Like a Lifetime thriller but.... better?

June 13, 2024 10:17 AM

I like high concept thrillers and slashers that were greenlit in large part for their two or three sentence plot summary. I also like tense, talky low budget films that do their best with very few actors and locations.

Plots I will never tire of include things like someone being held captive and having to escape a killer, or someone slowly realizing a particular person in their life is not who they thought they were, or someone sees a neighbor do something awful but no one believes them, or some people break into the entirely wrong house and have to deal with the consequences.

There is a huge overlap with Lifetime movies here, but Lifetime movies are often really disappointing in terms of acting, script, and impact.

I'd enjoy a list of movies that fit the bill and are at least a touch above Lifetime and similar productions.

Example movies:

• Run
• Hard Candy
• No Exit
• Alone
• Fresh
• Barbarian
• Get Out

Not looking for supernatural films, and I generally prefer movies where the protagonist comes out on top in the end.

posted by Number Used Once to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

You may like A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which flips some aspects of this in a way that I at least find very satisfying.
posted by phunniemee at 10:20 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

I think you might like Go.
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:21 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

The Endless, which is free on YouTube but it won't let me even get the share link while on mobile (rude). Two brothers revisit the cult they were part of when they were young, or do they.
posted by phunniemee at 10:23 AM on June 13

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle / The Ones Below is an excellent double feature choice re the strangers we let into our homes.
posted by phunniemee at 10:25 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

someone sees a neighbor do something awful but no one believes them,

The classic one here is Hitchcocks Rear Window

someone being held captive and having to escape a killer,

Jodi foster / panic room (bonus: baby-faced Kristen Stewart)

Both are like, decent budget tho
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:09 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

This is also my jam.

Don't Breathe
You'll Never Find Me
Splinter
Panic Room
Sick
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Speak No Evil
Creep
Till Death
Superhost
The Rental
The Lodge
posted by mrphancy at 11:15 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

someone slowly realizing a particular person in their life is not who they thought they were: The Guest
some people break into the entirely wrong house and have to deal with the consequences: Don't Breathe
posted by dudekiller at 11:16 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

For random folks trying to escape, there's Cube and its sequels, Cube 2: Hypercube and Cube Zero. Order is significant. While Cube 2 mostly stands on its own, it has callbacks to the first film. Cube Zero must be seen last, since it provides some "world building" for the Cube-iverse.
posted by SPrintF at 11:17 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

run lola run
posted by HearHere at 11:28 AM on June 13 [2 favorites]

Netflix's The Watcher fits - the ending is unsatisfying, but the story is gripping. It's multiple episodes, so it meanders and goes off on odd plot points, but the main story is exactly this - and it's kind of a true story.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:36 AM on June 13

Thought of some more:

Identity
Last Stop In Yuma
The Strangers (and sequels)
Coherence
Dead Calm (look at that cast!)
Dead Of Winter
10 Cloverfield Lane
Unsane
posted by mrphancy at 12:25 PM on June 13 [1 favorite]

The Lie This film had me on the edge of my seat; the acting was great.
posted by effluvia at 12:27 PM on June 13

I also like tense, talky low budget films that do their best with very few actors and locations.

You might want to use "mumblecore" as a search term here. I first heard the term in the context of Coherence, which was suggested above and I enthusiastically second the recommendation, but I recall it was applied to several other films that seemed to match what you're looking for.

Also an enthusiastic +1 for The Guest, which is fun in a "Lifetime thriller but better" way because it plays with horror/thriller movie tropes in a way that's cartoonishly exaggerated but still works as pure thriller/horror.
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:45 PM on June 13

I'm not sure I'm the expert on these movies, but personally I'm surprised to not already see The Invitation (2016) on here. I'm sure, given the genre, I don't need to encourage you to go into it as cold as possible -- but do avoid watching The Invitation (2022) instead, it's a far inferior movie and flubs one of your criteria.

Speaking of going in cold, though, I can't help but notice that this genre seems to correlate with my one annual film event, the Santa Cruz Secret Film Festival, where I originally saw The Invitation. The premise is that the titles are not announced beforehand and the movies aren't in wide release yet, so a "two or three sentence plot summary" is all you get, which doesn't necessarily narrow it down to this genre, but the kinds of movies that get played in such a program often wind up fitting -- of recommendations here, in addition to Invitation, Last Stop In Yuma, Coherence, and The Endless have all played just in years that I've attended. I don't think there's an official history of the programs but you might look over people's letterboxd lists for more inspiration. Maybe also consider Becky, which didn't play there but had a sequel that did, and which is "Die Hard on a country house property but John McClane is a traumatized teenage girl working her issues out by messily killing Nazis", which seems like the kind of "high concept" you seek.

But moving away from my fandom for an extremely niche IRL event: Green Room, about a punk band trying to escape a Neo-Nazi compound, was kinda "dueling movies" to Don't Breath, and the consensus among those who've seen both seems to be that Green Room is superior. Hush is about a woman who has to fight off a home invader alone, a situation exacerbated by her total deafness. Both of these may be too far into outright action/horror for your tastes, but they're definitely about tension rather than gore or fight choreography, and the monsters are human.
posted by dick dale the vampire at 9:21 PM on June 13 [1 favorite]

I will second The Invitation, Green and Hush as being great choices.
posted by mrphancy at 9:50 PM on June 13 [1 favorite]

Jackie Brown is a perfect movie.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 5:58 AM on June 14

someone being held captive and having to escape a killer
I also like tense, talky low budget films that do their best with very few actors and locations.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed
posted by ejs at 6:05 AM on June 14

Harlan Coban writes thriller novels that Netflix has now made into several "limited series" of 6-10 episodes - for whatever reason a handful of them are produced in different European countries so they are in a variety of languages, but all available English dubbed. They are satisfyingly twisty, if you like one you'll probably enjoy the rest.
posted by heyforfour at 12:56 PM on June 14

Big rec for Australian director Kitty Green's The Royal Hotel, a thriller inspired by a documentary (Hotel Coolgardie) about women dealing with sexist pigs while working behind a bar in outback Australia.
posted by RubyScarlet at 3:48 AM on June 17