Horror Cinematherapy: 10 More Gettin Shit Done Movies to Ease Your Anxiety

I began my college career as a psychology major, and I have an AA in social science. Therefore, I am qualified to treat mental health issues…not at all. Whatsoever. Buuut I once read an article about how the movie The Martian is good for anxiety because Matt Damon’s character puts aside his problems in order to survive. He gets shit done. Which is good for anxiety. Therefore I’ve compiled a list of gettin shit done horror movies, Strong Female Protagonists edition.

*Content warning: some of the films discussed deal with sensitive subjects, including suicide and rape*

The Hatred

A quartet of college students are staying at a cheap murder house to babysit a little girl while her parents go to a work thing. Little do they know that the house is haunted by a Nazi expat and the daughter he drowned for disobeying him. The film has been promoted by the writer/director as having smart leads. Indeed, they’re way more obsessed with wine and boys than I’d prefer, but they’re pretty competent. Samantha is a history buff who speaks German and says things like “This looks like an 11th century Viking death mask. I’m in heaven!” and “There are some fascinating artifacts down in that basement.” Meanwhile, our main protagonist Regan is a book nerd who’s always levelheaded even after cutting the shit out of her foot and finding corpses and being dragged through the house by a ghost. As she tells Irene, “We have to be brave. That is the only way we’re gonna make it out of this house.” When an ancillary character meets their doom in the house, does she stop to see what happened? No, she steals their truck and gets the fuck out!

Labyrinth

Bratty teen Sarah hates watching her baby brother so much that she wishes for goblins to steal him. They do, and somehow she’s upset about it. Jareth, the Goblin King, offers her a chance to get Toby back if she makes it through his titular labyrinth in thirteen hours. Now I can hear you saying, this isn’t a horror movie. Not technically, but it’s creepy as fuck. Just look at this!

Or what about the scene when the Elmo-sounding flamingo-vulture-things chase Sarah, threatening to dismember her?

Moving on, Sarah is fierce. She never considers giving up, even if she has to learn to quit having tantrums and complaining that it’s not fair. She learns that life has crazy arbitrary rules and “that’s the way it is.” Every time she comes to the conclusion that she knows what she’s doing or that it’s going to be easy, shit goes down to prove her wrong. But she hangs in there. Even when Jareth taunts her, saying “You’re no match for me, Sarah”, and gaslighting her: “Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn’t that generous?” Sarah snaps back with, “My will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great […] You have no power over me!”

All Cheerleaders Die

*Content warning: A cat is hurled against a wall; she’s brought back to life moments later, but the incident is played for laughs.

Maddy is making a documentary about cheerleaders when her friend, the subject of her film, dies. Maddy becomes a cheerleader herself to get access to popular football player Terry, whom we later find out raped her. Meanwhile, her obsessed ex Leena is constantly tailing her. When Maddy and her new friends Martha, Hanna, and Tracy are run off the road by Terry and his henchmen, Leena brings them back to life with “crazy Wicca bullshit” (which is nothing like actual Wicca, but it’s entertaining). She’s delightfully proud of herself. The gals use their newfound super strength and bloodlust to take revenge on the boys who wronged them.

The Ring

Rachel is a journalist in the bygone days of the early aughts, in a world of landlines, newspapers, photo processing, and VHS tapes. One such tape contains a curse by an angry ghost that kills people seven days after watching it. Rachel watches the tape, decides she better get busy living instead of busy dying, and busts her ass to figure out what’s going on. We’re talking dial-up internet searches, looking through newspaper archives, stacks of books! Rachel is tough. We’re introduced to her by hearing her shouting at her boss: “Don’t tell me what to write! […] Listen, Harvey, you punctilious prick, you touch my column and I’m coming down there and poking your eye out with that little red pencil you like so much!” Later he tells her, “You’re fired,” to which she nonchalantly replies, “No, I’m not.” Rachel’s ex Noah is of some assistance, but mostly it’s Rachel’s show.

