10 Best Self Aware Horror Movies

To finish off this list we’re taking a hard left on tone. From zombie comedies to slasher parodies, we’re now going to a straight up horror film that has earned its place on this list with its disturbing fourth-wall breaks.

A family is taken hostage in their house by two men (Paul and Peter), and forced to engage in a series of sadistic ‘games’. With all the usual back and forth you would expect from a kidnap and torture-based film, this one is uncomfortable and unnerving in equal measures. What makes it stand out, however, is the two antagonists frequently reference cinematic ideas and even look at and speak to the audience.

Whilst Peter seems unaware he is in a film, Paul gives the audience the occasional wink and nod - both literally and figuratively. The film is packed full of horror conventions: red herrings, references to cinematic tension, killing beloved family pets, et cetera.

The film’s self-referential nature when choosing to extend its own runtime or re-take its own scenes plays into the director’s plans for audience immersion. Director Michael Haneke went on to write an essay titled ‘Violence + The Media’ in which he discusses the film as being violent, visceral and otherwise completely devoid of a point.

Essentially this film is an elite brand of self-aware because it wants to make us self-aware too, asking us to consider that we’re consuming horrible films because we’re complicit in normalising violence. We’re watching bad things and we should feel bad about it. Yikes.