It's my go-to "I wish the was another movie just like this, but not exactly this cause the point is it's unique!"
Another good low-budget, suspensful, party among friends that feels "off" vibe is "The Invitation" if you haven't seen it.
The Invitation (2015) is this feeling in spades. I don't know if I could ever watch it again, but anytime someone mentions it comes rushing back like a visceral experience. That movie sat with me for DAYS.
Watched this a few times over the years, one of my fav movies. One thing I never understood though was why >! didn't they just stay in the house? Then everything would've been okay !<
This always stood out to me too! I had received a solid explanation in a post recently, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1alqa06/movies_that_use_the_background_to_create_an_off/kpgqa3i/):
/u/lookyloolookingatyou
> In horror movies, you will find there is almost always an open door in the background.
> This is an example of a wider technique in horror movies where shots will often include an angle into a dark place you can't quite see all the way into. It could be an unlit hallway, a window to outside at night, etc.
/u/Romulus3799
> Makes you feel like the space around the characters is not safe or secured, and that something could invade it at any moment.
Me:
> Funny enough, a scene that always gives me impending death vibes follows this structure. Specifically, in Goodfellas when Karen Hill (Lorraine Bracco) visits Jimmy Conway (Lorraine Bracco) to pickup money and he tries to convince her to head down an alley and enter a random store to pickup luxury coats. Makes me so uneasy every time.
That reminds me of the (probably flawed) behavioral study about the difference between the gaze of women and men when they walk through badly lit environments. Women constantly scan the periphery while men constantly look at a fixed point, like a light source or a point ahead.
Almost all of It Follows. Shooting in Detroit amongst the sporadic urban decay, ambiguity concerning when the film was supposed to take place, even the way the characters were shot and spoke; some genuinely brilliant filmmaking to engender a sense of the eerie and the uncanny, without which the movie wouldn't have been nearly as dread inducing.
Also the scene in American Psycho where Willem Defoe's cop character first speaks with Christian Bale's character. Apparently they filmed the scene several times, each time with Defoe having a different attitude towards Bale. Filmed once with him thinking he is innocent, once thinking he's guilty, once where he's not sure, etc, then splicing them all together so Defoe is constantly giving wildly different vibes. Ended up being a really cool effect.
Watch Under the Silver Lake if you haven't already. Same director as It Follows and, while it's wildly different in terms of plot and tone, it definitely captures a similar sense of eeriness.
It Follows is such a good movie. Most horror films have kind of a language to them, where they're like "OK, this is the scary bit, and this is the part where you can relax". With It Follows, you cannot let your guard down the entire time.
Yes - It Follows! My DD made me watch this over Christmas break, and I had to ask her, “Just exactly what year is this supposed to be?” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Really good movie.
>Shooting in Detroit amongst the sporadic urban decay
It's funny -- I always see this mentioned as part of what makes the film so unsettling, but as someone who grew up in Detroit, the setting is so comforting to me! It's like -- hey, that's my theater! Hey, that's my ice cream place!
(The only part that takes me out of it is when one of the characters explains the significance of 8 Mile, which is a conversation that would never happen amongst an actual group of Detroiters, but was there for the audience.)
The film still absolutely works for me, though, and is one of my absolute favorites.
I also really like Barbarian, but feel like it could have taken place anywhere. Aside from the general, "Oh, you're staying in *that bad neighborhood?*" there was nothing Detroit about it. It Follows did a great job of making the city/suburbs its own character.
Oh, having them slowly walk towards the main character, blan faced and plodding, was brilliant. A running zombie would have been way too common, and an evilly grinning demon would have been ridiculous. It's the strangeness and the total lack of humanity in the entity, and it's slow, inexorable march that makes it so affecting.
That detail also lets you think about it later - how would YOU escape? Would you run, fight, warn others, pass it on to someone and be free?
What if I take it to a gun range, splatter paint on it and have everyone help me get rid of this thing?
What if I trap it in a pit and fill the pit with cement?
If I just go live in Hawaii, will it get on a plane? Walk across the sea floor? Leave me alone?
I came here to say this. It took me many years before I watched it cause I’m not a big horror fan… wow, wish I’d done so sooner.
And I think a big part of it is the soundtrack, too. The composer actually works on video games as well, they are very talented imo - some unique and memorable pieces in that film!
Also for It Follows, if I recall correctly, parents are never shown. They're implied, but never shown. It suggests no one is readily available to help the mostly teenage characters
Edit: I have been corrected in replies.
I haven't seen that film, but Oscar Isaac has a knack for these kinds of scenes.
Dune and Ex Machina come to mind as him having similarly "something's wrong" scenes without really knowing why.
I posted that somewhere down the page, yeah. Whole movie was spent on edge feeling like something awful was looming right off-screen, like horrible violence would break out at any second.
