A24 was founded with a singular mission in mind: to make movies with a distinct perspective. And in a little over twelve years, they’ve done exactly that.
Focusing on the type of horror that skitters across your nerves and claws through your viscera, they aren’t going after simple scares. They’re aiming at the kind of horror that is deeply unsettling and disturbing.
Whether it’s invoking dread through setting or terrorizing through psychology, their films are the kind that viewers think about long after the final credits roll. And once you’re hooked on that kind of horror, you crave it in all forms. Here are nine books that unsettle and disturb just like an A24 movie.
Negative Space
In a small New England town, a group of teenagers are looking for answers. For the last twenty years teenage suicides have plagued the town. One of them believes there’s a connection between the suicides and a man named Baumhauer, known as the “Modern Saint of Suicide”.
But when the teens discover the psychotropic drug WHORL, they’re plunged into a world of hallucinations, spirits, and madness.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Jake met his girlfriend a few months ago during a college trivia night. Now, they’re on their way to his parents remote farm. It’s a long drive, and on the way, the couple engages in deep, philosophical conversations.
But Jake’s parents aren’t exactly warm or welcoming, and his girlfriend has been thinking of breaking up with him for a while. If only separating was that easy…
The Only Good Indians
Four teenage American Indian men encountered something terrible on a hunt. They’ve all put it behind them. Or so they thought. One by one, they’re being hunted by an entity hellbent on revenge.
They were warned not to cross their culture and traditions. They didn’t listen. And now, they’re all going to pay.
Tender Is the Flesh
After an infectious virus made all animal meat toxic to people, governments were quick to introduce “special meat”. Marcos works in one of the slaughterhouses, trying to avoid thinking about his past or present.
That way he doesn’t have to face the humans he kills so that others can eat. But when he’s given a live specimen to raise, she becomes a symbol for everything he’s lost.
As the temptation to touch her in a personal way grows, Marcos has to decide if treating her like a person is worth destroying everything he’s worked so hard for. If saving one woman is worth death.
The Grip of It
Hoping to escape James’s gambling problems, he and his wife Julie move into a small house on the outskirts of the city. It’s a new start, or so they hope.
But the moment they move in, strange things begin to happen. The house starts to decay, and the same splotches that mar the walls, appear on Julie’s body in identical bruises.
As the couple desperately tries to understand what’s happening, they uncover the truth about the history of their house. Only, by the time they understand, it just might be too late.
Come Closer
Amanda is going insane. It’s the only thing that explains the message to her boss that is filled with obscenities. With the incessant noise in her apartment that only she can hear.
For burning her husband with a cigarette despite quitting years ago. And at night, her dreams are filled with a woman with sharp teeth standing in front of a blood-red sea.
But when a voice appears in her head, one telling her to steal, to lie, to cheat, Amanda struggles to maintain control of herself. Is she possessed? Or is this the final step in her journey towards madness?
Night Film
When twenty-four-year-old Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in Lower Manhattan, police rule it a suicide. Investigative journalist Scott McGrath disagrees.
There’s something strange about her death that he’s determined to uncover. As he investigates, he realizes her father is reclusive a cult-horror film director who hasn’t been seen in decades.
His films were dark and unsettling, and his family legacy even more so. McGrath has been trying to reveal the truth about the director for years, and Ashley’s death only adds more fuel to his obsession. He’s already lost his career and his marriage. This time, he might lose more.
Mexican Gothic
After Noemí Tabaoda receives a letter from her newlywed cousin begging for help, she packs up and heads to the remote Mexican estate. The debutante is an unlikely hero.
But what Noemí lacks in heroics, she more than makes up for in smarts and determination. And she’s going to need all she’s got.
The husband is menacing, and the family patriarch has an uncanny interest in Noemí. Then there’s the house itself. The longer she stays, the more it invades her dreams, whispering of violence and madness.
There are secrets buried in the walls, beneath the foundation. And if Noemí wants to escape, she has to uncover them before it’s too late.
Victorian Psycho
Winifred Notty is going to be the perfect Victorian governess. Whatever horrible compulsions haunted her past are long gone.
She’s going to tend to the children at Endor House dutifully. She’ll tell them bedtime stories. Tend to them. And if she jokes about eating them it’s only to make them laugh.
But as the dreary confines of the estate close in and she learns more about the family's perversions and preoccupations, Winifred struggles to maintain her composure.
And when Christmas morning looms, Winifred’s dark impulses finally unspool, blurring the lines between her demented imagination and an even more terrifying reality.
