There are movies you rewatch constantly. And then some movies live in a very specific corner of your brain, permanently, quietly daring you to go back. You don’t.
Some films earn that status because they are too well-made. Some earn it because they are too disturbing. Some earn it because they were just kind of annoying, and your time is genuinely finite. In this episode, Meaghan and Arthur sat down and did a full inventory of their horror films that have earned permanent “do not revisit” status for exactly these reasons.
What came out of that conversation was a surprisingly varied list that goes way beyond the usual shock-value suspects you see every time someone asks this question on Reddit.
Here is the full breakdown. If any of these movies are too much for you, check out our quick quiz that will give you three horror movies to watch tonight, based on your preferences.
Hereditary (2018)
Ari Aster’s debut follows a grieving family after the death of their secretive grandmother, as their trauma slowly gives way to something genuinely supernatural and horrifying. The performances from Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne are some of the best the genre has ever produced. The dread is relentless. The imagery sticks.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Meaghan put it plainly:
I would have to be in a really particular headspace to go back to wanting that level of unease for two hours.
Hereditary is not a background-noise film. You have to commit to it entirely, and what it asks of you emotionally is a lot.
Arthur walked out before a specific scene involving a telephone pole and spent the rest of the evening driving around in Grand Theft Auto just to decompress. That pretty much covers it.
Hostel (2005)
Eli Roth’s torture-porn landmark follows a group of backpackers in Europe who get lured into a facility where wealthy clients pay to torture and kill tourists. It was a cultural moment when it came out. Almost nobody talks about rewatching it.
Why we can’t rewatch it: The specific scene involving a burning torch and an eye has apparently been seared into the memory of anyone who sat through this film. Arthur saw it in cinemas on release and has felt zero pull to go back.
I’m pretty sure that was Eli Roth’s goal, and I think he achieved it.
The subject matter, the way it is all presented, was enough. One time is enough.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Mike Flanagan adapted Stephen King’s claustrophobic thriller for Netflix, and pulled off something that seemed nearly impossible: a compelling film in which the lead character is handcuffed to a bed for almost the entire runtime. Carla Gugino is phenomenal. The tension is suffocating in the best way. There is also a degloving scene.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Meaghan had a physical reaction to that degloving sequence. They had to pause the movie for fifteen minutes.
I had to go sit down in the bathroom because I didn’t know if I was gonna throw up.
She is also quick to add that Gugino is criminally underrated and that the film is excellent; he just does not need to relive that particular fifteen-minute stretch ever again. The tall man in the corner did not help.
Cabin Fever (Remake, 2016)
A group of college students rents a cabin in the woods and starts contracting a flesh-eating disease. There is chaos. There is gore. There is a scene involving a shovel that apparently needs to be seen to be believed, though we also would not recommend seeing it.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Arthur described the key moment: a character infected with the flesh-eating disease is in agony, and another character attempts to put them out of their misery with a shovel but does not, to put it delicately, complete the job.
Then someone pours kerosene on them and sets them on fire. “There was a simpler way,” Meaghan noted. This is the Eli Roth school of filmmaking, and it is effective precisely because it stays with you against your will.
Hounds of Love (2016)
This Australian film is based loosely on the real-life crimes of David and Catherine Birnie, a couple who kidnapped and murdered multiple women in the 1980s. The film follows one young woman’s experience being held captive by a couple just like them, and her slow, terrifying attempt to work her way toward escape. The cinematography is quiet and precise. The performances are extraordinary. It is not easy to watch.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Meaghan:
It so very mirrors the experiences of an actual person that this happened to. I have a lot of trouble with the idea of ever actually rewatching it.
This is the kind of film that is excellent once and devastating repeatedly. The craft is undeniable. The stomach for a second watch just may not exist. Australian horror, as a general rule, does not go easy on you, and this is one of the genre’s most unsettling examples.
Terrifier (2016)
Art the Clown stalks and murders a group of people on Halloween night in ways that are extremely graphic and largely without narrative pretense. It is brutal, it commits fully to its own nastiness, and it launched a franchise.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Meaghan added this one quickly and without much ceremony. “It’s kind of really fucked up. I don’t know why I would rewatch that again.” Very gory. Very much a one-time thing for both hosts.
The Mist (2007)
Based on Stephen King’s novella, this film traps a group of people in a supermarket after a mysterious mist descends on a small town, bringing with it creatures from what might be another dimension. The human behavior inside the supermarket is as terrifying as anything outside.