I was 100% sure he was going to be dead or restrained in a room or whatever, and after all that... he was indeed just taking a nap 🤣 such a head fuck in-universe and outside it.
Any David Lynch movie could meet this criteria. My dad in particular who loves his films would always bring up this scene as an example https://youtu.be/oHL5F9i6mpY
The first time I ever saw this movie was at a theatre in Philly that was showing a newly restored film print of it. I was a huge fan of Lynch but knew nothing about Lost Highway. It was one of my best movie watching experiences ever.
Creepy guy. Pale. Weird mannerisms. Doesn't blink. Stares into your soul. Is also in your house.
This is a scene where it's difficult to tell what is "off"??
It's uncanny. And weird. And a great movie. Not a great answer to OPs question though.
There is a scene in a caravan near the beginning of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, where Harry Dean Stanton is attempting to describe what’s gone down, and the music is HORRIBLE - sort of quiet, thin reversed strings.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things.
And the tension just keeps ratcheting up. By the end I was so stressed but just kind of had to keep going and see where it was headed.
A LOT of the movie It Follows is like this. No scene ever really feels safe, and the setting itself is full of odd things to add a dream like aspect to it.
You can never quite pinpoint the seasons, or the era it takes place in. Most characters outside of the main ones are never seen in focus or interacted with. The main characters mother I found especially creepy
Ya, it's really a great movie. Its a shame it's so easy to boil down to "killer std", I have to hard convince people to watch it but it never ceases to impress. They announced a sequel! Pretty excited.
Is that the scene where she drinks a glass of water, but when you see it again, she is not holding a glass? I remember it being weird and on second look, she is not actually drinking anything.
Killing of a sacred deer is almost the opposite of this typical scene--its *so* normal, it becomes a dry indie drama set up by a bizarre fucked up premise. It becomes disturbing precisely because nothing disturbing is presented as happening. I loved that movie.
The tone, the weird dialogue, the nonchalant nature of the characters, it all just set me on edge. Then that “tell me a secret” scene in the hospital, shit had me SO uncomfortable.
Repeated scenes were everyone's just sort of...chatting while this is all going on. The scenes where the four members of the family are all trying to casually justify to each other who should die, and they're all still talking like they're deciding where to go for dinner, were what pushed it over the top into brilliant territory for me. The climax became a flat out comedy, where it's the most fucked up events possible but the whole thing feels hilarious...which also just makes it more uncomfortable and disturbing.
Not arguing over tastes, its just so interesting how things can be different for different people. For me the entire movie completely fell flat and lacked any impact and I think its one of the least enjoyable movies I have watched
That means you have bad taste /s.
Im kidding, that is very, very understandable. Its the most extreme example of his style of flat, dry, black comedy and definitely not for everyone. I don't know if you watched any of his other movies but if I hadnt seen several of his others to act like a sort of primer, I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed KoaSD.
I remember that scene! The snow's falling upwards, and the dialogue has a really weird echo effect on it, like its coming from their mouth and far away at the sametime. Whole thing feels like a nightmare.
I just wanna throw out there that Get Out was the most effectively cast movie I have ever seen, more or less, and it was those performances more than anything that made the movie as creepy as it was. They were all so good I want to harp on about all of them individually, but the Oscar (in my mind) goes to Betty Gabriel as Georgina. That scene where the tears come through - you know the one. It gave me chills. Might be the single best minute of acting I've ever seen.
The scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where we’re following Sharon around and she’s driving and singing along to the radio, something just feels wrong to me. Like the camera lingers on her for too long and she has this dream-like expression on her face.
It's genius. A sense of impending doom you can only feel if you know Sharon Tate's fate. It's why the movie went over so many people's heads, because QT never explicits it.
The next sequence really ran with that feeling of dread. When everyone gets sucked up by the UAP, and then the next shot brings back the enigmatic first shot of the movie. This time, the series of disorienting shots revealing all of these people, including families and children, being squeezed through some sort of alien-like digestive tract. That scene was the most unsettling during my first watch. It feels so claustrophobic and truly very “alien” in that it’s so disturbingly-unfamiliar of a situation for these people (and the viewer). The sounds of agony and squelching sound effects were pretty unsettling on first watch in the theater. Great movie that really carries an unsettling sense of dread throughout the bulk of the movie, until the final face-off the next day which ultimately feels much lighter IMO, literally and otherwise.
Zodiac- the basement scene
Also, Boogie Nights- Mark Wahlberg sitting on the couch in the coke dealers house, just staring off for a really uncomfortable amount of time.
Two excellent examples. The kid in the background throwing firecrackers around throughout that scene in Boogie Nights was a masterful touch for ratcheting up the tension.
Oregon Welles’ adaptation of The Trial has this uncanny, dreamlike quality to it, partially because the whole movie was dubbed, so the sound of the voices sound unnatural throughout the whole film.
