet Infinity for the great idea. But I did play the game, I love the game, and I know that the best part about this movie is a very exact recreation of the game. I mean, everything that’s really original and interesting is basically the game itself and the movie is a walk through where you watch it played by a moron, because, despite understanding the rules, he’ll stop when facing the most obvious of anomalies and wait for something to happen. Aside from that the backstory idea is average, it works but it doesn’t add anything special for me, the part with the kid was not kind of messy after the flood the guy waited for to happen. Yeah it’s a fantastic concept, but just play the game to experience it. There’s also another game in the train which is pretty good too. (6/10)

Undertone - It’s not a great movie, nothing happens, the songs in reverse and the folklore element is not very original but it was kind of effective though it didn’t go anywhere interesting. I still didn’t hate it, I don’t know why I think just the lead character and that slightly claustrophobic setup with her mom came across as unusually realistic and convincing. It could have been much better if anyone bothered to do anything more with the story. (5.5 /10)

Hokum - I don’t really get the hype about this movie. It is obviously nicely made, it looks good, good acting, conversations are well written and all. But the story is just so incredibly unremarkable that the fact that it’s objectively a better movie than many of the others on this list only enhances my disappointment. I can appreciate a shitty production that had some things going for it, but this is a clearly competently made movie that has nothing in terms of the story. I mean it has a story, it’s just a really bad story. Not because of any plot holes or bad execution, just because there’s nothing that makes it good, I legitimately don’t understand finding that a sufficient enough basis to make a “real” movie about, without trying to think of anything better. (5.5 / 10 but I want to give it a 2)

Dolly - kind of like American Gothic, a little bit of Barbarian. Some funny slasher scenes, the main villain is pretty successfully gross as a beefy doll face thing stuck in some inane childhood fantasy. It doesn’t get too far with creating a compelling psychological story, but maybe that’s ok because realistically that would be too ambitious and probably just be cliche. Has some gross moments, artsy style, nothing really too original and the story is very simple (the one “twist” is instantly predictable). I think that if you want to have a pretty superficial but fun slasher, they were onto something with the villain (though like i said, borrowed a lot from other movies), but then you need the twists to make it interesting, and this was too straight-forward. I would make it so that the girl selfishly leaves the mutilated boyfriend behind while he begs her to come back and help him, because she doesn’t want to risk it. It would be better than the guy sacrificing himself for her and finding his way through the woods with his jaw hanging just to help her, just to have her neatly survive in the end. It really needed some edge. (5.5 / 10)

The Bride - I had a longer review of this and my point is that the movie perfectly depicts what it feels like to be stuck with a drunk and annoying person until she finally passes out and shuts up. So from that point of view, there actually is some horror in this, because it’s a nightmarish experience. But the movie is not self aware and unfortunately the line between very annoying and complete horror is in this case thinner than it seems. (5 /10)

Passenger - not really interesting, bland story, very annoying main characters who don’t even die in the end. I guess the broad concept, or not even the concept, just the setting, could lead to a better story if it was completely different but it’s not. Maybe the nicest thing i can say is that it’s not pretentious. (5/10)

Saccharine - I liked the style of this movie, and it has some really grotesque moments, but the story really brings it down. I’m not even sure how to rank it. It’s just bizarre because it seems to constantly change the underlying mechanisms and pull in different directions, but not in interesting ways that catch you by surprise but in a way where it makes no sense. First, the issue is that the fat girl starts consistently losing weight by eating the dead woman’s ashes. But then also, the ghost of the dead woman makes her obsessively eat, though it doesn’t really matter since she is still losing weight. Then the issue is actually a pancreatic cancer she shares with the dead woman, so she needs to remove that for her to leave her alone, it’s not about the ashes anymore. Then she does that in the dumbest way possible, but that’s also irrelevant because she still ends up eating her girlfriend, which was what you instantly think would happen the moment she came to her house but should have happened before the whole random pancreatic tumor storyline.

I don’t think the movie even knew what it wanted to say, it’s as if 5 different people wrote their takes on the main idea, and then someone tried to pull all the takes into one movie but without any effort to connect them into a coherent story. (5/10)

The Mummy - I mean it is a ridiculous story to the point where it’s a comedy, probably every review of this movie points out the incredible stupidity of everyone involved, but it also feels like such a classic 00’s horror movie, something that 20 years ago or so would pass as good because no one expects it to have a decent story. It has some moments, but the happy ending really brought it down for me, that was too much. If you’re going to do a really dumb movie that serves as a vessel for some cheesy horror scenes, at least end it brutally. (5 / 10)

Marama - Technically a thoughtful story. Some really good elements. Decent acting. Cool gothic vibe. Deeper themes. Just very very very very very boring. I don’t know, a big part of me genuinely believes it deserves to be at least one point above the rest of these 5/10 movies, because it’s hard to explain why it’s not, but it’s not. (5/10)

Faces Of Death - This one is just annoying as fuck, thinking it has clever meta comentary (“we’re using the name of a cult classic to get noticed but it’s cool because we’re self-referential about it”) while having nothing to say. It’s one thing that the story is pretty insipid, the fact that the movie considered itself relevant and clever made it even stupider.

The lead actress was hard to watch, at least here I could believe why no one wants to believe the word she’s saying if for no other reason simply to annoy her. She is good at coming across as a reddit mod though. The biggest shame is that the plot based around someone who works for youtube and basically has to decide what gets censored could have been a good setup for a movie that wanted to make any attempt to tell a good story. There’s a better movie based around this concept, Censor, so if you like the idea but don’t want to watch total trash that congratulates itself on being trash, then that’s a good alternative. (4/10)

I still plan to watch Evil Dead Burn and the Camp one that just came out. Is there anything else that’s good that I missed? I’m trying to avoid total crap, but only semi-successfully.

Edit: typos, like making some movies/5 instead of /10

If I had to pick a horror movie I viscerally reacted to the most, or that made me the most uncomfortable, without trying to evaluate its objective quality, the story, “cinematography” etc, it would be Freaks.

In a way, it’s incredibly simple, seeing real people with horrible deformities is very existentially uncomfortable. I mean forget the story, forget everything, it’s like a trip to those morbid medical museums where you see conjoined triplets in formaldehyde, but worse because these are people living their lives that way.

That alone is pretty bad. I always felt extreme fear and discomfort when I saw people with deformities because it’s just so unfair. There is a random person who has to live like that, just because they are born unlucky, and I don’t, which makes me feel completely unsafe. It makes me fear reincarnation and I don’t even believe in it.

The truth is, I never want to experience what that feels like, obviously, but admitting that also seems cruel because shouldn’t we act like it’s all great and inspirational how a guy with no arms and legs can light a cigarette, and how they persist while you get depressed and want to kill yourself over any existential disturbance. I shouldn’t think it’s so terrible, because what does that say about them and their lives, but I do, so I am terrible too.

Obviously watching the movie automatically puts you in the position of a normie from the movie who comes to the circus to see the freaks. Not only am I a shit person who is terrified of even the idea of existing like these perfectly innocent people, I am also indulging in some morbid curiosity and voyeuristically exploiting them.

