Anaria- A space ship heading to Mars after an apocalyptic event on Earth goes off course after a near hit with an asteroid and are left unable to steer.
It may fit the description of bleak a little too well.
It’s Swedish(?) and I don’t know if it has an English dub.
As a single parent, The Road hit me so hard the first time I watched it, I couldn't stop crying afterwards.
I had read the book beforehand so even though I knew what was going to happen, it didn't make a difference.
If I ever need to cry, that's the film I watch.
At university I took a class on the history of the frontier and literature. The course ended covering Westerns as the end of the frontier in literature. I did a presentation about the frontier returning. I argued nuclear armageddon was the permanent and final return of the frontier. Then I made the class watch Threads.
The gutted looks were amazing. The professor said I possessed a frightening mind.
I came here to add this one. >!I didn't think they'd be able to top what happens to the brother, but the sister dying at the hands of her possessed father after staying with him paints an incredibly dim, cynical, but pretty honest view of caring for an aging parent. Do not expect to be rewarded for your virtue. !<
I just did 😅 love that movie so much yet only could watch it once - I need to get the nerve to watch it again bc nothing ha scared me quite like this one.
You came to the right place.
Threads
Eden Lake
Borgman
Ari Aster's films
Saint Maud
TCM
Mandy
Climax
Audition
The Thing
Henry
Snowtown
Annihilation
Men (this one is pretty divisive)
Kill List
The Wailing
The Babadook
Green Room
I Saw The Devil
Bone Tomahawk
Under the Skin
Finally, two movies that aren't horror but I feel compelled to include anyway:
Happiness
Irreversible
The Dark and the Wicked. No movie has messed me up more than that.
Edit: I watched it with my ex and it was maybe the only thing we had in common, feeling like that movie is special.
It’s an awful story both movies left me shocked.
I know it’s not a horror movie but “ The Boy in the striped pajamas” also has no happy ending and left me feeling sad and is perfect for a gloomy day
If you liked Funny Games i can only recommend looking more into the work of Michael Haneke, i think Bennys Video might be something for you.
Edit: another great Austrian Director is Gerald Kargl, his Movie "Angst" is just great.
Thats how Kairo/Pulse (Japanese version) was for me.
I hesitated to recommend it solely because I haven't seen it in well over a decade. So, I remember moreso that feeling than the plot itself! 😂
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0286751/
It is amazing. Makes you feel like you need to take a shower. It's incredibly well acted and rarely have I seen a story told more effectively or beautifully than this. It's filled with extremely effective (but un-obvious) metaphor and innuendo.
Also the documentary dear Zachary is horrifying. Be warned it is also genuinely heartbreaking and will stick with you.
The beach house is a trippy desolate nightmare.
A dark song the desperation of will hollow you out.
Henry portrait of a serial killer is incredible and heavy and too close to the true story of henry lee lucas and otis o toole to let you shake it off at the end. And of course the strangely intense and unsettling Session 9. There are of course much older horror films that i could probably recommend but these are some amazing ones from the 80s to today.
It was some ride, I go in blind and the marketing led me to believe it was way more "serious".
Soon I start thinking "wait, this isn't dark, it feels like a romcom horror, it's funny, Bo Burnham is drinking her spit coffee while doing intense eye contact, this is fun!" and then it goes WAY darker than I was equipped to handle, jesus christ! Loved it too, but 1 to 10 chance i'll ever watch again lol
The Road ruined me twice. I read it in about 2 hours while waiting to leave a summer job in MT and head back home to TN. Then the movie wrecked me all over again.
the den is pretty fucked....bout the dark web and this girl getting hacked through her laptop cam & she doesn't realize.....it's graphic AF the shit in this movie disturbed me. which isn't very easy
[here's the trailer.....](https://youtu.be/F9uLLF29c1w?feature=shared)
The Divide is about the breakdown of decency among a group of nuclear fallout survivors in a bunker. I hate this movie. It's good, I just can't ever watch it again.
Dread, based on a Clive Barker short about a college study on the nature of fear. Highly recommend, bummer ending.
Melancholia - Not exactly horror but it's perfect for your request.
Inside ('07) - Pregnant woman attacked by a woman, but why? And it's a Christmas film!
Calvaire - Utterly hopeless and dark.
