Psychological Horror is a subgenre that disturbs by tapping into mental and emotional vulnerabilities, exposing repression, paranoia, and self-doubt rather than relying on gore or monsters. It uses atmosphere, suspense, and unreliable perspectives to unsettle, think Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) with Norman Bates’ fractured psyche, Jennifer Kent’s grief-fueled The Babadook (2014), and modern indies like Hereditary (2018) or The Invitation (2015), which probe familial trauma and creeping paranoia. These films haunt long, proving that true terror often comes from within.
It Feeds review: Chad Archibald’s psychological horror explores trauma, family therapy, and supernatural predation. Ashley Greene leads this atmospheric Black Fawn Films thriller about entities that feed on human vulnerability and the dangerous territory between helping and enabling.
Phobia 2013: Jonathan MacKinlay is stuck at home, trapped not by walls, but by his own fear. Ever since the crash that took his wife, he’s lived the same lifeless routine, every day blending into the next. But lately, something feels…off. Dark visions creep in, nightmares that don’t fade when he wakes. Is his mind playing tricks on him, or is something truly sinister closing in?
A face-chiseling, tapeworm-spitting horror satire, The Ugly Stepsister puts Cinderella in a blender of blood, ambition, and unhinged beauty standards. #HorrorStreaming #BodyHorror
They said it would scare me silly, but Terrified unsettled me instead. With levitating bodies, undead children, and a whole lot of calm denial, this Argentine horror is more tonally fascinating than flat-out frightening. I wasn’t terrified, but I was deeply intrigued. #motherofmovies
Face-swapping isn’t just sci-fi anymore, Grafted delivers a vicious spiral of ambition, betrayal, and identity theft with a scalpel in one hand and no conscience in the other.
What if control isn’t something we hold, but something held over us? Control Freak (2025) unravels the illusion of autonomy through Val (Kelly Marie Tran), a self-help guru whose journey from rock bottom to success might not be as empowering as it seems. As cracks in her story emerge, so does a terrifying question, was she ever in control at all?