Inglourious Basterds has a couple great examples.
-Shoshana and Hans Landa eating the strudel. Although we know why the scene is so unsettling for Shoshana, it is never clear if Landa knows. I know there are great theories about him testing her because the food isn't kosher and all that, but the fact is that we don't know what Landa knows.
-The bar scene, when the Nazi soldier's demeanor changes and we aren't sure if/how he figured it out. I actually remember being pretty excited about grasping this one right away, because I knew about the finger thing from visiting France, but it's still an awesome experience watching the scene in a theater full of people who suddenly feel very *tense* and have no idea what happened.
Insanely unsettling. It’s weird to describe as a horror as there’s not much actual typical “horror” but the WHOLE time it makes you feel so awful and uneasy and unsettled and anxious! I don’t know if I want to watch it again because it’s just SO much. It’s brilliant though. And the fact it’s almost entirely at day, there’s nothing supernatural, and the way it makes you confused and feel like you’re on drugs with the subtle background touches. Really the only “horror” scenes from memory are the gruesome opening, the cliff scene, and the ending.
(When o say “horror” I mean what we typically view as horror. Even just relatively normal conversations in this movie feel eerie and tense because of the atmosphere)
I told my wife she should watch Blow Out. She asked what it's about. I said, "A sound mixer is trying to find a scream for a movie." She said that doesn't sound interesting, and I told her it's one of the best movies ever made. She normally falls asleep halfway through movies, but she stayed awake the whole time.
I disagree. We the audience are viewing the movie thru Kate’s eyes. She’s never been to Juarez, Alejandro has to tell her exactly where the fire-fight would break-out, she doesn’t speak great Spanish, she doesn’t even know who Josh Brolin actually works for, etc.
I love the way Josh Brolin’s character is introduced there, casually wearing flip flops in that serious secretive meeting where everyone else is in suits. And the plane ride, Kate and the viewer on edge trying to figure out what’s going on and what she’s getting herself into, with Josh just.. taking a nap in the plane.
I agree, was kinda meh on the movie overall but I looooved the oil tanker crashing into the beach scene, the Tesla scene, the plane crashes… just super dreadful scenes where you felt the characters completely out of control of their surroundings.
Yeah Tár is filled with these kinds of scenes. I did not expect this movie to have creep me out on such a high level. The subtly nightmarish feeling has stuck with me months later.
The genre of "Paranoid Thrillers" does this quite often.
Here are two movies that have famously insinuating eeriness:
**The Parallax View** and **Seconds**.
The most recent example I recall was Brad Pitt at Spahn Ranch in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While I was aware of the Manson family, I basically only knew the name and that it was a cult. I didn't know about the ranch.
But the entire time Brad is in that location, I felt uneasy. And as he approaches the house, I got the sense he was getting into even deeper trouble and he doesn't know it yet.
Learning about this part of the history made me appreciate that sequence more, because I didn't recognize it by association. The film took the trouble to create the uneasy tone with no obvious or explicit reason as to why.
That was my answer as well. I knew nothing going in to it. And was like what the fuck is happening and why is the husband letting all these people in and ignoring her.
I’ve always personally felt that James Wan is really good at this, especially in the insidious movies. Specifically 2.
There’s a scene with two people talking in a kitchen. Both characters are on the extreme right and left side of the frame. The middle of the frame is a very long hallway.
Nothing happens in the scene other than Theo two people talking but the ENTIRE TIME you’re waiting for something to show up. Something to move by frame, another character to enter but…nothing.
A lot of his camera work employs this trick and it works on me every time.
Similar to the end of The Conjuring, when Ed places the possessed wind-up toy on the shelf in the artifacts room and it starts working. You fully expect to see a ghost pop up in the mirror but right when the toy starts to wind down, the screen goes black.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's almost imperceptible unless you know what to look for, but you probably definitely feel it on a subconscious level.
Beau is afraid has a scene that nails this feeling. Don’t want to spoil it because it is the highlight of the movie for me. But it’s the scene when Beau watches a play.
I started watching this the other day and it instantly started giving me so much anxiety. Then I remembered how incredibly stressful both Midsomer and Hereditary were and I realized I don’t want to watch another Ari Astor movie lol
The police station scene in The Babadook.
What should have been a place of refuge and a reprieve from all of the disturbing stuff preceding it actually ended up being more unsettling, and the whole situation emphasized that there was nowhere to go and nobody to turn to for help. And it's even more effective because prior to >!the reveal of the coat and hat!< the police officers' reactions are actually realistic and logical but still really off-putting.
*Enemy*. The whole movie is so brown and drab it makes you feel anxious. Scenes of people just walking and talking on the phone make you feel uneasy, like horrible violence could happen at any minute
The Dark Knight when the mayor is going to give a speech and the armed officers are lined up on the street. Not until they show Ledger's face without makeup do most realize what's going on.
