10 More Horror Movies Way Darker Than Advertised
You thought you were here for a good time, not a dark time.
The primary reason to go and see any horror movie is simple: we like to be scared. And, since the genre's inception, viewers have been managing just that, using trailers and marketing materials to gauge what they're in for - zombies, ghosts, psychos, killer sloths - confident they'll get their thrills and spills in all the right places.
But sometimes studios and ad execs don't always put the contents on the tin. Whether trying to trick wary audiences into the theatre, covering up directors' more extreme deviations, hiding plot spoilers, or merely misunderstanding the films they represent, there are a whole host of movies that have been made to seem a whole lot lighter on the surface than they really are.
These films have often have a hidden dark plot, character elements that don't come to the fore until we're faced with the complete experience, a more sinister tone than expected, and which just generally are less upbeat or fun than advertised. But just because Scream 2 kills Randy, Gremlins gets grim and gory, and Stopmotion makes us watch a woman dismantling her entire life piece by fleshy piece doesn't mean we can't enjoy them - we just need a bit of warning next time!
Following up 10 Horror Movies Way Darker Than Advertised, here are 10 MORE horror movies that drain the light from your viewing experience.
10. Fresh (2022)
Positioned as a quirky abduction horror, Mimi Cave’s feature film debut Fresh turns out to be anything but.
You know the story: girl (Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Noa) meets mysterious and handsome boy (Sebastian Stan’s Steve), they date, they fall head over heels, and then... boy drugs, kidnaps and keeps her as his latest plaything? It’s not pretty, but it’s not uncommon in the realm of horror – and we assume we’ve seen it all before, until we haven’t.
Fresh has an added twist to the time-honoured story that was not well signposted in the marketing material. Steve doesn’t want to assault, torture or otherwise use Noa; he wants to cut her up and sell her. Now, the cannibal killer is bad enough, but the consumer-cannibal killer is another beast altogether. Once safely chained up in Steve’s high-tech basement, Steve “takes her ass” (exactly as it sounds), and Noa discovers she’s not alone. Things only get grimmer from there.
The film slowly bleeds ever-darker details as it progresses, starting with the fact that Steve keeps his victims alive as long as possible while he dismantles them, over weeks, months - maybe even years. And the girls in the adjoining cells to Noa are in various states of disrepair and insanity, missing more than a few of their essential parts. By the time we get to Steve’s demise, the grisly violence is the least of our concerns.