Basically, I am aware that in reality, they could never be ok with me. I could be polite and pretend I don’t find them terrifying or even notice, and they’d know I’m full of shit, and also there’s the imbalance. There’s the obvious contrast which makes the unfairness of existence too real and too much to handle. I mean, it’s worse for them, but when you’re on a better side of the imbalance, the awareness almost feels like a threat.

And that’s how Freaks makes me feel. I love gore, I watched all the most notorious horrors, I can deal with it, but this story from 1932 was total terror. Is it almost cheating? Maybe not, the movie is completely aware of this dimension and uses it overtly in the story about a circus freakshow, the difference between them and us. And I couldn’t watch the movie from their side, even though they were the sympathetic and the more righteous ones.

Now the question is, are they good or likable? I can genuinely appreciate how they stick together and support each other. But maybe because of everything I just said, the movie could never make me fully root for them.

The evil trapeze artist and her boyfriend are obviously the villains. She shows no redeemable qualities, although I did think how stupid can the dwarf be to think she seriously wants to be with him. The revenge they take on them is a result of how much they care for each other, and in most contexts I’d be glad and feel it’s justified.

But their fate is so fucked up it even made me sick. And I don’t know why, it’s not really a pity that made me wish for someone to just kill her at the end because it was so grotesque. I watched much more visually grotesque movies with much more sympathetic characters, so it’s bizarre that this would affect me in any way. I think it did because it showed how someone originally normal can also become a freak and it evoked that existential fear again.

I mean, you can say its fate worse than death but then you have to admit that all of these characters live lives worse than death, they just brought the others to their level.

I think what was upsetting had nothing to do with empathy but just with acknowledging the possibility that even if you’re not born a freak, something bad can happen. And why wouldn’t it happen to you, if someone completely innocent can be born into it. There’s no cosmic protection.

The story is very simple but I think the point is strong. And even the fact that of course it's insane for the midget to think she’d want to be with him. We can pretend that we don’t see deformities, that they don’t matter, every girl would totally date Peter Dinklage, sure. We hear inspirational stories about “freaks” with normal lives but on some level we all know it’s bullshit. We are never comfortable, they can never like us.

Of course, what I am describing here is my thought process.

Maybe that’s not how it is and many people genuinely don’t feel like this on either side, I just don’t buy it.

This movie definitely succeeded in putting me on the guilty side, yeah I wouldn’t actively try to harm or mock anyone like that, I feel genuine pity (which alone is another thing to feel guilty for), I’d do no harm. But I can’t help to find that life to be a complete horror, and that alone makes me the enemy, and rightfully so, if I was on their side I’d hate me. I’d wish for everyone to be a freak. Maybe the viewer is not Cleopatra or Hercules (the villain normies) but we’re definitely the circus visitors and they are the enemy too.

So to sum up, even with the minimal commentary on the actual story, there’s no movie that made me feel more guilty than this one, and because of that, more existentially insecure.

I finally watched this one. The reason why I avoided it whenever I heard it mentioned as something interesting was because I mixed it up with a pretty bad movie I saw as a kid, and thought it was some shitty romance. Then I realized it was from Haneke and got interested. I couldn’t have been more off in my expectations.

I’m also making this review before I read anything about the movie, because my goal is not to analyze it much at this stage, just to share the strong reaction it left me with. I am very desensitized to most things, but this movie really repulsed me. I say this as a huge compliment, I guess.

The character of Erika made me very uncomfortable. I can’t say I understand her at all. But what the movie did so well is how it approached her. Just like that guy, we get to see her as a very hot, smart woman, who is a little weird but has her shit together. I found her very attractive in the first half of the movie. Even though we got to see some of her pervy side, I still took it as intriguing, although I thought hat if she wasn’t an attractive woman, a lot of it would be just grotesque.

But at the point when she revealed her wishes and then started acting so differently, she evoked a true sense of revulsion in me. In a way the movie made me feel exactly like that guy Walter, at first seeing her as someone idealized and then becoming disgusted, although of course that continued in a different direction. It was more effective than most horror movies, how she transformed. I have to give it to the actress.

In that specific aspect, it reminded me of Obsession, but while I can’t judge Nikki for her behavior caused by practically being possessed, the transformation in Erika is just her revealing her true wishes. As if the premise of Obsession was not that Nikki had to become possessed and incapacitated to act that way, but that the wish unleashed her true inner self and it was like that, and how horrifying would that be.

But then, how do you engage with that without hating her? I genuinely don’t understand people who are into this kind of shit, so maybe I’m not the best judge, but in a way I got it - if to be with her you have to do the things she wants, and that’s what those things are, how can you not end up thinking of her as repulsive and wanting to hurt her (since that’s what she wants…)

I am completely confused by the ending. I don’t know if the final act was just Walter doing what she wanted, or if she really got hurt. I don’t really know what she wanted in the first place. The day after makes it seem she is pretty hurt and fucked up, which intuitively makes sense but not according to her logic. Did Walter do anything wrong? I truly have no idea.

For me the scene was really hard to watch, but in a weird way where I didn’t feel pity for her but embarrassment. It was so uncomfortable, with her mom there, it gave me that real sense of anxiety and I don’t even know on whose behalf.

Similarly, the scene where she is trying to sexually assault her mother and they just keep lying next to each other, it’s mental but as bizarre as it is, it’s done so well that I believed it and that made it hard to stand.

I watched Nymphomaniac before, I liked it a lot, but this movie is one of the most uncomfortable movies I’ve ever seen, and her character genuinely sickened me. I respect the actress for what she pulled off.

I don’t understand what she wants at the end or why she stabs herself and leaves, what kind of reaction she wanted from him on that occasion. It is weird how a character who makes no sense to me managed to be so believable.

Overall, a great movie, deserves its reputation. I have no idea what I think of the plot or the characters.

I like Haneke’s movies. Cache was a very solid thriller. I was drawn to the story, I liked the moral angle about whether or not Georges (the lead) should feel bad for what he did to Maijd. It was a well presented dilemma, and I’ll share my opinion on that later.

I liked that he pretty quickly connected what the tapes were about, and how still not really being open about it to his wife showed he had some guilt or shame over it even if he (maybe rightfully) refused to be blamed by Maijd and his son.

My instant reaction to the ending was annoyance. I didn’t need anything bigger to happen necessarily, or even a stronger conclusion, but how it never resolved everyone’s claims they had nothing to do with the tapes (unless you see the final scene of sons talking as a hint, which for me doesn’t make much narrative sense.)

I looked up the movie to see what others say. Although there are some decent takes, and I have mine, it annoyed me how people kept on lecturing everyone with this problem that it’s beside the point, or that dwelling on it is misunderstanding the movie. Apparently the director said something similar himself while still suggesting there is a character behind the tapes (obviously it would have to be Majid or the son.)

I generally find this kind of outlook incredibly annoying. The movie can successfully have deeper themes and talk about guilt etc while still using a coherent story as a backdrop, and if you start with a tangible story that frames all the ideas, then you really shouldn’t expect the viewer who is immersed in it to not care about the central mystery all the sudden just because it doesn’t change “the point.”