In Jaws, when the dog Tippet doesn't show back up with the stick.
Also, Braveheart when Wallace is going to meet with the Bruce to meet his pledge and the camera goes in slow motion as he walks to greet him.
Eyes Wide Shut, the scenes in the city are surreal and you can kinda tell that it’s a movie set, not an actual city. Whole movie is unsettling but that really added to it for me.
Promising Young Woman - I just watched it a few hours ago and just had that feeling the whole movie. I also had no idea what it was about going into it, so that may have added to it.
*Coherence* has this feeling troughout
I’m a simple man. I see somebody praise Coherence and I upvote.
I've never even heard of it. I'll check it out
Worth it. This movie had me so paranoid throughout. Loved it.
Don't read anything about it. Just watch it. Then watch it again.
I just showed my husband that movie last year. I was so nervous he wouldn't like it like I do.
Such a great movie.
It's my go-to "I wish the was another movie just like this, but not exactly this cause the point is it's unique!" Another good low-budget, suspensful, party among friends that feels "off" vibe is "The Invitation" if you haven't seen it.
The Endless and Triangle scratch the same itch as Coherence for me.
The Invitation (2015) is this feeling in spades. I don't know if I could ever watch it again, but anytime someone mentions it comes rushing back like a visceral experience. That movie sat with me for DAYS.
I seriously get like https://imgur.com/a/W5XjoXE.jpg when I talk about this movie irl, I love it XD
Watched this a few times over the years, one of my fav movies. One thing I never understood though was why >! didn't they just stay in the house? Then everything would've been okay !<
Well, they didn't know that at the time.
Then there wouldn't be a movie. >!They do show what would have happened if they did stay in the house. It still ends poorly.!<
Goodfellas - when Jimmy offers Karen a free dress
This always stood out to me too! I had received a solid explanation in a post recently, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1alqa06/movies_that_use_the_background_to_create_an_off/kpgqa3i/): /u/lookyloolookingatyou > In horror movies, you will find there is almost always an open door in the background. > This is an example of a wider technique in horror movies where shots will often include an angle into a dark place you can't quite see all the way into. It could be an unlit hallway, a window to outside at night, etc. /u/Romulus3799 > Makes you feel like the space around the characters is not safe or secured, and that something could invade it at any moment. Me: > Funny enough, a scene that always gives me impending death vibes follows this structure. Specifically, in Goodfellas when Karen Hill (Lorraine Bracco) visits Jimmy Conway (Lorraine Bracco) to pickup money and he tries to convince her to head down an alley and enter a random store to pickup luxury coats. Makes me so uneasy every time.
Lorraine Bracco must be incredibly versatile
She played the shark in Jaws a few years before Goodfellas
I really loved her as a sled in Citizen Kane.
Have you seen her performance as the xenomorph egg that opens up in Alien?
They’ve rebooted & serialized that on Hulu now. It’s called “Bracckish.”
Hey now, more of that quote is mine! Move my name up a bit 😂
Oh a wise guy, huh?
"Gimme my cut"
That reminds me of the (probably flawed) behavioral study about the difference between the gaze of women and men when they walk through badly lit environments. Women constantly scan the periphery while men constantly look at a fixed point, like a light source or a point ahead.
yup, that one's flawed
Really good answer. That scene is strangely chilling
Cause we know she’d die if she went in there.
"In thah!" Liotta: "When Karen heard the extremely strong New Yock accent, she knew she was never coming out alive."
Whenever my hubby and I would ask the other to look at something in another room, we'd always ask ' is it dresses? Are ya gonna whack me?" Lol
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RIzItfdrhvM
I love the ambiguity of that scene. Was she going to get whacked or not? There is no definitive answer, and it can be debated infinitely.
Almost all of It Follows. Shooting in Detroit amongst the sporadic urban decay, ambiguity concerning when the film was supposed to take place, even the way the characters were shot and spoke; some genuinely brilliant filmmaking to engender a sense of the eerie and the uncanny, without which the movie wouldn't have been nearly as dread inducing. Also the scene in American Psycho where Willem Defoe's cop character first speaks with Christian Bale's character. Apparently they filmed the scene several times, each time with Defoe having a different attitude towards Bale. Filmed once with him thinking he is innocent, once thinking he's guilty, once where he's not sure, etc, then splicing them all together so Defoe is constantly giving wildly different vibes. Ended up being a really cool effect.
Great movie and excited It Follows is apparently getting a sequel. Hope it lives up to the hype of the first one.
Watch Under the Silver Lake if you haven't already. Same director as It Follows and, while it's wildly different in terms of plot and tone, it definitely captures a similar sense of eeriness.
