To people who do not have phobias, these fears may seem absurd. They are – phobias are irrational, and the suffering person does not accept reasonable beliefs and arguments. But believe me, it’s not funny at all. And it’s far from always the imposed “Face your fear” gimmick that works.
Movies often explore phobias, creating extremely disturbing, haunting, and emotional stories. We have compiled for you a list of the best phobia movies that explore the origins of fears and how to deal with them. Some movies are old and have long been classics, others can’t boast high ratings, and still others are true masterpieces. Distract yourself from your phobia and enjoy a good movie. And don’t be afraid of anything!
Cast Away
- Rating IMDB – 7.8
- Genre: Drama, melodrama, adventure
- USA production / 2000
- Budget: $90 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $429 632 142
- Directed by Robert Zemeckis
- Cast: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Chris Noth, Nick Searcy, Jennifer Lewis, Paul Sanchez, Larry White, Leonid Seeter, David Brooks, Elena Popovich
In spite of a certain irony of the narrative, the brilliant actor Tom Hanks believably played the mental changes that occur in a man suddenly left alone for a long time. The development of monophobia, the fear of being completely alone, is the least of the evils among the consequences of forced isolation.
The character of this amazing actor is the workaholic Chuck Noland, the only survivor of a plane crash in the ocean. Once on a secluded island, he fights for his life and struggles to maintain his sanity. Thanks to the actor, the movie doesn’t seem particularly scary. Although, when you think about it…
The film was shot on the tiny island of Monuriki in Fiji.
Amélie
- Rating IMDB – 8.3
- Genre: Melodrama, Comedy
- France, Germany production / 2001
- Budget: €10 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $173 921 954
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- Cast: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotte, Serge Merlin, Jamelle Debbouze, Clotilde Mollet, Claire Maurier, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon
Amelie Poulin is the best image of the beautiful French actress Audrey Tautou. Amelie is a cheerful girl who arranges surprises and quests for the people she tries to communicate with. She is unable to talk directly because of her sociophobia, preferring to act from a distance. Amelie works as a waitress in a small café, suffers from an acute inferiority complex and often gets caught up in fantasies.
Once in her house, she finds a box of children’s “treasures” that belonged to a boy who lived here 50 years ago. The girl decides to return it to its owner, and from that moment on her life turns into a series of bizarre interactions with people and the search for her love.
In 2004, the film was included in the list of one hundred best non-English films and was ranked #2 there.
Beau Is Afraid
- Rating IMDB – 7.2
- Genre: Horror, drama, comedy
- USA, UK, Finland production / 2023
- Worldwide gross: $9 435 900
- Directed by Ari Aster
- Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Patty LuPone, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Kylie Rogers, Denis Menoche, Parker Posey, Zoe Lister Jones, Armen Nakhapetian, Julia Antonelli
A fresh 2023 horror comedy from eccentric director Ari Astaire, Joaquin Phoenix beautifully plays the elderly Bo Isaac Wasserman, a 50-year-old virgin who is overcome by a whole bouquet of various phobias.
Hypochondriac Bo is afraid to even leave the house, but one day decides to visit his wealthy mother in another city. Having missed the plane, Bo takes an extremely confusing road to his goal, coming face to face with all his nightmares along the way, and it’s both scary and funny to watch.
The film was shot in Montreal, Canada, and the viewer should know that it is three hours long.
Buried
- Rating IMDB – 7.0
- Genre: Thriller, Drama, Detective
- Spain, UK, France, USA production / 2010
- Budget: $3 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $19 152 480
- Directed by Rodrigo Cortez
- Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Jose Luis Garcia Perez, Robert Paterson, Steven Tobolowsky, Samantha Mathis, Ivana Migno, Warner Loughlin, Eric Palladino, Cali Roccia, Chris Martin
The action of this heavy thriller takes place almost entirely in a small space underground, in a grave from which Paul Conroy, played by Ryan Reynolds, is trying to escape. Even if you don’t have claustrophobia (a fear of confined spaces), its frightening echoes are sure to overcome you as you watch.
Paul is a simple truck driver in Iraq who is victimized by insurgents and wakes up walled up in a coffin. All he has with him is a cell phone, a lighter, and a growing panic. The oxygen is rapidly running out, along with the vanishing chances of salvation. The whole movie is just one prolonged panic attack with a shocking ending.
