I expect horror movies to make me scream with terror, but never sob with it! And yet, some horror movies manage to cause emotional trauma on top of psychological in a one-two-disturb-you punch! Grief is a horrible thing, perhaps the most difficult of all human emotions to wrestle with. It lingers in the corners of your mind, it jumps out when you least expect it, and it can haunt you for years – sounds like the perfect horror movie monster if you ask me. When it comes to grief, these horror movies understand the feeling – and will make you feel it too, like it or not. These are the ten best horror movies about grief, shrieks and tears abound.
No One Will Save You
Directed by Brian Duffield, No One Will Save You is a cosmic horror/sci-fi about a lonely young woman whose small town is invaded by aliens – and that’s not even the most disturbing part! There’s already something… off about Brynn’s picturesque home – the townsfolk all seem to hate the bubbly young seamstress for no apparent reason. At least, that reason hasn’t been made apparent… yet. Throughout the film (which has no dialogue whatsoever) we see Brynn writing letters to a person that she lost. A person whose absence she is somehow responsible for. But a sweet young woman like Brynn could never hurt a fly, right? Tell that to the aliens who invade her home in the night. They discover the hard way that Brynn has an innate capacity for violence, and that inner drive to hurt leads her to salvation and damnation both.
Hereditary
The poster child “grief as horror” metaphor movie, Ari Aster’s Hereditary is the story of the Graham family – reduced in number after their eerie young daughter was killed in a bizarre, horrific, and entirely preventable accident. Inadvertently responsible for his sister’s death, 16 year old Peter’s relationship to his grieving mother disintegrates into screaming matches and blame-laying, while his soft-spoken father attempts to hold the family together. They might have been able to reconcile, had there not been a sinister curse within their bloodline that has tied the family to the Inferno for ages. Generational trauma, the death of a child, hatred of ones’ own blood relations – this film pulls out all the emotional stops, and then jams them back into your emotional jugular.
The Babadook
Directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook is the story of the twin demons of grief and resentment – both gnawing at the heart of a bereaved single mom. Amelia Vanek’s husband died in a car accident while he was driving her to the hospital to give birth. Six years later, she secretly blames her young son for the tragedy. Amelia’s rage and sorrow is made manifest when she finds a strange storybook called “The Babadook” in her home, and after making ill thought out decision to read it as a bedtime story to her son, she is haunted by the top hat wearing queer icon himself. The film shows how grief can possess us to do terrible things to ourselves and those we love. In The Babadook‘s case, that possession is literal.
Lake Mungo
Directed by Joel Anderson, Lake Mungo is the story of the Palmers, who are left in shambles after the drowning death of their 16 year old daughter Alice. While finding Alice’s bloated body in the lake initially led them to believe that their baby girl was truly gone, they begin to suspect otherwise when they hear strange bumps in the night – and find even stranger bruises on their bodies. The family begins to investigate the increasingly suspicious circumstances surrounding Alice’s death, leading them to the terrible conclusion that perhaps this tragedy could have been prevented. The true horror of Lake Mungo isn’t the ghostly scares (though trust me, they’re horrifying enough) it’s the idea that young Alice was haunted herself while she was still alive – and if her parents had just looked a little closer, they might have been able to save her before it was too late.
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Tigers Are Not Afraid is a Mexican fantasy/horror film directed by Issa López, following a young girl whose mother was disappeared by a cartel. After young Estrella’s teacher gives her three wish granting pieces of chalk, Estrella uses her first wish to bring her mother back – but she doesn’t return in the way Estrella expects. Haunted by ghostly visions of her mom, Estrella and a group of children left orphaned by violence struggle to survive in an uncaring city – ruled by a dangerous drug lord named Chino responsible for it all. Unlucky for Chino, he’s soon about to discover that the people he disappeared into the darkness are still lingering there, and their rage and grief are powerful enough to reach out from beyond the grave and drag him in.
His House
His House is a horror/drama film directed by Remi Weekes, following the harrowing story of a refugee couple from South Sudan. After escaping their war torn country, Bol and Rial are granted asylum in the United Kingdom – but their new home is anything but homey. Their government housing is falling apart, their caseworker is an uncaring bureaucrat, and their neighbors regard them with racist derision. While the couple are able to weather these external threats, they struggle to bear the internal ones. A dark spirit has followed them from across the sea, attaching itself to a dark secret that they carry within. If Bol and Rial ever hope to find peace again, they’ll need to confront the horrors of the past, and the grief of those they left behind.
Antichrist
Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is not for the faint of heart. In fact, I struggle to think of who it is for. One of the most upsetting films ever made, Antichrist follows an unnamed couple who are attempting to heal after the accidental death of their infant son – in all the wrong ways. The husband is a psychotherapist, and takes his wife to a cabin in the woods in order to treat her himself. Any Psychology 101 student could tell you why that’s a horrible decision, but the consequences in this film are worse than you could ever imagine. Plagued by ancient spirits that visit them in the form of suffering animals, the couple begin to hallucinate away what little sanity they had left – with explosively violent results. Grief is a nasty thing, and Antichrist is one of the nastiest movies ever made.
The Ritual
Directed by David Bruckner, The Ritual is the story of four old friends who decide go hiking through the Scandinavian wilderness to honor their friend who died in a robbery six months before. It’s a bit overkill, considering that this particular stretch of wilderness is haunted by an ancient and homicidal forest god who isn’t a fan of outsiders. As the gang begins to believe that something is the woods is watching, their paranoia reopens old wounds. One of them could possibly have saved their deceased friend from his untimely fate, and the others resent him deeply for it. The creature in the woods? It resents all of them for being there, equally. Monsters don’t discriminate, a demon that feeds on grief and terror and loss will happily devour them all.
Midsommar
Directed by Ari Aster, Midsommars‘ intro is a thing of pop culture infamy – American student Dani loses her entire family in a murder/suicide staged by her own sister, who used carbon monoxide gas to kill them all. Rendered nearly catatonic with grief, Dani struggles to connect with her peers – including her increasingly distant boyfriend Christian. After being invited to attend a folk festival in Sweden by a friend, Christian reluctantly passes the invitation along to Dani – and the college students soon encounter hallucinatory daylight horrors created by a community with some odd notions about death. While the townsfolk are subtly suspicious of outsiders, they accept the grieving Dani into the fold. Her fair weather friends and neglectful boyfriend? Oh, they’ve got plans for them too…
Relic
Directed by Natalie Erika James, Relic is the story of Kay and her daughter Sam, who have gone to visit Kay’s elderly mother Edna who is suffering from dementia. Edna has recently been reported missing from the remote gothic manor she calls home, and her daughter and granddaughter arrive to find the place covered with sticky notes and mold. After Edna inexplicably returns barefoot with no memory of where she went, Kay is forced to confront her mother’s increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior. Relic is a film about the grief that comes before the grief – how caring for an aging parent causes a person to experience loss over a painfully drawn out period of time. The Edna that Kay and Sam knew was lost long ago, and the ailing woman who stands before them now is only a shell of her former self. A not quite corpse, terrible to look at, but still terribly worthy of love.
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