It’s okay to be seeing double in these horror films that tap into the existential dread of being replaced by a double and losing sight of oneself to the unknown.
What makes horror such an endlessly versatile genre is that it’s possible for anything to be dangerous. These terrors can come from easily recognizable places, but it’s much harder to identify evil when it looks exactly like you. As terrifying as it is to see an inexplicable monster or a bloodthirsty serial killer, there’s nothing more destabilizing than the enemy being your double. The self is supposed to be a bastion of safety and our North Star, but what can we do when this universal tenet is endangered, and imposter syndrome sets in?
Horror stories about doubles, evil twins, doppelgängers, and lookalikes have been told since the dawn of fiction, and many cultures have their own takes on this frightening fragmentation. Doppelgänger horror taps into a primal fear that feels baked into the human condition, to some extent.
As new films and TV series deconstruct the horror behind doubles, there’s already a robust roster of movies that brilliantly break down this unnerving idea.
Hatching (2022)
Hanna Bergholm‘s Hatching, a Finnish horror film that functions like a twisted modern fairy tale, applies a radically original take on the doppelgänger formula. Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is a 12-year-old girl whose impressive skills as a gymnast still fall short of her perfectionist mother’s expectations and the picture-perfect version of her family that she projects on social media. Hatching becomes obsessed with Tinja’s complicated feelings of inadequacy and how she never measures up to the version of herself that exists in her mother’s head. This relatable source of tension is conveyed through the fantastical introduction of a giant egg that Tinja discovers.
As Tinja cares for this anomaly, the bird-like creature that hatches begins to bear a growing resemblance to her. A psychic connection forms between Tinja and this hatched double, which she names Alli. Alli is able to punish those who wrong Tinja, as if she’s a living extension of her id. Hatching is a stunning debut feature film from Berholm that features incredible practical effects and animatronics, not to mention an inspired double performance by Solalinna that’s as compelling as any special effect.
Us (2019)
Horror fans are still eagerly anticipating Jordan Peele‘s fourth feature film and hoping that he can recapture the magic of his debut feature, Get Out. Get Out arrived at the perfect moment to tap into the cultural zeitgeist, which left many fans feeling somewhat disappointed with Peele’s follow-up feature, Us. There’s a certain directness to Us that works in its favor, and it feels like one big Twilight Zone episode brought to life, which is perhaps appropriate that Peele’s Twilight Zone update also came out the same year. In Us, a doppelgänger rebellion has been brewing underground for decades, and the film highlights the sparking catalyst that lights this fuse.
Us focuses on a singular family, but it’s terrifying to learn that “The Tethered” have launched a global attack. Us effectively uses the doppelgänger device as a commentary on privilege and nature versus nurture. The film’s ending may not work for everyone, but it deserves credit for its bold ambition. If nothing else, Lupita Nyong’o delivers the best work of her career, and her performances as Adelaide and Red should have earned her an Academy Award.
Cam (2018)
Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei’s Cam is a provocative horror film that takes something as archetypal as a doppelgänger and filters it through online avatars, digital martyrdom, and toxic parasocial relationships. Cam, which in part pulls from screenwriter Mazzei’s own experiences as a camgirl, explores the lengths that Alice (Madeline Brewer) will go to in order to become a site’s top streamer. Alice’s online following is put in jeopardy when she’s confronted by another streamer, “Lola,” who is her exact double.
Cam does excellent work with how Alice processes this fragmentation and the threat of being made redundant by a better version of herself. However, Cam hits much harder than the standard doppelgänger horror story by leaning into the inherent boundaries that Alice has created in order not to blur the lines between her real self and her online camgirl identity. This separation was vital for Alice’s preservation of self, but now it threatens to become her undoing. Cam is a modern doppelgänger story that continues to resonate, and many of its themes are even echoed in Goldhaber and Mazzei’s Faces of Death remake.
Enemy (2003)
Denis Villeneuve has become so comfortable helming sprawling sci-fi epics like Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and turning Dune‘s Arakis into his personal playground that it’s sometimes easy to forget about some of the director’s smaller films, like 2013’s Enemy. Enemy, which adapts José Saramago’s The Double, pits Jake Gyllenhaal against Jake Gyllenhaal in this tense psychological thriller. Gyllenhaal’s listless college professor protagonist finds himself finally waking up when he encounters his exact physical double. Villeneuve makes sure that Enemy is a suffocating and claustrophobic experience, albeit one that’s rooted in very natural anxieties.
It’s no coincidence that Adam’s doppelgänger appears when he finds himself at a personal and emotional crossroads in his life, all while he struggles with grander concerns over an oppressive, totalitarian existence. Anyone who is interested in doing a doppelgänger double feature can pair Villeneuve’s Enemy with Richard Ayoade’s The Double, which adapts different works that are both titled The Double.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
Horror and science fiction are such malleable genres for holding a mirror up to society, and it’s fascinating to see how the same idea can reflect different themes, depending on when it’s being told. The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956 was a stark statement on the decade’s Communism, McCarthyism, and the fragmentation of identity that they caused in the nation’s population. The Body Snatchers remake from ’78 shifts its pod people premise to reflect the urban alienation and growing mistrust that dominated the ’70s.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers from ’78 is largely viewed as superior to its predecessor, but both are effective looks into the population’s growing paranoia and fears of obsolescence. And while it can’t hold a candle to the ’78 remake, 1993’s Body Snatchers by Abel Ferrara at least has something to say and a timely point of view that makes it a worthwhile companion piece to Philip Kaufman’s version.
