Turn Your Knuckles White With These Thrillers On Amazon Prime
11/13/2016 07:06 pm EST
Green Room
When a punk band who's hard-pressed for cash reluctantly accepts an offer to play a club run by neo-Nazis, they just try to keep their heads down to get through their gig without any trouble. Unfortunately, the band stumbles across a dead body in the green room and the calm, collected, and calculated owner (played by the terrifying Sir Patrick Stewart) does what he must to prevent the band from contacting authorities. Once the tension starts, the film never lets up and gives audiences one of Anton Yelchin's best, and tragically last, performances.
[H/T YouTube/A24]
Cheap Thrills
Easily the funniest movie on this list, the ultimate tension of the film is heightened by just how hard you were laughing during earlier scenes. When two former schoolmates bump into each other at a bar, they realize just how desperate they are for cash, despite their attempts to appear accomplished. A celebrating couple begin offering the duo cash in exchange for dares, from getting a woman to slap them to punching a bouncer, and the challenges only get more extreme from there. The tension mounts and friendships are tested in a display of just how far these two former classmates are willing to go for some quick dough.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Film Festivals & Indie Films]
I Saw the Devil
A man seeking justice for the murder of his wife and unborn child isn't a new story, but if that man is a secret agent who wants to prolong the punishment of the murdered, you get I Saw the Devil. Not content to just see Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) murdered, Kim Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun) plants a tracker on the accused so he can capture, injure, and release the criminal to his heart's content, leading audiences to wonder what his master plan might be.
[H/T Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing]
Blue Ruin
Most tales of revenge in an action movie glorify the lone vigilante and his impressive skills at dealing out death, but Blue Ruin portrays a man with virtually nothing to live for who is consumed with vengeance towards the man who killed his parents. Star Macon Blair conveys the desperation of a man clearly out of his element in writer/director Jeremy Saulnier's (whose Green Room is also featured) exploration of how, much like dropping a rock in a lake, violence creates ripples that stretch far and wide.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Film Festivals & Indie Films]
Sicario
Emily Blunt stars as an agent recruited to a covert task force to take down the deadly leader of a Mexican drug cartel, but all the hoops she must jump through to prove her skills on the team lead her, and audiences, to question who she can trust. This gripping thriller also stars Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, and Jon Bernthal, who all turn in performances as strong as Blunt's, which heighten the stakes of director Denis Villeneuve's compelling chronicle of corruption.
[H/T YouTube/Lionsgate Movies]
Timecrimes
Movies with time travel can be pretty confusing, but writer/director Nacho Vigalando's Timecrimes gives one of the simplest explanation's of time travel in the last 15 years, while also giving us one of the most engaging and insular stories. As a man tries to unravel a crime through a series of bizarre clues, he discovers that a version of himself from a slightly different time had a hand in the events, and aims to stop the events from occurring at all. Similar to Looper, Timecrimes explores whether or not time is truly linear and what an individual can do to manipulate it.
[H/T YouTube/Shudder]
Under the Skin
We first see Scarlett Johansson's unnamed character stripping the clothes from the body of a dead woman, and that might be one of the film's most easy to comprehend sequences. Johansson's character drives around Scotland luring men to her house where they sink into and drown in a mysterious black liquid, making this thriller one of the more bizarre installments on the list. Johansson's performance, the bleak cinematography, and the otherworldly soundscape makes you wonder how the film could tie the story together, but you might end up with more questions than answers.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Coming Soon]
Goodnight Mommy
Two twin boys begin to think something peculiar has happened to their mother when she returns from a doctor's visit with her face wrapped in bandages. The more the two boys test their mother to learn her true identity, the more frantic she becomes, resulting in even more tests of identity from the children. Goodnight Mommy will keep you guessing up until the end and might even make you question who the people closest to you really are.
[H/T YouTube/RADiUS]
The Conversation
Above all else, surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) respects the privacy of the information he collects, no matter what is revealed. When he overhears a conversation that he believes could lead to someone being harmed, Caul becomes absorbed with guilt, remembering a past conversation he recorded that led to the deaths of three people. Hackman gives one of the best performances of his career, thanks to director Francis Ford Coppola being at the top of his game in this thriller about surveillance that feels more timely than ever in our current political climate.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips]
Coherence
At a dinner party between close friends, a blackout occurs, causing two of the friends to investigate why the neighbors' lights are still on. When they return, one of them is injured and reveals a box they took from the neighbors, which is filled with photos of all of the dinner guests. Coherence leads audiences on a tale of time travel, doppelgangers, and alternate dimensions that will make you wary about accepting any dinner invitations.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Film Festivals & Indie Films]
Buried
Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) wakes up in a coffin, bound and gagged, with only a lighter and a Blackberry, but absolutely no idea why he's there. As a truck driver in Iraq, Conroy was kidnapped and held for a $5 million ransom, according to the call he receives on the Blackberry, but he also might be able to use context clues to get in touch with the American military to safely recover him from his unknown tomb. With a finite amount of air, we see Conroy use whatever tools at his disposal to aid his own rescue, and for a movie that takes place entirely in a coffin, Reynolds gives an enthralling performance that keeps you enraptured in the finale.
[H/T YouTube/Lionsgate Movies]
Misery
Based on the hit Stephen King novel, Misery stars Kathy Bates in an Oscar-winning role of a devout fan of an author (James Caan) whose come under her care after a car accident and is willing to do what it takes to make sure he doesn't leave. The author might be able to recover from some of his wounds, but Bates' character takes matters into her own hands, making sure she injures him just enough to prevent him from leaving. Bates' performance as the deranged Annie Wilkes will go down in history as one of cinema's darkest characters.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips]
Bone Tomahawk
One of the more grisly films on the list, Bone Tomahawk combines fantastic performances, a Western setting, and cannibals in a way not often seen in film. Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson, and Matthew Fox star as a posse in search of a kidnapped woman who might have more success if they could stop bickering with one another. The film is expertly written and leads our cast down a path full of gruesome horrors, including one of the most brutal on-screen deaths in 2015.
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Coming Soon]
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