Seven real coffins were used during the filming.
The Birds
- Rating IMDB – 7.6
- Genre: Horror, Drama, Melodrama, Detective
- USA production / 1963
- Budget: $2 500 000
- Worldwide gross: $11 403 529
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast: Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Tippi Hedren, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffith, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt, Lonnie Chapman, Joe Mantell
A classic from the genius Hitchcock will make you wary of the harmless birds that become a real disaster in this amazing film that combines melodrama, disaster and a poignant thriller.
Arrogant socialite Melanie Daniels buys a pair of lovebirds and travels to a small settlement in Bodega Bay to continue her acquaintance with the young lawyer Mitch Brenner who has charmed her. The day Melanie arrives, the bird attacks begin and escalate into a real nightmare.
The film maintained record ratings for four years and ranks 7th on the register of the best action films of all time.
Eagle Eye
- Rating IMDB – 6.6
- Genre: Sci-fi, action, thriller, detective
- Germany, USA production / 2008
- Budget: $80 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $178 066 569
- Directed by D.J. Caruso
- Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monahan, Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis, Anthony Mackie, Ethan Embry, Anthony Azizi, Cameron Boyce, Lynn Cohen
Among the plethora of spy movies it is easy not to notice a nice little thriller with Shia LaBeouf developing the theme of cyberphobia – fear of information technology. A very topical topic, by the way, at the dawn of the possible computer singularity.
The protagonist of the story is Jerry Shaw, a slacker who suddenly receives $750,000 after the death of his twin brother. He is then contacted by an unknown woman. And soon Jerry is drawn into a conspiracy set up by a powerful artificial intelligence that interprets the Constitution in its own way and decides to get rid of the government “for the good of ordinary citizens.”
The basis for the script of the film was Asimov’s story “All the Sins of the World”.
It
- Rating IMDB – 7.3
- Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Drama, Detective
- USA, Canada production / 2017
- Budget: $35 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $700 381 748
- Directed by Andres Musketti
- Cast: Jayden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chausen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Sim
Fear of clowns is a fairly common phenomenon. Ask your acquaintances, and you’ll be surprised to find several who suffer from the colrophobia that has become the subject of many horror movies. The best among them, of course, is King’s nightmare It, which can cause a real panic attack in someone who dislikes clowns. Oh, that creepy Pennywise with his red balloon…
The events unfold in a small town where a smiling clown lures kids into sewer catacombs and kills them. A group of local teenage misfits figure out what’s behind the image of the creepy clown (played, by the way, by Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard), and try to destroy the creature that kills children.
It is worth mentioning that even the actors themselves were afraid of Pennywise on the set. In 2019, a sequel to the film “It 2” was released, telling the story of the same, already grown-up characters, who returned to the town, where Pennywise appeared again.
Alien
- Rating IMDB – 8.5
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller
- UK, USA production / 1979
- Budget: $11 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $99 932 689
- Directed by Ridley Scott
- Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, Japhet Cotto, Bolaji Badejo, Helen Horton, Eddie Powell
There are many movies about aliens, but it is “Alien” that seems to be the apotheosis of xenophobia, the fear of alien intelligent life forms. From the first, classic 1979 installment to variations on the Alien theme, it all wonderfully conveys and elaborates on the xenophobic feelings the characters face in a frightening and brutal environment.
The plot revolves around an unknown creature, deadly, aggressive and virtually invulnerable, who is discovered in an abandoned alien ship by the crew of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s space tugboat. Sigourney Weaver plays Officer Ripley, who tries to resist the corporation’s attempts to study and use the found organism for its own purposes.
“Alien” became a cult film, giving rise to a number of sequels, variations and an entire media franchise. And soon we will have an entire series based on “Alien,” the development of which began in 2022.
Braindead
- Rating IMDB – 7.5
- Genre: Horror, fantasy, thriller, comedy
- New Zealand production / 1992
- Budget: $3 000 000
- Directed by Peter Jackson
- Cast: Timothy Balm, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Brenda Kendall, Stuart Deveney, Jed Brophy, Stephen Papps, Murray Keane, Glenys Levestam
Before Peter Jackson created “The Lord of the Rings,” he was the undisputed master of splatter, naturalistic horror movies with an abundance of blood. “Braindead” is his masterpiece of the genre, actively evoking from the depths of our psyche an instinctive hemophobia, a fear of blood.
