Best movies like Onus

Martin Scorsese narrates this tribute to Val Lewton, the producer of a series of memorable low-budget horror films for RKO Studios. Raised by his mother and his aunt, his films often included strong female characters who find themselves in difficult situations and who have to grow up quickly. He is best remembered for the horror films he made at RKO starting in 1940. Starting with only a title - his first was The Cat People - he would meticulously oversee every aspect of the film's completion. Although categorized as horror films, his films never showed a monster, leaving it all to the viewers imagination, assisted by music, mood and lighting.

Soldier Robert Miller returns home from Afghanistan unable to fit back into society. Living on a violent council estate and finding work in undercover surveillance, he becomes obsessed with taking down a group of local gangsters who are intrinsically tied to a suspected terrorist cell. Taking the situation into his own hands, Robert embarks on a brutal quest for justice, with devastating consequences.

A massacre survivor studies serial killers under a famous expert, but her classmates soon start dying at the hands of a Jack the Ripper copycat.

James Rhodes aka War Machine faces the consequences of Tony Stark's worst fear coming true: what happens when his tech falls into the wrong hands?

An alien is hunted by a gang of drunken hillbillies who saw him crash-land his spaceship.

David and Lynn have just lost their father. Now orphaned, the youngsters are sent to live with their grandparents in a beautiful victorian mansion. But no sooner than boarding the coach bus scheduled to take them to their new home do strange things start to occur, initially in the form of a mysterious woman who seems to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. It’s not long, however, before murdered bodies are found in the area and, to make matters worse, David becomes increasingly fearful that his doting grandparents might be involved in the killings.

An American wakes up in an English hospital unable to remember anything of his life before a recent car accident. With only a photograph torn from a newspaper to guide him, and an unknown benefactor, he attempts to unravel what looks increasingly like a bizarre murder.

A small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can't remember.

Failed actress Alex Sternbergen wakes up hungover one morning in an apartment she does not recognize, unable to remember the previous evening -- and with a dead body in bed next to her. As she tries to piece together the events of the night, Alex cannot totally rely on friends or her estranged husband, Joaquin, for assistance. Only a single ally, loner ex-policeman Turner Kendall, can help her escape her predicament and find the true killer.

When troubled musical prodigy Charlotte seeks out Elizabeth, the new star pupil of her former school, the encounter sends both musicians down a sinister path with shocking consequences.

A traumatized shark expert must battle her own fears to lead a thrill-seeking businessman on a dive into a dangerous section of water known as "Shark Alley."

Fifteen years after a murderer is convicted he is released and all the witnesses against him begin to be murdered.

Three young movie theater employees are given the task of re-opening a long-closed, old-time theater at which, many years before, a shocking series of grisly murders took place. It seems many more murders have occurred since then but all of this remains unknown to these three young upstart employees hoping to finally make it big on their own. As they approach the grand re-opening night, things keep getting stranger and more unsettling with items suddenly starting to move around by themselves without any seen aid and a terrifying old man seemingly haunting the premises.

A young newlywed couple move to a remote island only to find a secret coven of witches who want them to join all the fun...or face the consequences.

Young Danny is following his rich girlfriend's family to the Caribbean. But suddenly he simply must make a chemistry test and cannot go with them. After they have left, he gets a leave from his professor and takes a plane to find them. But he is not quite sure where they are, and meets smugglers, crazy captains and murderers.

Renee wakes up one morning in the middle of the desert with blood on her hands. She cannot remember why she is there, how she got there or with whom she came. Her quest to uncover forgotten events leads her on a journey of discovery where reality and memory collide and people are not what they seem.

When Sarah walks alone along the desolate beach one day she find an unconscious man, who has been brought to land by the waves. When he awakens he doesn't remember anything. He has no name and no past. His dependence lies on Sarah. A role that makes her forget her loneliness and she decides to therefore lie about their situation... She says that they are situated on an island, where no one can reach them. From now, his life lies in her hands.

Brian Barnes (Johnny Messner) wakes up in the desert wounded and with no memory and no idea why he's surrounded by eight bodies, a van with four million in cash and a van full of cocaine. Brian is pursued by not only notorious drug lord Danny Perez (Danny Trejo) who desperately want his money back, and DEA Agent Rooker (Dolph Lundgren), but also a by the corrupt Sheriff Olson (Michael Pare) who will stop at nothing to get his hand on the new found fortune. On the run, Brian discovers the more he remembers the less he wants to know about who he really is.

When an unknown military force invades Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood, young student Lucy and war veteran Stupe must rely on each other to escape and survive.

The Library of Congress lists this as a ‘lost’ film, however a copy exists in the UK. Gordon, disguised as Hayne, meets with the criminals and manages to purloin the stolen code but the real Hayne, who the police have failed to apprehend, gives chase. Gordon escapes in a taxi that had been pre-booked to take Hayne to church to marry Celia. Arriving at the church, and remembering his instructions ‘Let Nothing Hinder You’, Gordon allows himself to be married to Celia while planning how he will escape.

A battered and mysterious VCR...A bevy of lethal video- tapes... These are the building blocks of horror in "DEATH BY VHS". A mind blowing descent into madness and death. Five shocking vignettes, designed to take your sanity and devour your soul! Mild curiosity leads to severe consequences when a couple rents a supposedly cursed video cassette recorder. An urban legend renowned for leaving a trail of agonizing and torturous death. Unbelieving, they take the plunge... And another legend is horrifyingly born... Do you dare give fate a winning hand, and test yourself against the hellish consequences of the VHS machine? Insert Cassette Press Play...DIE!