Promising Young Woman

Cassie is a med school student who dropped out when her friend Nina was raped and shortly after committed suicide. She now spends her days pretending to be drunk in bars to entice men into taking her home so she can teach them a lesson about consent. It’s not classified as a horror movie, but if she were killing the dudes (that movie has been made, and it’s called MFA), it would be. It’s plenty horrifying, believe me. Cassie can’t walk down the street without getting ogled and propositioned. She’s surrounded by men who pretend to be sensitive and looking out for her, cooing that she’s “so beautiful”. Cassie then takes her game to the next level by going on a roaring rampage of revenge, taking down everyone who contributed to Nina’s case being overturned.

Longlegs

Lee is a special agent with the FBI who’s just been handed a murder case: a decades-long series of familicide committed by the fathers. The only correlating factor is the daughters’ birthdays and a note left by a dude calling himself Longlegs. She goes to work, tirelessly figuring things out. (Judging by her rather haggard appearance, Lee doesn’t sleep much.) Lee is phenomenal at pushing herself to do terrifying things, like come after and arrest a suspect who just shot her partner in the face. Or, even scarier, take part in socializing with her boss, Agent Carter. When he requires her to go out for a drink with him to discuss the case and to come meet his family, she pleads, “Do I have to?”, but she does it anyway.

The Perfection

An elite cello academy offers a haven for adolescent music prodigies but also holds unholy secrets. Former students Charlotte and Lizzie, gushing fangirls of each others’ work and soon lovers, chafe under the endless pressure of being perfect, good girls and doing what’s expected of them. It involves lots of planning and gettin shit done. I don’t want to say too much and spoil the whole thing; I feel the best way to approach the movie if you’ve never seen it (or like me, you’ve seen it once but it’s been a while) is to know very little about it and let it shock you in its wonderful way.

Wait Until Dark

Three con men are vying for possession of a doll filled with heroin, which has landed in the hands of Sam when the smuggler tries to ditch her partner. Sam’s wife Susy, who’s blind, is targeted by the three while Sam is away. Too bad for them she’s smart, super capable, and has amazing hearing. She also has her neighbor Gloria, a sassy tween. Gloria is amusingly excited by all the goings-on. Susy asks her, “How would you like to do something difficult and very dangerous?” “I’d love it,” Gloria replies. When Susy says, “The first thing we have to do is stay calm,” Gloria answers, “I’m calm, Susy.” It’s the ’60s, not the best time to be a woman in film, so Susy has her flaws. She’s pretty needy with her husband, and she has some (very dignified) panic attacks. However, she’s still a badass, especially the scene when she breaks all the lightbulbs in her apartment so she and the bad guys are on a level playing field.

Speak No Evil

The Dalton family, mother Louise, father Ben, and tween daughter Agnes, are on holiday in Italy when they meet the charming British family Ciara, Paddy, and son Ant. The Daltons take up the Brits’ offer to come stay at theirs, which the Daltons soon regret as the couple turns out to be the worst kind of serial killer: self-righteous and smug. Luckily Louise and Agnes are scrappy as hell, and Ben isn’t completely useless. Agnes in particular has a mighty character arc; she goes from being completely dependent on her stuffed rabbit Hoppy (that fucking bunny is a stumbling block so many times you wish someone would just chuck it in a woodchipper already) to willfully surrendering it. Turns out that once you’re held hostage by people who want to cut out your tongue and pretend you’re their daughter, life doesn’t seem so scary.

Escape Room

Six randos get thrown into a super fancy escape room together. Turns out the games are for real, and they have to work together to solve the puzzles and avoid dying horribly. Our main protagonist is Zoey, who’s kind and unfailingly encourages the others. She’s also shy and tightly wound and brilliant. She says things like, “You know, I’m really psyched about having time to myself. I’ve been wanting to take a stab at one of those cuboid conjectures for, like, forever. It’s really cool, actually. They claim irreducibility of three univariate polynomials with integer coefficients, and if that is true, then Euler’s concept of a perfect box can’t exist.” Her physics professor, noting her reluctance to talk in class, challenges her to get outside of her comfort zone. Boy, does she!