And while at it, what did we get by Majid and his son both earnestly proclaiming they had nothing to do with the tapes? Having one of them admit to it would also not take away from the “deeper ideas” so if Haneke wanted the viewer not to dwell on the mystery of the tapes, giving such a straightforward and obvious answer would achieve exactly that. Suggesting this may not be the case brings the focus back to it.

I also wouldn’t necessarily mind if his take is that the answer should be clear (maybe it’s Majid, and he lied just how Goeorges lied about him before) and he just didn’t want to overtly say it. My issue is this scorn about the idea that the viewer can watch the movie, appreciate the theme, and still want to know who did it. Not specifically Haneke’s, he may be trolling, but I noticed that a lot of people like to act enlightened about their acceptance of ambiguity and lecture those who want concrete answers as missing the point.

If I’m watching a Lynch movie, I understand I am entering a surreal reality that works like subconscious or dreams. There are answers to mysteries but there’s no simple code that neatly solves it all. But it is different when nothing like that is established within the story.

I know some people say “Haneke sent the tapes” and you can compare it to the rewind moment in Funny Games, but I think the answer is not satisfactory. Funny Games also pulls that part overtly, when it happens you understand the logic of it. But creating in every way a realistic thriller and then leaving this ambiguous is just annoying to me.

Slightly off tangent, but I have a similar annoyance with movies where the existence of a “metaphor” means the viewer is supposed to accept when plot no longer makes sense because anyway everything you saw just stands in for another concept (e,g. Platform, Night House etc). I mean, no shit, most movies deal with different themes that are explored through the story. Saying that the existence of a deeper theme means story inconsistencies shouldn’t matter to the viewer is not enlightened, it’s just accepting shit storytelling. This part isn’t that relevant to Haneke, but it demonstrates that similar mentality.

Props to Noe whose Irreversible I really dislike (mods of TrueFilm deleted my review after 3 years and never told me why), but in his Climax we get to see who spiked the drinks at the end. Something that doesn’t change what happened in any significant way, but which I greatly appreciated.

My take is that obviously Majid is behind the tapes, maybe with the help of his son, since he just recently saw Georges again on TV which obviously triggered depression in him that resulted in suicide.

Anyway back to Cache, after this element is out of the way I actually really like the movie.

I instantly sympathised with Majid as a figure, a guy who clearly had a fucked up life and whose chance at something better was concretely taken from him by Georges. If I was him I’d also hate the guy.

But to be fair, Georges is right not to accept the blame. Not only was he 6 and understandably didn’t want a new “brother” forced on him, his part in what makes Majid’s story tragic is just the most easily identifiable one. But you can also blame George’s parents who first wanted to help but then because of a few stupid lies (killing a rooster and coughing blood) they just sent him away. They didn’t need to adopt him but clearly they could have paid more attention about where they are sending him to, or help with his education.

It is pretty obvious that the mom also knows more about the story after the incident which is why she pretends to not remember him, she clearly has something she feels guilty for.

Here, I don’t mind the ambiguity of not really knowing what happened to Majid after. The son just mentions loss of educational opportunity, but why would a guy kill himself and be so depressed as an adult, who clearly had some kind of life, a son and all, just because he didn’t get to be adopted into a nicer family. Obviously some really bad things happened wherever he was sent to.

Which brings me to the main culprit, whoever ran the orphanage or hospital or whatever place he ended up in, abused him, etc. And the whole system, the government that was behind killing his parents in the first place, and that didn’t give him good opportunities in life.

None of this has anything to do with Georges or was his intent. The actual lies Georges made up, about coughing blood and the rooster aren’t even that dramatic, and apparently no one even believed the blood one (though why do we see the kid with blood coming out of his mouth in a flashback and Majid refers to it in the notes? Why is that so relevant if nothing came out of it anyway.) The rooster bit is kind of sociopathic, but still if they have a chicken farm then killing chickens probably isn’t that big of a taboo.

So I can understand why Majid blames Georges for ruining his life, but ultimately that’s just because Georges is the seemingly easiest and clearest target to blame. He can’t be held responsible for the outcome and actions of other people Majid interacted with later in his life after being sent away.

It’s also interesting that Georges doesn’t want to tell his wife about this presumably because he doesn’t want her to see him as a bad person, while being aware that he shouldn’t be blamed for making shit up when he was 6.

I don’t really get the son, he seemed very upset about mom’s cheating but I didn’t perceive that he had any issue with his dad. Maybe the ending just means that he was approached by Majid’s son for the first time and told about what his dad did, and I really don’t know if that is something that would even upset most people.

Alternatively it is a hint at them cooperating about the tapes, but I just don’t see how it makes sense or why the son would do it.

Overall, I liked the story, it would have been better without the ambiguity.

I think I'll finally watch The Piano Teacher next, because there's something really appealing to me about his movies and the atmosphere.

When watching movies like Schindler’s List, did you ever wonder about what the other side was going through making it all happen? Of course, in the many, many movies about the Nazis we get to see how evil and psychotic they are, you will hardly care about their feelings and individual aspirations. The Downfall is a great rundown through Hitler’s final days where you can appreciate the psychology of a megalomanic and paranoid mind. And in a brilliant movie like the Zone Of Interest, we get to see Ardent’s famous “banality of evil” (I will restrain myself from overkilling with this term, because it has been beaten to death and everyone knows it) in full display.

But did you ever really ask yourself about the hard administrative work, organizational planning, and department coordination that goes behind rolling out a genocide? If you haven’t, you might be surprised to learn that disposing of millions is not as easy as it seems.

Perhaps you may even call it a bureaucratic horror. Possibly a relatable one at that.

For example, imagine working for a company with a somewhat unclear hierarchy and overlapping department structure. The communication between departments is poor, everyone wants to have a special access to the CEO, and now one department is starting to insert themselves into everyone else’s business supposedly to “take the workload off your shoulders” while really steamrolling over your hard work and painstakingly built structure that was set up for a reason, as if it’s all just a triviality.

To manage all these growing concerns and re-align, they call for a conference. Maybe you wonder if this could not have been an email, or maybe hope at least you’ll get to express some of your growing frustrations, just to learn you’re basically here to fall in line and agree that the annoying aforementioned department will now take over, and all your work and departmental know-how counts for nothing.

Between the chitchat, corny jokes, finger foods, and ambitious new mission statements no one warned you about, a deep sense of horror starts to creep in, as you realize that what is being proposed will end up in a complete bureaucratic trainwreck.

You try to speak up, but your incredibly valid concerns that stem from thought and experience are just pinned down to you being difficult and nitpicky. That at least was what Dr Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary for the Reich Ministry for the Interior had to go through during this agonizing, yet mercifully efficient (everything got wrapped up in less than 2h) conference. His frustration at having his hard work so flippantly dismissed to fit a change in plan was anything if not relatable.

