It’s October! The season of woolen garments, fun-sized candy, and scary movies. But this is a crime website, so rather than tell you about a bunch of straight-up scary movies to stream this month, I’m going to suggest a bunch of scary movies that are NOT horror movies! Yes that’s right… no supernatural hoopla here, folks. Just some good, old-fashioned villains whose behavior does not tip the scales towards slashers or horror tropes. No vengeful ghosts, no knife-wielding masked trespassers, no nightmarish visions of any kind. Not even a single mild-mannered-motel-owner-leading-a-murderous-double-life-as-his-dead-mother. (AS IF the readers of this website need me to direct them to Psycho anyway.)
Look, this category is hard. There are a lot of films that come close. Is The Silence of the Lambs simply too scary? Yes. Is Diabolique not scary enough?Maybe. Is American Psycho too bloody? Yes. Is Don’t Look Now too supernatural? Yes. Is Monster too traumatic? Yes. Does Fatal Attraction combine horror with romantic suspense rather than crime? Yes?
Anyway, I had a few ideas. Here are some very satisfying scary crime movies that are not really horror movies, probably. (Otherwise known as the David Fincher collection!)
Panic Room (2002)
Jodie Foster and a young Kristen Stewart star in this David Fincher movie about a mother and her (lookalike) daughter forced to hide in their new home’s safe room when three men break in. Not only is this classic Foster, it’s also a welcome entrant into a subgenre we like, “Diabetes Noir.”
Wait Until Dark (1967)
Based on the play by Frederick Knott, this dark and extremely suspenseful film stars Audrey Hepburn as Suzy Hendrix, a recently blinded woman whose husband Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) winds up bringing a doll full of heroin into their apartment. But several men (Alan Arkin and my mother’s favorite character actor Richard Crenna) are after the drug shipment, and wind up entering her home to search for it. And not only does she have to figure out what’s going on, while she can’t see, but she also has to survive.
Secret Window (2004)
God, in 2004, I saw the poster for this movie on every passing bus. Fresh off Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp plays a well-known writer staying at a cabin in the woods, who is visited by a man (John Turturro) who accuses him of plagiarism, and continues to stalk him until he ‘fixes the ending.’ I haven’t seen it, to be honest, but my grandparents watched it in theaters and told me it was “hm, good.”
Memories of Murder (2003)
Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece about South Korea’s first serial killer case is often considered one of the best films ever made. Ever.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
My high school AP US History teacher Mr. O’Neill heartily recommended that I watch this earlyish-career Hitchcock movie, about a teenage girl (Teresa Wright) who becomes suspicious that her beloved Uncle Charley (Joseph Cotten) is a murderer, after he visits her family in their idyllic California town. It’s really excellent—Mr. O’Neill was correct.
Zodiac (2008)
A favorite of CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief Dwyer Murphy, Zodiac emphasizes the crime-solving process enough to keep the film from tetering over into horror. It’s scary. It’s so scary. But it’s also a film about methodical research, and that saves the day, blood-pressure-wise.
Night of the Hunter (1955)
I will never, never shut up about Charles Laughton’s only film, a masterpiece about a psychopathic serial-killer and self-appointed preacher (Robert Mitchum, always great, never better), who, when he gets out of jail, becomes obsessed with finding the money hidden by his lately-executed bank robber former-cellmate—a secret which is kept by the robber’s two young children. TELL ME this is not the most eye-widening plot you’ve ever heard.
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker is one of the only female-directed noirs of its era in Hollywood, and it is absolutely thrilling. When two friends on a fishing trip pick up a hitchhiker, they don’t know that he’s a psychotic escapes convict until he tells them that he intends to murder them when the ride ends.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
My high school AP US History teacher Mr. O’Neill heartily recommended that I watch this earlyish-career Hitchcock movie, about a teenage girl (Teresa Wright) who becomes suspicious that her beloved Uncle Charley (Joseph Cotten) is a murderer, after he visits her family in their idyllic California town. It’s really excellent—Mr. O’Neill was correct.
M (1931)
Fritz Lang’s masterpiece about the manhunt for Berlin’s serial child-killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) will stop your heart. The opening scene just might make you faint.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Would a list about almost-horror be complete without an entry from David Lynch? No! Kyle MacLachlan is a young college student returning to his hometown for the season when he discovers a severed human ear in a cornfield (I KNOW!), and thus embarks on a strange mystery.
The Vanishing (1988)
There are few non-horror movies MORE terrifying than George Sluizer’s Swedish film about two young lovers who go on a road trip and wind up tangling with a psychopath interested in conducting an experiment about his own limits. You’ll never be the same again.
