Film

Starry Eyes

Name: Starry Eyes
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Mystery
Released: 2014
Cast: Alex Essoe, Amanda Fuller, Fabianne Therese, Noah Segan, Shane Coffey

Supernatural horror

A struggling actress makes a Faustian bargain for stardom and discovers the horrifying supernatural machinery beneath Hollywood's glitter. Starry Eyes is a body-horror morality tale wrapped in neon and spite—visually gorgeous, spiritually rotten, and genuinely unsettling. It's for anyone who's enjoyed watching someone's soul curdle on screen.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like body horror that grows out of ambition and the grind of auditions, and you don't mind a slow burn that builds dread through small humiliations before it turns vicious.

Skip it if you want a fast plot or a clear sense of where things are heading, since this one is patient, lingers on grim day-to-day indignities, and keeps its mysteries back.

What it asks of you: Set aside a little under ninety-six minutes and some tolerance for discomfort; the mood builds slowly, and the nastiness lands late and hard, so attention pays off more than speed does.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Witch2016

Slow-burn folk horror about faith, family, and corruption. Shares Starry Eyes' commitment to dread over jump scares, and that same sense of inexorable doom—something ancient and wrong at work.

But Deliberately paced and deeply bleak. If you need momentum or hope, this will exhaust you rather than thrill you.

Suspiria1977

Dario Argento's masterpiece about a young dancer entering a prestigious school that's actually a witches' coven. Visual fever dream with a similar obsession with beautiful surfaces hiding pure evil.

But Deeply stylized in ways that feel distant and artificial. If you want emotional realism, this withholds it deliberately.

Black Swan2010

Natalie Portman's psyche unravels as ambition and rivalry consume her in the ballet world. Nasty, gorgeous body horror and the same idea: the cost of transforming yourself for others' vision.

But Some find the descent into madness overwrought or manipulative. The ending divides people sharply.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Starry Eyes

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both are about the price of transformation in industries built on surfaces. Both suggest that success, once obtained, poisons the person who wanted it.

Charlie Kaufman's baroque masterpiece about a theatre director whose life and art collapse into each other. Not horror, but the same obsessive logic: ambition as a corrupting force, creation as consumption, and the machinery of ego grinding people to nothing.

But Deliberately obtuse and formally challenging. It requires you to sit with confusion and refuses conventional catharsis. Some find it precious rather than profound.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch's Los Angeles nightmare about failed actresses and the machinery that grinds them up. Cryptic and dreamlike, but profoundly angry about how Hollywood consumes women.

But Genuinely difficult to parse. If you need clear narrative threads, you'll spend two hours frustrated.

A Tale of Two Sisters2003

Korean horror about two girls, their father, and a new stepmother. Visually hypnotic with a similar commitment to dread; the reveal recontextualizes everything with brutal force.

But The pacing is glacial and the emotional core is family trauma, not supernatural spectacle. Bleak and quiet.

Bite2015

Body horror about a woman who returns from her bachelorette party with a mysterious bite that transforms her. Shares Starry Eyes' unflinching approach to physical degradation as metaphor.

But It's relentlessly gross. The practical effects are designed to make you deeply uncomfortable, and it doesn't relent.

Cabin Fever2003

Eli Roth's debut about five friends and a flesh-eating disease. Gruesome and nasty with the same visceral commitment to watching bodies betray their owners.

But Darkly comic in ways that undermine the horror for some viewers. Early Roth hasn't aged gracefully in tone.

The Craft1996

Teenage witches in LA gain power and lose control. Glossy 90s aesthetic with genuine menace underneath; power corrupts each of them in different ways, like Starry Eyes' moral unraveling.

But The script is dated and campy in places. It's more fun than scary, which might feel slight next to Starry Eyes' venom.

We Are Still Here2015

A grieving couple moves into a house that's hungry for blood. Slow-build haunted house film with creeping dread and practical gore; rewards patience with genuine scares.

But The setup is familiar and the first half is slow. You're asking a lot of faith from the audience before the payoff arrives.

The Neon Demon2016

Both are 90-minute descents into a glamour industry that eats beautiful young women alive. Both are genuinely beautiful to look at while watching something rot.

Nicolas Winding Refn's hallucinogenic nightmare about a model entering LA's fashion world. Every frame is pure visual toxin—gorgeous and sickening. It's about the same predatory machinery, just fashion instead of film.

But More interested in aesthetic than narrative. It's a mood and a visual statement rather than a story, which exhausts some viewers.

The Fountain2006

Both explore how desire and ambition transform the body into something inhuman. Both use physical horror and gorgeous cinematography to make corruption beautiful.

Darren Aronofsky's fever dream about love, death, and obsession across three centuries. Wildly ambitious, visually overwhelming, using practical effects and real stakes to create something that feels cosmic and intimate simultaneously.

But Infamously divisive. The narrative is abstract and the emotion is ornate. If you don't surrender to its particular wavelength, you'll feel adrift.