Hokum (2026)
Haunted Hotel
Irish director Damian McCarthy impressed a good deal with Oddity. In his equally spooky follow-up, writer Adam Scott travels to a hotel in Ireland only to become trapped in a haunted suite
Imprisonment Thrillers
This refers to thrillers where someone is held prisoner by a captor. The drama of the story centers around their attempts to escape from confinement, where suspense rides a rollercoaster around the building up of hopes and seeing them dashed.
There have been a number of films about people imprisoned by psychos, serial killers and backwoods hicks. A popular variant came during the Torture Porn fad where people were imprisoned in locked rooms and forced to participate in cruel and sadistic games.
Of more recent has been the Conceptual Containment Thriller, which seeks to confine a person or persons in as small a place as possible – a coffin, an elevator, a tree, a tent, a phone booth – for the duration of the show.
The topic is discussed in more depth in the essay Imprisonment Thrillers
The Last House (2026)
Trapped Inside a House
A real head-scratcher where all of humanity suddenly find that they are trapped inside their houses and cannot get out. While outside there lurk sea monsters!
No Tears in Hell (2025)
True Crime/Cannibal Murders
A True Crime film loosely based on an incident in Russia in the 1990s where a man and his mother killed homeless people and ate their flesh. This pushes the material into an admirably grim and disturbing place
Dangerous Animals (2025)
Serial Killer Who Feeds His Victims to Sharks
At variance to the assorted other films about survival in shark-infested waters, this features Jai Courtney in a completely crazed performance as a serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks
The Housemaid (2025)
Psycho-Thriller
An airport psycho-thriller that feels like wannabe Gillian Flynn that has been mounted as a vehicle for the talent-handicapped Sydney Sweeney. The whole plot hangs on a believability stretching mid-film twist revelation
Bugonia (2025)
CEO Imprisoned By Someone Who Insists They are an Alien
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a director of acclaim in recent years. Here he remakes the Korean film Save the Green Planet where crazy conspiracy theorist Jesse Plemons abducts CEO Emma Stone insisting she is an alien
Locked (2025)
Man Trapped Inside an SUV
A thriller in which Bill Skarsgård is a petty thief who break into a SUV only to become trapped inside and psychologically tormented by the vehicle’s owner Anthony Hopkins
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025)
Horror Version of Peter Pan
From the people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, this is the horror version of Peter Pan. And good grief, does this go dark with Peter as a child abductor and Tinkerbell who shoots up ‘fairy dust’ through a needle
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
The Girl in the Trunk (2024)
Girl Imprisoned in a Car Trunk
A thriller that comes with an identical premise to the earlier Trunk about a girl who is abducted and locked inside the trunk of a car from where she tries to affect an escape from her abductor
Please Don’t Feed the Children (2024)
Imprisonment Thriller/Zombie Film
Steven Spielberg’s daughter Destry makes her directorial debut with a confused mix of an imprisonment thriller and a zombie film, albeit a zombie film that only produces a single zombie
Heretic (2024)
Religious Imprisonment Thriller
Standout film with a very creepy Hugh Grant making two Mormon missionary girls a prisoner in his home. The script for this is so playful and audaciously challenging in its ideas that it blows you away.
Darkgame (2024)
Snuff Internet Site
A film about a snuff site that broadcasts a torture gameshow live on the web. This is a thriller that feels as though made by people who know nothing about the internet or law enforcement procedure
The Platform 2 (2024)
Allegorical Prison of Multiple Levels
The Platform offered a striking allegory with a prison where a banquet table of food moved down 300 levels each day. This is a sequel
Cannibal Comedian (2023)
Cannibal Stand-Up Comedian
A film that fairly much sells you in its deliberately ridiculous title concept – a cannibal who sets out to find success as a stand-up comedian.