It wasn’t easy for Eichmann either, the person whom Ardent’s book and analysis of evil focused on, but seeing the administrative efficiency, attention to detail, and organizational talent he used not only to manage the overarching task but also this conference, filled with people of conflicting interests who all think their concerns should take priority, makes you think that the term “banal” is really underselling him. Any corporation would be lucky to have him as an asset.

The truth is, Nazis embarked on an incredibly ambitious task of disposing of/eliminating/evacuating (it is helpful to know what words mean) all Jews in Europe, while simultaneously fighting a war with the world, which was also very ambitious. A thankless task at times, where you facilitate the expiry of thousands, only for the Reich to conquer another country with its thousands more to deal with. Some ask, maybe the issue should be dealt with after the conquest?

No, the Wannsee Conference served to underline the importance of the Jewish question, as it was as essential for the future of the nation as the war was, outline the final solution, and also move the execution into the hands of SS, the Department that managed to come on top of the hierarchy with the skillful maneuvering of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s right hand. He was there to reassure all the other departments such as the Reich Ministry for the Interior, Party Chancellery, Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Justice, etc all stop bitching and fall in line, welcoming SS’ intervention as a helpful way to ease their workload.

But there are so many details one must keep in mind - who even counts as a jew; how to handle mixed blood situations without creating exemptions that will become a logistic nightmare for courts; how to shoot thousands when you need munition to fight the war; is this the right time to lose potential workforce; how to dig a mass grave when the ground is frozen; will the ones allocated for sterilization serenely submit to it (why not, they already had their cocks clipped); can you allocate deportation trains when you also need to deploy soldiers to fight a war; is this the most efficient use of everyone’s time; and many many other problems.

Yes, ethics was discussed too, Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, Deputy Head, Reich Chancellery, for example, bravely spoke up about his moral concerns for the well-being of German soldiers who will have to engage in this highly unpleasant task, since even when you rationally know better, humans are susceptible to feel aversion towards things like murdering children.

Heydrich and Eichmann did their homework though and ended up providing answers that would address all of these concerns and more, and somewhat placate the team, even if doubts still lingered.

Overall, the conference was a complete success.

This movie covers that conference in great detail, following the meeting minutes.

Conspiracy is a HBO movie, and an example how sometimes creative dramatization can actually increase accuracy and context. The movie also sticks to meeting minutes, but it added dramatized sections of conversations during the break and a few other creative liberties. However, this movie was so well researched, including in-depth psychological profiles of each participant, and taking the stances of each department into careful consideration, that every “made up” conversation ends up teaching the viewer a lot of accurate contextual information even if it didn’t happen exactly like that on the spot.

The acting here is the most noteworthy, especially the guy who plays Heydrich, Tucci as Eichman, and Firth and the exasperated Firth as Stuckart. The way it was shot (kind of resembling 12 angry men) felt the most immersive of the three, and it even took place at the location of the conference. It was self-aware of the irony and genuinely the funniest of the three in a very dark humor sense (the script is genius), but not to the point of making light of the topic, quite contrary, I think the absurdity only drives the point home.

Could anyone take part in something like this in the right context? In "Eichman In Jerusalem" Ardent's book that created the term banality of evil, she also addresses the task of making evil a social norm. As typical as it is to assume that behind kindness many people hide their true evil urges, here the problem was the opposite - most normal humans don’t particularly love to cause pain and harm to other beings, especially those who can’t even fight back. Sure, there will be individuals without this problem who may rise high in such systems, but what about the countless normies you still need to participate in such a large undertaking?

To quote the book “Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering. The trick used by Himmler--who apparently was rather strongly afflicted with these instinctive reactions himself--was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!”

Or, as discussed in the movie: “Dr. Joseph Bühler: It is the worst thing for our soldiers to be doing. They are women, they are children. And soldiers have a sense of honor, sir. Undersecretary Martin Luther: There's plenty of honor in following orders.”

You can rationalize a lot of things. That's why this movie is an effective horror. Also, the fact that it makes you laugh until you remember you're watching a pretty much accurate conversation between real people.

Someone recommended this movie (one of these movies, not sure which) a while back and I put it on my list. I remembered it recently and now I really want to watch it, but I discovered there are three movies about the same topic. They all seem well regarded too.

3. The Wannsee Conference (1984) This one is German-Austrian and apparently uses the actual meeting minutes. It sounds really itneresting. It is a TV film though.

4. Conspiracy (2001) Also made for TV, this one is HBO. Apparently also uses meeting transcripts and is supposed to be "psychologically intense."

5. The Conference (2022) German, highly acclaimed, also based on transcripts from the meeting.

To sum up, we have three movies that, although two are made for TV, all seem to be historically accurate, acclaimed, and interesting. Even the ratings are pretty close.

I'd even watch all three and then make a comparison, but if someone did it already, which one would you recommend to start with? I actually don't mind the subtitles, so that's not the factor, I'm even leaning towards one of the German ones over the HBO one.

Also, you obviously can't spoil any plot, so feel free to discuss and compare whatever you want between these three.

I only heard about this movie recently as a thriller recommendation. I thought it could be interesting and so I checked it out. Since I had no clear expectations apart from it being a thriller, which it isn’t, I was pretty open to whatever ended up happening. It still somehow managed to subvert these non-existent expectations.

In retrospect, what I find to be the weirdest thing of all is not so much the story, but how inconsistently it gives attention to its themes.

I’ll give a recap with all the spoilers for reference. The movie is about two women who meet at work, actually I am not even sure (like everyone in the movie) how old Sissy Spacek’s character is supposed to be but let’s say she’s the youngest woman of the three women. She’s really impressed by Shelly Duvall’s character. Shelly Duvall plays this autistically deluded woman who thinks she’s very sexually and socially desirable, while her surroundings completely ignore her.. Sissy (Pinky) is sweet and seemingly normal, and probably the only person who is legitimately fascinated by Shelly (Millie) the way Millie thinks everyone else is.

They start being roommates and Pinky is getting a bit obsessive, while Milly occasionally gets annoyed at her. At this point, you think thriller is kicking in, some Single White Female shit except both are crazy. But it takes a different direction when Millie kicks out Pinky after an argument caused by the fact that Pinky didn’t think Millie should have an affair with a married guy. The married guy is the husband of the Third Woman.

Pinky jumps into the pool, goes into a coma, Milly feels bad, Pinky wakes up and starts behaving like Millie and wants to be called by her real name, Mildred. Millie appeases her for a while. Then Pinky has a weird trippy dream, Willie’s husband comes into the house to hook up with them but then tells them that Willy is giving birth. Milly goes to help her, and asks Pinky to call a hospital but she doesn’t and ends up just watching them. Willie’s kid is born dead. After that they all live together, Pinky acts normal, Willy who wasn’t very talkative throughout the movie is now nice, and Millie acts like she’s Pinky’s mom. Even this recap left out loads of smaller details and mysteries that mostly never got resolved.

Overall, I am not sure what the movie is trying to say at all. The identity change in Pinky isn’t really played out as a thriller the way I thought it would be, and it’s more like she and Millie swapped identities between themselves. While it gets surreal that way, it still stays based in reality, Millie still is exasperated by the changes in Pinky, but also changes her own personality to accommodate her.

