Film

Antichrist

Antichrist is Lars von Trier's brutal, beautiful descent into grief, guilt and something like folk horror — a two-hander between Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg that starts as therapy-through-nature and ends somewhere much darker. Shot with painterly slow-motion and a genuinely unsettling sound design, it's less "watch" than "endure." For admirers of art-horror willing to sit with despair rather than be entertained by it.

TMDb rating6.6

If you liked this

Hereditary2018

Ari Aster's breakout turns unprocessed grief into a slow-building nightmare, with Toni Collette delivering one of the great horror performances. If Antichrist's mix of mourning and dread hooked you, this is the closest modern equivalent.

But Still deeply upsetting, still not interested in comforting you, and the ending polarizes people who wanted more restraint.

Hereditary poster

Melancholia2011

Von Trier again, Gainsbourg again, but here the apocalypse is the metaphor for depression rather than a cabin in the woods. Visually sumptuous, emotionally devastating, and somehow gentler than what you just watched.

But Glacially paced and openly nihilistic — if you wanted plot momentum, this isn't offering any.

Melancholia poster

The Witch2016

Robert Eggers' 17th-century family unravels in isolation, and nature itself seems complicit in their ruin. The dread is patient, the folk-horror details are meticulous, and the ambiguity lingers.

But The archaic dialogue takes some adjusting to, and the horror is slow-burn rather than visceral.

The Witch poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Don't Look Now1973

Same premise thirty-six years earlier — a couple retreating after a child's death, their marriage and sanity dissolving together, grief filmed as something almost erotic and possibly supernatural.

Nicolas Roeg's fractured, elliptical psychological horror follows a grieving couple abroad after their child's death, unraveling through grief, sex and dread in ways that feel like Antichrist's direct ancestor.

But The nonlinear editing takes patience, and its 1970s pacing will feel slow to viewers used to modern shock horror.

Don't Look Now poster
More like this (8)

Possession1981

Andrzej Żuławski's marriage-collapse horror is unhinged in ways Antichrist only flirts with — Isabelle Adjani's performance is legendary, physical, and completely without a safety net.

But It's chaotic, deliberately overwrought, and some viewers will find the hysteria exhausting rather than cathartic.

Possession poster

The Shining1980

The template for isolation-breeds-madness horror, with Kubrick's control turning a family retreat into a slow-motion collapse. Essential viewing if you want the genre's most disciplined nightmare.

But Its cool, clinical style is the opposite of Antichrist's rawness — some find it more admirable than frightening.

The Shining poster

Rosemary's Baby1968

Polanski's classic pairs domestic dread with bodily horror and paranoia about impending motherhood, decades before Antichrist mined similar terrain, and Mia Farrow's unraveling still holds up completely.

But Its pacing and 1968-era sensibilities can feel quite dated next to modern horror's directness and speed.

Rosemary's Baby poster

mother!2017

Aronofsky's biblical allegory turns a house and a marriage into a pressure cooker of nature, guilt and escalating horror — as divisive and confrontational as anything von Trier's made.

But Deliberately abrasive and symbol-heavy throughout; plenty of people find it more infuriating than illuminating overall.

mother! poster

The Babadook2014

A single mother's grief literalizes into a monster she can't outrun, blending genuine scares with real emotional weight. Jennifer Kent's control of tone is remarkable.

But More restrained and less extreme than Antichrist — some will find it tame by comparison.

The Babadook poster

Kill List2011

Ben Wheatley's British folk-horror starts as a domestic drama about a strained marriage and swerves into something far stranger and bleaker, with a similarly punishing final act.

But The tonal whiplash is intentional but off-putting, and the ending offers almost zero explanation at all.

Kill List poster

Grizzly Man2005

Antichrist insists nature is "Satan's church"; Herzog, watching real footage of a man who mistook the wilderness for a friend, arrives at the same conclusion without a single special effect.

Werner Herzog's documentary about a man who lived among Alaskan bears and was eventually killed by one turns real footage into a meditation on nature's total indifference to human meaning.

But It's a documentary with no scares, and Herzog's philosophizing narration can feel intrusive to some viewers.

Grizzly Man poster

The Descent2005

Swap the German forest for a cave and the psychoanalysis for claws, and it's the same engine — a woman's unprocessed grief over her dead family dragging her into the earth itself.

A group of women descend into an unmapped cave system, and what starts as a grief-stricken reunion trip curdles into claustrophobic creature-horror with real teeth.

But It trades psychological ambiguity for jump scares and monsters, which some will find far less interesting than Antichrist's slow dread.

The Descent poster

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Recommended by

Suspiria, Don't Look Now, Melancholia, The Nightmare, Possession, mother!, The Brood, Nymphomaniac: Vol. II