Saw X (2023)
Saw Sequel
The Saw series is back and this has been getting some of the best reviews of any entries in the series
Unseen (2023)
Blind Woman Flees Through the Woods
A film with an ingenious premise where a nearly blind woman must rely on a total stranger to guide her by her phone through the woods while avoiding a pursuer
Death’s Roulette (2023)
Imprisonment Thriller
A Mexican-made variant on one of the Saw films where a group of diverse people are locked into a room and must select one of their number to die otherwise everybody will be killed
Trunk (2023)
Girl Imprisoned in a Car Trunk
Gripping German thriller with a woman abducted and imprisoned in a car trunk. Like Buried, this takes place entirely inside the trunk with her using her phone to try to get help
Little Bone Lodge (2023)
Home Invasion/House of Secrets
A thriller in which two brothers fleeing police take refuge at a farmhouse where it becomes increasingly apparent that there are secrets and sinister goings-on
The Ledge (2022)
Woman Faces Killers on a Mountainside
A thriller that sells itself to you with its premise where a woman who witnesses a murder and then must face the killers while trapped on a tiny ledge on a mountainside
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Sinister Utopian Town
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a feminist parable but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
Glorious (2022)
Man Trapped in a Bathroom with a Deity
Film with a literally off-the-wall premise in which Ryan Kwanten is trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian deity that speaks through a glory hole in the next stall
Escape the Field (2022)
People Trapped in an Endless Cornfield
This comes with a near-identical premise to the Stephen King adaptation In the Tall Grass where a group of people are trapped in an endless cornfield
Blank (2022)
Imprisoned by an A.I. House
A film about a writer who retreats to a fully automated smarthome in order to complete a novel only to end up imprisoned by a malfunctioning A.I.
Blood (2022)
Boy With a Mysterious Illness
Brad Anderson, director of Session 9 and The Machinist, makes a great horror film with Michelle Monaghan as a mother trying to cope with her son’s sudden taste for blood
I Came By (2022)
House Breakers Encounter a Psycho
Form the fine and underrated Babak Anvari, a tight thriller about a duo of graffiti artists who get more than they planned for when they break into the home of a psycho Hugh Bonneville
Dark Cloud (2022)
Trapped by an A.I. House
SF film about a woman suffering amnesia who is sent to an automated house to recuperate only to be made prisoner by the sinister A.I. that runs the house
Torn Hearts (2022)
Batty Old Dame
Rather good film featuring Married … With Children’s Katey Sagal who gives a splendidly deranged performance in the full Baby Jane mode as an aging Country and Western star
Fresh (2022)
Woman Imprisoned by a Cannibal
Strong and effective film in which Daisy Edgar-Jones is charmed becomes involved with Sebastian Stan, only for him to imprison her, intending to sell her flesh as meat
Shut In (2022)
Woman Imprisoned in a Pantry by Her Ex
An imprisonment thriller where a woman is nailed into a pantry by her abusive ex
Good Boy (2022)
Man with a Furrie Companion/Imprisonment Thriller
A wonderfully disturbed film from Norway. A girl goes on a date with a man and discovers he has a roommate who wears a furrie suit and lives as a dog. And then things start to get really twisted
Ascendant (2021)
Girl Trapped in an Elevator
A variant on Buried, which had Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for the duration, featuring a girl trapped in an elevator as it conducts high-speed rises and drops, all before a bizarre left field SF ending
The Pink Cloud (2021)
Toxic Cloud
Brazilian film that becomes an allegory for Covid lockdown as a toxic cloud forces people to remain indoors for years at a time
Oxygen (2021)
Woman Imprisoned in a Cryogenic Capsule
Imprisonment thriller where Melanie Laurent wakes up trapped inside a cryogenic capsule, this expands out to become an excellent SF film
We Need to Do Something (2021)
Family Trapped in a Bathroom During a Mysterious Catastrophe
A horror film made as an allegory for Covid with a family trapped inside a bathroom without supplies as a mysterious catastrophe happens outside their door
Till Death (2021)
Wife Handcuffed to Her Husband’s Corpse
This had me sold from its one sentence description – Megan Fox is a wife trying to escape hired killers while handcuffed to her husband’s corpse
Cube (2021)
Mysterious Labyrinth
Japanese remake of the Vincenzo Natali film where a group of people wake up in mysterious labyrinth of identical cubed rooms filled with death traps
Two (2021)
Man and Woman Wake Up Surgically Attached
A Spanish film with a wonderfully ick and queasy premise where a man and a woman wake up in bed together to find they have been surgically attached at the waist
Girl Next (2021)
Imprisonment Thriller/Mad Science
This involves girls abducted into a sex trafficking operation, along with mad science and possible cloning. Quite what it is all about is a good question
The Retreat (2021)
Backwoods Brutality
The Backwoods Brutality film given an LGBT spin where a lesbian couple run afoul of backwoods rednecks