I am also not sure why it is called 3 women when the third woman is a very secondary character. Most of the movie she just silently moves around and paints murals. Pinky is again fascinated by her and Milly seems annoyed. Her husband cheats on her with both Milly and Pinky (during her Millie phase), and it’s later suggested that they all killed him, but his character is also not very consequential to justify why they had to kill him or for it to even matter much for the plot.

Also, if the movie is about personality changes between Milly and Pinky, that part actually happens very late in the movie, and then gets dropped without following any coherent logic.

There are a lot of mystery elements about the characters that don’t really get resolved, e.g. the security card, the role of the twins (maybe they work into the whole interchangeable personality story, like Pinky mentioned), the murals etc.

That aside, I still enjoyed this movie. Ignoring the plot and any deeper messages, the acting is great, it has a specific atmosphere, and the script kills it. The two main characters are also brilliant. The first hour of the movie is pretty much watching Milly confidently go on about total banalities as if they’re some profound wisdom, or go through total absurdities as if she’s presenting sound logic. That’s done with such conviction that it’s almost hypnotic. And really, she seems to be so sure about how things are in her head that the external evidence to the contrary doesn’t matter at all. She speaks to people who totally ignore her as if they’re close friends, plans dates that never end up happening, and very rarely allows anyone in the real world to get to her.

Sissy Spacek’s character is also very convincing in her innocence and admiration of such personality, even if she’s aware that Milly’s perception is off (or maybe even more so because of it.) When she takes over Milly’s personality she becomes legitimately obnoxious, and it’s kind of impressive how well that’s played out. The angle of her being an obsessive psycho who is still actually more normal than her target is a great idea.

Actually it’s as if the movie had 3 movies in it, one is a thriller about Pinky and her obsession with Millie in the context of their bizarre personalities and trying to become her; the other is a more surreal psychodrama about 3 characters whose personalities interchange (but that story only seems to be fragmentally developed and start pretty late in the movie) until you realize it’s all just one person with some persona shit going on; and the third is a Lynch wannabe movie* with odd characters, weird dreams, paintings, and so on.

I believe the movie is weird for the sake of weirdness and I am not missing anything that deep, the ideas just are kind of half-baked. But a good movie exists within it and even though I don’t think it pulled off the concept coherently, or even has a clear concept, it’s worth watching for those performances. I’d take out the third woman, call the movie “Two Women”, have the plot be just their inane but perfectly delivered conversations as they consider what to have for dinner, and call it a horror.

Edit: the movie is not copying Lynch, as corrected by u/MattAmylon it came out around the same time as Eraserhead. And Lynch apparently liked it and got inspired by it. Respect.

Have you ever been stuck with a very drunk person, or someone getting progressively more and more drunk, without an option to go somewhere else?

So you watch her go from a semi-coherent conversation to reciting some nonsense words like she has tourette’s or quoting stuff, make incoherent private jokes and then laugh hysterically at them I guess to make up for the fact no one else is laughing, experience mood swings from relatively cheerful to getting pissed at you to getting sad to suddenly yelling really loudly for no real reason, before breaking into some more laughter at her own performance.

In some moments maybe you play along a bit, try to find something to respond to, just for everything to go off tangent and she’s reciting nonsense again and laughing at her own private jokes she herself doesn’t understand. You’re getting really tired but if you ignore her she’d probably do something really dumb so you just hope she gets tired too, but she’s just yelling incoherently again.

As she gets drunker, she repeats herself more and more, then she’s asking stupid questions, acting like there’s some joke going on between her and the world and everyone else is in on it but they’re not.

At one point there’ll be an idea or a line that she’ll think was particularly clever, and then she’ll keep on repeating it and going back to it throughout the night, thinking she’s reaching some new depths of awareness or peaks of humor with each repetition.

You’re exhausted as fuck and want to sleep but she is going through some identity crisis and crying again or trying to express her emotional state by breaking something, so now everything just looks like a surreal nightmare. Vomits too at some point, spills the drink all over the place, is annoyed if that bothers you because the existential crisis is so much more important than property damage. At various points she wants to listen to some music or dances grotesquely, or gets turned on a bit or pissed off again, and it’s all just really tiring.

To make things even more entertaining for herself, she develops drunk personas, perhaps a “wise British spiritual guide” which consists of mystical self-advice, adapting even more irritating vocabulary she thinks is appropriate to the persona in question (e.g. using the word Darling all the time) while also breaking into contrived fits of laughter and beating you to death with that one-liner she too thinks is profound. BTW I am not going to quote it here, I am not going to use it as a pun, or a meta pun, I don’t want to hear it ever again in my life.

Finally, it’s almost morning, she’s still rambling but started to slowly pass in and out of consciousness, whispering some insane shit to herself or blaming you for something or going on some paranoid trip until she remembers that illuminating one-liner, laughs some more just to be loud, and then falls asleep and everything looks gross and smells bad and the only thing you want is to forget all about what happened and sleep too.

Well, if you went through life without such experiences, don’t worry because you can get all that by watching the Bride! And if you did, you can appreciate the almost brilliantly depicted horror of being around someone in the probably most annoying state of being. Almost, because unlike in real life where people either get the fuck away from such person and leave her to choke in her vomit, or if forced to stick around probably develop PTSD or something, everyone in this movie is either absolutely delighted by the Bride’s charm (good people), or so turned on they want to rape her (bad people.)

To be fair, the movie did make me feel something, and that is the deepest sympathy for Frank. Bride definitely made a century of loneliness and celibacy look like a much more appealing alternative, but unfortunately Frank was really determined to make it work and watching him trying to appease her, have a coherent exchange, or laugh along, was a poignant statement about the depths of depravity loneliness can throw someone into. You even feel bad for him when they actually end up having sex. That bullet in the head was a mercy.

Well, I’d finish the movie by having him put a bullet through her head to shut her up, but ok, I think that would elevate the movie to the point where it’s actually good.

Aside from that educational nightmare about the evils of alcoholism and its effects on unbalanced personalities, the movie also offers some pointless detective side-plots where Penelope Cruz manages to follow the most conspicuous couple around, and even makes a common sense logical deduction that they might continue attending movies they did so far. This makes her a genius detective although, being a woman, she had to pose as a secretary, and then with incredible administrative ease she finally gets the title when the considerate male detective steps aside. This enables her to deliver the line “I am the detective” (or something along those lines) to a cop who was confused about who’s in charge and failing to intuitively notice her authority. That’s really great because at the beginning of the movie Frank also didn’t instinctively understand that the old lady was the doctor. It really challenges your perceptions, so next time if you look for a person of authority, naturally connect it to whoever is the closest female and don’t waste her precious time with ridiculous questions. Anyway that whole side plot was dumb and not really needed.

The movie ends with the Bride deciding her name is the Bride, just the Bride, not the Bride of Frankenstein, she is too free spirited for that. This revolutionary choice to be her own person is also met with approval by her drunk British aunt persona, and the female doctor pronounces her a mathematical manifestation of chaos or something, before she’s finally put to sleep (or is she?) and shuts up. The profound one-liner is repeated several more times.

