Hey! Welcome to Thursday Movie Picks where you get to share your movie picks for each topic presented every Thursday! Based on the theme presented each week, you can pick up to 3 to 5 movies and explain why you picked those movies! This meme is being hosted by Wandering through the Shelves!
This week's theme is: Psychological Thrillers!
If there's a set of films that I always enjoyed, it's psychological thrillers! I always loved watching movies where we get inside the characters' heads and see how certain events affect them emotionally and physically. So, I picked out three psychological thrillers that have a horror edge to them for this week's theme!
A young couple trying for a baby move into a fancy apartment surrounded by peculiar neighbors.
I remembered watching this movie years ago and I was actually shocked at the psychological angle this movie had with the protagonist trying to figure out if her neighbors are apart of a satan worshipping who want to take her baby away from her. It's definitely an intense psychological thriller with a horror edge!
Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.
This is yet another horror movie with a psychological angle. Even though most people remembered this movie for Carrie's rampage during her prom night, the movie dealt with issues like bullying and how that can have an emotional scar on the victim.
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Probably my all-time favorite horror movie that has psychological themes. The fact that this film hinges on whether or not the things that Jack sees are in his head or the effects of the ghosts in the hotel is what made this movie so creepy to watch!
Great picks! I went the more subtle route with my picks, but these are genuine thrillers. I think each one of these gave me nightmares after I saw them.
ReplyDeleteI remembered being creeped out by the hand popping out of the grave in Carrie!
DeleteRosemary's Baby is a film I have to finish. I've only seen bits and pieces of it. I like Carrie and The Shining though!
ReplyDeleteI need to rewatch Rosemary's Baby again!
DeleteI always say I'm not a horror fan but what I really am not is a gore fan. But the type you picked which lean much more into cerebral are one I tend to really enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI had seen bits and pieces of Rosemary's Baby over the years but I only saw if from beginning to end a couple of years ago. I went on a Polanski binge after watching his Repulsion and this is one that I made sure to see. It was creepy and very effective. Mia should have been nominated for it.
I didn't like either Carrie or The Shining as much as their source books but both are solid adaptations. Sissy and Piper Laurie are electrifying in the first, Nicholson deeply unsettling in the latter.
The theme is very wide open this week and enjoying a psychological thriller myself it took a bit to get down to just three. I focused on films that slanted more towards the crazy end of the psychological spectrum.
The Baby (1973)-Recently widowed social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) is given the case of the Wadsworth family: raspy-voiced Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman in a wonderfully complex performance), her two very strange adult daughters Alba and Germaine (Suzanne Zenor & Mariana Hill), and her 21-year-old son Baby (David Mooney) whom they have kept infantilized to the point that he still lives in a crib and diapers. Discovering that Baby’s condition isn’t physiological but rather a result of abuse and neglect Ann tries to intercede, but Mrs. Wadsworth is having none of it. Thus begins a battle that escalates to extremes as Mrs. Wadsworth fights to keep control and Ann insists that she’s only interested in Baby’s best interests…. but is she?
Shock Corridor (1963)-In pursuit of a Pulitzer Prize ambitious reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) feigns madness and has himself committed to an insane asylum to investigate and solve a recent murder sure it will win him the award. But once inside the rigors and horrors of confinement lead him to slowly lose his grip on reality. Lurid by necessity but director Sam Fuller keeps a firm hand preventing the film from slipping into exploitation.
Shutter Island (2010)-In the 50’s two Federal Marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), enter the peculiar dream like world of Ashecliffe Hospital, an insane asylum located on the remote, windswept Shutter Island, to investigate an apparent escape from the seemingly impenetrable skerry. As a hurricane engulfs the madhouse the men and in particular Teddy begin to question all they know as both their safety and sanity are imperiled. Top-flight Scorsese uses a very effective fractured version of the great Dinah Washington song “This Bitter Earth” to maintain the film’s edgy vibe all the way through the credits.
Oh man! I almost forgot about Shutter Island! I really need to watch that movie!
DeleteI really liked The Shining, but I can't say the same for the other two. I really hated Rosemary's Baby, and wasn't much of a fan of Carrie either.
ReplyDeleteThe Shining was a fantastic movie!
DeleteGreat picks, Ronyell! I've watched The Shining and am familiar with Rosemary's Baby and Carrie. I agree with Joel: I've often said I'm not a horror fan either but I think actually it's the gore and violence I don't enjoy.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. Some horror films can go a bit too overboard with the gore and violence.
DeleteThose are three great picks! I tremenoudly enjoyed all of them (and the books they are based on)
ReplyDeleteI remembered reading Carrie when I was younger and I really enjoyed the book!
DeleteI have not seen Rosemary’s Baby but I would love to. Carrie is great and you really feel bad for this girl and her prom date who dies..poor American Hero( was a fun tv show). The Shining is just beyond creepy with those 2 freaky looking girls.
ReplyDelete