In 1957, an expedition of zoologists removes an exotic monkey from Skull Island and places it in the Wellington Zoo. One day, the monkey bites Vera Cosgrove, the mother of a misfit adult son. Vera turns into an aggressive zombie, and her son hides it from everyone, gradually collecting rabid mommy’s victims in her basement. But one day the zombies break free and start a feast of their own.
This movie is considered to be the bloodiest in all the history of horror films.
Cliffhanger
- Rating IMDB – 6.5
- Genre: Action, thriller, adventure
- USA, Italy, France, Japan production / 1993
- Budget: $70 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $255 000 211
- Directed by Renny Harlin
- Cast: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Rex Lynn, Caroline Goodall, Leon, Craig Fairbrass, Gregory Scott Cummins, Denis Forest
This action film starring Sylvester Stallone is one of the most frightening films about mountain climbers for those who are overcome by acrophobia, a fear of heights to which almost all people are subject in varying degrees. From the very first shots the film plunges into the nightmare of dizzying heights and dangerous situations. And the whole movie will make any acrophobic person’s legs weaken from the high altitude scenes.
Gabe Walker (Stallone) is a mountain rescuer who once lost his partner and is traumatized by it. Eight months later, he finds himself held hostage by a gang of robbers who have landed a Treasury Department plane on a mountain plateau and decide to rob it.
The game Cliffhanger was released in 1993 based on the picture.
Eagle vs Shark
- Rating IMDB – 6.7
- Genre: Melodrama, comedy
- New Zealand production / 2007
- Worldwide gross: $1 298 037
- Directed by Taika Waititi
- Cast: Lauren Taylor, Jemaine Clement, Joel Tobek, Brian Sergent, Craig Hall, Rachel House, Morag Hills, Bernard Stewart, Taika Waititi, David Fain
This time we will talk about sociophobia, the inability to be social. Taika Waititi’s film is an ironic romcom about two losers who have a panic fear of socializing of any kind.
Salesman Jarodd and waitress Lily meet, find out that they both love computer games and dressing up as animals, and begin a mutual game of predators, thus trying to forge a meaningful intimate bond. Waititi himself traditionally played a small role in his film, the older brother of the main character Gordon.
The film makes partial use of animation and frame-by-frame footage.
Les yeux sans visage
- Rating IMDB – 7.6
- Genre: Horror, Drama
- France, Italy production / 1959
- Directed by Georges Franju
- Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mainiel, Alexandre Rignot, Beatrice Altariba, Charles Blavette, Edith Scobb, Claude Brasseur, Michel Echeverry, Yvette Etievan
A little-known French retro film that started an entire sub-genre of horror that deals with dysmorphophobia, the fear of ugliness that often leads to suicide. It’s a gorgeous film about experiments on people, without embellishing the plastic medicine of those years with naturalistic footage.
Professor Genessier tries to restore the face of his daughter Christiane, mutilated in an accident for which he is responsible. To the world, the girl is dead–by playing the inconsolable father, Genessier has buried as his daughter the unknown girl who died from his experiments. Louise, a faithful assistant, lures young girls into the professor’s house, who become experimental material for the obsessed scientist.
The film is based on the book of the same name by Jean Redon.
Copycat
- Rating IMDB – 6.6
- Genre: Thriller, Drama, Detective
- USA production / 1995
- Budget: $20 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $32 051 917
- Directed by John Emiel
- Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulrooney, William McNamara, Harry Connick Jr, J.E. Freeman, Will Patton, John Rothman, Shannon O’Hurley, Bob Green
A frighteningly poignant film about a serial killer, starring Sigourney Weaver as a woman with a severe form of agoraphobia. The scene in which her character tries to reach for the newspaper outside the door, desperately fighting her fear, gives me goosebumps. The story reveals the cause of the pathology and tells a courageous fight against this terrible phobia.
Helen Hudson is a psychology professor and an expert on serial killings. She survived an attack by one of her “research subjects” and has lived a reclusive life ever since, unable to leave the door of her apartment. Then one day a serial killer shows up in town, mimicking the crimes from Helen’s last lecture, and she has to fight her worst phobias.
Actress Sigourney Weaver prepared diligently for this role to better portray the agoraphobe’s torment, and regretted that the film did not become very popular.
