Watching a scary movie on Halloween has become as much of a tradition as anything else associated with the day, so let’s all stay in this Halloween, shall we? Not that there is much of a choice, given that a rampant plague will prevent us from going to a costume party or knock on stranger’s door and threaten them for a Mars bar or two… I mean, who’s even scared of masks anymore? Seems more like social responsibility nowadays.

Some of us enjoy subverting traditions, even newer ones like the watching of horror movies—so this is a list for you! Here are 10 non-horror movies (with as few spoilers as possible—you MUST watch these films) that are guaranteed to scare you at least 35% more than 2005’s ‘House of Wax’ starring Paris Hilton. It’s science.

WARNING: Some footage on this list is disturbing. Proceed with caution.

Top 10 Disturbing Movies You’ve Never Heard Of

10 Come And See (1985)

War is hell. This film is hell. This may well be the most uncompromising, visually terrifying, best acted and pants-shittingly tense war films ever made.

Based on the 1975 book “I Am From A Fiery Village”, the film shows the horrors of Nazi-occupied Belarus through the eyes of a teenage boy named Flyora. He joins the Belorussian resistance and bears witness to some of the most brutal atrocities mankind has ever inflicted on itself—piles of executed bodies, horrible maimings, random deaths from buried landmines, burnings and rape. But it is the reactions of Flyora, played by the incredible Aleksei Kravchenko, that’ll stick with you. It grounds the horrors in reality—you’ll imagine yourself seeing what he sees, you’ll feel his pain and terror. Or you could stick to Scary Movie 5…^[1]

9 Woyzeck (1979)

Almost any film from maverick German genius Werner Herzog could have made this list. From the depictions of individuals on society’s periphery in ‘Stroszek’, the uncaring cruelty of the natural world coupled with a protagonist’s slow slip into madness in ‘Fitzcaraldo’ and ‘Aguirre, Wrath of God’ to the strange, cruel world in ‘Even Dwarfs Started Small’, Werner Herzog is the king of the avant-garde weirdos. His attempt to finish Georg Büchner 1836(ish) unfinished play ‘Woyzeck’ is perhaps the most creepy and affecting film (Grizzly Man is pretty rough, but Woyzeck includes a wild-eyed Klaus Kinski at his best).

The film is a character study of an extremely downtrodden man. Franz Woyzeck tries to support his mistress and their illegitimate child by taking on menial, degrading jobs to supplement his wage as a common soldier in 19th century Germany. He undergoes various humiliating tasks and medical experiments, growing increasingly unhinged. His partner, played by the criminally little-known German actress Eva Mattes, gets bored of the hapless Woyzeck and sleeps with a handsome Drum Major. Woyzeck confronts the other soldier, only to get beaten up , emasculating him further. The depiction of madness in the film’s final scenes are deeply unsettling, giving the viewer a real window into what can happen when you push an unhinged man too far.^[2]

Fun Fact: Woyzeck was put to music in the opera entitled Wozzeck by Austrian composer Alban Berg who also wrote the opera Lulu, about prostitutes, lesbians, and Jack the Ripper—as featured on our Top 10 Truly Disturbing Classical Pieces.

8 Anything By Animator Jan Švankmajer (1964—2018)

Whether you watch one of this man’s feature length films or a selection of his short films, a bit of Czech animator Jan Švankmajer’s works are a perfect addition to your Halloween evening. You’ll certainly have the weirdest nightmares.

Watching his 1982 ‘Dimensions of Dialogue’ is meant to feel like cutting edge, conceptual art, a comment on late-stage communism, consumerism and ideological confusion. It’s more likely to make you feel uneasy and more than a little queasy. The sight of the stop-motion clay figures tearing into one another, ripping gobs of greyish ‘flesh’ and heavily pounding their heads to blown-out, roiling mush feels like you’re watching an Eastern European snuff film, albeit an artsy one.

1988’s ‘Alice’ a dark re-imagining of Lewis Carroll’s classic ‘Alice in Wonderland’ would be perfect for Halloween. Imagine the Disney version, but part live and part stop-motion, without the whimsy and wonder. If you have any qualms as to how horrific this silly little fantasy story could be, here’s Alice’s last line in the film (referring to everyone’s favourite dope from the Disney film—the White Rabbit) “He’s late as usual. I think I’ll cut his head off.”^[3]

7 Mulholland Drive (2001)

Like most of David Lynch’s output, ‘Mulholland Drive’ has plenty of strange, surreal and disconcerting sequences. But jump scares? In a non-horror flick? You better believe it, and it’s a whopper—perhaps the best shot, most tense, nerve-shattering jumps ever committed to celluloid. Or an SD card.

