Film
Red State
- Horror
- Very dark
Red State is Kevin Smith's abrupt genre shift into horror-thriller territory: a high-concept ambush film that traps you in a compound with an extremist cult and doesn't let you breathe. It's deliberately provocative, aesthetically grimy, and far more serious than Smith's comedies. For viewers ready to be unsettled and challenged, not entertained.
If you liked this
Martyrs2008
A French horror film that uses extremism and religious obsession as its framework for exploring trauma and belief. Relentlessly intense, visually audacious, and genuinely makes you question what you've watched.
But It's punishingly bleak and contains graphic violence that exists purely to disturb, not thrill. Some scenes linger in a way that feels like punishment.

Take Shelter2011
Michael Shannon's paranoid masterpiece about a man convinced something terrible is coming. It builds dread through character study rather than jump scares, and the ambiguity between delusion and premonition is devastating.
But Slow-burn tension might feel like nothing is happening if you want immediate payoff. The ending divides viewers sharply on what it means.

Hereditary2018
Ari Aster's debut weaponizes family trauma and religious dread into something that feels genuinely evil. Toni Collette's performance is the emotional core of a film that builds to something operatic and horrifying.
But Two and a half hours of mounting dread with almost no relief. The third act is deliberately grotesque in ways some will find pretentious rather than effective.

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The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Martha Marcy May Marlene2011
Both use extremist communities as crucibles for psychological breakdown, but Martha trades Red State's visceral action for creeping dissociation and the horror of realizing how a group reshapes your perception of reality.
A young woman escapes a cult and tries to reassimilate into her sister's suburban life, except she can't shake the cult's logic or stop seeing threats. The horror is internal and social, not external, and Lizzie Olsen is phenomenal.
But Deliberately unglamorous and slow. The ending refuses catharsis or clarity. It's bleak about how damage settles into a person.

More like this (8)
Nightcrawler2014
Jake Gyllenhaal as a sociopathic Los Angeles stringer who films crime scenes. Morally invasive and increasingly unsettling as you realize what the film is actually saying about exploitation and hunger.
But It's a slow, procedural character study in the skin of a thriller. If you want plot momentum over psychological corruption, this will feel hollow.

Winter's Bone2010
Jennifer Lawrence in a quietly devastating rural noir about a young woman searching for her missing father in the Ozarks. The cinematography and performance are so naturalistic it feels like documentary.
But Nothing explodes. It's a mood piece about economic desperation and violence that's never shown on screen. Some will find it glacially slow.

The Wailing2016
A South Korean mystery-horror about a village plagued by murders and a mysterious stranger. It's simultaneously a folk horror film, a police procedural, and a spiritual crisis, and it earns every one of those genres.
But Nearly three hours with a structure that deliberately withholds resolution. You will leave angry or enlightened depending on how you interpret the finale.

Mulholland Drive2001
David Lynch's Los Angeles fever dream about identity, ambition, and the machinery that grinds people down. If you want to see structure and certainty dismantled with style, this is the masterclass.
But It refuses to cohere into a single meaning. Some read it as brilliant; others read it as self-indulgent obfuscation. You might be furious.

Under the Silver Lake2018
A paranoid LA noir about a man obsessed with solving a mystery that might not exist. Andrew Garfield unravels spectacularly in a film that's visually gorgeous and narratively unhinged.
But Wildly uneven in tone and genuinely chaotic. It mistakes messiness for depth sometimes, and the runtime justifies very little of what it asks you to sit through.

The Invitation2016
A dinner party thriller about a woman convinced her hosts are part of a suicide cult. Shot almost entirely in one room, it's a masterclass in tension through social convention and the unspeakable hanging over civility.
But It's essentially one room and one dinner for 100 minutes. If you need space and movement and visual variety, you'll feel trapped in the worst way.

A Prophet2009
Both films are obsessed with how ideology and violence bind groups together, and both understand that the most dangerous person is often the one who learns to speak the group's language better than it does.
A young man enters prison as a nobody and emerges as an untouchable through cunning, violence, and an almost spiritual control of the space. It's a survival thriller that's also a meditation on charisma, complicity, and the rituals that bind groups.
But French, subtitled, nearly two and a half hours. The violence is matter-of-fact, not spectacular. Some will find it glacial; others, essential.

A Dark Song2016
Both films treat faith—whether religious or spiritual—as something that can transform, endanger, or consume you, but A Dark Song approaches it as a tender, aching mystery rather than a threat or a trap.
A woman hires an occultist for a ritual in her isolated house over the course of a summer. It's part grief counseling, part spiritual horror, entirely mysterious. The relationship between the two characters becomes the entire film's meaning.
But Glacially paced with almost no plot. It's meditative and cryptic rather than thrilling. Some will find it profound; others will find it boring and slight.

People
Cast
Michael ParksPastor Abin Cooper
John GoodmanJoseph Keenan
Melissa LeoSara
Michael AngaranoTravis
Kyle GallnerJarod
Nicholas BraunBilly-Ray
Kerry BishéCheyenne
Stephen RootSherrif Wynan
Matt JonesDeputy Pete
Kevin AlejandroHarry, the Tactical Agent
Ralph GarmanCaleb
Anna GunnTravis' Mother
Directing
- Kevin SmithDirector
- Adam DruxmanFirst Assistant Director
- Jan McWilliamsScript Supervisor
- Danny GilesSecond Assistant Director
Writing
- Kevin SmithScreenplay
Production
- Aiyana TrotterArt Department Production Assistant
- Deborah AquilaCasting
- Tricia WoodCasting
- Lisa ZagoriaCasting Associate
- Deedra RickettsExtras Casting
- Gerard AverillLocation Manager
- Jonathan GordonProducer
- Steev BeesonProduction Accountant
- Paul Jaconi-BieryProduction Coordinator
- Melissa Lynn La MarrProduction Secretary
- Shea KammerProduction Supervisor
- Jason ClarkUnit Production Manager