Apparently some elements are even romantic though I must say that for someone so concerned about her own individuality and blah blah she showed nothing but absolute disinterest in Frank as a person, but anyway, we already established he didn’t set any standards.

I watched this movie because I like to check out things that are generally considered bad to make up my own mind about them, and because I even saw some positive comments here. I can’t say it is misunderstood or underrated, but I didn’t expect the amount of horror it inadvertently provided.

The movie even transferred her tourette syndrome onto me, every time I heard her or anyone else utter that one-liner I started to curse and twitch, by the end barely suppressing the need to break something.

It was an experience. Not necessarily the one I’d ever recommend to anyone I don’t hate, or ever want to go through again, but here we are.

Before I catch up on the new 2026 horrors, I decided to go through some random films on my list, and I inadvertently ended up watching two movies back to back that have some thematic similarity. This made me realize how much I enjoy the craziness of the subgenre that involves insane families, insane family rituals, and people being stuck in inane family dynamics.

Since I am pretty sure a lot of people didn’t see these movies, I will try not to contain spoilers, and will use the tag when I do get into the specifics for those who did watch it.

The Baby is a movie about a family that consists of mom, two hot sisters, and an adult son everyone refers to as The Baby. The family has decided that he was developmentally disabled and they treat him as a literal baby. He also behaves and sounds like a baby. A social worker becomes obsessed with that case, seemingly because she believes he is a potentially normal person who was just never allowed to develop.

The movie premise alone is very creative, and it is a fun and bizarre watch. I also appreciated the silently competent protagonist, they spared us having to watch her put things together slowly, pretty much what is clear to the viewers is clear to the character and the plot progresses quickly. The movie keeps it up until the end, and I really didn’t expect it to end the way it did, even with the clues we were given (in many ways it was a simpler ending than some of my theories, yet still pretty wild, and in it, surprising.)

There’s something insane about listening to all these women genuinely talk to this adult guy as if they were talking to a baby, and interestingly no one (even a random babysitter who has a very special moment with The Baby) shows any disgust at the Baby himself, they're really very committed. It affects your perception too, so the character of The Baby really comes across as a very innocent victim, and in all the insanity you can feel bad for him.

While it doesn’t overkill with the psychology, there is a scene where mom explains to the guests at a party how having a kid like that is both a blessing and a curse, which gives some insight into her Munchausen by proxy mentality, but there is still enough to keep you guessing. The two crazy, hot sisters are just a fun addition to the overall dynamic, also infantile in their own way but allowed to be adult. The movie shows enough to get the picture, but leaves enough to keep thinking about it.

I would even say that despite being very good, I could see value in remaking a movie like this, I just think there’s so much potential to do even more with this premise. But maybe that would kill the absurd charm the movie has. As is, the story is paced well, it manages to surprise you, and the overall insanity all the characters in their way participate in is done really well. You can watch it on youtube.

Girly or, “Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly” is British, and it’s such a surprisingly great movie. The aesthetics of it, the actors, and the story all create this great faintly surreal atmosphere of an insane brutal childhood game or a fairy tale. The premise is that the four title characters make for a “happy family” and the son and daughter (sonny and girly) often go out to hunt for a new friend. The new friend is then brought to the home where they’re forced to play games and follow inane rules set by Mumsy and Nanny, but enforced by everyone.

The character of Nanny also reminds me of the Nanny from Blackadder in her behavior. Mumsy is a surprising take on the psycho mom, pleasantly calm and self-occupied. Sonny is just a brat son who doesn’t know what he’s dealing with in his own family, and Girly is really the star character, to the point where you get why despite acting insane she gets “new friends” to go home with her.

The development of the story is incredibly original because the protagonist immersed in this insanity actually takes a surprising approach to the game. So instead of being the expected normie desperately trying to get out, you get something much more fun. All the character reactions and interactions in this movie are hilarious, unexpected, and in a weird way still manage to be believable.

The movie is also available on youtube. I think any remakes would ruin this one, it captured something special.

Here are some other movies that fit the theme which I also recommend:

Dogtooth - my favorite Lanthimos movie, contains both the parents that didn’t let the kids grow up, or do so in particular ways, and the bizarre family rituals and logic the parents set for the kids

Braid - friends instead of family, but it’s about 3 adult girls trapped into their childhood games in a mansion, a really good movie that I don’t see mentioned much

Devil’s Rejects/House of 1000 corpses - while the adult children aren’t necessarily forced to stay infantile, it is about a weird murderous family, and the character of Baby has that element of childishness mixed with brutality, reminiscent of Girly. Excellent, fun movies too.

American Gothic - not as good as the others but a fun slasher, it contains cruel old fat children, and it is more grotesque in that sense than some of these other movies because they look really repulsive too. That ruins the hidden appeal factor for me though, which I will elaborate on below, and makes the family more purely antagonistic/villainous

What is interesting in these movies is that underneath the insanity or horror of living that way, there is an element to it that I think many viewers would find secretly appealing. The Baby is too extreme for that factor (the experience of being a baby hardly seems enjoyable), but to paraphrase the mom in the movie, she asks the question, isn't it nice to stay in that protected world of childhood and not have to deal with being a grown up. In some cases it is the parents that don’t want things to change, in some cases the children can see it as a better alternative to adult life too. At the very least most people probably experienced moments where some existing family/friends/whatever dynamics started to change while they wanted to preserve them as they are.

The surreal horror that comes from this need to preserve the status quo is especially interesting in how it combines something familiar with something that doesn’t belong. Balancing this hidden appeal with the grotesqueness of the situation is I think the key in making it work well, but sometimes the originality alone is enough to make it a good watch.

Before I catch up on the new 2026 horrors, I decided to go through some random films on my list, and I inadvertently ended up watching two movies back to back that have some thematic similarity. This made me realize how much I enjoy the craziness of the subgenre that involves insane families, insane family rituals, and people being stuck in inane family dynamics.

The Baby is a movie about a family that consists of mom, two hot sisters, and an adult son everyone refers to as The Baby. The family has decided that he was developmentally disabled and they treat him as a literal baby. He also behaves and sounds like a baby. A social worker becomes obsessed with that case, seemingly because she believes he is a potentially normal person who was just never allowed to develop.

The movie premise alone is very creative, and it is a fun and bizarre watch. I also appreciated the silently competent protagonist, they spared us having to watch her put things together slowly, pretty much what is clear to the viewers is clear to the character and the plot progresses quickly. The movie keeps it up until the end, and I really didn’t expect it to end the way it did, even with the clues we were given (in many ways it was a simpler ending than some of my theories, yet still pretty wild, and in it, surprising.)

There’s something insane about listening to all these women genuinely talk to this adult guy as if they were talking to a baby, and interestingly no one (even a random babysitter who has a very special moment with The Baby) shows any disgust at the Baby himself, they're really very committed. It affects your perception too, so the character of The Baby really comes across as a very innocent victim, and in all the insanity you can feel bad for him.