The film itself is a head-scratcher—Lynch’s penchant for blurring the lines between dreams/nightmares and reality causes any attempt at definitive explanations of his films quite futile. All we can say for sure is the diner scene is one of the best made, artfully set-up scares in cinematic history. Dreams and flights of fancy are hard to show on the big screen, but Lynch gets as close as anyone to capturing the essence of a nightmare in this scene, and more broadly, in his cinematic oeuvre.^[4]

6 Threads (1984)

For a good, long period during the 20th century, people across the planet feared potential nuclear annihilation above all else. Films like ‘Threads’ didn’t help that fear for the public (even if such works helped politicians visualise a nuclear catastrophe and realise the follies of their sabre rattling). No blurry symbolism here—just sledgehammer-to-the-gut realism depicting one of the worst possible outcomes mankind nearly faced.

The film is set in the northern English city of Sheffield. As the common English saying goes, “It’s grim up north”. A young couple, still living with their respective parents, prepare to get married due to an unplanned pregnancy. You get lulled into thinking this will be a Ken Loach-esque, gritty working class drama about some struggling twenty-somethings starting their lives together in a post-industrial England. Is that grim enough for you? It gets so much worse…

The Soviet Union and the USA exchange nuclear fire and the world burns, including Sheffield (a centre for UK industry that was indeed a Soviet target in the event of an all-out nuclear war). The film then charts the life of Ruth Beckett, the young expectant mother, as she traverses a post-nuclear attack England, showing us just how terrible it would have been. If you’re a fan of dystopian artworks, this may even be too rough for you. Orwell’s 1984 was scary, ‘Threads’ was scarily plausible.^[5]

Top 10 Disturbing True Crime Books You Won’t Want To Read Twice

5 Un Chien Andalou (1929)

Surrealist director Luis Buñuel, the man behind this strangest of films (collaborating with Salvador Dali), described it as “nothing other than an desperate, impassioned call for murder”. Horrified yet?

Much like David Lynch’s later efforts, Buñuel’s film is a musing on dreams, employing a Freudian free-associative lack of regular logic or chronology. Salvador Dali was employed to bring his strange styling to the creative process. The film has no discernible plot, but the imagery ranges from unnerving to haunting and even quite visceral—a death’s head moth, a gripping hand reaching through a door whilst covered in ants and, most memorable of all, a man slicing a young woman’s eyeball with a razor. Can we get back to melting clocks now, please?^[6]

4 High Plains Drifter (1973)

You’d be right to raise a eyebrow quizzically if somebody suggested a Clint Eastwood western movie for Halloween. Most of his cowboy films are about as scary as a tall glass of sarsaparilla (unless you are allergic to sarsaparilla, of course). ‘High Plains Drifter’ is different.

Eastwood stars as a nameless drifter (similar to his famous ‘man with no name’ character from Sergio Leone’s classic ‘Dollars’ trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns) who comes across an isolated mining town in California. The frontier feeling you get from this vision of the Old West is gritty and dangerous, stark and creepy—that’s before the action begins. After he kills the town’s sheriff and his deputies and rapes a local prostitute, the weak-willed and terrified townsfolk beg the stranger to be their new sheriff. Why would they do this? Because an evil band of grudge-baring criminals are about to be released from prison. What happens next is a master class in gothic mood-making, with enough misery and creepiness to make this one rootin’-tootin’ Halloween, y’all… sorry.^[7]

3 Spirited Away (2001)

This is perhaps the most beautiful film on the list. Hayao Miyazaki’s seminal work of cinematic magic is often held up as one of the greatest animated films ever made. It can also be pretty damned scary.

As cute as the little soot creatures are, the ‘No-Face’ monster is as scary. As wonderfully elegant Haku is as a dragon, giant-headed witch Humbaba is as tough to look at. Then there’s the scene where Chihiro (the film’s little girl protagonist) sees that her parents have turned into grotesque hog-monsters, gluttonously gorging on some magically prepared street food.

‘Kawaii’, romantic fluff? Hardly. As with most works from Studio Ghibli, there is a rough, gruesome and quite frightening undercurrent to even this most beautiful of movies.^[8]

2 Marathon Man (1976)

To many, a trip to the dentist is as fear-inducing as any scary film. What about a Nazi dentist? One that will use his tools to torture you for info? Sweaty palms yet?

This taught thriller isn’t the scariest film you’ll ever see. It does use Dustin Hoffman’s character’s love of running to great use, a device that adds to the tension, making us feel as though we’re as much on the run as he is. Is that enough to keep you under a blanket though? Not really.