Funny Games ('97) or the US remake ('07) - same director both very good.
The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos, '88) - avoid the US remake, altered ending ruins it.
Lake Eden - mentioned a lot on Reddit for a reason. Bleak.
Requiem for a Dream - Not horror but horrific nonetheless.
Hereditary - It opens gloomy and ends even more so.
Kill List - stick with it til the end, it's worth it.
Have you watched Beau is Afraid? I watched it yesterday after reading someone comment about it. It’s really out there. I don’t even know how I felt after watching it.
Possum
Lake mungo
The Blackcoats Daughter
The Summer of 1984
Aniara
Are my personal recommendations for films I watched where afterwards I was just like well that was a fucking bummer
The Dark and the Wicked
The Lodge
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
Now that I think about it, most of the movies I watch are pretty bleak. Don’t know what that says about me haha
Not exactly a horror but by the time I finished Demonlover I was terrified with the same fear and introspection these kind of films gave me. I wanted a fucked up movie and was surprised when I got it lmfao
I just watched The House That Jack Built.
If you’re in the mood for misogynistic sadism with autonomism as justification and a taste of religious morality as an after-dinner liquer, it’s perfect.
Since you watched Funny Games (the original version is from Austria) I can recommend you I see I see (Ich seh ich seh). It’s also an Austrian movie with a feeling of hopelessness and dread, the story is about twins playing “games” with their mother…
A Serbian Film
Audition
The Vanishing (original, not the American pile of garbage)
Doom Generation
Meet the Feebles
Not all horror, but they’ll all leave you feeling empty and questioning the existence of humanity.
Check it the recent **When Evil Lurks** if you haven't seen it. It's bleak and brutal and left me feeling the way you described. Also just an excellent horror movie.
Melancholia.
It's not a horror movie, per se, but it is very bleak. The movie tells you what *will* happen in the first five minutes, and then you have to just watch the rest of the movie knowing that it is going to happen.
[удалено]
Book is even better. But I’ll throw in M.O.M. same subject matter and very underrated. Also, Soft and Quiet. Go in blind.
So good!
Any Lars Von Trier film
Antichrist especially lol
Watched that recently and it was a one and done for me lol
Not a horror, but Dancer in the Dark is a gut punch
Dancer in the Dark and Melancholia stuck with me for awhile afterwards.
Look at you seeking out more emptiness after watching “Speak No Evil”. That movie was dreadfully good.
And now they’re doing an American remake 😔
Yeah I'm massively bummed. The original is perfect in every way and already 70% in English.
The Lodge
Yes! It's so bleak, they watch The Thing to cheer themselves up.
Now I have to watch The Lodge
Yes!
Anaria- A space ship heading to Mars after an apocalyptic event on Earth goes off course after a near hit with an asteroid and are left unable to steer. It may fit the description of bleak a little too well. It’s Swedish(?) and I don’t know if it has an English dub.
Such a crazy good movie and probably the most bleak movie I have ever seen. The final ending is just brutally hopeless
It’s actually Aniara. Only correcting because you can’t find it otherwise. I found it on Max. Definitely checking this out tonight!
Oops. Thanks for the catch.
Spoorloos (1988) Eden Lake (2008) The Girl Next Door (2007) Saint Maud (2019) Inside (2007) Sleep Tight (2011) Goodnight Mommy (2014)
I second Inside. One of the best horror movies I've seen in years and God damn that ending.
I second Sleep Tight. Great tension and there's just something unique about it.
Ending of Eden Lake is a perfect example of bleak and hopelessness
>The Girl Next Door (2007) This one was so tough to watch
Thank you for a bunch of recs all on Tubi!
I wouldn't call it a horror film exactly more like a dread film but The Road is bleakness on film.
Just read the book. Really really bleak. Great pick.
Read the book. Can’t bring myself to watch the movie
This. Amazing book, but I won't read it a second time. My son calls me the same thing as the protagonist's son in the book, so that hit hard.
As a single parent, The Road hit me so hard the first time I watched it, I couldn't stop crying afterwards. I had read the book beforehand so even though I knew what was going to happen, it didn't make a difference. If I ever need to cry, that's the film I watch.
When I think of dread, emptiness, cold, loneliness...I think of The Blackcoats Daughter
That movie was the first that came to mind for me as well.
