1. Requiem For A Dream
If ever there was a film to scare people away from drugs, Darren Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream is it. Its a psychological drama that depicts different forms of substance abuse and addiction, and is still as shockingly relevant and striking now as it was back then. The reasons why Requiem succeeds are the same reasons why its such a terrifying cinematic experience. It tells the stories of four individuals with intertwining plots who are addicted to heroin, cocaine and amphetamines, respectively. Whereas plenty of drug films may either glorify drug use or completely condemn it, Requiem for a Dream takes a more unbiased, brutally honest view of the journey a drug abuser finds themselves on. The deterioration of the character's health is extremely difficult to watch, particularly Ellen Burstyns Oscar-nominated performance as the elderly widow addicted to pills. For all four addicts, It all comes to a halt at once in a horrifyingly intense conclusion to a film that never felt like it could have ended any other way. What makes it the scariest film on the bunch is that this could happen to anyone. Drug abuse is a slippery and dangerous slope, and one can only hope that Requiem For A Dream proves enough to scare people away from succumbing to its horrors.
Which other non-horror movies get under the skin more than horror films?