While it doesn’t overkill with the psychology, there is a scene where mom explains to the guests at a party how having a kid like that is both a blessing and a curse, which gives some insight into her Munchausen by proxy mentality, but there is still enough to keep you guessing. The two crazy, hot sisters are just a fun addition to the overall dynamic, also infantile in their own way but allowed to be adult. The movie shows enough to get the picture, but leaves enough to keep thinking about it.

I would even say that despite being very good, I could see value in remaking a movie like this, I just think there’s so much potential to do even more with this premise. But maybe that would kill the absurd charm the movie has. As is, the story is paced well, it manages to surprise you, and the overall insanity all the characters in their way participate in is done really well. You can watch it on youtube.

Girly or, “Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly” is British, and it’s such a surprisingly great movie. The aesthetics of it, the actors, and the story all create this great faintly surreal atmosphere of an insane brutal childhood game or a fairy tale. The premise is that the four title characters make for a “happy family” and the son and daughter (sonny and girly) often go out to hunt for a new friend. The new friend is then brought to the home where they’re forced to play games and follow inane rules set by Mumsy and Nanny, but enforced by everyone.

The character of Nanny also reminds me of the Nanny from Blackadder in her behavior. Mumsy is a surprising take on the psycho mom, pleasantly calm and self-occupied. Sonny is just a brat son who doesn’t know what he’s dealing with in his own family, and Girly is really the star character, to the point where you get why despite acting insane she gets “new friends” to go home with her.

The development of the story is incredibly original because the protagonist immersed in this insanity actually takes a surprising approach to the game. So instead of being the expected normie desperately trying to get out, you get something much more fun. All the character reactions and interactions in this movie are hilarious, unexpected, and in a weird way still manage to be believable.

The movie is also available on youtube. I think any remakes would ruin this one, it captured something special.

Here are some other movies that fit the theme which I also recommend:

Dogtooth - my favorite Lanthimos movie, contains both the parents that didn’t let the kids grow up, or do so in particular ways, and the bizarre family rituals and logic the parents set for the kids

Braid - friends instead of family, but it’s about 3 adult girls trapped into their childhood games in a mansion, a really good movie that I don’t see mentioned much

Devil’s Rejects/House of 1000 corpses - while the adult children aren’t necessarily forced to stay infantile, it is about a weird murderous family, and the character of Baby has that element of childishness mixed with brutality, reminiscent of Girly. Excellent, fun movies too.

American Gothic - not as good as the others but a fun slasher, it contains cruel old fat children, and it is more grotesque in that sense than some of these other movies because they look really repulsive too. That ruins the hidden appeal factor for me though, which I will elaborate on below, and makes the family more purely antagonistic/villainous

What is interesting in these movies is that underneath the insanity or horror of living that way, there is an element to it that I think many viewers would find secretly appealing. The Baby is too extreme for that factor (the experience of being a baby hardly seems enjoyable), but to paraphrase the mom in the movie, she asks the question, isn't it nice to stay in that protected world of childhood and not have to deal with being a grown up. In some cases it is the parents that don’t want things to change, in some cases the children can see it as a better alternative to adult life too. At the very least most people probably experienced moments where some existing family/friends/whatever dynamics started to change while they wanted to preserve them as they are.

The surreal horror that comes from this need to preserve the status quo is especially interesting in how it combines something familiar with something that doesn’t belong. Balancing this hidden appeal with the grotesqueness of the situation is I think the key in making it work well, but sometimes the originality alone is enough to make it a good watch.

EDIT: Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? should also be on the similar movies list as probably the OG of the genre, and really one of the best movies of all time, with one of the best horror characters of all time, and the insanely great performance by Bette Davis.

Have you ever been stuck with a very drunk person, or someone getting progressively more and more drunk, without an option to go somewhere else?

So you watch her go from a semi-coherent conversation to reciting some nonsense words like she has tourette’s or quoting stuff, make incoherent private jokes and then laugh hysterically at them I guess to make up for the fact no one else is laughing, experience mood swings from relatively cheerful to getting pissed at you to getting sad to suddenly yelling really loudly for no real reason, before breaking into some more laughter at her own performance.

In some moments maybe you play along a bit, try to find something to respond to, just for everything to go off tangent and she’s reciting nonsense again and laughing at her own private jokes she herself doesn’t understand. You’re getting really tired but if you ignore her she’d probably do something really dumb so you just hope she gets tired too, but she’s just yelling incoherently again.

As she gets drunker, she repeats herself more and more, then she’s asking stupid questions, acting like there’s some joke going on between her and the world and everyone else is in on it but they’re not.

At one point there’ll be an idea or a line that she’ll think was particularly clever, and then she’ll keep on repeating it and going back to it throughout the night, thinking she’s reaching some new depths of awareness or peaks of humor with each repetition.

You’re exhausted as fuck and want to sleep but she is going through some identity crisis and crying again or trying to express her emotional state by breaking something, so now everything just looks like a surreal nightmare. Vomits too at some point, spills the drink all over the place, is annoyed if that bothers you because the existential crisis is so much more important than property damage. At various points she wants to listen to some music or dances grotesquely, or gets turned on a bit or pissed off again, and it’s all just really tiring.

To make things even more entertaining for herself, she develops drunk personas, perhaps a “wise British spiritual guide” which consists of mystical self-advice, adapting even more irritating vocabulary she thinks is appropriate to the persona in question (e.g. using the word Darling all the time) while also breaking into contrived fits of laughter and beating you to death with that one-liner she too thinks is profound. BTW I am not going to quote it here, I am not going to use it as a pun, or a meta pun, I don’t want to hear it ever again in my life.

Finally, it’s almost morning, she’s still rambling but started to slowly pass in and out of consciousness, whispering some insane shit to herself or blaming you for something or going on some paranoid trip until she remembers that illuminating one-liner, laughs some more just to be loud, and then falls asleep and everything looks gross and smells bad and the only thing you want is to forget all about what happened and sleep too.

Well, if you went through life without such experiences, don’t worry because you can get all that by watching the Bride! And if you did, you can appreciate the almost brilliantly depicted horror of being around someone in the probably most annoying state of being. Almost, because unlike in real life where people either get the fuck away from such person and leave her to choke in her vomit, or if forced to stick around probably develop PTSD or something, everyone in this movie is either absolutely delighted by the Bride’s charm (good people), or so turned on they want to rape her (bad people.)

To be fair, the movie did make me feel something, and that is the deepest sympathy for Frank. Bride definitely made a century of loneliness and celibacy look like a much more appealing alternative, but unfortunately Frank was really determined to make it work and watching him trying to appease her, have a coherent exchange, or laugh along, was a poignant statement about the depths of depravity loneliness can throw someone into. You even feel bad for him when they actually end up having sex. That bullet in the head was a mercy.

Well, I’d finish the movie by having him put a bullet through her head to shut her up, but ok, I think that would elevate the movie to the point where it’s actually good.

