10 Perfect Psychological Horror Movies You've Never Heard Of
8. Incident In A Ghostland
What makes Incident in a Ghostland so creepy, is how it's not clear what kind of movie it is at first.
In the first act of Pascal Laugier's mind-bending thriller, Colleen moves into a new house with her daughters, Beth and Vera, when they are suddenly attacked by two serial killers.
Based on this opening, Ghostland is set up as a good old-fashioned slasher. But when Colleen suddenly kills the psychopaths, the story cuts to 16 years later, with Beth now a successful author and Vera traumatised by the home invasion. At this point, it feels like Ghostland has turned into a survivor story, depicting how two people can react so differently to the same incident. However, as Beth tries to bring her mentally unstable sister back to reality, she learns a horrifying truth, subverting expectations once more.
Though the acting is superb and the violence is creatively visceral, it's Incident in a Ghostland's unconventional structure that leaves the biggest impact. Ghostland repeatedly pulls a fast one so effectively, it encourages a rewatch, and since it's easy to misconstrue characters' behaviour on a first viewing, watching it a second time is thoroughly eye-opening.