Then there’s the torture scene. Much as ‘Jaws’ kept a generation of kids out of the water (even swimming pools), the pained screams of Dustin Hoffman’s character and the high-pitched whine of a drill wielded by Lawrence Olivier’s on-the-run Nazi dentist kept cinema-goers from their yearly check-up with the dentist.^[9]

1 Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)

This cult classic from director Shane Meadows really gets under your skin, then lays some eggs which hatch into tiny fear spiders that will eat you from the inside out long after you’ve finished watching. With a gritty realism reminiscent of many great English working class classics like ‘This Sporting Life’, ‘Kes’ and ‘Secrets & Lies’ crossed with outsider/revenge films like ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Death Wish’ and ‘Se7en’. That’s as close as we can get using existing films as references- it’s not even close, though. ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ is very much its own thing.

The film employs many classic horror/slasher film tropes—a scary mask (a particularly grim looking gas mask), gruesome killings, a general sense of foreboding and choppy editing. But a horror film this is certainly not. It’s a psychological thriller and, more poignantly, a study of brotherly love and loss as well as a look into the harsh treatment many disabled people receive without a support network. If that sounds too much like a charity PSA, fear not—for fear you will. I haven’t looked inside any suitcases for years since watching this movie…^[10]

Top 10 Disturbing Movie Props

About The Author: C.J. Phillips is a storyteller, actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

“Sex sells” is a saying that is as old as your grandma. You know the centerfolds and pictures designed to let the imagination run a little wild. For decades, sales have thrived on sexual fantasy.

But in the dot-com era, people now have the option to make their fantasies a reality. As my brother-in-law says, “If you want it, someone is selling it.” This is especially true when it comes to sex toys.

Although these toys are all real and popular in their own realms, they aren’t toys you’re likely to find in your Nana’s sock drawer. So let’s take a look at the top 10 toys guaranteed to scare your grandma.

Related: 10 Interesting Facts About The Rise Of Sex Robots

10 Xenophile Fetish: When Probing Goes Too Far

Aliens can take just about any shape; just look at the movies. And these sex toys are certainly out of this world…far, far out. Of course, they come in basic human forms, but why be boring? You can get designs that look like slime-covered blobs with tentacles. Size isn’t even an issue. Whether you’re into something tall, dark, and slimy or a little green man, there’s an alien sex toy for you.

If tentacles aren’t enough to fulfill your fantasies, then step it up to extraterrestrial egg implantation. Apparently, you can customize the eggs, too. Some people opt for gelatin, ice, silicon, or (for the really adventurous) you can DIY. I guess “live long and prosper” is about to take on a whole new meaning.

9 Harmony: The Sexbot

Admittedly, this one won’t fit in anyone’s sock drawer, and dolls are nothing new. So you might be asking what makes Harmony so different?

The answer is that she is so much more than the blowup “friend” your socially awkward uncle keeps under his bed. For one, Harmony is a robot, so she can move, smile, and embrace. But she’s also intelligent.

Her AI would be like Alexa if she actually listened to you. So the more you interact with her, the more Harmony will connect with you. What happens if you don’t use her? She gets sad.

Nothing like adding another relationship to your life that you can disappoint.

8 A Digital Chastity Device: What Could Go Wrong?

This one is arguably the least scary at first glance. It’s basically a ring with a tube attached that locks. But the nightmarish situations come into play when you add in the fact that someone else can control the lock with an app on your phone.

It’s enough of a struggle to get my grandparents to understand email, but having Nan ask, “How do I use this app?” would be a drink-inducing experience for everyone.

On the flip side, the entire point of a chastity cage is to build tension before unlocking, so the inability of the elderly to work with technology might be an added bonus.

A word of caution, though. Like any technology, hackers are always a possibility. This actually occurred with the Cellmate device, where hackers locked the devices and held the unsuspecting “member” for ransom. Before the company patched the software, some couples said they either paid or were considering cutting the device off.

7 Urethral Sounds: The World’s Sexiest Catheter

This one falls under medical play and definitely is a bit extreme. Although, if you’ve never seen one, you could come up with a bunch of vanilla explanations for what these are used for. Drink mixers, dull nutcrackers, tools for pressure points, all things to keep you in a safe place.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on where you fall on the kinky scale of this), urethral sounds are rods that are inserted into the urethra. At this point, you’re probably asking why on earth would people do this.

