Most everyone loves a good romance now and again. When Harry Met Sally, Titanic – forget about it. Even Scarface had romance in it. It’s hard to get away from the romance angle in movies sometimes, but there is a certain flavor of film that just doesn’t have the time for that.
These types of films generally revolve around murder and/or survival in some way. It’s hard to think about your sweetie in an affectionate way when you find out he wants to put an axe through your skull or when some mountain man wants to sodomize you and make you squeal like a pig in the woods. Here we go.
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8 The Silence of the Lambs
Orion Pictures
In the 1991 film Silence of the Lambs Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) is assigned by the FBI to interview cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins) while in prison. Clarice is tasked with trying to get inside the mind of Hannibal in hopes that it might help the bureau track down another serial killer nicknamed “Buffalo Bill” who is known for killing young women and removing their skin. It’s a twisted tale of psychopathic proportions.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 The Shining
Warner Bros. Pictures
Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1980 film The Shining stars Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall as Jack and Wendy Torrance who are off-season caretakers at a mountain hotel in the Colorado Rockies. Danny is Jack and Wendy’s young son who begins having nightmarish visions inside the hotel. Jack is a recovering alcoholic and writer who has dreams of killing his family and ends up going completely insane. Jack stalks his family with an axe trying to murder them and romance is the last thing on anyone’s mind.
6 The Elephant Man
Paramount Pictures / Warner Bros.
The Elephant Man is a 1980 film about John Merrick, a severely deformed man who is part of a Victorian freak show in late 19th-century London. Merrick is treated terribly by the ringmaster who sees him more as an animal and less than human. A local surgeon learns about Merrick, rescues him, and tries his best to help him live a normal life. However, the evil ringmaster kidnaps him and takes him back on the road as part of his show. When it becomes obvious Merrick is sick and dying, the ringmaster locks him in a cage with apes. He eventually escapes and gets back to London where he passes away soon after.
5 127 Hours
Pathé
Based on a true story, the 2010 movie 127 Hours stars James Franco as Aron Ralston, a mountaineer who goes hiking in Utah’s Canyonland National Park without notifying family or friends. While climbing Aron suffers a fall and gets trapped against a canyon wall and a boulder. Unable to find a way loose and running out of rations, Aron makes the decision to try and use his pocket knife to sever the arm that is trapped. But first he has to break the bone. It’s a harrowing tale of survival and every hiker’s worst nightmare come true. The only romance in this one is in Aron’s head as he remembers his former girlfriend and past relationships while certain death draws near unless he does the unthinkable.
4 Escape From Alcatraz
Paramount Pictures
Released in 1979, Escape From Alcatraz stars Clint Eastwood as prisoner Frank Morris. After breaching other prisons, Morris is sent to a maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island where no man has ever escaped. It’s a clever tale of how against all odds Morris and a couple of prison buddies are able to use spoons to dig their way out of their cells and into the bowels of the prison. When Morris learns he is going to be transferred to another prison he knows it’s time to make his move and he and his buddies are able to carry out their elaborate plan of escape. The only romance here is the lure of freedom for Morris and gang.
3 Deliverance
Warner Bros.
Deliverance is a 1972 survival thriller starring Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight as Atlanta businessmen who along with two other friends take a canoe trip through the backwoods of Georgia. The group gets separated in pairs from each other on the river and two of the men are abducted by what appear to be inbred hillbillies. One of the businessmen is raped and sodomized in an infamous “squeal like a pig” scene while the other is held at gunpoint. Reynolds kills the rapist while the other abductor escapes. From there on the group of friends must try and survive the trip back to civilization before the hillbilly and his family can hunt them down.
2 Taps
20th Century Fox
Featuring an all-star cast, Taps is a 1981 drama about military school life gone wrong. Timothy Hutton plays student leader Cadet Major Brian Moreland who learns their school Bunker Hill Military Academy will be closing the following year. After an incident in town results in the school’s commander played by George C. Scott accidentally shooting a civilian kid, Moreland realizes the school’s timeline for closure will now be immediate. Moreland rallies his troops, fellow cadets played by the likes of Tom Cruise and Sean Penn, and all hell breaks loose as they barricade themselves inside the academy and the National Guard is ultimately sent in to end the standoff.
1 Falling Down
Regency Enterprises
Starring Michael Douglas, Falling Down is a 1993 film about a man down on his luck who reaches his breaking point during Los Angeles traffic on a hot summer day. Maybe you’ve been there. But not like this. Divorced and unemployed, William Foster (played by Douglas) is trying to make it to his daughter’s birthday party across town. But after the air-conditioning breaks in his car Foster takes to foot and unleashes violent hell on pretty much everyone he encounters on the way. Foster is fed up with his lot in life and society at large and resorts to dealing out his own distorted brand of payback ultimately ending in suicide by cop.
