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Marital bliss, immense wealth, sinister interlopers and dark family secrets — who doesn’t love a good domestic thriller?
This weekend, The Housemaid starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney hits theaters, a movie about a couple’s new live-in maid who begins to suspect that her employers aren’t who they appear to be.
If The Housemaid has you itching for more thrillers just like it, Watch With Us has you covered.
From a sumptuous South Korean period drama to a lurid crime novel adaptation, here are three thrillers to watch after The Housemaid.
‘The Handmaiden’ (2016)
In Japanese-occupied Korea during the 1930s, a young woman named Sookee (Kim Tae-ri) is hired as a handmaiden to wealthy Japanese heiress Izumi Hideko (Kim Min-hee). Hideko lives in a massive but secluded estate in the countryside along with her domineering uncle, Kouzuki (Cho Jin-woong). Unbeknownst to Hideko and Kouzuki, Sookee is a pickpocket who has been hired by a con man posing as a count (Ha Jung-woo), with a plan to steal Hideko’s inheritance and have her committed.
Lush, idiosyncratic and shockingly perverse, The Handmaiden is a feat of psychological thriller delights from Hitchcockian acolyte, director Park Chan-wook. Loosely based on the 2002 Welsh novel Fingersmith, Park transposes the novel’s premise into a decadent and visually stunning work of South Korean cinema that surprises at every turn, from the twisty narrative to technical aspects like Jo Yeong-wook’s score and Chung Chung-hoon’s immersive cinematography.
‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ (1992)
When pregnant patient Claire Bartel (Annabella Sciorra) is sexually assaulted by her OBGYN, she reports him to the police, and rather than face the music, he kills himself. The shock of the doctor’s death causes his pregnant wife, Peyton (Rebecca De Mornay), to have a miscarriage. Years later, Peyton poses as a nanny and infiltrates Claire’s family in an attempt to enact the perfect revenge she feels Claire has coming to her for ruining her life.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle isn’t a film masterpiece by any means, but it is a delightful slice of domestic thriller camp featuring a scene-stealing turn from De Mornay. The movie delivers fun thrills, solid performances — not just from De Mornay, but also Julianne Moore in a supporting role — and a surprisingly effective meditation on motherhood and female rivalry.
‘Gone Girl’ (2014)
Successful and prominent couple Amy (Rosamund Pike) and Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) suggest the paradigm of domestic bliss, but when Amy goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick becomes the prime suspect after he displays a suspicious amount of apathy towards her disappearance. Gone Girl unravels the thorny realities of Amy and Nick’s crumbling marriage and who the two deeply flawed people really were, in this dark satire of marriage, media and gender dynamics.
It’s hard to decide whether Pike’s or Affleck’s performance is the best one in Gone Girl, but there’s no doubt that the film should be at the top of both actors’ resumes. The two A-listers carry this nasty (in a good way) pulp thriller with their diabolical game of wits against one another, confidently conducted by David Fincher’s agile direction that balances multiple genres and character perspectives.