Annihilation (2018)
Alex Garland is a contemplative filmmaker who has broken down the concept of doubles and doppelgängers from many different vantage points, whether it’s artificial intelligence in Ex Machina, the living dead in the 28 Days Later franchise, or the traumatic specters of Men. Annihilation is a sci-fi/horror film that’s about coexistence and adaptation, yet its final act explores doppelgänger theory in an angry, abrupt manner. Natalie Portman plays Lena, a biologist who heads into the Shimmer — a mysterious, quarantined zone where plants and animals have experienced alien mutations.
Annihilation explores humanity and identity while it highlights the beauty of nature’s anomalies. Its climax builds to a cathartic confrontation in which Lena faces a disturbing humanoid double who begins to master her movements. Annihilation leaves the audience with complicated feelings regarding morality, authenticity, and what defines a person’s core.
Dead Ringers (1988)
Dead Ringers is not a doppelgänger film in the traditional sense, yet David Cronenberg‘s psychological thriller about codependent twin gynecologists couldn’t go overlooked here. Many doppelgänger stories involve the sudden emergence of a double, but the Mantle twins (Jeremy Irons) have been by each other’s sides their entire lives in Dead Ringers. The terror in most doppelgänger horror stories comes from an individual’s erasure and replacement. This still takes place in Dead Ringers as the Mantle brothers’ contrasting personalities bleed into each other as the differences between them begin to evaporate. The film’s tagline was even: “Two Bodies. Two Minds. One Soul.”
There’s a natural symbiotic connection between all twins, but Elliot and Beverly begin to pose as each other and live vicariously through their other half. The film’s themes of codependency and the relationship between body and mind become increasingly complicated as it’s filtered into their gynecological craft. It’s a very different type of doppelgänger story that grounds itself in uncomfortable territory instead of a supernatural premise.
Possession (1981)
Andrzej Żuławski‘s Possession is a tour de force feature film that almost feels like it’s haunted. Żuławski’s film depicts the painful dissolution of a marriage that suddenly turns to the doppelgänger concept as a burst of existential and supernatural terror. Possession uses its double idea as a powerful metaphor for how a marriage’s breakdown can turn its spouses into completely different people. Jealousy, paranoia, and empowerment are viscerally explored as Possession builds to a troubling fever pitch in which its original couple is destroyed, but these identical doubles find a sense of community that’s void of the pain that broke the original couple apart.
There is no shortage of horror films that look at a marriage’s dangerous power dynamics, but Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani elevate this story to a one-of-a-kind spectacle. Here’s hoping that Parker Finn’s gestating remake achieves a fraction of the original’s deranged madness.
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter‘s The Thing has become an evergreen horror classic, a practical effects masterclass, and a totemic piece of cinema in its own right. Carpenter’s The Thing, a remake of Christian Nyby’s The Thing From Another World, puts its duplicitous doppelgänger hiding in plain sight. The small-scale sci-fi film creates claustrophobic terror as a small research team stationed in Antarctica learns that there’s a shapeshifting alien among them.
While many of the doppelgänger horror films looked at here are interested in the protagonist’s identity being under attack, The Thing instead examines infiltration as paranoia sets in and man turns against man. It’s a danger that’s less about the loss of self, but rather the artificiality of humanity and what it actually means if it’s so easy to be replicated. All that’s left when everything else is stripped away is pure fear. The Thing uses the dishonest and deceptive nature of doppelgängers to provide a fascinating look into mob mentality’s toxic nature.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
David Lynch is a filmmaker who is utterly enthralled by the doppelgänger concept, and it’s found its way into a large portion of his filmography, primarily Lost Highway, INLAND EMPIRE, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive. At first glance, Mulholland Drive may not seem like it’s a doppelgänger story, but nothing about Mulholland Drive is what it initially seems. The audience is thrust into the wide-eyed and endlessly idealized working actor life of Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), who finds herself at the center of a good ol’ fashioned Hollywood mystery.
Once Mulholland Drive pulls back its layers, the truth comes into focus, and it’s revealed that this is Diane Selwyn’s story and attempt at escapism. Nevertheless, Diane can’t outrun the truth, which leads to echoes across these realities that create multiple instances of disarming doubles. Lynch’s surreal sensibilities and knack for dream logic make him a true expert when it comes to doppelgänger drama that appreciates the psychic pain and cosmic horror of this experience. A fracture — or even a reunion — should be a painful, all-encompassing experience, as it is in Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, and Twin Peaks: The Return.