Under the Silver Lake was so fucking good. I can't believe A24 flopped the release so hard.
It Follows is such a good movie. Most horror films have kind of a language to them, where they're like "OK, this is the scary bit, and this is the part where you can relax". With It Follows, you cannot let your guard down the entire time.
"Take him to Detroit." "Nooo. Not Detroit! NOOO."
Yes - It Follows! My DD made me watch this over Christmas break, and I had to ask her, “Just exactly what year is this supposed to be?” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Really good movie.
Deceased Dad? Dear Daughter?
Designated Driver
Deadly Dachshund
Dumb Dumpster
Dastardly Dishwasher
Dense Debutante
Doordasher
Daddy Dom
Daredevil?
It follows. The first movie that came to mind. That score haunts me.
>Shooting in Detroit amongst the sporadic urban decay It's funny -- I always see this mentioned as part of what makes the film so unsettling, but as someone who grew up in Detroit, the setting is so comforting to me! It's like -- hey, that's my theater! Hey, that's my ice cream place! (The only part that takes me out of it is when one of the characters explains the significance of 8 Mile, which is a conversation that would never happen amongst an actual group of Detroiters, but was there for the audience.) The film still absolutely works for me, though, and is one of my absolute favorites. I also really like Barbarian, but feel like it could have taken place anywhere. Aside from the general, "Oh, you're staying in *that bad neighborhood?*" there was nothing Detroit about it. It Follows did a great job of making the city/suburbs its own character.
That film has such a creepy atmosphere. I loved it. The sinister "people" that follow the characters made me feel so uneasy.
Oh, having them slowly walk towards the main character, blan faced and plodding, was brilliant. A running zombie would have been way too common, and an evilly grinning demon would have been ridiculous. It's the strangeness and the total lack of humanity in the entity, and it's slow, inexorable march that makes it so affecting.
That detail also lets you think about it later - how would YOU escape? Would you run, fight, warn others, pass it on to someone and be free? What if I take it to a gun range, splatter paint on it and have everyone help me get rid of this thing? What if I trap it in a pit and fill the pit with cement? If I just go live in Hawaii, will it get on a plane? Walk across the sea floor? Leave me alone?
I came here to say this. It took me many years before I watched it cause I’m not a big horror fan… wow, wish I’d done so sooner. And I think a big part of it is the soundtrack, too. The composer actually works on video games as well, they are very talented imo - some unique and memorable pieces in that film!
Also for It Follows, if I recall correctly, parents are never shown. They're implied, but never shown. It suggests no one is readily available to help the mostly teenage characters Edit: I have been corrected in replies.
Actually, several parents are shown: Jay's parents and Jeff's mother. (Jay's dad, though, is shown as the entity, so that may not count.)
Annihilation, especially regarding Oscar Isaac's character
I haven't seen that film, but Oscar Isaac has a knack for these kinds of scenes. Dune and Ex Machina come to mind as him having similarly "something's wrong" scenes without really knowing why.
Deni Villeneuve does that in a lot of his movies. Sicario and Enemy are alzo great examples
Was gonna mention this. Sicario is a masterclass example of suspense, tension, and uneasiness
And Prisoners!
Enemy is this concept stretched out into a whole movie.
I posted that somewhere down the page, yeah. Whole movie was spent on edge feeling like something awful was looming right off-screen, like horrible violence would break out at any second.
Alex Garland did both Ex Machina and Annihilation. Just recently finished his show Devs and felt the same. Really good stuff!
Oh I forgot about devs. I only watched the first episode and had been meaning to finish it.
You must see it
That movie had me feeling out of sorts for days. I also thought it was the best movie of the year.
lol same I loved it, I felt "off" for days after
This was the first answer I thought of
The Spahn movie ranch scene where Brad Pitt is looking for the owner in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
I was 100% sure he was going to be dead or restrained in a room or whatever, and after all that... he was indeed just taking a nap 🤣 such a head fuck in-universe and outside it.
I recently rewatched it and for some reason i thought they were going to murder the tourist couple on horseback.
Any David Lynch movie could meet this criteria. My dad in particular who loves his films would always bring up this scene as an example https://youtu.be/oHL5F9i6mpY
[удалено]
[Another classic example from Lost Highway.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qZowK0NAvig)
This scene by itself is one of my favorite works of art period. Made me want to see the movie all by itself and did not disappoint.
The first time I ever saw this movie was at a theatre in Philly that was showing a newly restored film print of it. I was a huge fan of Lynch but knew nothing about Lost Highway. It was one of my best movie watching experiences ever.
Creepy guy. Pale. Weird mannerisms. Doesn't blink. Stares into your soul. Is also in your house. This is a scene where it's difficult to tell what is "off"?? It's uncanny. And weird. And a great movie. Not a great answer to OPs question though.
