The domain of Psychological Thrillers is already an underrated category in Hollywood. There is so much to explore and the waters are so untested. Many of the brilliant additions to the genre have already gone unnoticed.
The Double
Simon is an ordinary clerk doing an ordinary job at an ordinary office. There is nothing special about him or his life. He has never been noticed by his peers and superiors. Simon is more or less expendable. Even he knows that nobody will miss him if he goes away. One day, a charming lookalike named James joins the office where Simon works. Jesse Eisenberg does an incredible job playing the double role of Simon and James. The lesson that the live action Dostoyevsky Adaptation gives is that the only person you should be scared of is you and you alone.
Eden Lake
The Horror Thriller genre has been the subject of abject ridicule for its hack and slashes cinematography. The entire genre is turned on its head with Eden Lake. Arguably the nest horror thriller you might have never heard of in the recent times, Eden Lake takes a simple enough premise and makes it breathtakingly engaging. Jenny is a teacher. She takes her boyfriend Steve to a secluded lake house for the weekend. Things start worsening when a group of unruly teenagers start doing pranks on them, each prank being little more overwhelming than the last one. There is a lot of blood and a lot of gore in this one. The movie is also very infamous for its numerous twists in the tale.
Identity
People coming to isolated motel take refuge from a storm for the night – is there a more perfect plot for a psychological thriller? Ten People take shelter from a storm in the Nevada Desert inside a desolate motel. A Vicious Serial Killer also roams the premises and starts killing off the strangers one by one. Nobody really knows who the killer is. A taxi driver played by Joan Cusack takes it upon himself to find the killer and save everyone.
Hard Candy
Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page star in this tale of an Internet predator trying to entice a teenage girl online. The movie won multiple awards in the Sundance Film Festival the year it was released but many failed to notice it because it had little to no marketing. The movie also had a very limited run in the theaters which would explain why the name sounds so unfamiliar to you. But we assure you, this is no ordinary tale. The movie shows that most of the time, things are not what they seem. The story soon descends into the realms of extreme psychological warfare.
Funny Games
Funny Games is the remake of a very dark 1990’s psychological thriller classic. The movie is basically a home invasion story. A serene lake house is invaded by some psychopaths that try to pitch the invasion on the lines of cinematic violence. Funny Games is dark, sarcastic, and skillfully plays with the minds of the viewer. It is not your average psychological thriller. It will leave you guessing till the end. The movie is a remake of the 1997 movie of the same name. Both of them are directed by the same guy – Michael Haneke, an Austrian film maker.
Frailty
An enigmatic young arrives at the doorsteps of an FBI Office. The man claims to know the whereabouts of the infamous God’s Hand Killer. The identity of the Killer is revealed to be this man’s father. The story is that a widowed blue collar worker has a revelation. He must destroy all the people that have been deemed as ‘demons’. This serial killer has two sons. The youngest son believes in his father’s cause. The elder one has some trouble believing his father’s preaching but does not have the guts to confront him. After twenty years, he finally finds the courage to revolt and confess everything to the authorities.
Bug
William Friedkin is a master of his field and the movie Bugs is one of his greatest masterpieces. Ashley Judd’s character falls for Michael Shannon. Michael Shannon believes that some secretive agency has planted his entire body with bugs to track him and have eternal surveillance over him. As Judd and Shannon try to debug each other, they realize there might be some truth as well as some lie to Shannon’s arguments. The ending of the movie is also very twisted and will keep you thinking for days. The movie is about how the pair are driven into the abyss of insanity while trying to cater to their unreasonable whims and fancies.
Vacancy
Hollywood’s long tryst with secluded motels takes a macabre twist with Vacancy, a skillful hostel horror movie. Amy and David find themselves lost and end up spending the night in an isolated motel in the middle of nowhere. The only mistake Amy and David made was staying in a motel which screamed danger ta the top of its lungs. There is mystery regarding an empty room which forms the central plot line in the story. The story is crisp and skilfully played out for the viewers. The movie spanned a prequel but it was not nearly as nail biting as its predecessor.
Triangle
Time Travel makes for a good twisted thriller story line. The Triangle uses this trope to its maximum. The movie is full of strange mind numbing twists that will keep you awake at night, trying to figure out what went wrong. Melissa George plays the Protagonist, a young mother who is barely making ends meet. She accepts the invitation to set sail into the middle of the ocean aboard a ship owned by a regular customer Greg. There they find a mysterious ship (which they board of course). Melissa’s Character Jess, feels that she is being watched and Jess has been behaving oddly the whole time, implying that something is terribly wrong.
88 Minutes
This movie has Al Pacino. That is enough for it to be on your watch list. 88 Minutes is a movie that banks on the element of suspense to push the viewers to the edges of their seats. Jack Gramm is a forensic psychologist who once helped in condemning a serial killer called Jon. On the day of Jon’s execution, he calls Jack Gramm and tells him that he has approximately 88 minutes to survive whatever is coming his way. The events that follow are enough to pump you up sky high.
