10 Most Disturbing Psychological Film Thrillers
1. Oldboy
A drunken businessman is plucked off the streets and locked up in a hotel room for 15 years. He can’t escape; he can only watch the world turn via the TV. His wife is murdered - he’s the prime suspect. Thoughts of depression turn to rage and revenge. Then, he’s released, and resolves to get to the bottom of his false imprisonment, ultimately picking at threads he’ll wish he left alone.
Most film fans will know the ending of Oldboy by now - the film being a 17-year-old movie of enormous critical acclaim - but even without touching on that eye-popping finale, Oldboy is one of the most mind-bendingly disturbing movies of recent years.
Oldboy starts off creepy and gets worse. Protagonist Oh Dae-su repeatedly attempts suicide, but is prevented from dying by his mysterious overseers. He celebrates his freedom by eating a live octopus (which was done for real by actor Choi Min-sik). And when the violence starts, it’s wince-inducing, captured unsparingly by Park Chan-wook.
That’s not to say Oldboy isn’t a blast, because it is. At the centre, though, is a gripping queasiness that will leave you reeling for a while afterwards.