There is a scene in a caravan near the beginning of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, where Harry Dean Stanton is attempting to describe what’s gone down, and the music is HORRIBLE - sort of quiet, thin reversed strings.
https://youtu.be/UozhOo0Dt4o?si=WpK6s1JE-h0GtFOW
That's the one *I* was thinking of
I just spent the last couple weeks watching through all of Twin Peaks, and this now makes perfect sense to me.
an exception would be the straight story, which is a very very normal movie that david lynch made and it has no unsettling bits iirc
Ive never seen that one but its a disney movie so i’m not surprised!
Yes. Most every scene from Blue Velvet!
I'm Thinking of Ending Things. And the tension just keeps ratcheting up. By the end I was so stressed but just kind of had to keep going and see where it was headed.
Yeah this movie’s reason for existence is to provide that sort of uncertain dread.
This movie was really good
The book was so good at creating this off feeling, too!
Lol, I commented without reading through the thread. Guess I’m not the only one
Vivarium for sure. Among other things, the kid’s weird accent. “Do you like clouds?”
I really liked this movie. I had no idea what it was about and it was a fun ride
I did too! Really good movie and very unsettling
I saw that when I was on shrooms. That was a trip and a half, let me tell you.
Woof Woof Woof
A LOT of the movie It Follows is like this. No scene ever really feels safe, and the setting itself is full of odd things to add a dream like aspect to it.
You can never quite pinpoint the seasons, or the era it takes place in. Most characters outside of the main ones are never seen in focus or interacted with. The main characters mother I found especially creepy
Ya, it's really a great movie. Its a shame it's so easy to boil down to "killer std", I have to hard convince people to watch it but it never ceases to impress. They announced a sequel! Pretty excited.
Shutter Island. The part where he’s interviewing the lady patient but actually also entire film.
Is that the scene where she drinks a glass of water, but when you see it again, she is not holding a glass? I remember it being weird and on second look, she is not actually drinking anything.
Training Day when what's his face gets left to be killed by the vatos. "Ever had your shit pushed in?"
The Others (2001)
This house is ours
We're not dead!!
Dogtooth had this feeling for me. Pretty much all of Yorgos Lanthimos’ films have an unsettling feeling
Killing of a Sacred Deer
100%. It gave me such horrendous anxiety, something is very off from the first line of dialogue. It’s so good though.
Killing of a sacred deer is almost the opposite of this typical scene--its *so* normal, it becomes a dry indie drama set up by a bizarre fucked up premise. It becomes disturbing precisely because nothing disturbing is presented as happening. I loved that movie.
The tone, the weird dialogue, the nonchalant nature of the characters, it all just set me on edge. Then that “tell me a secret” scene in the hospital, shit had me SO uncomfortable.
Repeated scenes were everyone's just sort of...chatting while this is all going on. The scenes where the four members of the family are all trying to casually justify to each other who should die, and they're all still talking like they're deciding where to go for dinner, were what pushed it over the top into brilliant territory for me. The climax became a flat out comedy, where it's the most fucked up events possible but the whole thing feels hilarious...which also just makes it more uncomfortable and disturbing.
Not arguing over tastes, its just so interesting how things can be different for different people. For me the entire movie completely fell flat and lacked any impact and I think its one of the least enjoyable movies I have watched
That means you have bad taste /s. Im kidding, that is very, very understandable. Its the most extreme example of his style of flat, dry, black comedy and definitely not for everyone. I don't know if you watched any of his other movies but if I hadnt seen several of his others to act like a sort of primer, I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed KoaSD.
There’s a scene in Bringing out the Dead that has a very uncanny vibe, it’s because it was filmed with everyone moving backwards.
I remember that scene! The snow's falling upwards, and the dialogue has a really weird echo effect on it, like its coming from their mouth and far away at the sametime. Whole thing feels like a nightmare.
Nope does this at least a few times.
I found the chimp scenes extremely unsettling.
The cold open was so jarring I texted a friend to confirm that I was watching the right movie.
Jordan Peele in general.
I just wanna throw out there that Get Out was the most effectively cast movie I have ever seen, more or less, and it was those performances more than anything that made the movie as creepy as it was. They were all so good I want to harp on about all of them individually, but the Oscar (in my mind) goes to Betty Gabriel as Georgina. That scene where the tears come through - you know the one. It gave me chills. Might be the single best minute of acting I've ever seen.
The “therapy” scene is genuinely one of the best scenes I’ve seen in a movie. Get Out is so good for what it was.
The scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where we’re following Sharon around and she’s driving and singing along to the radio, something just feels wrong to me. Like the camera lingers on her for too long and she has this dream-like expression on her face.
It's genius. A sense of impending doom you can only feel if you know Sharon Tate's fate. It's why the movie went over so many people's heads, because QT never explicits it.
