If hell is other people, then relationships might just be purgatory. The horror genre is absolutely filled with toxic relationships at every stage, from the worst first dates to diabolical divorces. With real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie bringing their body-horror spin on codependency to theaters with Together, now's the perfect time to reflect on some of the most toxic relationships in horror movies.
From bad break-ups and disastrous dates to full-blown marriages from hell, these are the horror movies that give couplings a bad name and make being single look all the more appealing. Couples beware; these horror movies may turn date night into a nightmare.
Midsommar (2019)
Break-ups can be bad, but at least most of them don't end up getting you sewn into a bear suit and burned alive as your ex watches while dressed in a bespoke flower dress. There's a lot going on in Ari Aster's Midsommar, a cult horror chiller set in rural Sweden where Florence Pugh's Dani has tagged along with her boyfriend Christian, played by Jack Reynor, and his friends after she's suffered a terrible family tragedy.
From the opening scenes, Christian is an inattentive boyfriend. He's a college guy who doesn't have a lot of depth, which makes it even harder when Dani needs a shoulder to cry on and he can barely offer even that. It's only when the two make it to a rural village in Sweden to witness their midsummer festival that Dani finds the emotional validation she's been looking for. Unfortunately, that validation also comes with a heavy sacrifice that's paid in bodies.
Fresh (2022)
The online dating scene can be a minefield, especially for women. That's why when Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has a genuine meet-cute with Steve (Sebastian Stan) in the supermarket it almost seems too good to be true. Fresh being a horror movie, things of course aren't what they seem and Noa soon finds out that "Steve" has some pretty grotesque ulterior motives after she makes the unfortunate decision to a weekend getaway at his country home.
Director Mimi Cave and writer Lauryn Kahn had more than just a straightforward horror thriller in mind for Fresh, and it's in the satire of modern dating that the film is most pointed. Edgar-Jones makes for an incredibly clever heroine, one who is smart enough to know when she's making a bad decision, but does so despite herself. Stan, meanwhile, has the natural charisma and good looks to make the audience believe that Noa could be charmed enough by him to overlook the red flags. The most terrifying thing about Fresh is that it may be the most honest depiction of dating in the 2020s.
Audition (1999)
Takashi Miike's disturbing film begins on the wrong foot and every step after only takes it further in nightmare territory. The fact that widower Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) would look for a new wife by using a literal casting couch to audition women under false pretenses is reprehensible, but whatever disgust that might elicit from audiences quickly turns to sympathy when his would-be new bride Asami (Eihi Shiina) turns out to be even more deranged than he is.
After spending a night together, Asami disappears, and as Shigerharu follows the breadcrumbs to find her, all he finds instead is a trail of body parts. Audition is just as audacious as one would expect a horror film about gender and power dynamics to be from the Japanese provocateur. Asami is portrayed as both a victim and an avenger, the result of misogynistic society that subjugates women rather than support them. It's impossible to argue in favor of her extreme methods, but only an extreme society could produce such a monster.
The Shining (1980)
Stephen King's work has no shortage of representation of abusive and toxic marriages, but The Shining takes the cake, at least when it comes to the film adaptation. King has never been shy about expressing his displeasure with the liberties Stanley Kubrick took when bringing his novel to the big screen, particularly in the casting of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance. The Jack of the novel was a man whose own flaws were exacerbated by the supernatural hauntings of the Overlook Hotel, while the Jack in Kubrick's film is like a psychotic trap that's ready to be sprung before he even gets the job as caretaker.
While King's novel also gave Jack a redemptive ending as he sacrificed himself to save his family, film Jack dies as he lived, as an abusive monster. Meanwhile, Jack's better half Wendy also isn't as confident and capable as her novel counterpart, with Shelly Duvall's performance more akin to a traumatized survivor of abuse, which isn't surprising considering the torment the actress underwent from Kubrick during filming. It's a performance that has received polarized responses, but in retrospect, feels very honest to a woman on the verge of a breakdown. King's dissatisfaction and Kubrick's questionable directorial methods notwithstanding, The Shining is as raw a depiction of an toxic marriage as has ever been put on film.
Possession (1981)
Divorces can be messy, but not quite tentacle monster sex messy. Possession is cosmic body horror by way of marital discord, following the putrefaction of the relationship between spy Mark (Sam Neill) and his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) in Cold War-era West Berlin. The political implications of the setting only magnify the separation between man and wife, which is only made stickier (literally and figuratively) by Anna's keeping of a slimy, Lovecraftian creature in her secret apartment. Secrets and lies can tear a relationship apart, but these end up tearing bodies limb from limb.
Possession was the work of art-house surrealist director Andrzej Zulawksi, whose work often defied easy classification within mainstream categories, and his divorce drama is no different, which made it difficult for many critics and audiences to make heads or tails of it at the time of its release. It has since garnered a well-deserved cult following thanks to its mad visuals and the performances of Neill and Adjani who physicalize the inner torment of divorce with unhinged glory. Possession is an uncompromising horror experience that makes Marriage Story look like a feel-good romcom.