I have always been an avid movie watcher and I use Letterboxd a lot to keep track of what I watch and how I feel about each film. Horror movies and thrillers are definitely my favorite genre of all time, and even though I love Halloween and Scream, I think that there are so many good films out there that people don’t watch or think of. Check out my list of Letterboxd-approved films that will definitely make your horror movie marathon worthwhile.
Starting out with Us: you can never go wrong with a Jordan Peele movie. I chose this particular film from Peele because it has the most unsettling resolution, in my opinion. The acting is amazing and it has that fear factor where you assume everything is okay until he drops another twist in the story. His other films, like Get Out and Him, are also really good if you want more of a psychological horror.
I could go on and on about The Shining, which is one of the most classic horror movies of all time. I’ll admit that it’s not the scariest movie out there, but Stanley Kubrick makes the snowed-in cabin eerie enough to get your heart racing. There are so many iconic scenes, like the “redrum” and the maze chase, that make this movie one of my favorites of all time. Honestly, you can never go wrong with the classics and The Shining is great to kick off your Halloween movie marathon.
Another classic is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which is one of the first movies that actually made me scared. The black and white film is perfect for the scary scene and it has the typical gore you would expect from a horror movie. I’ll admit that this one can get slow at some parts, but Hitchcock never fails to add a good amount of suspense to keep you waiting. One thing I’ve learned from this film is to not stop at shady motels, so the somewhat-realistic scene this movie sets definitely adds to it being a psychological thriller.
Donnie Darko is a psychological film that you definitely need to watch more than once to truly understand. I’ve seen this movie so many times and I still see things I never noticed the previous times. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the role of Donnie Darko very well and makes you feel unsettled whenever you see his character. There is more of a sci-fi feel to this film, but it adds to the psychological thriller aspect. I think Frank is a perfectly disturbing character that makes you question who the protagonist is, and his presence adds to the thriller genre.
Adding onto the psychological thriller category, I recently watched Split, which features James McAvoy as the lead, and I’ll say that it freaked me out. McAvoy’s character, Kevin, deals with having 23 personalities that appear throughout the film and it’s extremely unsettling. His performance alone makes this movie pretty good, and I honestly didn’t expect a lot of the twists that happened. There are two more movies to accompany this, but they definitely aren’t worth watching, so this is more of a standalone movie.Â
So whether you choose to try new films or love sticking to the classics, I hope these picks add more to your movie experience.