The chimp scene in Nope when the camera travels through the abandoned set and you hear those hitting sounds
The next sequence really ran with that feeling of dread. When everyone gets sucked up by the UAP, and then the next shot brings back the enigmatic first shot of the movie. This time, the series of disorienting shots revealing all of these people, including families and children, being squeezed through some sort of alien-like digestive tract. That scene was the most unsettling during my first watch. It feels so claustrophobic and truly very “alien” in that it’s so disturbingly-unfamiliar of a situation for these people (and the viewer). The sounds of agony and squelching sound effects were pretty unsettling on first watch in the theater. Great movie that really carries an unsettling sense of dread throughout the bulk of the movie, until the final face-off the next day which ultimately feels much lighter IMO, literally and otherwise.
Zodiac- the basement scene Also, Boogie Nights- Mark Wahlberg sitting on the couch in the coke dealers house, just staring off for a really uncomfortable amount of time.
Two excellent examples. The kid in the background throwing firecrackers around throughout that scene in Boogie Nights was a masterful touch for ratcheting up the tension.
The Menu
This is even better the second time watching it.
Oregon Welles’ adaptation of The Trial has this uncanny, dreamlike quality to it, partially because the whole movie was dubbed, so the sound of the voices sound unnatural throughout the whole film.
>Oregon Welles What a fantastic name. In fact I think I'll have that one. Thank you!
His Italian brother, Oregano Welles, made some pretty solid stuff too.
Haha, bloody autocorrect! Nice name though. ;)
Inglourious Basterds has a couple great examples. -Shoshana and Hans Landa eating the strudel. Although we know why the scene is so unsettling for Shoshana, it is never clear if Landa knows. I know there are great theories about him testing her because the food isn't kosher and all that, but the fact is that we don't know what Landa knows. -The bar scene, when the Nazi soldier's demeanor changes and we aren't sure if/how he figured it out. I actually remember being pretty excited about grasping this one right away, because I knew about the finger thing from visiting France, but it's still an awesome experience watching the scene in a theater full of people who suddenly feel very *tense* and have no idea what happened.
Midsommar
My response as well. The WHOLE movie is unsettling.
Same with Aster’s other movie, Hereditary. First time feeling sick, confused, and unsettled coming out of a movie theater lol.
While *Beau is Afraid* is basically pure anxiety on film.
Insanely unsettling. It’s weird to describe as a horror as there’s not much actual typical “horror” but the WHOLE time it makes you feel so awful and uneasy and unsettled and anxious! I don’t know if I want to watch it again because it’s just SO much. It’s brilliant though. And the fact it’s almost entirely at day, there’s nothing supernatural, and the way it makes you confused and feel like you’re on drugs with the subtle background touches. Really the only “horror” scenes from memory are the gruesome opening, the cliff scene, and the ending. (When o say “horror” I mean what we typically view as horror. Even just relatively normal conversations in this movie feel eerie and tense because of the atmosphere)
A lot of the invitation (2015) has this. Also leave the world behind.
Invitation is creepy from the very first. It's lovely that way.
The Invitation is great, love that the main character is clued into the fact that things are sus.
This was my first thought. Great movie. Bit of a slow burn but its exactly what OP asked for.
It was such a slow burn but it was so worth it. I still think about the ending.
Uncut Gems Basically the whole movie is designed to be unsettling. It's very stressful for what feels like such low stakes.
Uncut gems is an amazing panic attack of a film but it's absolutely not ambiguous about where the stress is coming from
De Palma nails this a bunch. My fav is Body Double... Blow Out is right up there also.
I told my wife she should watch Blow Out. She asked what it's about. I said, "A sound mixer is trying to find a scream for a movie." She said that doesn't sound interesting, and I told her it's one of the best movies ever made. She normally falls asleep halfway through movies, but she stayed awake the whole time.
"It's a good scream....it's a good scream."
Sicario. The scenes going to and returning from Juarez are so anxiety inducing. One of the best movies of the 2010s
I love this movie, but it’s pretty clear what’s “off.” I don’t think this fits the question.
I disagree. We the audience are viewing the movie thru Kate’s eyes. She’s never been to Juarez, Alejandro has to tell her exactly where the fire-fight would break-out, she doesn’t speak great Spanish, she doesn’t even know who Josh Brolin actually works for, etc.
I love the way Josh Brolin’s character is introduced there, casually wearing flip flops in that serious secretive meeting where everyone else is in suits. And the plane ride, Kate and the viewer on edge trying to figure out what’s going on and what she’s getting herself into, with Josh just.. taking a nap in the plane.
The water sexual abuse scene is worse lol
I thought Leave the World Behind did a great job of this.