The Black Phone (2021)
Imprisonment Thriller/Ghostly Telephone
Scott Derrickson delivers an eerie film from a Joe Hill story about a child who is abducted and imprisoned by a serial killer but then receives message from beyond the grave on an old telephone.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
Escape Room of Death Traps
Sequel to the 2019 Escape Room. This repeats everything that its predecessor did but bigger and more elaborate to the point that basic believability goes out the window
Anything for Jackson (2020)
Elderly Devil Worshippers Imprison a Pregnant Woman
Unexpectedly excellent film where an elderly Satanist couple abduct a pregnant woman in order to incarnate their grandson in her unborn child. This deflates the cliches in a series of alternately funny and wild twists
Antebellum (2020)
The Brutalities of Slavery/Reality Twister
This highly charged work about race issues received a very mixed critical reception but I liked it for its clever M. Night Shyamalan-esque twistiness that messes with storytelling convention
Held (2020)
Married Couple Imprisoned in a House
A bizarre thriller where a husband and wife are imprisoned in a luxury house and forced upon threat of torture to improve their marriage
The Owners (2020)
Home Invasion/Sinister Occupants
Maisie Williams and an aging Sylvester McCoy in a film about house burglars who break in to a home to discover sinister things afoot
Spare Parts (2020)
Girl Punk Band Become Gladiators with Weapons Attachments
I was sold from the point of reading the premise where an all-girl punk band is abducted, surgically given weapons attachments and forced to fight in an arena
Run. (2020)
Wheelchair-Ridden Teen Imprisoned by a Psycho Mother
Well constructed thriller where a wheelchair-confined teenager discovers that her mother is up to sinister purpose and attempts to escape despite her lack of mobility
Alone (2020)
Survival Thriller/Woman Flees an Attacker
Survival thriller in which a woman is abducted by a man but affects an escape where she must then make a harrowing run through the woods while pursued by him
Meander (2020)
Mysterious Labyrinth
This may be the most claustrophobic film ever made about a woman trapped inside a labyrinth of narrow tunnels and crawlspaces that house a series of death traps
Books of Blood (2020)
Clive Barker Anthology
A new Clive Barker film is always something to be excited about – Barker has been absent too long as a creative force. This is an anthology based around Barker’s celebrated story collection
Bloody Hell (2020)
Imprisonment By a Strange Family
Oddball Australian Backwoods Brutality film with a man imprisoned by a strange family in Finland who intend to feed him to their hulking son
Spell (2020)
Backwoods Voodoo
Bizarrely overwrought film in which a successful city lawyer is made prisoner by a backwoods voodoo priestess
In the Tall Grass (2019)
Trapped in a Sea of Grass/Stephen King Adaptation
Vincenzo Natali, the director of Cube, adapts a novella by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill about people becoming lost in a topographically and temporally shifting sea of grass
Escape Room (2019)
Escape Room of Death Traps
The most high-profile of three identically titled films to come out around the same time all based around the popularity of escape rooms. This generates fair tension and has a certain WTF quality as the characters pass through each scenario
Paradise Hills (2019)
Future Re-Education Facility
Nacho Vigalondo scripted film that seems like a mix between a girls’ boarding school story and an SF film like The Island, all directed with amazingly over-ornamented costuming and design scheme not seen on screen since at least The Cell
1BR (2019)
Sinister Apartment Complex
A girl moves into a new and welcoming apartment complex only to be imprisoned and tortured by her neighbours into following the code of moral precepts by which they live
To Your Last Death (2019)
Animation/Brutal Survival in an Office Building/Alien Game
Animated film that is gore-drenched and certainly not for children. Imagine The Belko Experiment conceived as a videogame where the heroine has to survive an office of people trying to kill her while aliens bet on the outcome
Villains (2019)
Criminals on the Run Imprisoned by Psychos Comedy
A film with a wonderfully eccentric and offbeat sense of humour where Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe are inept criminals fleeing after a robbery who end up prisoners of a psychopathic couple
Beneath Us (2019)
Illegal Immigrants Tortured by a White Couple
This is a brutal and unnervingly effective film about Mexican illegal immigrant day labourers who are imprisoned and tortured by a wealthy entitled white couple
Vivarium (2019)
Couple Trapped in a Strange Suburb
A real mindscrew of a film in which Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple who enter a strangely unreal suburb of identical houses and find they can’t leave. Then things start to get really strange.
The Platform (2019)
Allegorical Prison of Multiple Levels
A stunningly allegorical film that falls somewhere between Cube and High-Rise where people are trapped in a prison and forced to fight over food as a banquet table passes down the levels each day, resulting in a society where those at the top claim superiority over those below.
