What Movies Give You Nightmares?

by Cláudio Alves

There's no stopping A24, its ascension as distributor and studio one of the last decade's biggest success stories. Just this month, Civil War marked their most successful opening weekend, even expanding to IMAX. Speaking of those giant screens, A24 has been re-releasing some of their greatest hits in the format, starting with Ex Machina back on March 27th. Uncut Gems is coming May 22nd, while April's selection hits theaters tomorrow, beckoning audiences to relieve a movie nightmare like none other. It's Hereditary, Ari Aster's promising debut and one of the few theatrical experiences that caused me sleepless nights. Believe me, when you watch as many horror flicks as I do, that's rather special…

After so much violence at 24 frames per second, gore, guts, ghouls, and the whole shebang, one begins to feel desensitized to cinematic horror. Yet, there are those pictures that manage to surprise, tickling your unconscious in just the proper manner to summon interior demons to the psyche's forefront. That's what happened to me with Hereditary in 2018, though some of that affliction was undoubtedly a product of my state of mind. You see, the night before that press screening, I almost choked to death. I can still remember the animal panic taking over, as my vision turned blurry and I felt myself more alone than ever before. 

On the threshold of fainting, my desperate motions alerted other people in the house to what was happening, and I was eventually saved. Still, it was quite the traumatic event. Imagine my surprise when, the morning after, I was seated before a screen where another person gasped for air, their eyes shining with the kind of terror one senses when the end is in sight. The kind of terror I had just savored a few hours ago. Watching little Milly Shapiro pantomime an anaphylactic shock, I was reminded of it but my mind wandered further. Suddenly, I was back in primary school, gasping for breath after a class sojourn into the local pool. 

In those days, my undiagnosed asthma reacted poorly to an environment where chlorinated water came into contact with an overbearing AC system, causing me a respiratory crisis every time I tried to join my classmates. It got so bad to the point I had to be taken to the hospital, and that feeling of air running out on the back of a moving vehicle stayed with me. It's not so much the lack of oxygen that terrifies, but the constricting throat that keeps the carbon dioxide in, like a mighty pressure on your upper body and a torrent of dizziness to make matters worse. Through Hereditary's summoning, it all came back to me, a Proustian moment that switched the nostalgia of a madeleine for a living hell. 

All that said, I think it was the dynamic between brother and sister that got to me most. After all, I've been that kid made to uncomfortably follow an older sibling to a party I wasn't invited to and where I wasn't welcome. I've also been the brother to a little sister, stressing over the responsibility imposed by parental pressure, both annoyed and fearful, exasperated and impossibly concerned. Remember the moment after the unimaginable happens in Hereditary, when the camera stays on an older brother's face. The gesture forces the viewer to confront the guilt and sheer horror, marinate in a moment nobody's ready for and, perchance, imagine themselves in the same place. I know I did.

If not in the cinema, it happened later, as Alex Wolff's catatonia stayed with me and Toni Collette's motherly cries echoed in my ear. Most of all, the image of a broken, detached head on the side of the road tormented the waking mind. When sleep did come, the head reappeared, its unseeing eyes staring right at me while ants covered the flesh in busy infestation. Only it was no longer Shapiro's visage I saw. Instead, it was my younger sister who stared with dead eyes. That nightmare reoccurred plenty of times, a curse that was equal parts burden and odd wonderment. After all, if you love to be terrified by the screen, there's a weird pleasure in finding such things following you beyond the cinema, an evil spirit haunting the land of dreams.

Have you had similar experiences? Please share what movies gave you nightmares in the comments.

Comments

[Peter Callahan]

I don't know if this movie "scares me" so much as it is profoundly emotionally disturbing for the very simply reason that the family background that Toni Collette reveals in that grief meeting is almost literally the childhood one of my own parents had. So the people who think this movie is some kind of misery porn situation.... it really isn't.

[Jesús Alonso]

I would say several... "A Serbian Film" because of what it implies and how true it is, beyond the gross fireworks, in its message... it is too over the top for its own good - too graphic.

"Stranger by the lake" is also tremendously haunting with that SUPERB ending that can send chills through your spine for days to come.

"Eden Lake" is the true definition of a nightmare, plus an underrated satire.

"The Hitcher" delivered one of the total top villains that can induce nightmares in anyone, played to perfection by Rutger Hauer (I would rather see Hauer have won an Oscar for that one, than Hopkins for Silence of the Lambs - should have been Supporting)

"The Skin I live in" is also a twisted nightmare, completely unexpected coming from Almodovar...

The first "The Human Centipede" was actually a good film and its true horror was coming out from a nihilism that could totally be inspired by the true horrors by Mengele during WW2

basically, the more realistic horror is, the more nightmares it can produce on me... specially when the menace is the average Joe, the neighbor or your very own community surrounding you.

[Gallavich]

For the classics that literally gave me nightmares I'll go with The Shining, Rosemary's Baby and Mulholland Dr.

I loved a lot of horror movies of this decade and I love Hereditary, but for me is very relaxing and chill. It's the kind of movie that I watch when I can't sleep. A very recent movie that haunted my nights was Smile. It's a banal and bad written movie but it the scariest thing that I've seen in years.

[Amy Camus]

The movie that has given me the most nightmares - by far is the original "The Vanishing" I saw it over 30 years ago and it still chills me to the bone to think about it.

I remember how awesome it was to see Carrie and bring unsuspecting friends to see it for that final jolt.

Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear, even more than Night of the Hunter scared me to no end.

I also remember being in a film class the first time I saw Repulsion and how we all jumped out of our seats in unison at each shock. Rosemary's Baby showed Polanski really had a knack for that kind of thing.

I thought I wouldn't survive Les Diaboliques the first time I saw it. I needed time to recover from that one.

Audition was also quite an experience.

Laugh if you will, but a Mexican cheapie called Curse of the Doll People really messed me up for awhile. Check it out if you dare.

[thevoid99]

Anything with spiders like Arachnaphobia or scary-as-fuck films like Possession and Audition as I don't think I want to see either of them ever again. They're great films but they scared the FUCK out of me.

[Frank Zappa]

Braveheart, Left Behind, The Passion of the Christ.

[Mr Ripley79]

Snowtown now i'm older but as a kid 1979's The Amityville Horror,i could hear that demon voice and piggy eyes right outside my window.

[Sally W]

Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, Midsommar, Heavenly Creatures