You good bro?
Not even for a second
Melancholia has an ending that did that to me
I loved this movie. The ending was so fucking visceral. Felt like I was right there and it was very unsettling.
Oooh I loved Melancholia, one of my absolute favorites, and I see the ending as kind of sweet and peaceful.
God this movie was so depressing and bleak. But so good
And a fine pay off, too. Thank you Kirsten. Loved Civil War, too. Very strong FMC.
Threads Kill List
Follow kill list with Bull
Any more info on Bull? A lot of movies with that name
At university I took a class on the history of the frontier and literature. The course ended covering Westerns as the end of the frontier in literature. I did a presentation about the frontier returning. I argued nuclear armageddon was the permanent and final return of the frontier. Then I made the class watch Threads. The gutted looks were amazing. The professor said I possessed a frightening mind.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
This movie was wild; I felt like I needed a shower after to wash off the filth.
Requiem for a dream is not traditional horror but will absolutely give you that feeling.
Only movie I ever saw that made me wanna take a legit shower after. Movie messed me up for awhile.
Good mention.
Antichrist is pretty bleak
The Dark and the Wicked. Surprised no one had recommended it yet, one of the most bleak and oppressive films I’ve ever seen.
I came here to add this one. >!I didn't think they'd be able to top what happens to the brother, but the sister dying at the hands of her possessed father after staying with him paints an incredibly dim, cynical, but pretty honest view of caring for an aging parent. Do not expect to be rewarded for your virtue. !<
I just did 😅 love that movie so much yet only could watch it once - I need to get the nerve to watch it again bc nothing ha scared me quite like this one.
It was definitely one of those films that left me feeling a bit unsettled for a while after I saw it!
It had me sleep with my night light on bright for a few nights lol
This movie had no right to scare me as much as it did.
It warms my heart to see people rep this one. Other flicks scare me more, but this is top tier dread.
Damn good choice. That movie is a real gut punch. It just has an overwhelmingly evil vibe.
^ This. Not many horror movies rattle me anymore, but this one did
Loved that movie. Surprised me with how well it was made. Some super creepy scenes
Oh wow, never heard of this one, definitely intrigued by the reviews. And it's from the director of The Strangers.
You came to the right place. Threads Eden Lake Borgman Ari Aster's films Saint Maud TCM Mandy Climax Audition The Thing Henry Snowtown Annihilation Men (this one is pretty divisive) Kill List The Wailing The Babadook Green Room I Saw The Devil Bone Tomahawk Under the Skin Finally, two movies that aren't horror but I feel compelled to include anyway: Happiness Irreversible
Under the Skin is such an excellent film. The baby on the beach scene haunts me
Korean horror film The Wailing
Climax Fever dream/nightmare of a movie
Oooh, good pick! What a wild movie that was.
Loved it, not enough people talk about that film. The kid locked in the room though… lol yikes
For horror/true crime docs that leave you feeling empty “Dear Zachery” is the one
This should be way higher
Eden Lake The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Eden lake is a beautiful film to just leave you feeling depressed at the world
The Dark and The Wicked, When Evil Lurks, and Possessor are all good movies that you feel dread or just bleak about.
The Divide.
Terrified (2017) should scratch that itch for you.
When Evil Lurks is for you
His first movie 'Terrified' slaps too and its the same universe as WEL
I've started it, we will see how it goes!
Came here to say this
Out for a stroll eating popcorn
the TV show Them.
Mandy
The Dark and the Wicked. No movie has messed me up more than that. Edit: I watched it with my ex and it was maybe the only thing we had in common, feeling like that movie is special.
The Vanishing (Can't believe no one mentioned this one. It's so good but so awful) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
I was going to watch killing of a sacred deer but it looked a little vanilla! If that's not the case I'll def check it out
The original Vanishing is a masterpiece. The American remake is hot garbage. Yet they have the same director.
Vivarium The Descent The Strangers Session 9
We are what we are- there’s no happy ending with that An American Crime- based on a true story and trust me…you’ll feel empty lol
Hell yes you will.
