Servant, a horror series in its second season on Apple +, unravels like a complex, never-ending puzzle on the screen. Produced by M. Night Shyamalan, who also directs some episodes, Servant was created and is written by Tony Basgallop. It stars Lauren Ambrose and Toby Kebbell as new parents who hire a nanny to care for their infant.
Newcomer Neil Tiger Free plays the nanny, Leanne, whose presence in the home leads to one bizarre, supernatural event after another. Rupert Grint of Harry Potterfame co-stars. Nothing is what it seems in the world of Servant, where religious and cult-like undercurrents clash with tales of familial trauma. The series also refuses to offer up any easy answers or resolutions, contributing to a long line of psychological horror works.
Parasite (2019)
Bong Joon-ho wowed international audiences again with Parasite, a singular psychodrama about two contemporary South Korean families who couldn’t be any different from each other. The Kims live in a dingy basement apartment prone to flooding, while the Parks reside in a gorgeous mid-century Modern mansion.
The Kims slowly begin to implicate themselves into the lives of the Parks, but their escalating lies and deceits eventually come back to haunt them. Parasite is rife with social commentary, unexpected plot twists, and stellar acting from its talented ensemble cast.
Hereditary (2018)
Ari Aster’s debut feature shook moviegoers to their collective core. The terrifying psychological horror movie stars Toni Collette as Annie Graham, whose own family is beset by one tragic event after another following the death of Annie’s estranged mother.
It turns out Annie’s mom had some dark secrets which the family must deal with. It’s easy to imagine how this unforgiving feature unfolds from there.
Oculus (2013)
Mike Flanagan’s Oculus handles intergenerational family issues and emotional pain through a supernatural horror story. When their parents die under terrible circumstances in front of them, siblings Kaylie and Tim handle their grief in different ways as adults.
Tim, who was blamed for the deaths, is released from a psychiatric hospital ready to move on with his life, but Kaylie knows her brother is innocent. She convinces him to return to the house where their parents lost their lives, ready to confront the haunted mirror she believes drove their parents into madness.
The Invitation (2015)
Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation is the kind of slow-building cult movie that deceives viewers at first. When Logan Marshall-Green’s character Will attends a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife, it’s obvious the two share trauma brought on by a former tragedy, but they’ve both seemingly moved on with new partners.
With each passing moment, though, it’s obvious something is amiss. Once the truth of what’s going on arrives on the screen, it delivers an explosive gut punch to viewers.
Saint Maud (2019)
Rose Glass’s highly anticipated Saint Maud was finally released by A24 earlier in 2021. A harrowing film about faith, obsession, and illness, Saint Maud stars Morfydd Clark as a devout hospice nurse who recently converted to Roman Catholicism.
Maud believes she must save the soul of her latest patient, a former dancer named Amanda. As details of Maud’s dark past come into sharp focus, Saint Maud takes audiences into divinely unhinged, dream-like territory they won’t be able to move away from.
The Brood (1979)
Passing on one’s problems to the next generation takes on new meaning in The Brood, one of David Cronenberg’s most visually exacting examinations of psychological torment. Oliver Reed plays experimental psychotherapist Hal Raglan, whose work on his latest client Nola (Samantha Eggar), creates problems in her marriage to Frank (Art Hindle), with whom she shares a daughter, Candice.
As Frank tries to understand why his wife must stick with Raglan’s intensive therapy sessions, a series of atrocious murders occur around him. Could they be somehow be connected to Nola’s treatments?
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Goodnight Mommy is an elusive, obtuse German-language thriller deeply rooted in the psychological horror tradition. A woman returns from some sort of cosmetic facial surgery procedure, where her twin nine-year-old sons are forced to fend for themselves while she recovers.
Mommy, as she’s known in the film, not only demands silence from her offspring, but she resorts to both physical and emotional torment — made worse by the creepy bandages that cover her face. By the end of Goodnight Mommy, these uncomfortable dynamics reach a critical breaking point, one that transforms the narrative into a true work of horror.
Dogtooth (2009)
One of Yorgos Lanthimos’s earlier films, Dogtooth is a unique Greek-language tale about three grown siblings whose parents manipulate them into remaining confined to their family home by convincing them the outside world is a dangerous place. The parents use extreme mind games to force their children into submission.
Dogtooth follows an absurd, violent path as its narrative dissects the inner workings of the contemporary family unit. In true Lanthimos fashion, it generates far more questions than answers.
The Lodge (2019)
The Lodge combines familial trauma, cults, and wintry landscapes in chilling ways. There is little redemption or warmth in this psychological horror film co-directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
It stars Riley Keough as Grace, who finds herself stranded in her new fiancé’s rural cabin with his two children, played by Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh. As the days go by, Grace’s past affiliations with a doomsday Christian cult come back to haunt her, at which point the film delves into pure, hallucinatory terror.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Birth and motherhood figure prominently into the horror masterpiece Rosemary’s Baby, which stars Mia Farrow. After Rosemary and her husband Guy, played by John Cassavetes, move into a new apartment, they find out they are pregnant with their first child.
Rosemary begins to suspect something is amiss not only with the life growing inside her, but also with her older next-door neighbors. She even begins to suspect Guy is somehow involved, and she struggles to find proof before it’s too late.
