7 Movies to Watch If You Liked ‘Unsane’

Hitting theaters this weekend is the psychological thriller Unsane from director Steven Soderbergh, starring Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, and Jay Pharoah. The term “psychological thriller” is often used to try to make a horror film sound more complex than your average slasher or monster movie, but in the case of Unsane, the description is fitting.

In the film, a young woman believes she is being stalked by someone from her past, inspiring her to join a support group for victims of similar situations. While there, the woman is held against her will in the facility where she must confront whether the fears she faces are real-world terrors or if these threats are all in her head.

Whether you enjoyed the film’s tone, themes, or experimental shooting style, we recommend you check out these films after watching Unsane!

‘Side Effects’

One of Soderbergh’s first forays into the thriller genre, Side Effects leans more heavily on twists and turns than the horrors of trying to comprehend one’s reality.

After a woman is prescribed a new drug to help her with her depression, she begins to exhibit deadly symptoms that appear to be a direct result of the medication. Temporarily imprisoned for crimes she committed while under the drug’s influence, audiences are taken on a journey of unraveling a complicated narrative thread to try to uncover if the drugs are to blame for the violent altercations or if there’s a larger conspiracy at play to justify her actions.

‘Black Swan’

Horror films are often ignored and overlooked by the Academy Awards, yet the accomplishments of Black Swan were hard to deny, earning itself multiple nominations while Natalie Portman took home the award for Best Actress.

A ballerina will stop at nothing to become the best performer she can be, despite her instructor claiming that she lacks a certain darkness to fully embrace a coveted role. The dancer attempts to tap into her primal instincts to show that she’s the best choice, but in doing so, she unlocks a darkness about herself that should have stayed locked up.

Director Darren Aronofsky uses subtlety and restraint while crafting his story, creating a paranoia-fueled narrative that has the audience trying to comprehend the reality of the story as desperately as the characters themselves.

‘mother!’

Another perplexing film from Aronofsky, mother! became one of the most controversial films of 2017 as a result of its disturbing imagery and complex themes.

A couple heads to their remote vacation house in hopes of reconnecting with one another, only for a visitor to appear who seemingly has knowledge of the duo. More and more visitors begin to arrive, with the homeowners attempting to be benevolent despite their confusion over all their new guests. As more guests arrive, tensions mount even further, driving the couple apart as they seek answers for all of their new well-wishers.

While the film appeared to be a traditional home invasion film, audiences were treated to much bigger and more metaphorical horrors in this surrealistic nightmare.

‘Unfriended’

Steven Soderbergh has always pushed cinema forward in new and exciting ways, adapting a variety of filmmaking methods to bring a story to life. With Unsane, the filmmaker shot the entire film with an iPhone to add intimacy and authenticity to the story. Unfriended is a more straightforward horror film, but utilizes unconventional techniques to convey its story.

Following the death of a classmate, a group of friends is seemingly tormented from beyond the grave, with a mysterious presence unearthing intimate details about the allies and revealing frightening truths about the classmate’s death.

Screens of various shapes and sizes have begun to dominate our lives, a fear which the film taps into, as the entire film unfolds in real time and all on a computer screen monitor, switching from a Facebook interface to video chats, fully immersing audiences in the ordeal.

‘Jacob’s Ladder’

Following the surge of slasher films in the ’80s, the ’90s brought with it an emphasis on psychological horrors, with Jacob’s Ladder helping pave the way and set the standard for the subgenre.

Having suffered physical and psychological trauma while in the Vietnam War, a man begins having intense and extreme visions, creating difficulty for him in his attempts at figuring out what is a flashback, what is a hallucination, and what’s really happening to him.

Combining nightmarish visions with social commentary about PTSD and the horrors of wars, Jacob’s Ladder signaled a shift away from blood and gore in the previous decade for smarter thrillers that were created as a response to masked maniacs, while also delivering a shocking and horrifying ending.

‘Memento’

The breakout film from director Chris Nolan, the fractured narrative of Memento offers audiences a thriller about the reality a man lives in vs. the reality he creates for himself.

After a devastating home invasion, a man is left with brain damage that prevents him from creating new memories, instead choosing to tattoo his body with clues about how to track down the culprits who attacked him and killed his wife.

Nolan edited the film in a fragmented manner, utilizing the out of sequence scenes to help the audience get into the mindset of the main character, often resulting in a shared confusion of how the characters got themselves into the situations depicted. The narrative is ultimately a pulpy, noir treat, but the effective editing techniques solidified Nolan as one of the more unique voices in contemporary cinema.

‘Shutter Island’

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese has become one of the all-time greatest filmmakers in history, often tackling controversial and compelling subject matter. One of his few forays into the world of horror, Shutter Island reminds audiences that for a narrative to earn the acclaim of Scorsese, it’s for a good reason.

When a patient goes missing from a mental facility to which she was imprisoned for drowning her children, a series of clues begin to appear to investigating detectives that call into question what’s really happening on the island in Boston Harbor. 

Full of twists, turns, and powerful performances, Shutter Island will make you wish Scorsese delved more into horror films, yet also leave you satisfied with his selections.