Alien/Aliens is a given for most people. I have been watching Event Horizon during the spooky season for years. What are some of your favorite books and movies with a horror/psychological thriller lean?

  • solstice@lemmy.world
    20·
    1 year ago

    Enemy Mine was pretty trippy. I saw it when I was a kid though so I’m not sure if it was any good or if it fits.

    Vivarium was quite odd and different. I appreciated the original take on the age old concept of how alien and weird the suburbs are.

    I’m not sure if it counts as smaller but The Thing, god damn, finally saw that one for the first time recently and it really is one of the GOATs.

      • solstice@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        I saw the original John carpenter version at a friends house at ~2am after a rare night out drinking with some old college buddies in town. My friend has a big HD projector and sound system in his house and when everyone heard I’d never seen the thing it was instantly agreed that’s what we are doing later. I had absolutely no idea what to expect and was blown the fuck away!

        Then I got all excited a few weeks ago when I saw the thing was on Netflix so I could see it again. Then I realized it was the recent remake from idk 2012 maybe? Watched five minutes of it and ragequit, then paid $3 to see it on Prime.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 year ago

      Enemy Mine lol what a trip. I have the book and the film. I wont spoil it for anyone but when you know who falls you know what, thats when the whole thing became a wild ride.

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      It’s a story that would totally work even without any sci fi elements, which I think means it is good. You could ask whether it’s good sci fi without such core speculative elements. But it consistently stretches into strange territory (hermaphroditism, meteor weather, edible footballs) in a convincing way that you’d have a hell of a time saying it’s anything but sci fi.

        • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yeah maybe not horror, but it has some pretty grody moments, like eating the live worm and the birth scene zomg the birth scene…

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
    20·
    1 year ago

    SOMA by frictional games.

    It explores some of the usual questions about what exactly the human mind might be, if it ever becomes possible to scan, simulate, copy and transfer consciousness.

    But it does so in video game form, in a way that makes you face those questions from a visceral, personal, first hand experience perspective.

    It’s a science fiction masterpiece.

    • VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.socialEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Omg this game is so good. Right after I beat it I went to Reddit and the discussions there helped me answer even more questions and think about it even more deeply. I wish we could copy those communities over to here.

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        1 year ago

        ::: spoiler He’s an average dude, the games message wouldn’t exactly hit the way it does if both central characters had Catherine’s level of understanding of the situation. If you can’t deal with stupid, that’s fine, but having the two lead characters contrast each other in this way is how the game makes its point. They each represent one possible perspective. Catherine accepts that peoples minds can be reduced to data-files on a computer, copied, whatever. She knows that in tech, there is no “moving” data, only copying and then deleting.

        To Simon this is an idea so foreign he can’t even understand it when told point-blank. Hell, he only barely gets it the first time it actually happens to him. He’s like the people who killed themselves after their brain-scans, in his understanding of reality, there can only be one instance of a person, because there is only one soul per person to go around. To him, the real Simon is dead, and he refuses to consider the thought further, because the conclusion he’d come to is that he is a “fake”.

        In contrast Catherine is content with being a copy. To her a copy is just as valid and real as the original, but Simon doesn’t feel that way. They are the embodiments of the two sides of the speculative philosophical debate that is central to the game’s plot. Simon isn’t supposed to have intelligent things to say. He is the emotional response to the events of the Pathos facility, while Catherine is the intellectual one. :::

  • IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
    201·
    1 year ago

    Omg I gave up scrolling for not seeing John Carpenter’s The Thing

    Alien, The Thing, Event Horizon are the great Scifi Horror Trilogy

    • BrockSampson@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      In fairness OP asked for “smaller films/ stories” and then name dropped probably one of the biggest horror films ever.

      • IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        Ah…did not notice the “smaller”…though The Thing and Event Horizon were both box office flops

    • zorlan@aussie.zone
      2·
      1 year ago

      +1 for Event Horizon, thoroughly enjoyed it after watching the red letter media review.

  • Coldus12@reddthat.com
    15·
    1 year ago

    Sphere from Micheal Crichton. Both the movie and the book are pretty good.

    It is more sci-fi than anything else, but i think it fits the thriller category as well. Without going into spoilers, it is a story about scientists being deep down in the ocean, and strange things happening.

    • Tenthrow@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Sphere was my favorite book in high school. I didn’t like the movie so much, but it might have been that I was already too hyped for it when it came out. I should probably watch it again.

      • ours@lemmy.filmEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        I was so hyped, a book I loved and that cast. The result was so underwhelming.

  • Arotrios@kbin.social
    13·
    1 year ago

    Short Stories:

    I have no mouth and I must scream - Harlan Ellison - this story was the apogee of sci-fi horror in the 70s and 80s.

    We Can Remember It for You Wholesale - Philip K. Dick’s original short story and the inspiration for Total Recall.

    Weird French Shit:

    Fantastic Planet - Animated french scifi about humans being kept as pets by giant blue aliens.

    City of Lost Children - steampunk cybercultists

    Classic Movies:

    They Live - In case you’re out of bubblegum

    Tremors - broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn’t ya?

    Scanners - Pop!

    • solstice@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 year ago

      Friggin love Tremors man, it’s redneck Dune, awesome example of a low budget movie made amazing by good writing and creativity.

    • swan_pr@lemmy.ca
      3·
      1 year ago

      Fantastic Planet is one of my all time favorite movies and I think it ages dreadfully well.

      • Arotrios@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Agreed. I did a rewatch before I posted it to the @13thFloor and I was amazed (hadn’t seen it since I was a kid). Some of the most intriguing and beautiful surrealistic animation ever, and the story is remarkably good - generating a sort of slow clinical terror in the viewer that flows and builds beneath the bright alien landscapes.

        • swan_pr@lemmy.ca
          1·
          1 year ago

          The expressions of the humans really struck me as a kid, I could feel their terror (and anger) without really understanding the whole thing. Side-related but I’ve the 13thfloor tab opened for a few days and I haven’t explored it yet. Guess I should do that now :)

  • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
    13·
    1 year ago

    Pi (π)

    Smart shut-in builds an implausibly powerful computer in an attempt to discern a pattern that is responsible for all things. He uses the golden spiral as evidence of such a pattern, and believes he will eventually take pi out to so many decimal places that such a pattern emerges there.

    The psychological thriller aspect relates to what he experiences along the way, and how it ends. I have a theory about the ending, but no idea if it’s an opinion shared by the creator or any others.

  • krey@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    1 year ago

    Dark City 1998 Very cool. With Sutherland.

    About the world

    It has of those situations/worlds you couldn’t know you’re trapped in it, if you were, like Matrix etc… I like those.

    • Andy@programming.dev
      8·
      1 year ago

      PSA: As is commonly recommended, watch the director’s cut if you can, especially if it’s your first time. The main difference is that the regular release has a voice over in the beginning explaining a lot (too much).

  • CarefreeStyle@lemmy.world
    8·
    1 year ago

    Magnetic Rose is a short Satoshi Kon anime film from the 90s about a haunted abandoned space station. Very good vibe and aesthetic.