The Number 23
- Rating IMDB – 6.4
- Genre: Thriller, Detective, Horror, Drama, Crime
- USA production / 2006
- Budget: $30 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $77 566 815
- Directed by Joel Schumacher
- Cast: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston. Lynn Collins, Rhona Mitra, Michelle Arthur, Mark Pellegrino, Paul Butcher, David Stiefel
A silly movie in which Jim Carrey’s character gradually goes insane, becoming obsessed with the fateful number 23 after reading a mysterious book. Absolutely everything for him contains this number, leading to nightmarish events.
A classic case of arrhythmophobia, a fear of numbers, coupled with apophenia, a pathological ability to see logical relationships in meaningless data. It’s a story capable of scaring your conspiracy-theoretic acquaintances.
The easiest working man Walter, after reading his wife Agatha’s gift, the nightmare murder detective “The Number 23,” begins to see this combination of numbers literally everywhere, and the plot of the novel literally follows Walter’s own life. Despite the rather primitive narrative, the ending of the film is able to surprise.
Jim Carrey’s production company is called JC 23 Entertainment. He was paid $23 million for his role in the film. And this is director Schumacher’s 23rd project.
Franchise «Saw»
- Rating IMDB – 7.6
- Genre: Horror, thriller, detective
- USA production / 2004
- Budget: $1 200 000
- Worldwide gross: $103 096 345
- Directed by James Wan
- Cast: Lee Wannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Tobin Bell, Deena Meyer, Ken Leung, Michael Emerson, Shawnee Smith, Benito Martinez
“Saw” is perhaps the most impressive and sweeping thing to have happened in the horror genre in recent decades. It is the story of an insidious killer who kidnaps several people and then offers them a crippling test of survival.
If you’re already familiar with this series, you don’t need to explain how many different phobias are mused in the plots of these films, from constant claustrophobia to trypanophobia to cannibalophobia. Each film in the series is a different story, following the same pattern, with more and more harrowing and nightmarish experiences for the unfortunate victims.
The franchise is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most financially successful and box-office horror film of all time.
In the Mouth of Madness
- Rating IMDB – 7.1
- Genre: Horror, fantasy, thriller, drama, detective
- USA production / 1994
- Budget: $8 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $8 924 549
- Directed by John Carpenter
- Cast: Sam Neal, Julie Carmen, Juergen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Bernie Casey, Peter Jason, Charlton Heston, Francis Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg
A highly rated horror film with a clever plot that raises the theme of bibliophobia, the fear of books. The film’s creative premise is that of a mad writer who distorts the fabric of reality with his works.
Sutter Cain is an enigmatic writer who has broken all records of popularity. Under the influence of his books, people go mad, kill, lose their memory, end up in clinics for the mentally ill. And the author himself suddenly disappears. To find him, the publishing house hires John Trent, who, following in the footsteps of the writer, finds himself in a crazy city that is not on the world map.
The film is based on some of Lovecraft’s and Stephen King’s works.
Franchise «Final Destination»
- Rating IMDB – 6.7
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller, detective
- USA production / 2000
- Budget: $23 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $112 880 294
- Directed by James Vaughn
- Cast: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Kristen Cloak, Daniel Robach, Roger Guenver Smith, Chad Donella, Seann William Scott, Tony Todd, Amanda Detmer
The coolest movie about tanataphobia, the paralyzing fear of death with its personification, is the popular mystical thriller “Final Destination”, from 2000. A few subsequent films lower the anxiety level, but also look good.
High school student Alex must travel with his class to Paris. He attends a terrible crash on the plane and then realizes it was a blur or a dream. On the day of departure, however, the events from his vision begin to repeat themselves exactly to the point, and he leaves the plane in a panic, along with several of his classmates who believed him. The plane explodes, killing everyone who was on it. Those who survived, thanks to Alex, begin to inexplicably die one by one…
Scenes of the plane crash were filmed in Long Island.
The Descent
- Rating IMDB – 7.2
- Genre: Horror, thriller, adventure
- UK, France production / 2005
- Budget: £3 500 000
- Worldwide gross: $57 051 053
- Directed by Neil Marshall
- Cast: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, Alex Reed, Saskia Mulder, MayAnne Boehring, Nora-Jane Noone, Oliver Milburn, Molly Cale, Craig Conway, Leslie Simpson
Nikophobia, a fear of the dark, coupled with claustrophobia, a fear of confined spaces, is the monster women’s show “The Descent”, about a group of extreme girls who decide to take a big hike into the Appalachian caves.