The titular Dr. Benderfax (Nigel Hazeldine) is an esteemed researcher (read: mad scientist) willing to go the extra mile for his experiments investigating a rare psychic phenomenon known as the “Telefaximial Field.” Unfortunately for the good doctor and his lovely assistant Nurse Clench (Caroline Hazeldine), many of the “volunteers” end up in the morgue. Actually on brief reflection, it’s probably more unfortunate for the patients. After some finagling the medical duo end up in a local nuthouse and use this fresh batch of patients to further their research. Just as they’re on the verge of a major breakthrough, in saunters Dr. Andrew… Fresh out of college in 1992 Tom Hosler decided to make his “first and only feature script worthy of production.” Armed with a savings account and several credit cards, the film was shot over the course of many weekends. After multiple years of post-production, the film finally saw the light of day in 1997. (Write up via Spectacle Theater)

Harmless prank or violent revenge? Three high school students, sick of living in fear of bullies, plan the ultimate payback. But when their prank goes way too far, they come to realize that getting even can have deadly consequences. Packed with unpredictable twists and turns, this cutting-edge thriller pulls no punches and delivers a shocking conclusion you'll never forget. Just remember...no matter how sweet revenge might taste, there's always a price to pay

Rose awakes in an unknown house following a serious car accident with memory loss and no ability to walk. Her Mother and boyfriend are there to help her. Rose wants to piece together her life before the accident. All is not what it seems.

Unable to keep her social commentary to herself and concentrate solely on her show dancing, the girl in this film is shot to death in the Quebec woods by people who don't want propagandizing about Chile to be openly voiced. She is discovered by a mysterious stranger, who heals her wounds and reanimates her by blowing on them. After he takes her back to his cabin, they fall in love.

"I learn that Chris McIntyre served in Vietnam and that "21 and a Wakeup," set in an Army hospital in the waning days of the war, is based on events that he experienced and heard about." - Roger Ebert

In the wake of Hurricane Camille, the infamous '60's storm that crippled the Gulf Coast, a mysterious teenage girl washes up to shore, and the secrets of Mississippi's Sister Island crawl to the surface. Dorrie (Kathleen York), a young doctor living with her mother (Karen Black), assumes custody of the unknown girl (Erin Buchanan) and names her Camille. Terrified and unable to speak, Camille spends her days hiding underneath the dining room table. But when Dorrie unearths a series of curious circumstances surrounding Camille's past, a shocking mystery comes unraveled.

Surfing since as young as he can remember, at the age of 13, Sage is crippled by fear after suffering a wipeout on a huge wave. The wave slammed him to the bottom and held him pinned there without air until he nearly died. With his whole life still ahead of him yet now paralyzed by fear, Sage no longer surfs the waves. But unable to ignore the mystical and powerful pull of the ocean, he fishes in the surf, and finds more than he bargained for. This is the story of a teenager who confronts fear . . .

A grief-stricken 18th-century Venetian gentleman is thwarted in love and placed in suspended animation. When he wakes up 200 years later, he finds the experiment has more serious unexpected consequences.

The town of Rio Blanco is the center of a fight over the statehood issue and is a perfect setup for Lon Bryson and Chuck Bowers, who organize a couple of phony protection associations. Opposing them is Henry Waterman, publisher of the Rio Blanco Herald. He and his assistant, Andrew Jackson Weems, send for the help of the Territorial Rangers. One of the dispatched Rangers is Jeff Lanning who, unknown to him, has a brother as a member of the gang under an assumed name of Bob Mitchell. Jeff is so shocked at seeing his brother gun down Waterman that he is unable to act in time to prevent it. Unable to explain the cause of is inaction, he is suspended by the governor. Unable to persuade his brother to quit the gang, Jeff, with the aid of Weems and Waterman's daughter Carol, begins his quest to bring the outlaws to justice.

A dysfunctional family awake on Christmas morning to discover they’re sealed inside their house by a mysterious black substance. On television, a single line of text reads: “Stay Indoors and Await Further Instructions.”

Eight college friends head to a "Haunted Rental" in a remote town for Halloween weekend. There, they play the game rumored to have caused the deaths of seven teenagers decades earlier, Truth or Dare. What starts out as vodka induced fun, quickly turns serious when the dares become sickeningly dangerous and the truths threaten to tear the group apart. When players attempt to refuse the increasingly challenging tasks, they're met with deadly consequences, quickly discovering: you must do the dare, or the dare does you. As the death toll mounts, the remaining players must race against the clock to outrun, outsmart and outlast the simple game of Truth or Dare.

After tragic death of her baby son, a narcoleptic mother with young daughter suffers from terrifying sleep disruptions as they try to deal with ongoing pain and grief. They begin experiencing different episodes of parasomnia including night terrors and sleep paralysis, leaving them unable to move and only able to witness horrific visions. These nightmares become too disturbing as they create a rift in their own realities causing the mother to believe someone or something is watching her sleep every night. Soon the terrifying visions from their dreams begin to manifest into a sinister reality, leaving the mother vulnerable.

A woman wakes up locked in a small room with no memory of how she arrived there. Unable to escape, and tormented by a series of paranormal entities, she must uncover the riddle of who she is and how she got here.

A novelist wakes up with a gun in his hand and a corpse in the house he woke up in. He doesn't remember how he got there or even if he committed the killing.