10 Horror Movies Where The Characters Are All Complete Strangers
In movies like this, you can trust no-one!
When going through the worst things imaginable, it's always best to have a crew of friends by your side. At least then, no matter how horrible things get, you can rest easy knowing that someone's got your back. That's exactly the kind of thought process these scary flicks prey upon, as they dig deep under your skin by taking that safety blanket and ripping it out from under you.
The set-up of a group of strangers being forced to do something frightening together rarely gets old, as it's a great chance to explore characters and tell a simple story. It also tends to take the - already pretty horrifying - scenarios these characters find themselves in and push them to the max, putting everyone through the wringer and producing some effective scares.
Set-ups like this work because they inherently play on paranoia. What is everyone else thinking? Will they hurt me? Should I attack them first? It's this kind of drama that makes characters' actions so thrilling and unpredictable.
These coming ten movies are brilliant examples of this type of narrative, showing how stranger danger can make for some great horror!
10. Exam (2009)
Imagine rocking up to a job interview and being told that you'll be taking an exam. That's a double-handed combo punch of anxiety, as you've got the pressure of two utterly nerve-wracking challenges. Still, it could always be worse; you might be given the additional task of collaborating with strangers. Yikes!
The Exam is a simple yet effective horror that takes a collection of strangers and places them in a room together. They are all candidates for a job at a company responsible for making a miracle pill during a worldwide pandemic. After being given a set of vague instructions, they have 80 minutes to pass the exam. With no one knowing what to do, the room descends into chaos.
As you can tell, the premise of this movie is incredibly simplistic, meaning the characters' actions become the driving force for the plot. This turns the film into an exercise in rising tension, as the examinees struggle to know whether they should work together to find a solution or act selfishly.
The final revelation will surely leave a few disappointed, but it's a clever and amusingly obtuse solution to this well-paced horror flick.