Inside, the companions discover a new narrow cave not mapped and explore it out of curiosity, trapped by rubble. They must search for a way out in unexplored earthly cavities filled with strange creatures, in pitch darkness. And some of them decide this adventure is the perfect opportunity to settle an old score.
The film won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 2005.
Village of the Damned
- Rating IMDB – 5.6
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller
- USA production / 1995
- Budget: $22 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $9 418 365
- Directed by John Carpenter
- Cast: Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski, Michael Pare, Meredith Salenger, Mark Hamill, Pippa Pirri, Peter Jason, Constance Forslund, Karen Kahn
Did it ever occur to you that a child could be frightening? “Village of the Damned” from 1960 is a real scary movie that’s sure to plant the seeds of pedophobia – the fear of children. The 1995 remake is milder, but devoid of the anachronisms of the old movies. It’s up to you to choose which of the two films to watch.
Let’s talk about the 90’s remake. The spooky story is still about a small village called Midwich, where the residents magically fall asleep for six hours and then, after this extraordinary event, they discover that all the women capable of procreation are pregnant. At the same time, they give birth to adorable babies that look like each other and are incredibly frightening.
Both films are based on John Wyndham’s bestselling novel, The Midwich Cuckoos.
Arachnophobia
- Rating IMDB – 6.5
- Genre: Horror, thriller, comedy
- USA production / 1990
- Budget: $31 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $53 208 180
- Directed by Frank Marshall
- Cast: Jeff Daniels, Harley Jane Kozak, John Goodman, Julian Sands, Stuart Pankin, Brian McNamara, Mark L. Taylor, Henry Jones, Peter Jason, James Handy
The parody horror film Arachnophobia is a great movie about how arachnophobes deal with their fear. But the premise is certainly frightening. From the forests of the Amazon, a coffin arrives in California with a naturalist killed by a poisonous spider bite. Trouble is, along with the body, the shipping company brings in the very same spider.
Ross Jennings is a young doctor who has moved to the sunny California town of Canaima. When several of his patients mysteriously die, he discovers that an aggressive spider that breeds freely in the town is to blame. Overcoming his animal fear of spiders, Ross confronts the predatory, multi-legged monsters.
The role of the killer spider was played by the human-safe Australian Delena cancerides, known as the Avondale spider.
Kimi
- Rating IMDB – 6.3
- Genre: Thriller, Drama, Crime
- USA production / 2022
- Worldwide gross: $63 155
- Directed by Steven Soderbergh
- Cast: Zoe Kravitz, Betsy Brantley, Byron Bowers, Derek Delgaudio, India de Befort, Sarai Koo, Jaime Kamil
In this movie with Zoë Kravitz, the main character, programmer Angela, has a double disorder. The girl is afraid of open spaces and crowds. For her, lockdown becomes a comfortable time-she stays home, occasionally meets her roommate for sex, and works on debugging her smart voice assistant, “Kimi.”
Then one day she receives a voice file from which she can clearly hear the woman being assaulted. Trying to find support from her superiors, Angela is rebuffed and decides to rush to the aid of the unfortunate victim herself, overcoming her panic.
Harper’s Bazaar called it the best movie of 2022.
Cujo
- Rating IMDB – 6.1
- Genre: Horror, thriller
- USA production / 1983
- Budget: $5 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $21 156 152
- Directed by Lewis Teague
- Cast: Dee Wallace-Stone, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Christopher Stone, Ed Lauter, Kayulani Lee, Billy Jane, Mills Watson, Sandy Ward, Jerry Hardin
Perhaps we can’t get past another screen adaptation by the great connoisseur (and bearer, by the way) of various phobias, Stephen King. Fear of dogs is natural for humans, but pathological film phobia leads to nervous breakdowns and real problems for the patient.
“Cujo” is the story of how a mother and her young child find themselves trapped for hours in a car besieged by a rabid Saint Bernard, a bat-bitten and already killing several people. The events unfold in the town of Castle Rock, as do many of King’s other stories.
The ending in the book is more bloody and sad than in the movie.
