10 Incredible Horror Movies You’ll Never Watch Again (And Why)
3. Mother!
Mother! has been the poster child for a very specific type of "pretentious" horror movie ever since it released. Admittedly, it is easy to make fun of: its story is steeped in heavy-handed religious metaphor, its lowercase title seems purposefully obnoxious and its story is intentionally unconventional in structure and logic.
That said, it's still a superb and unique horror. About a nameless man (Javier Bardem) and woman (Jennifer Lawrence) inviting an increasing amount of troubled guests into their new house, what begins as a tense dinner party gone sour soon devolves into the literal apocalypse, as the house becomes the resting place of a cult intent on murdering and eating a child.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
It's ridiculously, but director Darren Aronofsky manages to make this waking nightmare work, and the escalating dread is felt by the audience as well as Jennifer Lawrence's hero, while the violence on display is genuinely shocking.
Not only is the movie incredibly graphic, which makes a second viewing not that appealing, but the dream logic and lack of answers on certain mysteries makes it a difficult film to analyse or appreciate outside of the a thrilling, visceral surface level.
It's a movie that very much wants you to sift through it to figure out the mysteries for yourself, but with Aronofsky pretty much coming out and saying how it's about God and religion, the fun of your own interpretations is kind of lost.