We discuss 10 films like the Hulu horror Matriarch you must watch. Bookmark these recommendations.
As we all know, the British countryside within the horror genre is often sinister and used many times. In Matriarch, a woman is afflicted with a mysterious disease after surviving an overdose.
She returns to her childhood home to confront her demons but instead discovers a real one. The film is about Laura (Jemima Rooper), who is an alcoholic who goes down a self-destructive path while alienating everyone around her.
After 20 years, she returns home and finds herself drawn to this rustic village after the overdose that nearly killed her. Her mother, Celia (Kate Dickie), is the one who called her and is the matriarch of the film’s title. Celia and Laura never saw eye to eye, and it is one of the many reasons why Laura left in the first place.
The film turns out to be a torturous one as Laura is held against her will when she is vulnerable by her mother. Celia takes full control of Laura’s body by drugging her. It’s hard to imagine being locked up in the home where you grew up with your mother harming you as an adult years later. The films rely on their location heavily to create a sinister atmosphere is something that almost always works and elevates the horror elements in the story.
10 films like Matriarch, you must watch
Honeydew (2021)
Strange cravings and hallucinations befall a young couple after seeking shelter in the home of an ageing farmer and her peculiar son. When lead characters move to a new place, it’s always a scary setting and when a peculiar son is involved the tension rises. Honeydew is all about exploring a new space, just like in Matriarch.
The Toybox (2018)
Jennifer and her family go on a summer road trip in a used RV with her husband’s estranged father and brother. Along the way, they find Samantha and her brother, whose car is broken down on the side of the highway. After driving into the middle of nowhere, an accident leaves everyone stranded in the scorching, isolated desert.
The unsuspecting travellers soon find themselves in a fight for survival when they slowly discover the terrible secrets within the walls of the RV. Instead of a home being the new location, the RV has secrets of its own and the open road is even more terrifying because it’s out in the open. Similar to Matriarch the British countryside is the equivalent to the open road of The Toybox.
Sacrifice (2020)
A New Yorker and his pregnant wife return to the Norwegian village of his birth to claim an unexpected inheritance. They soon find themselves in a living nightmare when they encounter a sinister cult that worships a sea-dwelling deity. Sacrifice takes the viewer to a Norwegian village and sets the tone for the entire film. In the same way, Matriarch heads to Bristol and is contained to that location, this film does just that.
Intruders (2015)
Anna – who suffers from a severe case of agoraphobia – cannot escape from her house when three people break in, so the intruders think they will get away easily – until Anna’s other psychoses break free. This is a bit different as the closed space is in the mind of Anna, and the intruders are physical. She must break free from her mind in order to escape. It’s an interesting premise as the one location is in the mind.
The Accursed (2021)
An unthinkable betrayal invokes a deadly curse on Hana’s bloodline, and she is forced to make a terrible decision. Twenty years later, a long-buried secret threatens everything she holds dear. A deadly curse is different than Laura’s mother drugging her, but the buried secrets are something similar between these two films. It’s interesting to see the bloodline and how both characters handle their lineage.
Discarnate (2018)
A neuroscientist’s obsession with a drug that expands the human mind inadvertently unleashes a deadly supernatural force on his team. Discarnate is on the same level of substance abuse in Matriarch and is something that needs to be explored.
Knuckleball (2018)
Left alone on an isolated farm, a 12-year-old boy must fight for his life when he becomes the target of a crazed psychopath. It’s the isolation of the farm that is the equivalent of Bristol in Matriarch it’s interesting to see how the farm works in favour of the boy who has been there for his whole life while trying to get free.
The Heretics (2017)
A cult kidnaps a girl and sacrifices themselves in the light of the locust moon. Years later, the girl is kidnapped again by a surviving cult member and learns a demon has been growing inside of her all these years. The Heretics shows an evolution of an evil spirit over time and has strong horror elements to make this a compelling story. Similar to Matriarch the kidnapping of a woman leads to experiments which lead to something terrible.
Amulet (2020)
A homeless ex-soldier receives an offer to work as a carer for a woman and her dying mother. He soon falls in love with the daughter, but he cannot quite shake the suspicion that something sinister is going on in the old house. The house being sinister after the man falls in love with the daughter is interesting and it’s contained to those four walls. The mothers are the main connection between the Matriarch and the Amulet, which is an element of the genre that always works in different ways. In one, it’s more of the mother being in the walls of the house, and in the other, the mother physically takes over her daughter’s life.
The Twin (2022)
Following the aftermath of a tragic accident that claimed the life of one of their twins, Rachel and Anthony relocate to the other side of the world with their surviving son. What begins as a time of healing in the quiet Scandinavian countryside soon takes an ominous turn when Rachel begins to unravel the torturous truth about her son and confronts the malicious forces that are trying to take hold of him. Similar to Bristol, the Scandanavian countryside acts as the sinister location for this runaway family, and it works in favor of the story.