Tau (2018)
Imprisoned Woman Befriends an A.I.
This comes with an intriguing central premise – a woman is imprisoned in the house of a mad tech genius where her only hope of escape is befriending his home security A.I. that is hungry for input about the world. An interesting idea alas doesn’t carry it past an ill-informed idea of how an A.I. would behave
The Cleaning Lady (2018)
Psycho Cleaning Lady
Director Jon Knautz and actress Alexis Kendra made the quite impressive Goddess of Love and reteam for this film where Alexis befriends the disturbed, disfigured cleaning lady of the title
Greta (2018)
Psycho-Thriller/Stalker Widow
Director Neil Jordan delves into the psycho-thriller with Chloe Grace Mortez being stalked by over-friendly senior Isabelle Huppert. Jordan makes an often contrived script into a gripping ride
The Bad Man (2018)
Couple Imprisoned by a Depraved Clown
This is one of the most twisted films I have ever come across in recent years in which a couple have their home invaded by a clown who makes them into his sexual playthings
No Escape Room (2018)
Haunted Escape Room
Another in the fad for horror films about escape rooms we have had in the last few years, this concerns a possibly haunted venue and reaches an interestingly odd ending
Await Further Instructions (2018)
Imprisoned in a House with Instructions from the TV
Fine and underrated film in which a family find themselves imprisoned in their home and then start receiving instructions through the tv pushing them to further and further extremes
St Agatha (2018)
Imprisoned in a Catholic Convent
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a film set at a convent for unwed mothers in the 1950s. Is there any chance this might be a work about institutional cruelty or the plight of unwed mothers in the era? Hardly, all it really is is Bousman inflicting a series of tortures on the girls
The Pool (2018)
Trapped in an Empty Pool with a Crocodile
Grippingly intense thriller with a couple trapped in an empty swimming pool along with a hungry crocodile
Perfect Skin (2018)
Girl Imprisoned by a Psycho Tattooist
Thriller in which a girl is abducted and imprisoned by a mad tattooist who wants to use her body as a work of art
Elizabeth Harvest (2018)
Cloned Woman
A novel take on the story of Bluebeard who forbids his wives to enter a room and kills them when they do. Here Bluebeard is a scientist who keeps cloning the same wife over. A sophisticated and intelligent film full of sharp and intriguing twists
A Room to Die For (2017)
Sinister Landlords
London couple find the perfect room to rent in the home of a very strange aging husband and wife. What starts out seeming an oddball comedy gradually slides over into horror movie territory but in truth this is not a very well made film on all fronts
The Beguiled (2017)
Southern Gothic
Sofia Coppola’s remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood film. The original was a work of brooding Southern Gothic of repressed sexual tensions; Sofia seems more interested in making a costume drama that is a stretch to call a horror story any longer
200 Degrees (2017)
Man Locked in a Room as the Temperature is Turned Up
A thriller in the vein of films such as Phone Booth and especially Buried with Eric Balfour locked in a room in a warehouse with heat lamps that are slowly turning the temperature up to the title level. This ratchets suspense well, Balfour is good but things fall apart at the denouement
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Woman Handuffed to a Bed/Stephen King Adaptation
Mike Flanagan tackles one of the most difficult Stephen King books from a logistics perspective – the book has only one character who is handcuffed naked to a bed for the duration – but pulls it off with great faithfulness
Serpent (2017)
Couple Trapped in a Tent with a Deadly Snake
South African thriller that borrows much of its premise from Buried as a married couple camping in a remote gorge are trapped inside their tent with a deadly snake – only for secrets in the marriage to prove just as deadly
The Tank (2017)
NASA Environmental Habitat Drama
Thriller set around a NASA habitat built for future Mars exploration in the Arctic where the team is torn apart by the isolation and mental instability of team members. There is nothing here that holds you particularly gripped.
