10 Best Slow-Burning Psychological Horror Movies

You'll never look at spaghetti the same way after this.

In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a successful surgeon and family man seems to have everything he could want. However, when a sin from his past makes a startling return, he must do whatever it takes to salvage what he can of his life.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos is no stranger to creating uncomfortable movies. Just look at his previous team-up with Colin Farrell, The Lobster, for evidence of his unnerving filmmaking style. With The Killing of a Sacred Deer though he cranks up the scale up to eleven, making for an experience that feels more akin to psychological torture than entertainment.

There are two primary things that make the movie so effective as a slow-burn. The first is that, well, it's slow, methodically so. This lets every anxiety-inducing second truly sink into you until you want nothing more than to be released by its grip.

The second is the dialogue. No one in this film talks like a person, with almost every conversation feeling like it popped out of a fever dream. These two elements combined together make an already unsettling movie all the more soul-crushing.

Then there's the spaghetti bits, which the less said about the better.