The simple answer is because they think it feels good, and it allows for simulation from a different angle on areas that are packed with nerves. Be careful, though—if it’s not done correctly, you can do some serious damage and might end up in the hospital with an actual catheter.

6 Electrified Genitals: Giving Granny the Shock of a Lifetime

Have you ever gone to a chiropractor or physical therapist and been hooked up to a TENS unit? You know, it’s the machine that sends electrical pulses through pads attached to your skin. Basically, it forces your muscles to contract and relax. It’s almost like getting sore muscles massaged after a good workout but without having to get rubbed down by a complete stranger.

Well, there are sexual TENS units designed to work well, especially below the belt. They have pads that can be nuzzled in just the right spots. In theory, this sounds great since I can remember all the times I used a TENS unit on my back or shoulder. But then I remember touching the electric chains in my grandpa’s milk barn, and it’s just not worth the risk.

5 Nothing Cute Has Ever Been Called Goliath

Think about it—David and Goliath, Goliath Spider, Goliath Grouper. All of these have two things in common. First, they aren’t cute. Impressive? Yes. Cute? Not so much. And second, they are huge. So it should come as no surprise that the girth on Mr. Hankey’s Goliath Sex Toy is massive.

Have you ever wondered about (or possibly missed) the sensation of pushing out a baby? Then this is the phallus for you. Just don’t be surprised when you can’t feel anything for a week or so after.

4 Animal Husbandry Isn’t Just for the Animals

Every owner of a male dog has seen the ever-present (yet surprising) red rocket. And that’s where it stops for most people. For others, curiosity is going to kill their cat. For people who like to live on the “wild” side, there’s actually a semi-hard silicone horse…appendage.

Wanting to get freaky with a four-legged companion isn’t anything new. Historically speaking, there have been several famous figures who enjoy getting “at one” with nature. In fact, Catherine the Great is known for widespread rumors that center around bedding her horse.

This kink is definitely not for everyone. What fantasy is? But if you’re into dragons and horses and dogs, “Oh my!” then Bestvibe has you covered.

3 Saddle Up, Sweetheart

Maybe the fantasy isn’t being with a horse. Maybe it’s about being the horse. Want to be a husky Clydesdale or a sleek Arabian? There’s an entire world dedicated to pony play—and a wide selection of toys to go with it.

Ears, tails, manes, bridles, etc., name an accessory or part of a horse, and there’s a made-for-humans option. From horse masks with reins to rubber bits and bridles, there are options for anyone ready to release their inner steed but not ready to publicly proclaim their foal-dom.

For the more adventurous or carefree geldings, there’s a yearly gathering where you and your equine partner can compete in events. Maybe this is the next evolution of the “horse girl” we all knew in school.

Putting a piece of metal in my mouth and pulling a cart around a field sounds a lot more like work than foreplay, but everyone is different. Still, seeing a herd of 10 or more people in full horse regalia galloping down a street would probably make grandma cross to the other side.

2 Arachnophobes, Skip This One

You read that right. You need to take arachnophilia to the max to enjoy this toy. This is one addition to the bedroom that could make your partner’s skin crawl. You literally pull a scorpion out of a small coffin, then send shivers up their spine with this vibrating invertebrate.

Don’t worry, though; it’s a hundred percent waterproof. So jumping in a pool won’t save them from this animated sex toy’s malleable stinger, scurrying feet, or squidgy pincers.

Although the toy’s name, “Death by Orgasm,” sounds like a fun way to go. LoveHoney, the brand behind this Halloween-themed toy, wants to help scorpion-lovers everywhere feel free to make a private oasis south of their equator. If you’re not a fan, you might just want to smash it with a book until it looks like your more like your gram’s cream of wheat.

1 Getting Some Sweet, Sweet Vibrations

Waking up in the morning can be the hardest part of the day. And the world’s been trying to find ways to make it easier for years. Some people use automatic coffee makers, so they wake up to the smell of their favorite roast. Others put their alarms out of reach, forcing them to get out of bed before shutting them off.

And then there’s “The Little Rooster.” This morning helper is a far cry from life on the farm. It’s actually a vaginal alarm clock that helps you wake up on time, giving you a sexual awakening daily. Sounds pretty good…as long as it stays where you put it the night before.

You’re probably rolling your eyes, thinking it sounds more like a rogue wave surfing session. But Wake Sexy, the clock’s brand, has thought of that too. You’re in control of the ending intensity, and the little rooster understands the importance of the build-up to a good sunrise. The rooster starts slow and gradually increases speed over about five minutes.

So next time your grandma asks if you want to start the day with some scrambled eggs, you can say, “I already did!”