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Some famous horror movies are limited to a single location (what’s sometimes called a bottle movie), but does that take away from the impact that film has? The answer is a resolute no. In some cases, the use of a single setting enhances the isolation and subject of the film. One location suggests that there is no escape for the characters or the audience. The limitation of a single location requests more effort on the filmmaker’s part to produce a story-driven and psychologically unsettling situation.
There are some very successful examples of chilling movies set in one location. It could even be argued that horror movies which attempt this and succeed are more effective than stories that move around geographically and temporally. Horror movies that take place in a single location take terrifying to the next level because there is no separation between us and that scary, scary place. Here are just some of the best horror movies primarily set in one location.
Misery
One the best movies to represent this chilling genre is Rob Reiner’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Misery. The film tells the story of a famous author, Paul Sheldon, who crashes his car in an isolated area during a snowstorm. Injured and helpless, Paul is rescued by an obsessive fan, Annie, who aims to keep Paul stuck at her house no matter what the cost.
Paul is psychologically and physically tortured by Annie. Because of his injuries, he is confined to a bed and to Annie’s isolated house. As the audience, we feel isolated and scared of him. Because of Paul’s condition and the single setting, the cast of Misery felt particularly isolated too. According to Today, Kathy Bates, who plays Annie, says that “[the cast] was so excited when they got to go to the dining room,” which shows just how claustrophobic it must have been filming just in that rustic house.
The Shining
Another classic and frightening example of a Stephen King horror movie that take place in one location, and one of the best films of all time, is The Shining. Like Misery, once Jack Torrence, played by Jack Nicholson, and his family arrive at the Overlook hotel, they don’t leave. Also similar to Misery, Jack and his family are confined to the Overlook because of heavy snow and bad weather grounding them at the haunted hotel. As we learn, that kind of isolation can make people go crazy.
While Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is limited to one location, the hotel feels vast and maze-like, further emphasizing that the family may never leave. The film truly communicates the power of isolation and the inability to flee. According to Yahoo Movies, actress Shelley Duval, who portrayed the wife of Jack Torrence, says working with Kubrick was physically and psychologically isolating because he would insist on shooting scenes over and over sometimes hundreds of times.
Hush
Another isolated setting that’s just as effective. Hush is a Netflix original film starring Kate Siegel and directed by Mike Flanagan, both known for The Haunting of Hill House, and follows a deaf writer who lives alone in the woods. The movie is particularly intense because Siegel’s character, Maddie, cannot hear when an intruder begins to stalk her.
When she does eventually realize that a masked killer is playing cat and mouse with her, she is confined to hiding and planning her escape in her small cabin. Hush feels grounding because Maddie often sees the killer waiting outside her windows, suggesting that she is caught in one place.
You’re Next
Another isolated cabin and another terrified family. In the phenomenal horror film You’re Next, a woman and her partner visit her parents only to be picked off one after the other by aroup of dirty masked killers. Like Maddie in Hush, the woman, Talia, defends herself in one place as she is trapped alone in the isolated family cabin. However, Talia is quite the badass, something the killers didn’t expect.
The film’s director, Adam Wingard, told screenwriter Simon Barrett that he wanted to do a home invasion movie because they are the “only films that truly scare him.” The film combines screwball comedy with mystery and horror, but the feeling of isolation still lurks in the background.
Train to Busan
The now-classic 2016 horror action film Train to Busan, directed by Yeon Sang-ho, asks you to forget about isolated cabins and think about being trapped on a zombie-infested train. The movie follows a distant father and his daughter as he tries to deliver her home to her mother. As he tries to bond with his estranged daughter, the man quickly faces that passengers are becoming infected with a violent, mysterious disease one by one. He must protect himself and his daughter within the space of a train.
While the movie may be a bit more expansive than other more claustrophobic horror films listed here, Train to Busan still asks what you would do when you have nowhere to run. Would you have enough intelligence and will with limited places to hide?
The Thing
This masterful 1982 sci-fi horror film takes the idea of a single location to the next level. The characters of The Thing are very removed from any form of civilization, confined to a research facility based in Antarctica. The group of scientists shortly confirms that the life form they have discovered is parasitic and has the ability to assimilate and imitate other organisms. The researchers lose trust in one another, since any one of them could be the “thing,” and become increasingly isolated as the alien life form closes in.
Annabelle: Creation
A more recent homage to single-location horror movies is the 2017 film Annabelle: Creation. The movie is a prequel to 2014’s Annabelle and provides an explanation of Annabelle’s origins. After a dollmaker and his wife lose their daughter Annabelle to an accident, they open an orphanage at their old, creepy house several years later. One of the orphans mistakenly releases a demon from a locked closet, leaving all the residents at risk in the orphanage with nowhere to run.
Another example of evil things confined to one space that targets anyone in their path, this film continues the terror of The Conjuring universe. The movie has seen positive reviews, with most critics agreeing that dolls and rural houses are always creepy.
Pandorum
Although the reviews on this film are mixed, the 2009 film Pandorum is an excellent example of horror taking place in a constructed area. The movie follows a man who wakes up on a spaceship after several years of being unconscious in space and realizes quickly that someone else on the ship has woken up too. That someone is suffering a real condition called Pandorum, a space-related disorder that causes psychosis.
This man who is experiencing Pandorum seeks to destroy and brutally dismember the other passengers of the ship. Gradually, all the passengers wake up and find that there’s no escape when you’re trapped in space.
The Descent
This movie is another great example of confinement in a very limited setting, and one of the best feminist horror films of all time. The Descent is a 2005 British horror film that tells the story of six women who embark on a spelunking adventure and get trapped in the caves. Unable to retrace their steps, they move further into the cave system in the hopes of finding an exit and discover terrifying humanoid creatures instead. The Descent is special in that it features an all-female cast which can be rare in the horror movie genre.
According to KPBS, director Neil Marshall says that he “deliberately made the caves awkward [and] made it difficult for the cameras to get in the caves.” This emphasized the situation and made it so that “audience members may find they have a hard time breathing as they empathize with the women.”
These are just some of the great horror movies that take place in one spot. As mentioned earlier, this limitation can sometimes strengthen the terrifying nature of these horror movies and really create the feeling of inescapable terror. Check out some of these single-location horror movies this October.
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