Mirrors
- Rating IMDB – 6.1
- Genre: Horror, thriller, detective
- USA, Romania, Germany, France production / 2008
- Budget: $35 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $77 488 607
- Directed by Alexander Azha
- Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Cameron Boyce, Erica Gluck, Amy Smart, Mary Beth Peil, John Shrapnel, Jason Fleming, Tim Ahern, Julian Glover
Eisoptrophobia is not uncommon among superstitious people. It is a fear of mirrors, of the underworld of reflections, which, according to some people, is populated by ghosts and demons, striving to escape into our world. The protagonist of the brilliant horror film Mirrors is infected by this frightening phobia.
Ben Carson is an ex-cop, a recent heavy drinker, separated from his wife and children. He tries to start his life over and takes a job as night caretaker of a huge burned-out building that once housed a luxury store. It is here that he encounters the monstrous behavior of the mirrors that threaten his world, but everyone around him thinks he is just hallucinating because of his recent drinking problems. Can he protect his loved ones from the demon on the other side?
This same phobia is also the subject of a sequel, which is not related to the first part, as well as the 2013 film Oculus.
Audition
- Rating IMDB – 7.1
- Genre: Horror, Drama
- Japan production / 1999
- Worldwide gross: $242 759
- Directed by Takashi Miike
- Cast: Ryo Ishibashi, Ei Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura, Renji Ishibashi, Miyuki Matsuda, Toshie Negishi, Ren Osugi, Shigeru Saiki, Ken Mitsuishi
An impressive Japanese nightmare about venustaphobia, a fear of beautiful women, which is hard to watch because of its unpleasant and shocking torture scenes. It’s hard to believe that loose guys after this movie will ever dare to bring a girl they don’t know back to their home again.
Shigeharu Aoyama, a middle-aged widower, agrees to do a fake movie audition with the help of his showbiz buddy to find himself a new wife. All goes well and Aoyama meets 24-year-old Asami Yamazaki, a modest, sweet and seductive woman. And when she suddenly disappears, the man begins to search for the girl, discovering the hellish world of her past.
The film is based on a short story by Ryu Murakami, and its director was called a “demon” because of the numerous cases of fainting while watching it. Over the years, the film has become a cult movie.
Men
- Rating IMDB – 6.1
- Genre: Horror, Drama
- UK production / 2022
- Worldwide gross: $11 152 071
- Directed by Alex Garland
- Cast: Jesse Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Gale Rankin, Paapa Essiedu, Sarah Twomey, Zach Rothera-Oxley, Sonoya Mizuno
Androphobia is the fear of men that affects women who have experienced traumatic events. This fear is cultivated by the British mystery thriller “Men”, after which any housewife would look at her own husband with suspicion.
After the death of her abusive husband, Harper decides to start a new life away from civilization, and leaves for a quiet, comfortable village. Here she begins to be stalked by a variety of men, all with the same face. A priest, a local teenager, a rude neighbor–Harper loses her peace and doesn’t know what to do with her life next, sinking into a mystical labyrinth of psychoses filled with ancient Celtic symbols.
Actor Rory Keener portrays ten different characters in the film. An exhibitionist, too.
The Ruins
- Rating IMDB – 5.9
- Genre: Horror, thriller, adventure
- USA, Germany, Australia production / 2008
- Budget: $15 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $22 736 861
- Directed by Carter Smith
- Cast: Jonathan Tucker, Jenna Malone, Laura Ramsey, Sean Ashmore, Joe Anderson, Sergio Calderon, Jesse Ramirez, Balder Moreno, Dimitri Baveas, Patricio Almeida Rodriguez
If you have a serious fear of plants, the movie The Ruins, filled with poisonous bloodsucking vines, is the perfect fuel for botanophobic nightmares. Tired of sunbathing aimlessly on Mexican sand, four young American tourists go with their new German buddy deep into the jungle, where his brother explores a mysterious Mayan pyramid.
The strangeness begins immediately. The natives are extremely reluctant to let the guys into the pyramid, and then they won’t let them leave. Meanwhile, the tourists discover traces of a German expedition that mysteriously vanished, and they have no choice but to go deep into the catacombs of the pyramid, where a real green nightmare awaits them.
The film is based on the book of the same name by American Scott Smith, who wrote the screenplay himself.
