It’s that time of year when we start our scary movie binge-watching. While most of us gravitate toward the horror movie classics, a slasher movie does not begin to compare with a failed love story.
Nothing is scarier than watching the perfect people not end up together.
Here’s a list of the scariest movies I have ever watched, just in time for spooky season.
Slight spoilers ahead.
- La La Land
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Starting off strong with the most horrifying movie I have ever seen: “La La Land.”
This Academy Award-winning film, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, follows the characters Sebastian and Mia who both seek a glamorous Hollywood career.
The film portrays both their perspectives at the beginning and shows how they intersect. Sebastian is an aspiring jazz musician who becomes intrigued with Mia’s failed acting career choices. Sebastian shares his love for jazz with Mia and the two form an instant connection.
As we watch their love grow, we also see them get closer to their goals. They are both offered once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and the two must choose between their love and careers.
The final scenes of the movie are the most gut-wrenching.
This ending fills me with nothing but horror, distraught and an empty box of tissues.
- “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”
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Notably one of the most spiraling, mind-boggling movies to be created is “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” This film captures the deep and intricate emotions of savoring the bittersweet feelings of a lost love.
The main character Joel Barrish (played by Jim Carrey) is a quiet, introverted man who finds himself on a train talking to a girl who seems to be the complete opposite of him named Clementine Kruczynski (played by Kate Winslet). To much surprise, their meeting wasn’t entirely by coincidence.
As their relationship is “starting,” the two find out they had a procedure done to erase each other from their memory.
Throughout the movie, we are shown Joel’s side of getting his memory wiped. While undergoing the procedure, he has second thoughts and realizes he wants to keep his memories of Clementine.
However he felt about Clementine going into the procedure, he knows that he did love her at one point. Those memories are part of him and something he wants to cherish.
The past makes us who we are.
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” perfectly encapsulates the quote by Alfred Tennyson, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”
Completely heart-shattering.
- the notebook
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If there was an award for a classic heartbreaking romance movie, it would go to “The Notebook.”
We see the story of Noah Calhoun (played by Ryan Gosling) and Allie Hamilton’s (played by Rachel McAdams) love told by an old man to a woman in a nursing home.
Noah comes from a poor country family, while Allie is a wealthy girl. The two meet at a carnival, and Noah puts up a brave act to impress her for her to go out with them.
As the two are growing their love for each other, Allie’s parents send her away because they disapprove of Noah’s economic status.
Noah spends his time writing to Allie as his love for her never fades. She moves on with her life and he spends his time building her a dream home.
Allie decides to spontaneously reconnect with Noah and the two see that maybe their spark never truly died.
This movie is a testament that the right love will wait.
- the perks of being a wallflower
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Starring Logan Lerman, Emma Stone and Ezra Miller, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” portrays a different kind of love than the other movies. Rather than a true romance, this movie focuses on the love that you don’t expect to find: the love you create for yourself.
The film follows the main character Charlie as he survives his freshman year of high school. He is an awkward teenager who does not flourish in any social setting. Charlie struggles with bullies, girls, a past of mental illness and grief.
To his relief, he gets taken in by seniors, Sam and Patrick. They introduce him to new settings and new people which helps his development and keeps him safe from falling back into depression.
Charlie undergoes conflicts with his friends and is forced to stay away from them. Without the people who support him the most, Charlie starts to spiral and recollects untold truths of his past.
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a heavy-hitting movie that makes you feel grateful for the people around you.
A true film of creating a home with people who aren’t blood.
- 500 days of summer
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“500 Days of Summer” is the ultimate film that showcases two perfect people who don’t end up together.
Tom Hansen (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (played by Zooey Deschanel) and she completely sweeps him off his feet. He is captivated by Summer and has never been met with more desire for a person.
What seems like a beautiful relationship in bloom quickly goes south. Tom spends the entirety of the movie recollecting the 500 days of their relationship and the ways he hates her for their breakup.
The two had differing values. Tom knew from the moment he met Summer that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Summer believed that relationships and love were a waste of time.
His life took a sharp left turn after their breakup and Tom confides in his friends to try to get out of the rut he is in. He sees Summer periodically after the breakup and hopes for a rekindling but finds out that flame may never reignite.
- Five Feet Apart
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It is true evil and horror when you fall in love with a character who has a potentially fatal illness. It’s even worse torture when you fall in love with a couple who both share an intense illness.
“Five Feet Apart” stars Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson whose characters meet at the same hospital being treated for cystic fibrosis.
Stella is your typical good girl who follows every rule to a T in order for her illness to run its course properly. Will tests her beliefs from the moment they meet. He breaks the rules and accepts his illness for what it is by not putting in any effort to combat it.
Their love intensifies, but the two must be separated by six feet at all times due to the fatality of the cross-contamination of their disease. The two must make sacrifices for their love, but will the ultimate sacrifice cost them their relationship?
The heartbreaking realization of right person, wrong time.
- Remember Me
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Nothing says love like two young adults bonding over shared traumas.
Tyler Hawkins (played by Robert Pattinson) struggles at home with the recent suicide of his brother and his father pushing him away as a result. Ally Craig (played by Emilie de Ravin) watched her mother get murdered as a young girl and now deals with a very overprotective cop father.
Tyler asks her out as a dare after having a brutal encounter with her father. The two start spending an immense amount of time together and heal each other’s rough wounds.
Those wounds only get deeper towards the end of the movie when the one thing they bonded over, changes their lives.
Be prepared (with extra tissues) for the most brutal, deteriorating plot twist to hit your screen.
- Little Women
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To finish off this list, “Little Women” features the same factors as the previous movie, but leaves viewers feeling more content at the end, rather than lost in a spiral of emotions.
Set in the 19th century during the Civil War, four sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy — navigate womanhood while facing struggles to catapult the trajectory of their lives.
Jo (played by Saoirse Ronan) is different from everyone in her family. She cannot be conformed into society’s standards. She believes women are more capable than simply living their lives to settle for marriage.
Jo meets her neighbor Laurie (played by Timothée Chalamet) and the two quickly become inseparable. He and his grandfather become close to Jo and her family and are a support system when Jo’s sister Beth becomes ill.
Laurie quickly becomes infatuated with Jo after spending much time with her, but Jo is firm in her morals. Her true manuscript of love is the one created within her family and the one she creates to support herself in her freedom.
I hope this spin on your spooky season binge-watching suffices. Nothing feels better than a good cry.
Happy October!