Liminal horror moviesoperate within the uncanny and in-between areas of our lives that seem familiar until we look a little too closely. Liminal horror is notan “official” genre of horror, though what necessarily counts for an “official” genre of horror is totally up for debate. Anything can be horror if tuned far enough in the right direction, and there’s no shortage of ideas, feelings, and experiences that make us uneasy and check under the bed at night. It’s under the bed where liminal horror lives, as it were.
It’s not fear of a monster or the unknown. It’s the horror that comes from looking under your bed and seeing only darkness. That feeling of unease that is liminal horror. It’s the in-between state. When one space transitions to another. Though this often refers to a literal “space”, just about anything can fit. A room in your house during the day is normal, but at night, it’s something entirely different; the space no longer makes sense as it transitions into something else. It’s a frightening idea and why some ofthe scariest horror moviescan be considered liminal horror.
Beyond the Black Rainbowfeatures a telepathic, mute woman, Elena (Eva Bourne), who is kept under close guard by an evil scientist, Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers), who wants to closely monitor her. After her abuse grows to be too much, she decides to flee her imprisonment, but to what end, she’s not sure. A psychedelic horror film,Beyond the Black Rainbowis a colorful and disturbing journey through the mind and madness. Elena’s home, where she is imprisoned, is filled with rooms emblematic of the liminal horror experience.
Dark Cityis a tech noir thriller that follows an amnesiac man, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), who is accused of murder. Unsure of how he got into this position, John flees from both the police and the mysterious group known as the “Strangers”, who are also after him. The world that Murdoch inhabits is only slightly like our own, and as the film goes on, a question about what this place really is rises to the fore. Murdoch feels like he’s stuck between two worlds, both literally and figuratively, a feature of many liminal horror movies.
Based on Stephen King’s novella of the same name,The Langoliersis a two-part TV special that aired on ABC, and while the production values, acting talent, and story logic are in short supply,there are significant moments of liminal horror and the most literal interpretation of the genre that can be found. In the film, a group of plane passengers awake to find that they’ve somehow traveled to the near past with no one inhabiting it any longer. They also discover a race of ravenous monsters who eat the past, leaving a path of endless nothingness behind.
Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg star as Gemma and Tom, respectively, inVivarium, a science fiction horror film that sees a couple move to a new house only to learn they can’t escape from their neighborhood until they raise a humanoid creature as their own. Any attempts to escape make them wind up right back where they started. The quaint, identical aspects of suburban homes are transformed into something utterly unnerving and sinister inVivarium. What should be welcoming and warm is cold and lifeless.
InWe’re All Going to the World’s Fair, by director Jane Schoenbrun, a teenager named Casey (Cobb) takes the “World’s Fair Challenge,” which supposedly results in a physical and mental breakdown. Casey documents what happens to her, and the result is a frightening and disturbing descent into unreality. It’s an isolating film, with Casey, and everyone else who participates in the game being forced away from their friends and family. They become lost in an online world, and the dark spaces of the internet and the real world grow around them.
TheCubefranchise isalmost entirely constructed of liminal spaces. In every film, a group of characters are placed into a bizarre and mysterious maze of rooms, each with a deadly trap of some sort. The first film follows a group of seven individuals who wake up in the deadly labyrinth and must find a way to escape. Every new room offers something dark and unknowable. Though each looks almost exactly the same, the small cubes take on an even more sinister air as the team makes its way through the maze, never knowing what’s coming next.
Donnie Darkois a psychological thrillerstarring a young Jake Gyllenhaalas the titular Donnie, a troubled teenager who miraculously survives a freak accident. However, his survival results in a frightening and inexplicable journey that eventually loops back around on itself. The characters in the film are floating through lives they can’t totally explain, and while Donnie’s world looks average, there are unexplained inconsistencies on the margins that can make for a frightening and unsettling liminal horror movie.
InPhantasm, the firstmovie in thePhantasmfranchise, a supernatural and evil undertaker known as the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) comes to Earth to turn the dead into zombies to work as his slaves on his home planet. The silly-sounding plotline hides the eeriness of the film and the fantastic special effects, which make the science fiction and psychedelic moments of the movie work incredibly well. As the heroes of the story get closer to stopping The Tall Man, they enter a warped reality halfway between the Tall Man’s and their own.
I Saw the TV Glowis a psychological horror drama and an allegory for coming to terms with being transgender as well as contending with the danger of nostalgia. In the film, two troubled high schoolers connect over their shared love of aThe Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like TV show. They soon come to believe that they’re actually characters in the show and resolve to escape their current reality.I Saw the TV Glowsneaks up on you, and the dark corners of rooms in real life and on television come together for a frightening combination.
Skinamarinkis almost entirely based around liminal horror scares. The film follows two young children who awake to find their father has disappeared and that the doors and windows of their house have disappeared. As the night continues, they encounter frightening visions in the dark recesses of their home.Skinamarinkis a nightmare that makes incredible use of dark, empty space.You never know if you’re looking at something real in a sceneor if it’s just your eyes playing tricks on you. The unknowable terror of a dark room is at the heart of the film.
