My Top 10 Favorite Horror Films With Non-Linear Plots

Films are so much more than just getting from point A to point B. Non-linear films play with time, expectations, human emotions, and feature bold new techniques in storytelling. This results in films that are often more emotionally moving than linear films. I have compiled a list of my favorite films with non-linear plots, focusing on films that don’t always get the attention they deserve. On to the movies!

Every Time I Die

Directed by Robi Michael

Synopsis

When Sam is murdered in a remote lake, his consciousness begins to travel through the bodies of his friends in an effort to protect them from his killer. This dark passage leads him on a greater journey – discovering his own true identity.

This film has stayed with me since I reviewed it a few years ago. It is brilliantly acted, gorgeously shot, and features an original, clever screenplay. I have yet to see another film twist a plot this way and pull it off. Every Time I Die is unforgettable.

You Were Never Really Here

Directed by Lynne Ramsay

Synopsis

A traumatized veteran unafraid of violence tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, Joe’s nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what could be his death trip or his awakening.

This is what I consider to be Joaquin Phoenix’s finest performance. It lacks the showmanship of Joker, but in this film Phoenix literally inhabits the skin of a man who is both ruthless killer and wounded child. You Were Never Really Here cuts back and forth between the present and the past to show a series of traumatic moments from Joe’s past. These all tumble together like a kaleidoscope to create a visceral, disturbing masterpiece.

Before the Rain

Directed by Milcho Manchevski

Synopsis

A tragic tale of fated lovers set against the background of political turbulence in Macedonia and contemporary London, three love stories intertwine to create a portrait of modern Europe.

This was the first film made in the former Yugoslavia, an area torn apart by war, ethnic cleansing, and deadly in fighting between neighbors. The three stories it tells look separate, but wind together to form a perfect, terrible circle of violence.

Rabbit

Directed by Luke Shanahan

Synopsis

After a vivid dream, Maude Ashton returns to Adelaide, certain she now knows the whereabouts of her missing twin sister.

There has always been a fascination with identical twins – I myself have a personal one: both of my parents are twins. One question often asked is: ‘does one twin feel the pain of another?” Rabbit isn’t a film for the impatient viewer. Instead it’s a glorious slow burn about the ties that bind us, the love we share, and the cycle of shared fate.

La Llorona

Directed by Jayro Bustamante

Synopsis

An aging paranoid war criminal, protected by his faithful wife, faces death while being haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Finally, someone made a decent movie about the legend of La Llorona! It was genius adapting the legend around the prosecution of a war criminal (based on real life Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt). Montt was responsible for the brutal genocide of native Mayans in the 1980s. The film itself is set up as part hallucinatory ghost story/part war trial – blended together in a watery nightmare.

Irreversible

Directed by Gaspar Noe

Synopsis

Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in an underpass tunnel.

I think it’s safe to say that I have never seen a film like Irreversible. This is probably because there is only one Gaspar Noe. He’s a director who plays not only with chronological order, but with sound. Irreversible plays in reverse, with the horrors at the beginning of the film and the sweet relationship at the end – making what came before a complete gut punch. But Noe does even more – the soundtrack has a low, pulsating tone in parts that is designed to make the viewer nauseated. I warn everyone now that this one is not for the faint of heart, but it never for a moment glorifies its violent subject matter.

Run Lola Run

Directed by Tom Tykwer

Synopsis

After a botched money delivery, Lola has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks.

This film is SO MUCH FUN! Spoilers are ahead, so this is your warning. Even 25 years later, this film still feels as fresh as it did the first time I saw it in the theater. What Twyker does is genius: he resets the film to let Lola ‘try again’ until she gets it right. Combined with sharp editing and a kinetic soundtrack, this is one everyone should see!

Lost Highway

Directed by David Lynch

Synopsis

Anonymous videotapes presage a musician’s murder conviction, and a gangster’s girlfriend leads a mechanic astray.

I put this film on a few days ago to refresh my memory, and i discovered two important things: #1: I still don’t 100% know what Lynch is trying to say with this film, and #2: This film still scares the crap out of me. Or rather one character does. Damnit Robert Blake, you may be gone from this world, but your eyebrow-less “Mystery Man” lives rent free in my nightmares forever. That said, my closest interpretation of this film is that it is a mobius strip – where everyone just goes on and on in an endless time loop. But if you haven’t seen this one, do it please (I want to hear your explanation).

eXistenZ

Directed by David Cronenberg

Synopsis

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.

Of all of Cronenberg’s films this one doesn’t seem to get much love. I don’t personally game (I get easily motion sick), but I’d watch Jude Law and Willem Dafoe read from the phone book, so I saw this one in the theaters. eXistenZ is fresh, cool, with all the gross body horror elements that are Cronenberg’s signature plus it has a nice sense of humor too.

The Cell

Directed by Tarsem Singh

Synopsis

An F.B.I. Agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.

This one was years ahead of its time visually, and is the second most beautiful film I’ve ever seen. (Number one is The Fall, by the same director). Because characters can enter the mind of a killer (literally), the rules of the real world don’t apply. This “dream world” is depicted as both  beautiful yet terrible. But at its heart The Cell is still a police thriller, and a damn good one at that!

Are there any films you think are missing from this list? Let me know in the comments below!