If you are a horror movie enthusiast, you will surely enjoy today’s list. Movies about cults are disturbing and horrifying due to multiple reasons. For example, most of these stories are based on actual events that once left a whole country sleep-deprived! Other stories could tackle future issues connected to cults and their development throughout time. Without further ado, let’s see what today’s article has in stock!
What Are Cults?
A cult is a group of people sharing the same beliefs or the same ideology and is headed by an attractive and charismatic group leader who can psychologically manipulate them. Cult members do not always know they are joining a cult. Sometimes, all they know is that they found a group of people who accepts them and creates a safe space for them to exist. Little do they know, the cult leader will gradually disconnect them from the outside world, keep them away from their families and friends, and make them vulnerable enough never to leave the cult.
Cult members, also known to some as “victims”, can sometimes escape the cult and share their experience with the world and how they were brainwashed into believing or doing things they wouldn’t normally do. However, other members don’t get the chance to leave, and they spend their whole life lives trapped in these cults. Check out some of the most horrifying cult movies below to get a glimpse of the life of cults.
1. Ready or not (2019)
It is your wedding night; you can’t believe you just married the man of your dreams. You moved to his family’s mansion, and they invited you to play a game before you go to bed. That is exactly how Grace’s wedding night went, except for one thing: To win this hide-and-seek game, she had to find a safe place to hide till dawn while her crazy in-laws were trying to hunt her with guns, crossbows, and any weapon that comes to your mind.
The family had to do this wedding night ritual as part of their satanic worshipping. The movie contains extremely graphic scenes that are not made for everyone to watch. Will Grace find a way out to save her life? Follow Samara Weaving (Grace) in this bloody and beyond-scary adventure to see what will happen.
2. Midsommar (2019)
Midsommar is, without a doubt, one of the scariest and most disturbing movies ever made. The movie is not only about cults; it also discusses trauma and the hard process of feeling the pain following this trauma. Florence Pough plays Dani, a young woman who just lost her family in a catastrophic murder. After this traumatic event, Dani went to find comfort in her boyfriend’s arms, who turned out to be a self-centred and cold human being.
Dani agrees to go on a healing trip with her boyfriend and his friends to attend a midsummer festival in a small Swedish village. What began as a peaceful and joyful festival turned out to be a horrific and beyond awful ritual gathering. This Ari Astar movie includes graphic scenes and disturbing moments that are really hard to watch. It is brilliant in a painful way!
3. Spell (2020)
If you are a fan of Misery, you are going to love Spell! This 2020 horror movie portrays your darkest nightmares and fears. The plot follows a super-rich businessman called Marquis (Omari Hardwick), who gets a call telling him his father has passed away. The man takes his wife and two children to attend the funeral in his hometown. On their private plane, a strong storm comes up, and the plane crashes in the middle of nowhere.
When Marquis wakes up, he finds himself on a bed in someone’s attic without his family. A couple of minutes later, a woman called Eloise (Loretta Devine) comes into the room to tell him that she and her husband saved his life. He discovers that he suffers from a severe injury in his foot and cannot leave the bed. The events then take a sinister turn when Eiloise tells him that she is helping him heal by making him a Boogety (Hoodoo figure, similar to Voodoo dolls) out of his blood and skin. If you think this is creepy, you haven’t seen anything yet! Eloise and her Hoodoo cult will keep you on the edge of your seat.
The Boogity is a representation of its human. So, Marquis’ Boogity is connected to him; whatever happens to the Boogity happens to Marquis. Imagine if your life is in the hands of a doll that looks just like you! One of the most noticeable successes in this movie is Loretta Devine’s performance. We usually see Loretta in nice and kind roles as the person she is in real life. The character she played here gave her an opportunity to play the villain and show us more sides of her talent.
4. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
We obviously cannot talk about cults without mentioning Rosemary’s Baby. This Roman Polanski movie is, without a doubt, one of the best horror movies in the world! The fact that this movie was produced in the 1960s is shocking because once you watch it, you will spend days thinking of how surprisingly amazing it is.
The plot follows Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her husband, Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes), as they move into a New York apartment and start to make their own family. The building they move to is old, with weird neighbours and strange vibes. Once Rosemary gets pregnant, she starts to suspect that her neighbours are members of a satanic cult and that her expected baby is the son of Satan.
The movie’s greatness does not lie in the unknown, as the rest of thriller/horror movies. Instead, the great thing here is that you can clearly see all the cards on the table, and you can predict what is going to happen. This, in turn, pushes you to want to change the upcoming events or do something to help Rosemary, but we both know you can’t!
From the start, you will lose yourself watching this movie. You will be taken by the great plot, cinematography, and the whole project. If you haven’t watched Rosemary’s Baby yet, we strongly recommend you watch it as soon as possible.
5. The Endless (2017)
The super pair Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directed, wrote, and starred in this amazing sci-fi/ horror/thriller movie. The plot follows two brothers who escaped a UFO death cult as children. Years later, they decide to visit the cult, see their old friends, and then head back and leave.
However, when they get there, strange events take place in the cult’s camp, and they are faced with unexplainable occurrences. The movie is really deep and encourages the viewer to think beyond their imagination. It does not contain many unnecessary jump scares. Instead, it focuses on creating a perfectly tailored plot that engages the viewer right from the beginning.
6. Hereditary (2018)
After Annie’s mother dies, she starts to unlock secrets about her family’s past. The movie has a glimpse of Rosemary’s Baby, and it contains many disturbing scenes, such as blood, burning, and horrific accidents. It stars Toni Collette (Annie Graham), Alex Wolff (Annie’s son, Peter), Milly Shapiro (Annie’s daughter, Charlie), and Gabriel Byrne (Steve Graham).
7. The House of the Devil (2009)
Jocelin Donahue plays Samantha, a college student who desperately needs money to afford the rent of her apartment. She accepts a babysitting job at the Ulmans’ house, which turns out to be much creepier than she thought. However, when her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) drives her there, Samantha meets Mr Ulman (Tom Noonan), who welcomes her in the house and tells her that she won’t babysit a child; she will take care of his mother until he and his wife (Mary Woronof) get back home.
Mr and Mrs Ulman tell Samantha that today is a full lunar eclipse and that his mother won’t cause any trouble for her till they get back. Little did she know that she was part of sick rituals and her life might be the price. Now, you may wonder, what could make Samantha stay at the house after she figured out they were lying about the baby? Why did she choose to neglect all the red flags surrounding that house?
To answer your question, the price that the Ulmans offered was tempting, considering Samantha’s circumstances and the fact that she may lose the house she wants to rent if she couldn’t get those $400. The price was way too high for a job that asked her to just sit in the house and watch TV all night long! She was going to get paid for having fun, and that is why it was so hard for her to refuse the job offer.
There is no doubt that cults, whatever their goal is, are extremely dangerous, and you need to pay attention to their characteristics in order not to join one by mistake. No matter how right they sound at the beginning, no matter what promises they give you, always remember that when someone isolates you from your loved ones and controls your mind completely, nothing good will come out of it. Keep that in mind, and let us know your favourite cult movie!