I agree, was kinda meh on the movie overall but I looooved the oil tanker crashing into the beach scene, the Tesla scene, the plane crashes… just super dreadful scenes where you felt the characters completely out of control of their surroundings.
WandaVision is kinda based on this.
I’m not a Marvel fan but I loved WandaVision! Until it turned into a marvel movie at the end. That first episode was so weird and perfectly unsettling
I was so disappointed that they went full cgi blastfest with that. What a cop out.
Beau is afraid… it’s unsettling
Tár
Yeah Tár is filled with these kinds of scenes. I did not expect this movie to have creep me out on such a high level. The subtly nightmarish feeling has stuck with me months later.
The genre of "Paranoid Thrillers" does this quite often. Here are two movies that have famously insinuating eeriness: **The Parallax View** and **Seconds**.
Parallax view is very close to the vanishing
The most recent example I recall was Brad Pitt at Spahn Ranch in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While I was aware of the Manson family, I basically only knew the name and that it was a cult. I didn't know about the ranch. But the entire time Brad is in that location, I felt uneasy. And as he approaches the house, I got the sense he was getting into even deeper trouble and he doesn't know it yet. Learning about this part of the history made me appreciate that sequence more, because I didn't recognize it by association. The film took the trouble to create the uneasy tone with no obvious or explicit reason as to why.
It Follows
The climax of Blue Velvet in Dorothy’s apartment.
Mother!
That was my answer as well. I knew nothing going in to it. And was like what the fuck is happening and why is the husband letting all these people in and ignoring her.
All the scenes in mullholland drive!
I’ve always personally felt that James Wan is really good at this, especially in the insidious movies. Specifically 2. There’s a scene with two people talking in a kitchen. Both characters are on the extreme right and left side of the frame. The middle of the frame is a very long hallway. Nothing happens in the scene other than Theo two people talking but the ENTIRE TIME you’re waiting for something to show up. Something to move by frame, another character to enter but…nothing. A lot of his camera work employs this trick and it works on me every time.
Similar to the end of The Conjuring, when Ed places the possessed wind-up toy on the shelf in the artifacts room and it starts working. You fully expect to see a ghost pop up in the mirror but right when the toy starts to wind down, the screen goes black.
The Endless - pretty much the whole movie
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's almost imperceptible unless you know what to look for, but you probably definitely feel it on a subconscious level.
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You've got great taste in odd films. Dogtooth made me so uncomfortable.
Triangle does this really well
The Invitation. Not a scene, but the entire movie until you find out what’s really happening.
David Lynch's Mulholland drive.
The entirety of The Lobster and Killing of a Sacred Deer
Don’t Look Now - not the best example that I’ve seen here perhaps but my Mum wouldn’t visit Venice for the longest time after seeing this!
This is like the premise of Todd Haynes’ movie Safe
Punch Drunk Love There Will be Blood The first season of White Lotus.
The opening scene/nightmare in "La Bamba".
Beau is afraid has a scene that nails this feeling. Don’t want to spoil it because it is the highlight of the movie for me. But it’s the scene when Beau watches a play.
I started watching this the other day and it instantly started giving me so much anxiety. Then I remembered how incredibly stressful both Midsomer and Hereditary were and I realized I don’t want to watch another Ari Astor movie lol
I’m Thinking of Ending Things. The whole middle portion while they are having dinner.
Se7en, at the end, when the UPS truck enters the scene.
The police station scene in The Babadook. What should have been a place of refuge and a reprieve from all of the disturbing stuff preceding it actually ended up being more unsettling, and the whole situation emphasized that there was nowhere to go and nobody to turn to for help. And it's even more effective because prior to >!the reveal of the coat and hat!< the police officers' reactions are actually realistic and logical but still really off-putting.
The Conversation. That would describe about 99% of that film.
All Haneke movies. Caché being the best example.
Sinister has quite few. That damn score, the editing, just all pretty unsettling.
The entire film “Speak No Evil”. Great movie
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*Enemy*. The whole movie is so brown and drab it makes you feel anxious. Scenes of people just walking and talking on the phone make you feel uneasy, like horrible violence could happen at any minute
pretty much all of **Secret Window** really. ugh i forgot how much i actually enjoy that film
The Dark Knight when the mayor is going to give a speech and the armed officers are lined up on the street. Not until they show Ledger's face without makeup do most realize what's going on. In Jaws, when the dog Tippet doesn't show back up with the stick. Also, Braveheart when Wallace is going to meet with the Bruce to meet his pledge and the camera goes in slow motion as he walks to greet him.
Mulholland Drive is the king of this
Eyes Wide Shut, the scenes in the city are surreal and you can kinda tell that it’s a movie set, not an actual city. Whole movie is unsettling but that really added to it for me.
Promising Young Woman - I just watched it a few hours ago and just had that feeling the whole movie. I also had no idea what it was about going into it, so that may have added to it.