Open Water
- Rating IMDB – 5.8
- Genre: Horror, thriller, drama, adventure
- USA production / 2003
- Budget: $500 000
- Worldwide gross: $54 667 954
- Directed by Chris Kentis
- Cast: Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis, Saul Stein, Michael E. Williamson, Christina Zenarro, John Charles, Estelle Lau, Steve Lemmy
Want to acquire an exotic thalassophobia, a fear of deep water? Then feel free to turn on this film, in which the helplessness and despair of a couple of divers lost in the ocean are intertwined with a terrifying awareness of the scale of the abyss below. “Open Sea” is a disturbing drama based on true events.
Daniel and Susan are diving fans who have come to the coast of Australia to enjoy their hobby. After another dive, the couple are astonished to find that their boat has sailed away and they are left all alone in the boundless waters. They go through all the stages of shock, panic and despair…
The events described took place in 1998 with spouses Tom and Eileen Lonergan.
Antiviral
- Rating IMDB – 5.7
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller, detective
- Canada, France production / 2012
- Budget: CA$ 3 200 000
- Worldwide gross: $61 808
- Directed by Brandon Cronenberg
- Cast: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Lisa Berry, Douglas Smith, Nenna Abuwa, Donna Goodhand, Adam Bogen, Salvatore Antonio, Matt Watts, Dawn Greenhalgh
This film is a real shock to those suffering from trypanophobia, the fear of needles (not to be confused with tripophobia, the fear of accumulating holes). In all seriousness, in “Antiviral”, threatening needles are simply everywhere, giving chills even to hardened medical professionals.
In the not-too-distant future, celebrity fans have acquired a wonderful new habit of buying up disease-causing agents their idols have suffered from and infecting themselves with them. The central character Sid March works in one of the selling clinics, and one day he gets into the black market of these dubious products.
By the way, the close-ups of the needles digging into the skin in the film are real.
Cabin Fever
- Rating IMDB – 5.6
- Genre: Horrors
- USA production / 2003
- Budget: $1 500 000
- Worldwide gross: $30 553 394
- Directed by Eli Roth
- Cast: Ryder Strong, Jordan Ladd, James DeBello, Serina Vincent, Joey Kern, Erie Vervin, Robert Harris, Hal Courtney, Matthew Helms, Richard Boone
This movie will easily scare anyone with germophobia, a fear of germs, while still being a great horror comedy in the spirit of a classic slasher. So put on your sterile masks and let’s go!
A group of young people go on vacation to a cabin in the woods and encounter a killer. Except that this maniac is not a man with a chainsaw or a demon, but a tiny, cute and inconspicuous flesh-eating virus, delighted by the invasion of potential victims. The friends’ adventures in this forest can be described in one word: unsightly. Especially when the main characters’ faces begin to fall off.
This film is the directorial debut of American Eli Roth
Come True
- Rating IMDB – 6.0
- Genre: Horrors
- Canada production / 2020
- Worldwide gross: $70 459
- Directed by Anthony Scott Burns
- Cast: Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Libuaron, Carly Risky, Christopher Hitherington, Tedra Rogers, Brandon DeWine, John Tasker, Austin Baker, Shane Gostkipper, Christopher Thomas
Fear of falling asleep due to frightening nightmares or sleep paralysis is hypno- or somniphobia, one of the common disorders leading to severe seizures and exhaustion. The protagonist of this film, which explores the quirks of our subconscious, is the fragile 18-year-old Sarah.
This homeless girl spends her nights on the playground and is afraid to sleep because of the monstrous visions that come to her in her dreams. After accidentally seeing a volunteer ad for a sleep lab, the girl signs up to participate in an experimental program and gets her first-ever sleep. But after seeing pictures taken by researchers while she’s asleep, Sarah experiences a real panic attack. What happens to you next time you fall asleep?
The film was first shown at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal. By the way, a great franchise about somniphobia is A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Snakes on a Plane
- Rating IMDB – 5.5
- Genre: Action, thriller, crime, adventure
- USA, Germany production / 2006
- Budget: $33 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $62 022 014
- Directed by David R. Ellis
- Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Nathan Phillips, Rachel Blanchard, Flex Alexander, Kenan Thompson, Keith Dallas, Lynn Shay, Bruce James, Sonny Mabry
This is one of the most impressive films, playing on ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, to which every 10th person on the planet is subjected. And for the filming they collected a variety of reptiles, creepy in their venomous perfection.
