The Best Gothic Movies To Impress the Goth in Your Life
So you have the goth-hots, do you?
So you’ve got the goth-hots, have you?
So does the rest of the internet. SO DO I. We celebrate Goth Day here at The Mary Sue because we could ALL use a little bit of dark love in our lives. But how are you ever to impress your potential goth lover? Shower them with dark gifts? Take them out for a romantic graveyard picnic? Give them a baby crow to raise? These are all second and third date things. You need something to break the ice. How about the classic dinner and a movie? Here are 10 gothic movies sure to impress the hot goth you’re after.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Directed by Jim Jarmusch, Only Lovers Left Alive may feature one of the sexiest on-screen couples ever conceived. The film stars Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as two vampire lovers, Adam and Eve. Set in the desolate beauty of cities like Detroit and Tangier, Adam and Eve pass their time by laying around in melancholy silence, playing music, and of course—eating people. The film is a love letter to humanity’s most self-destructive tendencies. If you ask nicely, maybe your goth will destroy you.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s What We Do in the Shadows has a little something for every goth. Humor. Goths? LAUGHING? Yes. Every person on earth, including the goths, needs a laugh from time to time. This mockumentary horror-comedy centers around the daily lives of vampire roommates. What they wear, where they go out, who they bring to dinner, and who they choose to make into dinner. Throw a well-intentioned werewolf into the mix and you’ve got comic gold.
Let the Right One In (2008)
Directed by Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish film Let the Right One In adapts John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name. This film is the greatest vampire flick ever made, hands down. And I am prepared to defend that opinion with a sharpened stake. Let the Right One In stands apart from all other blood-guts-sex-death vampire tales, and instead tells the innocent love story between a bullied boy and a transgender vampire child. This film also features one of the most brutally satisfying revenge sequences ever put to screen. And yes, I’ve seen John Wick.
Eyes Without a Face (1960)
What could be more trad goth than shady medical practices? Mary Shelley literally wrote the book on it, and that book is called Frankenstein! Georges Franju’s Eyes Without A Face is a French language film about a surgeon who accidentally disfigures his daughter in a car accident, and then kidnaps young women and operates on them in order to build his daughter a new face. Icky! You’re sure to impress your goth paramour with your erudite tastes. What could be more romantic than a French film? Even if that French film is on some Silence of the Lambs-style skin-stealing murder?
Suspiria (2018)
Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is a remake of the 1977 Italian film of the same name. It concerns an American dancer who is accepted into a prestigious ballet academy in Berlin. Little does she know, the academy’s faculty holds a dark secret, they’re witches! Suspiria is essentially a horror film about real-life abusive ballet practices taken to the nth degree. But those COSTUMES! Not even Dracula in all his dark finery could dare hold a candelabra to those blood-red rope dresses.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Are you thinking of taking the next step with your goth lover? Starting a family? Let Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby convince you otherwise! Mia Farrow plays the pregnant Rosemary, who is growing suspicious of her husband’s relationship with their weird neighbors. She begins to believe that the neighbors have designs on her unborn child, and intend to use her baby for a dark ritual. Raising a baby in this modern world is hard enough without having to worry about the Joneses next door and their Satanism.
A Cure for Wellness (2016)
More shady medical practices! In this case, the most Gothic of them all … the sanatorium! Technically the creepy health facility in Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness is a “spa,” but what in heaven’s name could possibly be the therapeutic benefit of a bathtub full of snakes? NOTHING. A Cure for Wellness concerns a young executive who is sent to this mysterious Swiss spa in order to recover his company’s CEO. What he finds there will make him swear off wellness culture FOR GOOD.
Interview With the Vampire (1994)
Vampire movies are a little on the nose (not all goths are into vampires, after all), but we must give credit where credit is due. Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel Interview With the Vampire is PEAK gothic cinema. The film tells the tragic tale of the lonely existence of a pair of vampires, really HOT vampires. Played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, the vampire duo offers a peek into the fickle nature of morality, violence, isolation, and the price of eternal youth.
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Another Tim Burton classic, Edward Scissorhands stars a young Johnny Depp as a gentle man with scissors for hands. Why does he have scissors for hands? He was born that way, get over it. The film is a poignant examination of society’s cruelty, and our willingness to ostracize even the most noble of souls based on aesthetic differences. A word of warning, you will never quite be able to compete with Edward when it comes to your goth lover’s affections. He cut a little hole in their heart long ago.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Ana Lily Amirpour’s Iranian language film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night may have been dubbed a “vampire western” by critics, but it is a GOTH FILM TO ITS CORE. Shot entirely in black and white, the film follows a young vampire woman who stalks the streets of an Iranian ghost town. She waits for men to attempt to accost her, and eats them instead. However, all that changes when she meets a sweet guy dressed as a vampire walking home drunk from a Halloween party. The two share an ELECTRIC scene set to what is sure to be your goth partner’s new favorite song: “Death” by the band White Lies. “OH, THIS FEAR’S GOT A HOLD ON MEEEEE!!!”
(featured Image: Vice Films / Kino Lorber)
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