The ending is one of the most gut-wrenching in mainstream horror history, and Stephen King himself reportedly loved it more than his original ending.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Arthur put a question mark next to this one on his own list. It is not that the film is bad; it is one of the more underrated sci-fi horror films of its era.
The issue is the ending. Once you know how it lands, the entire buildup recontextualizes in a way that is very heavy. “You’d need a reason,” as Arthur put it. Knowing the destination makes the drive harder to take a second time.
Annihilation (2018)
Alex Garland’s sci-fi horror film follows a biologist who enters a strange, expanding zone called the Shimmer to search for her husband, who returned from a previous expedition changed. What happens inside the Shimmer is deeply weird, visually extraordinary, and philosophically dense. It is one of the more ambitious genre films of the last decade.
Why we can’t rewatch it: It falls into the “psychedelic and specific” category. You have to be in a particular headspace for a film that asks this much of you conceptually and visually. Arthur floated it as one of those movies where, even though he enjoyed it, he genuinely does not know when the right moment to revisit it would ever arrive.
Mandy (2018)
Nicolas Cage plays a woodsman whose partner is murdered by a psychedelic cult, and he goes on a chainsaw-fueled, neon-soaked revenge rampage. The color palette is extraordinary. The synth score is incredible. Cage is in full “cage rage” mode. It is a legitimately great film in a very specific way.
Why we can’t rewatch it:
I need to be in I don’t know what kind of headspace I’d need to be in to rewatch it, but it would need to be a very, very particular one.
It is so relentlessly heightened and stylized that rewatching it feels like an event you need to prepare for. Both hosts loved it. Neither knows when they would actually sit down and watch it again.
The Mortuary Assistant (2024)
Adapted from a popular indie horror game, the film follows a mortuary assistant who starts experiencing terrifying supernatural events during overnight shifts. Willow Holland stars. The production design is strong. The creature at the end is genuinely good.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Arthur actually walked out during this one.
I could be doing something so much more productive right now.
The translation from game to film did not work. In a game, the disjointed timeline and flashback structure give you clues. In a film, it just feels unresolved.
It seems that the main character was directed to perform like an NPC, which is either inspired fan service or deeply distracting, depending on your relationship to the source material. Probably not getting another watch.
Silent Hill (2006)
Based on the legendary survival horror game series, the film follows a mother searching for her adopted daughter in a fog-covered town full of grotesque monsters and an unsettling cult. The production design is genuinely faithful to the games. Pyramid Head shows up.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Neither Meaghan nor Arthur has played the Silent Hill games, and the film offers almost nothing to viewers without that attachment.
All that the film did was try to give you spooky visuals that are very fan service-y for fans of the game.
Without the emotional anchor, it was just a string of images. “God, that movie was annoying,” is how Meaghan put it. Neither has revisited it.
The Ring (2002)
The American remake of the Japanese Ringu follows a journalist investigating a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it within seven days. It was a cultural phenomenon in the early 2000s. Naomi Watts is solid throughout. Samara became a mainstream horror icon.
Why we can’t rewatch it: Meaghan’s controversial entry. She watched it at 13 and found it, even then, more boring than scary.
Outside of the visuals, I find the story incredibly boring.
Arthur has since watched the film again and found it almost funny, particularly the horse sequence on the ferry.
It just kept running into a wall and then just whoop, falls behind the boat.
His recommendation, if you want the actual version of this story, is to track down the original Japanese Ringu, which both hosts agree is probably considerably better.
Honorable Mentions
A few other titles came up early in the episode, more as cultural touchstones in the “unrewatchable horror” conversation than as films the hosts have necessarily seen in full. These are the ones that tend to dominate Reddit threads on this topic, for obvious reasons.
A Serbian Film (2010) and Martyrs (2008) came up as the two biggest repeat offenders on those lists. Meaghan noted that “people who say like certain things like I watch A Serbian Film for fun, I’m like okay, don’t be pretentious, you’re an asshole.”
Neither host has watched Human Centipede with any real interest, though it apparently has a themed park in Japan, which is its own category of strange.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was flagged as one of the films repeatedly named, and notably was marketed on release as real documentary footage. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) landed on the list for obvious reasons.
Audition (1999), the Japanese horror film from Takashi Miike, came up as one Meaghan would actually consider watching since it is apparently extremely well made, even with the intensity of its torture sequences. Teeth (2007) also made a brief appearance, with the observation that it tends to bother men specifically.