47 Meters Down (2017)
Trapped on the Ocean Floor in a Shark Cage
This has an incredibly claustrophobic premise – two girls trapped on the ocean floor in a cage surrounded by sharks as their air supplies run out – that leaves the hairs rising on the back of your neck
Headgame (2018)
Deadly Elimination Game
This feels like one of the numerous copies of Saw with eight people locked in a warehouse with video cameras implanted in their foreheads and told to that only one of them can leave alive
Berlin Syndrome (2017)
Imprisonment Thriller
A strong and worthwhile variant on the imprisonment thriller with Teresa Palmer as a tourist in Berlin who hooks up with a guy who proceeds to make her a prisoner in his apartment
Bullet Head (2017)
Killer Dog
A film with a great set-up where three criminals on the run (which include Adrien Brody and John Malkovich) take refuge in a warehouse only to find they are trapped with a maddened killer dog
Flashburn (2017)
Amnesiac Scientist Imprisoned/Reality Bender
Reality bending film where an amnesiac Sean Patrick Flanery wakes up in a warehouse and learns he is a scientist who holds the antidote to a pandemic. But all is not it seems.
Split (2017)
Split-Personality Psycho
M. Night Shyamalan’s name took a nosedive throughout most of the 2000s (although I am prepared to defend him) but he received some of his best notices in years with his collaborations for Blumhouse, This split personality thriller, anchored by a tour-de-force performance(s) from James McAvoy, continues the upward trend
Escape from Cannibal Farm (2017)
British Backwoods Brutality
British director Charlie Steeds delivers a well tuned homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that gets it right in ways that most of the Texas Chainsaw sequels don’t
Escape Room (2017)
Group Trapped in an Escape Room with a Demonic Force
One of at least three identically titled films coming out around the same time based around the popularity of escape rooms. This has a group trapped in a room with an unleashed demonic force
Jigsaw (2017)
Saw Sequel
Whether we asked for it or not, this is a revival of the Saw series. The upside is that unlike the other sequels it comes from a duo of directors who have made some quite good films elsewhere
Escape Room (2017)
Escape Room of Death Traps
This was debatably the first of three films that came out around the same time with the same title. Here a group find themselves in an escape room facing nasty deaths in each room
Happy Birthday! (2016)
Tourists in Mexico Taken Prisoner
Two guys’ trip across the border into Mexico goes wrong as they end up imprisoned and tortured by cartel. This dives into a dangerous world with an askew sense of humour and becomes more bizarrely twisted as it goes on
Hollow Creek (2016)
Abducted Woman Thriller
Although effort is made to sell this as a horror film and there are some ghosts, this is far more of a missing woman thriller. A directing/writing debut for Guisela Moro who plays the abducted woman
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Trapped in a Survival Shelter/Mysterious Catastrophe
Sequel in name only to Cloverfield, this takes place in a survival shelter where an unspecified catastrophe has happened outside but we cannot be certain what or even if anything at all. Okay but films like Take Shelter and The Divide did this much better
The Follower (2016)
Singer Imprisoned by a Psycho Fan
A blatant copy of Misery where Erika Christensen is a popular singer who is abducted and made a prisoner by deranged fan Bethany Lauren James who wants her to write more songs in the style she used to
Better Watch Out (2016)
Babysitter Stalked with Twists
An extremely good film that starts out seeming like a standard stalked babysitter effort before everything gets turned on its head with most pleasing results
Rupture (2016)
Woman Abducted Into a Series of Mysterious Experiments
Puzzling and enigmatic film in which Noomi Rapace is a regular mom who is abducted and forced to take place in a series of experiments by a group of people who may not even be human
Recovery (2016)
Search for a Missing Cellphone Leads to a Sinister House
A film that starts with the premise of teenage girls looking for a party and then going in search of a missing cellphone doesn’t do much to enthuse me. On the other hand, things pick up when the search leads them to a strange house
The Belko Experiment (2016)
Office Employees Trapped in a Deadly Elimination Game
Greg (Wolf Creek) McLean directs from a script by James Gunn. The Office by way of Battle Royale as 80 employees are locked in an office building with orders to eliminate one another
The Eyes of My Mother (2016)
Psychopathically Disturbed Woman
An extraordinary film, the story of a disturbed woman who keeps people prisoners in her barn. The stark effectiveness of the film all comes in the brooding black-and-white photography
Pet (2016)
Man Abducts the Girl He is Obsessed With
This seems to be shaping up to be a modern variant on The Collector in which Dominic Monaghan abducts the object of his desire and locks her in a cage beneath the dog shelter where he works. From there the film starts to twist expectations on their head
Don’t Breathe (2016)
House Breakers Stalked by a Blind Man
This, which is sort of The People Under the Stairs by way of Wait Until Dark, was greeted with terms like ‘an instant classic’. It is a well-oiled machine that produces some undeniable jumps but little remains in memory after it is over