An important witness, Sean Jones, must testify against the mafia in court. Two FBI agents transport the guy to Los Angeles aboard an airliner loaded with containers of flowers. However, the flowers turn out to be only part of the cargo – along with them inside the containers is a mass of various poisonous snakes, which break loose during the flight and begin to wreak terror and death.
More than 450 snakes of 30 different species were shown in the film. Fortunately, most of them were created with the help of animatronics.
Poltergeist
- Rating IMDB – 4.9
- Genre: Horror, thriller
- USA, Canada production / 2015
- Budget: $35 000 000
- Worldwide gross: $95 437 994
- Directed by Gil Keenan
- Cast: Sam Rockwell, Rosemary DeWitt, Saxon Charbino, Kyle Catlett, Kennedy Clements, Jared Harris, Jane Adams, Susan Hayard, Nicholas Brown, Karen Ivany
Spectrophobia is the leader among irrational fears. It is a panic fear of ghosts. The unfortunate person is unable to control the panic that can arise at any, as it seems to him, manifestation of the supernatural. And after this atmospheric film, even the most sane person will be haunted by the idea that all these things might actually be real.
Amy and Eric Bowen move into a new house built on the site of an old cemetery, along with their three children, and strange events – vivid, disturbing, threatening – begin to happen to the family immediately. The parents try to explain everything that is happening in some rational way, until the younger Madison goes missing.
This film is a remake of the 1982 film of the same name, which was far more terrifying and created in a pseudo-documentary style.
Firestarter
- Rating IMDB – 4.6
- Genre: Fantastic, Drama
- USA production / 2022
- Worldwide gross: $15 039 250
- Directed by Keith Thomas
- Cast: Ryan Keira Armstrong, Zac Efron, Sidney Lemmon, Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley, Michael Greyes, Gloria Reuben, Tina Jung, Hannan Younis, Gavin McIver-Wright
If fire scares you even a little, or if pyrophobia is in full bloom in your soul, do not watch this film under any circumstances. The idea of a child with the power to ignite everything around her with one look and no control over her emotions is disturbing enough, even without the fear of fire.
Charlie McGee and her father have been in hiding for years from the secret services, who want to use the girl in their secret projects. When Charlie experiences excitement, fear, joy-anything lights up from her gaze. The girl blames herself for her mother’s long-ago death and learns self-control. But one day her fire will break out…
The film is based on Stephen King’s book with an identical title.
Necrophobia
- Rating IMDB – 5.4
- Genre: Horrors
- Netherlands production / 1995
- Directed by Frank van Geloven, Edwin Visser
- Cast: Martin Overstegen, Rutger Wemhoff, Jerry Verhoeven, Grietje Bestemann, Eric Maas, Vincent Gerris, Janno Heck, Olaf Pitum, Evert Theien, Edwin Visser
Rare, Dutch, obscure, gory, low-budget and insanely atmospheric horror film Necrophobia, in which the title speaks for itself, is a story of fear of the dead and funerals, also laced with monstrous perversions of necrophilia.
The story centers on a young, happy couple, Rebecca and Mark. She has scary dreams about waking up in a grave and then dying from a creepy undertaker’s shovel. And then one day she actually dies in a car accident. Mark can’t find his place and constantly visits the cemetery, where he meets the quiet and charming Colette, not knowing what monstrous secret this woman is hiding.
The film is only 1 hour long, a 60-minute immersion into the maddening underworld of the deadly Gothic.
Black Swarm
- Rating IMDB – 3.9
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, action, thriller, drama, comedy
- Canada production / 2007
- Budget: $2 000 000
- Directed by David Winning
- Cast: Sebastien Roberts, Sarah Allen, Jane Heitmeyer, Rebecca Wyndheim, Robert Englund, Michelle Perron, Sheena Larkin, Robert Higden, Andrew Shaver, Mike Paterson
If you feel the echoes of insectophobia (fear of insects) in you, you should not watch this movie. It’s horrible, no doubt about it. Wasps crawling into every natural orifice of the human body is creepy to the point of nausea.
Robert Englund, who played the role of Freddy Krueger in the iconic sleepwalking franchise, plays here a scientist who has bred a special kind of wasp in an attempt to turn them into weapons. A black swarm of deadly insects has entrenched itself in the town of Black Stone and is killing people, disfiguring them and turning them into zombies.
This is the 9th film in the Maneater series of naturalistic horror films from RHI Entertainment.
