Editorials
Dive Down the Rabbit Hole With 6 of the Best Conspiracy Horror Films
Conspiracy theories can be dangerous when taken at face value, especially now that the internet has made it hard for some folks to tell the difference between legitimate information and paranoid rambling. However, when used as a storytelling tool, conspiratorial thinking can also serve as a reminder about the merits of questioning authority and fighting back against an unfair status quo.
This rebellious spirit is likely the reason why these theories have inspired so many great movies. From alien abductions to secret societies manipulating world events from behind the scenes, paranoid narratives often lead to great storytelling, and that’s why we’ve decided to come up with a list of 6 of the best conspiracy horror movies. After all, it can occasionally be fun to put on the proverbial tin-foil hat and dive down a conspiratorial rabbit hole.
Naturally, there are several great movies that didn’t quite make the cut (everything from William Friedkin’s Bug to John Carpenter’s They Live), so don’t forget to share your own favorites with us in the comments below. And remember the weirder, the better!
Now, onto the list…
6. Pi (1998)
Math is already terrifying enough depending on how well you did in High School, but Darren Aronofsky’s Pi is notable for turning one of humanity’s most rational concepts into the basis for a thrilling descent into madness. Featuring a down-on-his-luck mathematician who discovers a mystical sequence of numbers, audiences are soon thrown into a mysterious world of stock market manipulation, divine inspiration and Jewish prophecies.
My personal favorite of Aronofsky’s mind-bending thrillers, Pi is a must-watch for psychological-horror fans with a taste for religious conspiracy. Actual mathematicians may take issue with the film’s loose interpretation of real-world concepts like the Fibonacci sequence and the titular Pi, but this is still one hell of a compelling ride with a shockingly memorable finale.
5. The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
You can’t talk about conspiracies without bringing up The X-Files, so it’s no surprise that the show’s big-screen spin-off made it onto the list. Fight the Future may technically be a bridge between the series’ fifth and sixth seasons, but it also works as a standalone investigation where Mulder and Scully attempt to expose a plot between extraterrestrials and a secret society hell-bent on subjugating humanity.
You’ll probably enjoy the movie a lot more if you’re already familiar with the source material, but casual viewers will still likely appreciate the film’s dedication to using nearly all of the best conspiracy tropes in a single story. From Black Helicopters to UFOs and top-secret biological weapons, I’d recommend the film as both an introduction to these iconic characters and a paranoid sci-fi thriller.
4. The Vast of Night (2019)
With post-war paranoia and secretive government investigations like Project Bluebook, the 1950s were a golden age for conspiracy theories. That’s why Andrew Patterson’s slow-burn mystery film The Vast of Night works so well as a lovingly retro period piece. Telling the story of a DJ and switchboard operator who stumble on an unexplainable audio frequency in New Mexico, the film takes us on a surprisingly intimate ride through classic Sci-Fi tropes.
Some audiences may be put off by the film’s deliberate pacing and subtle approach to science fiction, but I think that Patterson’s restraint in revealing the true nature of the forces behind the mysterious signal is precisely what makes this such a compelling thriller.
3. Operation Avalanche (2016)
Being one of the most important events in human history, it’s not surprising that the Moon Landing also became the source of countless conspiracy theories. While a number of books and movies have suggested that Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind was part of an elaborate hoax, Matt Johnson’s Found-Footage oddity Operation Avalanche is by far the most convincing and entertaining of these conspiratorial yarns.
Chronicling the misadventures of a group of CIA agents attempting to convince their bosses that they can fake the moon landing if the real project doesn’t get off the ground, Operation Avalanche is the most believable Found-Footage period-piece out there. It may not be particularly scary, but the film is even more impressive when you consider that Johnson and his crew managed to convince NASA that they were producing a legitimate documentary, allowing for several scenes shot within their real facilities. Now that’s commitment to realism!
2. The Conspiracy (2012)
Another Found-Footage flick, Christopher MacBride’s The Conspiracy is inspired by the “real” Bohemian Grove footage that leaked back in 2000. For those who don’t remember, the amateur video sparked rumors that world leaders routinely gather in a private club to participate in occult rituals and plan a new world order (while possibly conducting human sacrifice).
The details of this particular conspiracy theory obviously sound a bit absurd when you say them out loud, but they do make for a fun scary movie dealing with secret societies and the horrors of human sacrifice. It’s not a perfect experience, but I’d recommend The Conspiracy to both conspiracy nuts and casual horror fans looking for some paranoid thrills.
1. Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Influencing everything from Silent Hill to The X-Files and even Rick and Morty episodes, Jacob’s Ladder is one of the most important horror films to come out of the 90s. Naturally, this chilling tale about a Vietnam veteran being haunted by demonic visions as he leads a double life was itself inspired by real stories of unethical military projects like the infamous MK Ultra experiments and the use of illegal chemicals like Agent Orange.
While the film is supposedly missing over twenty minutes of horrific footage that the director cut due to negative test audience reactions, it’s still one hell of a scary ride through the terrors of grief and post-traumatic stress, all culminating in some of the most disturbingly memorable visuals ever put in a horror film. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but this is one scary movie that no horror hound should miss.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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