For a while in the late eighties and early nineties, you couldnt move for films about unhinged whack-jobs insinuating themselves into someones peaceful life to turn it upside down. Pacific Heights gave us the lodger from hell in 1990, while The Hand That Rocks The Cradle introduced the psychotic nanny two years later, and The Crush asked us to consider a deranged teenaged Alicia Silverstone a threat to Cary Elwes in 1993. For a while, until the fad died down, it seemed Hollywood was happy to mine any possible professional or social relationship for paranoid scares. What if your vet was trying to kill you? Your barista? Your gynecolog- no, no. Thats going too far. But theres nothing quite like the concept of the obsessive stranger to push all of our buttons - the idea that someone might come out of nowhere to ruin our lives. After all, strangers comprise the vast majority of the people we share this planet with. That person staring at you on the bus might be wondering why youve got a cheesy Dorito stuck in your hair or he might be a serial killer. Youre not going to know for sure unless and until he tries to perforate your abdomen with a barbecue fork. To celebrate moviemakers earnest desire to freak people the hell out by making them question their basic assumptions about the human race, we present our countdown of the creepiest stalker movies around
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
