Yes, these are the horror hybrids that have you scratching your head if only you could locate it. From the sublime, the bonkers, to the head-spinning, time-tossing, can’t-believe-your-eyes motion picture experiences you are unlikely to forget. Now, excuse me while I go take a shower, popped some painkillers, and have a lie down.
Timecrimes (2007)
While the family home journeys through a refurbishment, Héctor casually takes his binoculars to the outside world, a kind of foresty landscape. A girl is seen peeling off her top in the distance. On investigation, he finds the young woman, mysteriously laying there, before being sliced across the arm from nowhere by a man with bandages across his face. Following so far? From here the plot dives into a kind of time loop where Héctor literally finds himself, an alternate him, an hour prior. Spinning your head with the time frame notions, Héctor finds himself being pursued, taking shelter in a nearby building where a scientist attempts to explain what the hell is going on.
Baskin (2015)
One of the most nerve-crawling, surreal horror films we have seen in a long time. A Turkish production directed by Can Evrenol, he based this on his own short film were five police officers inadvertently end up in imminent danger. Having stumbled upon what has been described as a kind of Hell on Earth, the night gets extraordinarily frightening – and it was rather strange when they were just hanging out. Actor Mehmet Cerrahoglu, who suffers from a body-altering skin condition, is ultra-frightening as the leader of the savages that lure them. And just when you catch breath when all the horrific events transpire, well, you best see for yourself.
Cube (1997)
There is a TV game show in the UK called The Cube, where contestants have to complete a series of complex, mind-boggling, physical, skillful challenges inside a cube perimiter. These activities are tough, but not life-ending like those in the 1997 sci-fi horror movie. The cube-shaped rooms here, a kind of doomsday labyrinth Rubix cube, is the venue for a group of strangers who simply have to find their way out. By ‘simply’ I meant good chance of being torn apart, sprayed with acid, unlikely to live basically. Fucked up.
Coherence (2013)
Another directorial debut dabbles in the what-the-fuck, as James Ward Byrkit tells the story of a group of friends getting together for dinner in a time of a potentially world-threatening comet sighting. This is not sci-fi in that sense though, no, that would be too easy. The dinner party soon falls victim to a bewildering discovery of alternate realities, right there in the neighborhood. Putting the clues together, amidst all manner of trust issues and are-they-really-friends bickering, members of the group realize they are also having the same dinner party in other houses. When those realities are crossed, the film becomes an enven more compelling mind fuck than it already was.
Irréversible (2002)
Written and directed by Gaspar Noé, a filmmaker renowned for his disturbing, unfathomable, but vividly displayed story-telling, this monstrous human horror is famous, dare I say, for an enduring rape and battery scene with Monica Bellucci. There’s also a head bashed to a bloody pulp via a fire extinguisher. An extraordinarly thought-provoking, blood-curdling thriller, as Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel head off into the night streets of Paris to find the the culprit. Each of the films segments, though, are shown in reverse order, so while our heads swirl with the camera, we also have the dread of knowing what is coming to some extent. The thumping score composed by Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk is also an admirable nightmare. Irréversible is the mother of mind fucks in modern cinema, I personally was distraught watching some of this. You might just hate yourself for not hating this.
If you’re well enough to come back and talk about these movies then please let us know your warped thoughts in the comments below.