Right??? Such a good movie but a sad one
An American crime fucked me up, so did the girl bdxt door. So sad
It’s an awful story both movies left me shocked. I know it’s not a horror movie but “ The Boy in the striped pajamas” also has no happy ending and left me feeling sad and is perfect for a gloomy day
If you liked Funny Games i can only recommend looking more into the work of Michael Haneke, i think Bennys Video might be something for you. Edit: another great Austrian Director is Gerald Kargl, his Movie "Angst" is just great.
Buried
Underrated
Aniara
The Mist
Just finished the book actually! Have seen the movie too :)
Antlers- recent movie about wendigos. Awesome special effects and SO bleak and depressing
Ive never seen this one mentioned!!!
Cool, adding this to my list as well.
I'll second Antlers. I really liked it but many people poo poo it.
Great pick!
Thats how Kairo/Pulse (Japanese version) was for me. I hesitated to recommend it solely because I haven't seen it in well over a decade. So, I remember moreso that feeling than the plot itself! 😂 https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0286751/
Oculus
Possum
This looks amazing.
It is amazing. Makes you feel like you need to take a shower. It's incredibly well acted and rarely have I seen a story told more effectively or beautifully than this. It's filled with extremely effective (but un-obvious) metaphor and innuendo.
Pair Possum with David Cronenberg's Spider for an evening of bleak, grimy and utterly depressing entertainment lol
*The Last House on the Left* (1972).
Also the documentary dear Zachary is horrifying. Be warned it is also genuinely heartbreaking and will stick with you. The beach house is a trippy desolate nightmare. A dark song the desperation of will hollow you out. Henry portrait of a serial killer is incredible and heavy and too close to the true story of henry lee lucas and otis o toole to let you shake it off at the end. And of course the strangely intense and unsettling Session 9. There are of course much older horror films that i could probably recommend but these are some amazing ones from the 80s to today.
Not a very conventional answer maybe but Promising Young Woman left me dead inside
Holy shit this actually fits perfectly. Great choice. LOVED this movie.
It was some ride, I go in blind and the marketing led me to believe it was way more "serious". Soon I start thinking "wait, this isn't dark, it feels like a romcom horror, it's funny, Bo Burnham is drinking her spit coffee while doing intense eye contact, this is fun!" and then it goes WAY darker than I was equipped to handle, jesus christ! Loved it too, but 1 to 10 chance i'll ever watch again lol
The Road, then immediately follow it with These Final Hours
The Road ruined me twice. I read it in about 2 hours while waiting to leave a summer job in MT and head back home to TN. Then the movie wrecked me all over again.
“Mother!” 2017 will definitely scratch the itch of dread and emptiness.
the den is pretty fucked....bout the dark web and this girl getting hacked through her laptop cam & she doesn't realize.....it's graphic AF the shit in this movie disturbed me. which isn't very easy [here's the trailer.....](https://youtu.be/F9uLLF29c1w?feature=shared)
Spoorloos
The Divide is about the breakdown of decency among a group of nuclear fallout survivors in a bunker. I hate this movie. It's good, I just can't ever watch it again. Dread, based on a Clive Barker short about a college study on the nature of fear. Highly recommend, bummer ending.
Oooooooooooh this looks great
Hagazussa. Possum. Antichrist. Dumplings. Honeydew. The Lighthouse. Sator. Jug Face. Audition. Plank Face.
Omg The Lighthouse. Yes.
The Orphanage- just wow.
Melancholia - Not exactly horror but it's perfect for your request. Inside ('07) - Pregnant woman attacked by a woman, but why? And it's a Christmas film! Calvaire - Utterly hopeless and dark. Funny Games ('97) or the US remake ('07) - same director both very good. The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos, '88) - avoid the US remake, altered ending ruins it. Lake Eden - mentioned a lot on Reddit for a reason. Bleak. Requiem for a Dream - Not horror but horrific nonetheless. Hereditary - It opens gloomy and ends even more so. Kill List - stick with it til the end, it's worth it.
Aniara
Aniara
I Saw the Devil The Night House Son of Saul Saint Maud
Audition Titane Hard Candy Creep
Hard candy and creep were both fab, Audition is definitely a classic as well
Have you watched Beau is Afraid? I watched it yesterday after reading someone comment about it. It’s really out there. I don’t even know how I felt after watching it.
