Film

The Void

Name: The Void
Genre: Mystery, Horror, Science Fiction
Released: 2016
Cast: Aaron Poole, Kathleen Munroe, Art Hindle, Daniel Fathers, Kenneth Welsh

A cop brings a wounded stranger to a rural hospital and discovers the building has become a nightmarish trap. Patients and staff are transforming into something unspeakably wrong. Claustrophobic, visceral body horror meets cosmic dread in a film that prioritizes practical effects, atmosphere, and genuine unease over jump scares. For fans of flesh-creeping sci-fi that doesn't flinch.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love creature horror that builds dread from wrong-looking bodies and a claustrophobic, rules-free maze, the way old-school John Carpenter shockers did.

Skip it if your stomach for gore runs thin or you need logic to hold, since it piles on grisly imagery and withholds sense so the chaos can feel like a stunt.

What it asks of you: Expect a lean ninety minutes that rarely pause, moving from lurid set pieces to a dim, cramped descent where the lighting and noise do most of the talking.

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

If you liked this

The Thing1982

Paranoia and survival horror in an isolated setting where the enemy is unknowable and contagious. Carpenter's masterpiece of body horror and practical effects that still holds up, with that same grinding tension and no safe exit.

But Pacing is deliberate to the point of glacial, and some find Carpenter's coldness off-putting rather than atmospheric.

Videodrome1983

Cronenberg's hallucinatory fever dream about reality breaking down and bodies becoming landscapes. The same marriage of cosmic wrongness and visceral transformation, with a protagonist increasingly unsure what's real or what they're becoming.

But Deliberately confusing and deliberately nasty; it luxuriates in disgust rather than providing clarity. Not a puzzle to solve, a nightmare to endure.

Event Horizon1997

Isolation, cosmic horror, and the architecture itself as antagonist. A derelict space station becomes an impossible maze of dread where people unravel as much from the place as from any monster. Same sense that the building wants you dead.

But Heavy on religious imagery and body trauma in ways that feel exploitative to some. Also dated CGI breaks the spell in a few key moments.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Void

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Dead Ringers1988

Both are obsessed with the hospital as a space where the human body becomes strange and unreliable, where medical authority conceals something far darker underneath.

Cronenberg's chamber piece about identical twins, medical obsession, and bodies as unreliable vessels. Where *The Void* is a siege in a hospital, *Dead Ringers* is an intimate psychological descent into medical gothicism. Jeremy Irons is extraordinary and unsettling in both roles.

But Slow, character-driven, and genuinely difficult in its portrait of codependency and addiction. Not an action film; it's a portrait of two men collapsing together. Requires patience and a tolerance for male emotional dysregulation.

Alien1979

Perfect economy of dread. A single threat in a confined space with nowhere to run, characters making terrible decisions under pressure, and Scott's refusal to let you feel safe for a second. Practical effects and claustrophobic design still unmatched.

But If you've seen it, you know the beats. The first viewing hits differently than rewatches. Slower than modern horror; some find it ponderous.

The Wailing2016

A village is consumed by something that might be supernatural, might be human evil, might be both. The uncertainty never resolves. Dread accumulates rather than explodes, and the grotesque imagery lingers long after it ends. Scope and ambition matched to genuine unease.

But Two and a half hours with no neat answers. Deliberately frustrating for viewers who need their horror to clarify itself by the end. Requires active engagement rather than passive consumption.

The Descent2005

A caving expedition becomes a descent into literal and psychological darkness. The claustrophobic geography is weaponized; the creatures emerge slowly, but the real horror is being trapped with no way out. Physical and visceral without being gratuitous.

But The all-female cast attracted a certain strain of commentary it didn't deserve. If you're squeamish about realistic injuries and animal attack scenarios, this will test you.

Under the Skin2014

Scarlett Johansson hunts humans on British roads in a slow-burn science fiction film about predation and the alien gaze. Hypnotic, unsettling, full of long silences and a soundscape that makes your skin crawl. Form and meaning are inseparable.

But Hostile to conventional narrative. Nearly wordless, structurally fragmented, it will feel like punishment if you need plot momentum or character arcs. Aggressively arty.

Annihilation2018

A shimmer at the edge of nowhere is slowly consuming land, turning biology into something unrecognizable. Gorgeous, strange, deeply wrong. Cosmic horror where transformation is beautiful and terrible at once. The shimmer's internal logic feels genuinely alien.

But Ambiguous ending will frustrate those wanting clarity. Some effects work better than others, and certain scenes lean heavily on digital creation when practical would land harder.

Hellraiser1987

Barker's directorial debut is a complete vision: body horror, cosmic entities, desire as a gateway to suffering. It's grimy, tactile, relentless. The designs are seared into your brain. A cult film that absolutely earns its reputation.

But Transgressive sexuality and extreme gore are not window-dressing but core to the film's meaning. Some will find it distasteful rather than transgressive; others will think it's dated in its anxieties.

Caveat2021

Both prioritize atmosphere and practical grotesquerie over clarity. Both trap you in a maze-like space where the architecture and the body are equally corrupted. Both trust the audience to sit in discomfort rather than resolve it.

A haunted-house film shot on 16mm and Super 8, made to feel like a corrupted memory or degraded tape. Irish folk horror aesthetic meets video decay. Disorienting and atmospheric without jump scares; the unease comes from the form itself and what the degradation suggests.

But Deliberately lo-fi and fragmentary; some will read it as amateurish rather than artful. Very short runtime leaves narrative threads hanging. A mood film, not a plot film, and mood is subjective.