I watched a few movies this year that aren't technically horror movies, but have some element of psychologically scary stuff, so here's a few with brief reviews.
Martha Marcy May Marlene (3 1/2 stars)
I was fascinated by the book Helter Skelter when I was a teen, and this movie kind of reminded me of that. Elizabeth Olsen was fabulous and it was well worth watching.
Red Riding: 1974 (3 stars); Red Riding: 1980 (3 stars); Red Riding: 1983 (3 1/2 stars)
These three British movies (also known as the Red Riding Trilogy) all tell a complete story, but were directed by three different directors. They're not really scary but they are about a serial killer. I guess I particularly liked the third one. I watched them in two days; I think I watched the first movie and the next day I watched the second and third. They're fairly grim in tone, so I don't know if I'd recommend a marathon of all three.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (3 stars)
I can't exactly say I enjoyed this movie. It was hard to watch at times, even though there's not a lot of actual violence in it. But Tilda Swinton is a Goddess. And the actor who plays Kevin? Wow. I had seen him not long before in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which I loved), and he was such a joy in that one, but he was also totally believable as a young psychopath.
M (5 stars)
LOVE this movie. I had never seen it before, but I know I'll be watching it again. The end scene where Peter Lorre is surrounded by people who want to kill him (for good reason) stuck with me for quite a while after watching it. He's a pedophile and a child-killer, but is it his fault? Does he deserve mercy, considering he didn't choose this way of being? I was frankly rooting for them to kill him, but I wasn't doing it gleefully, and it made me question how I really feel about such things.
Stoker (4 stars)
I love Chan-wook Park. He directed my beloved Oldboy, a movie that is so gorgeous and so heartbreaking. I didn't really love his last movie, Thirst, so I was a little apprehensive, but I really enjoyed this movie. And I recently watched Shadow of a Doubt for the first time and couldn't help but see some similarities in the relationships between uncle and niece in both movies (just add incest!).
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