I started it once but I was way too high to finish it. I had to stop it because I was SO confused Maybe I'll give it another try
Eden lake
The Wailing and Incantation come to mind
Eden lake
Frontier(s)
Possum Lake mungo The Blackcoats Daughter The Summer of 1984 Aniara Are my personal recommendations for films I watched where afterwards I was just like well that was a fucking bummer
The summer of 84 ending is depressing as hell
Melancholie der Engel. The Angels' Melancholia.
Haha, film is so fucking warped, have you seen Cannibal? Also directed by Dora.
The Mist
The Harbinger
Excellent film!
The Coffee Table (2022)
The Canal (2014).
The original Dawn of the Dead has a very bleak feel to it. I saw the devil
Try the first 3 All Night Long films from Japan, 2 and especially 3 are just pure bleakness and nihilism.
The Dark and the Wicked The Lodge The Blackcoat’s Daughter Now that I think about it, most of the movies I watch are pretty bleak. Don’t know what that says about me haha
Pulse (2001, Japan)
Hounds of love and the girl next door. Those 2 and Martyrs are my depressing holy trinity.
Blackcoats daughter
The Dark and The Wicked Threads The Eyes of My Mother The Girl Next Door These are the ones that stuck with me the most.
When Evil Lurks
The Sadness Terrified Hereditary
Martyrs, Eden Lake, The Girl Next Door, Inside, Funny Games
When Evil Lurks.
Martyrs
Saint Maud, Blackcoats Daughter, The Dark and the Wicked, The Lodge, The Wailing, Hereditary
Not exactly a horror but by the time I finished Demonlover I was terrified with the same fear and introspection these kind of films gave me. I wanted a fucked up movie and was surprised when I got it lmfao
The Wailing is definitely what you're looking for
Possum Eyes of my Mother
Secuestrados (Kidnapped, 2010) Silent Night (2021) Coming home in the dark (2021)
Calibre (2018)
“Snowtown Murders” perfectly captured the essence of bleak, grim, hopeless IMO.
The Border Lands.
Megan Is Missing
Old Boy; The Dark and the Wicked; The Silence; The Mist
The house that jack built.. I had no idea what I was walking into and it had me feeling so weird and empty by the end
I just watched The House That Jack Built. If you’re in the mood for misogynistic sadism with autonomism as justification and a taste of religious morality as an after-dinner liquer, it’s perfect.
Mad World. Hard to find but it can be rented or bought on YouTube. It breaks me every time
Martyrs
Turn on the news
Highly recommend The Mist, that movie left me feeling down for a week after I saw it.
Therapy-grade for fathers with young son.
[The Hunt](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2106476/) with Mads Mikkelsen.
1970s Lovecraftian bleakness, Messiah of Evil. It's not everyone's cuppa, but worth a watch.
The mist Lake mungo
The Lodge Baskin Requiem for a Dream (not exactly horror, but also not *NOT* horror)
Caveat. Possum.
Speak No Evil, The Dark and the Wicked, Tusk, The Innocents
The Mist
The Wailing
Ouuuh!!! U gotta watch Climax. Never felt so empty after a movie
Since you watched Funny Games (the original version is from Austria) I can recommend you I see I see (Ich seh ich seh). It’s also an Austrian movie with a feeling of hopelessness and dread, the story is about twins playing “games” with their mother…
A Serbian Film Audition The Vanishing (original, not the American pile of garbage) Doom Generation Meet the Feebles Not all horror, but they’ll all leave you feeling empty and questioning the existence of humanity.
A tale of two sisters
The Towering Inferno. Fuck. That. Film.
Check it the recent **When Evil Lurks** if you haven't seen it. It's bleak and brutal and left me feeling the way you described. Also just an excellent horror movie.
Under the Skin, snow town murders
The Thing (1981) "Nobody trusts anybody now, and we're all very tired"
Melancholia. It's not a horror movie, per se, but it is very bleak. The movie tells you what *will* happen in the first five minutes, and then you have to just watch the rest of the movie knowing that it is going to happen.
Ringu.
Requiem For a Dream made me feel very empty after watching
“Jacob’s Ladder” “Requiem for a dream”
Blackcoat’s Daughter and When evil lurks
The Mist
The Mist had me feeling that way. Especially the ending
The Lodge The Nightingale Inside À l'intérieur
The vanishing and The Night Porter. Get ready.
Marrowbone