Aside from that educational nightmare about the evils of alcoholism and its effects on unbalanced personalities, the movie also offers some pointless detective side-plots where Penelope Cruz manages to follow the most conspicuous couple around, and even makes a common sense logical deduction that they might continue attending movies they did so far. This makes her a genius detective although, being a woman, she had to pose as a secretary, and then with incredible administrative ease she finally gets the title when the considerate male detective steps aside. This enables her to deliver the line “I am the detective” (or something along those lines) to a cop who was confused about who’s in charge and failing to intuitively notice her authority. That’s really great because at the beginning of the movie Frank also didn’t instinctively understand that the old lady was the doctor. It really challenges your perceptions, so next time if you look for a person of authority, naturally connect it to whoever is the closest female and don’t waste her precious time with ridiculous questions. Anyway that whole side plot was dumb and not really needed.

The movie ends with the Bride deciding her name is the Bride, just the Bride, not the Bride of Frankenstein, she is too free spirited for that. This revolutionary choice to be her own person is also met with approval by her drunk British aunt persona, and the female doctor pronounces her a mathematical manifestation of chaos or something, before she’s finally put to sleep (or is she?) and shuts up. The profound one-liner is repeated several more times.

Apparently some elements are even romantic though I must say that for someone so concerned about her own individuality and blah blah she showed nothing but absolute disinterest in Frank as a person, but anyway, we already established he didn’t set any standards.

I watched this movie because I like to check out things that are generally considered bad to make up my own mind about them, and because I even saw some positive comments here. I can’t say it is misunderstood or underrated, but I didn’t expect the amount of horror it inadvertently provided.

The movie even transferred her tourette syndrome onto me, every time I heard her or anyone else utter that one-liner I started to curse and twitch, by the end barely suppressing the need to break something.

It was an experience. Not necessarily the one I’d ever recommend to anyone I don’t hate, or ever want to go through again, but here we are.

Have you ever been stuck with a very drunk person, or someone getting progressively more and more drunk, without an option to go somewhere else?

So you watch her go from a semi-coherent conversation to reciting some nonsense words like she has tourette’s or quoting stuff, make incoherent private jokes and then laugh hysterically at them I guess to make up for the fact no one else is laughing, experience mood swings from relatively cheerful to getting pissed at you to getting sad to suddenly yelling really loudly for no real reason, before breaking into some more laughter at her own performance.

In some moments maybe you play along a bit, try to find something to respond to, just for everything to go off tangent and she’s reciting nonsense again and laughing at her own private jokes she herself doesn’t understand. You’re getting really tired but if you ignore her she’d probably do something really dumb so you just hope she gets tired too, but she’s just yelling incoherently again.

As she gets drunker, she repeats herself more and more, then she’s asking stupid questions, acting like there’s some joke going on between her and the world and everyone else is in on it but they’re not.

At one point there’ll be an idea or a line that she’ll think was particularly clever, and then she’ll keep on repeating it and going back to it throughout the night, thinking she’s reaching some new depths of awareness or peaks of humor with each repetition.

You’re exhausted as fuck and want to sleep but she is going through some identity crisis and crying again or trying to express her emotional state by breaking something, so now everything just looks like a surreal nightmare. Vomits too at some point, spills the drink all over the place, is annoyed if that bothers you because the existential crisis is so much more important than property damage. At various points she wants to listen to some music or dances grotesquely, or gets turned on a bit or pissed off again, and it’s all just really tiring.

To make things even more entertaining for herself, she develops drunk personas, perhaps a “wise British spiritual guide” which consists of mystical self-advice, adapting even more irritating vocabulary she thinks is appropriate to the persona in question (e.g. using the word Darling all the time) while also breaking into contrived fits of laughter and beating you to death with that one-liner she too thinks is profound. BTW I am not going to quote it here, I am not going to use it as a pun, or a meta pun, I don’t want to hear it ever again in my life.

Finally, it’s almost morning, she’s still rambling but started to slowly pass in and out of conscienceness, whispering some insane shit to herself or blaming you for something or going on some paranoid trip until she remembers that illuminating one-liner, laughs some more just to be loud, and then falls asleep and everything looks gross and smells bad and the only thing you want is to forget all about what happened and sleep too.

Well, if you went through life without such experiences, don’t worry because you can get all that by watching the Bride! And if you did, you can appreciate the almost brilliantly depicted horror of being around someone in the probably most annoying state of being. Almost, because unlike in real life where people either get the fuck away from such person and leave her to choke in her vomit, or if forced to stick around probably develop PTSD or something, everyone in this movie is either absolutely delighted by the Bride’s charm (good people), or so turned on they want to rape her (bad people.)

To be fair, the movie did make me feel something, and that is the deepest sympathy for Frank. Bride definitely made a century of loneliness and celibacy look like a much more appealing alternative, but unfortunately Frank was really determined to make it work and watching him trying to appease her, have a coherent exchange, or laugh along, was a poignant statement about the depths of depravity loneliness can throw someone into. You even feel bad for him when they actually end up having sex. That bullet in the head was a mercy.

Well, I’d finish the movie by having him put a bullet through her head to shut her up, but ok, I think that would elevate the movie to the point where it’s actually good.

Aside from that educational nightmare about the evils of alcoholism and its effects on unbalanced personalities, the movie also offers some pointless detective side-plots where Penelope Cruz manages to follow the most conspicuous couple around, and even makes a common sense logical deduction that they might continue attending movies they did so far. This makes her a genius detective although, being a woman, she had to pose as a secretary, and then with incredible administrative ease she finally gets the title when the considerate male detective steps aside. This enables her to deliver the line “I am the detective” (or something along those lines) to a cop who was confused about who’s in charge and failing to intuitively notice her authority. That’s really great because at the beginning of the movie Frank also didn’t instinctively understand that the old lady was the doctor. It really challenges your perceptions, so next time if you look for a person of authority, naturally connect it to whoever is the closest female and don’t waste her precious time with ridiculous questions. Anyway that whole side plot was dumb and not really needed.

The movie ends with the Bride deciding her name is the Bride, just the Bride, not the Bride of Frankenstein, she is too free spirited for that. This revolutionary choice to be her own person is also met with approval by her drunk British aunt persona, and the female doctor pronounces her a mathematical manifestation of chaos or something, before she’s finally put to sleep (or is she?) and shuts up. The profound one-liner is repeated several more times.

Apparently some elements are even romantic though I must say that for someone so concerned about her own individuality and blah blah she showed nothing but absolute disinterest in Frank as a person, but anyway, we already established he didn’t set any standards.

I watched this movie because I like to check out things that are generally considered bad to make up my own mind about them, and because I even saw some positive comments here. I can’t say it is misunderstood or underrated, but I didn’t expect the amount of horror it inadvertently provided.

The movie even transferred her tourette syndrome onto me, every time I heard her or anyone else utter that one-liner I started to curse and twitch, by the end barely suppressing the need to break something.

It was an experience. Not necessarily the one I’d ever recommend to anyone I don’t hate, or ever want to go through again, but here we are.

Seems interesting, I heard of Junji Ito but I never read his stuff. When I googled it, the reviews of the netflix show look very bad. Is it worth watching, or are there some good episodes I can see without bothering with the rest?