Great unknown: 15 films that featured an unseen threat

The surprise hit “Cloverfield” had a few conceits going for it that helped it stand out. One was the buzzy, mysterious marketing campaign. From a filmmaking standout, the shaky-cam, found-footage style of the monster movie was both a strong choice and one that turned off some viewers. Notably, though, the monster is barely ever seen in the film. Even when you do see the creature, it is usually fleeting or at a distance. “Cloverfield” is about being a civilian on the ground during a disaster, not about the monster.

In “Aliens,” part of the drama of the story is that Ellen Ripley knows the threat all too well, but as the only one, she can’t quite articulate the seriousness of the threat. Plus, Paul Reiser doesn’t even care! Ripley’s knowledge, and fear, stems from the terror she and the crew of the Nostromo faced in “Alien.” Yes, some things were amiss, but once John Hurt’s chest got burst, things went to another level, and finally the xenomorph aboard the ship made themselves known.

There’s something over the horizon, and it looms as a threat. This is common in stories, especially stories involving unseen sources of fear. What if you couldn’t really see the threat even though it was all around you. Frank Darabont returned to adapting Stephen King with “The Mist.” While it didn’t work as well for him as “The Shawshank Redemption” did, it has its partisans. A small Maine town (we did say this was King, after all) is overtaken by a mysterious mist that is hiding something dangerous, but what? What do you do with an enemy you can’t see, even right in front of you?

“Paranormal Activity” took the found footage genre and made it even more lo-fi. When a movie that costs less than a quarter-million dollars brings in over $190 million at the box office, it is going to generate sequels and imitators. One half of a couple believes they are being followed and tormented by a malevolent presence, so the other half sets up a camera in their bedroom to record any, well, paranormal activity. Unsurprisingly, since this is a horror movie, something is going on, but the couple are sleeping, or trying to, through the night, and for the viewer the low budget means that most of the tension and threat is implied than tactile.

It’s literally a “the hunters become the hunted” story, but it’s directed by John McTiernan and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, so it’s a pretty fun, well-done version of that. A paramilitary group on a clandestine mission in the rainforest unknowingly becomes the target of an alien that pretty much only lives to hunt and kill worthy opponents. Thanks to the alien’s cloaking device, the soldiers of fortune can’t really see him, and the audience sees through the Predator’s eyes more than we see him.

It’s a defining horror movie, and it brought the zombie genre to the fore, but “Night of the Living Dead” never uses the word “zombie,” and much of the terror for the people in the film is that they have no clue what is going on. Now, these walking dead are not an unseen threat. They are very much in people’s grills. However, the non-zombies are confused, scared, you name it when it comes to the threat. Conversations abound about what is going on. News reports yield no concrete info. It would seem the dead are walking the face of the Earth once more, but everything else is a mystery. Given the seminal stature of “Night of the Living Dead,” that makes it a good fit here.

Jordan Peele’s “Nope” didn’t necessarily get the attention of his previous two films, but it may be the best of the bunch. Something is amiss in the sky, but how can Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer prove it? If they do, to what end? “Nope” is as much about proving to the world what’s going on as figuring out how to deal with the unknown threat. There’s a slight twist in the mix there that also very much leaves the audience not knowing the threat for a while as well.

While multiple people involved with “The Usual Suspects” are now persona non grata, the movie was a hit thriller and an Oscar winner. Throughout the story, told in flashback, we hear tell of Keyser Soze. He’s a criminal even hardened criminals fear. By this point, there’s a good chance you know “The Usual Suspects” has a twist, and even what the twist is. Turns out Keyser Soze was there the whole time.

Cult classic “Night of the Comet” is a riff on the sci-fi disaster movies of the previous decades, but threads the needle of taking everything just seriously enough not to be a parody. A comet is passing by Earth, and many people are excited for the occasion. What happens, exactly, the few survivors do not know. What has become of some of the survivors? Nobody is really told. Some scientists sort of know. Mary Woronov is there. If you like ‘80s horror movies, give “Night of the Comet” a shot.

David Fincher’s epic procedural taps into the all-too-real fear and anxiety of an unknown threat and an unsolved series of crimes. “Zodiac,” as you likely know, is about the search for the Zodiac killer, a murderer whose real identity has never been solved. Fincher’s movie isn’t looking for cheap thrills built off real tragedy. In fact, it’s largely about how the quest to solve the case could easily lead to obsession, which could then, in turn, ruin lives.

For a second there, maybe owing to the fact it was on Netflix, “Bird Box” was a thing. The movie hasn’t really had cultural legs, but you may at least remember the image of Sandra Bullock with a blindfold on. That’s because in “Bird Box” people cannot look at…whatever the threat is. Those who see them don’t survive, and so the threat remains truly unknown.

What is “it” that follows? It’s unknown. It’s some sort of curse, it would seem. We see hosts for the supernatural being, and eventually, our lead figures out what’s going on, but it takes some time. “It Follows,” like “Bird Box,” didn’t have legs to the degree it may have seemed, but it was a successful indie horror film at the time. And if you haven’t seen David Robert Mitchell’s follow-up “Under the Silver Lake,” we recommend it. Well, if you like wonderfully miserable movies.

One of the first successful ethereal horror movies, “The Haunting” is about suspense. It’s a movie about a haunted house that is a psychological thriller as opposed to an out-and-out monster movie. A group is invited by a paranormal investigator to Hill House, which is purportedly haunted. Is it? If it is, how? And why? The characters don’t know what’s going on, and the audience is right along with them.

M. Night Shyamalan loves himself a twist. “The Happening” is probably his dumbest twist. While “The Happening” is laughably bad and set back Mark Wahlberg’s career to a degree, it does fit into this space. People start violently killing themselves and nobody knows why. Then it turns out trees are responsible. Yeah, all these years later, that feels just as dumb.

Nowadays, it is hard to watch “Psycho” without knowing the key plot points, including the twist. There’s a reason why, at the time of its release, Alfred Hitchcock insisted nobody be allowed into screenings of “Psycho” after they had begun. The filmgoer didn’t even necessarily know what was going to happen. Janet Leigh was the ostensible star, Marion Crane, the main character. Then, suddenly, she is murdered by an unknown assailant. Thanks to the twist, this isn’t even the end of an unknown threat looming over his genre-defining film.