EXISTENTIAL THRILLERS

That word gets tossed around a lot

Existential thrillers are movies where the protagonists are doomed from the start. These are not feel-good movies, but some of them are brilliant and compelling. William Friedkin scored a home run with The Exorcist, which many aficionadoes, myself included, believe to be the greatest horror movie ever made. The best horror movies rely on supernatural terror, the ability to raise the hackles on the back of your neck, as opposed to buckets of blood. As a follow-up, he chose to remake the French thriller The Wages of Fear. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and starring Yve Montand, Wages tells the story of a handful of outcasts in an unnamed South American country who are hired to transport nitroglycerine through the jungle to put out an oil well fire. It is hair-raising and compelling. Friedkin’s remake Sorceror, starring Roy Scheider is even moreso, and begins with the four drivers’ back stories, showing what they did to force them into exile. In Scheider’s case, he tried to rob the New York mob. Years later, in exile in some South American hellhole, he jumps at the chance to earn enough money to leave when the oil company chooses him to drive one of their trucks. Sorceror is spray painted on his beat-up old truck, which breaks down repeatedly. The roads are almost non-existent. The slightest jolt could set off the nitroglycerin. Sorceror will pin you to your seat.

Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, about a group of Alaskan oil field workers whose plane crashes in the wilderness, may be Liam Neeson’s finest hour. The crash itself is nerve-shreddingly realistic. The survivors fight among themselves until they realize they’re being stalked by a pack of wolves, and Neeson’s character, a hunter hired to keep wolves away from the oilfield, takes charge. It bears repeated watching, and the pack leader deserved a Best Supporting nod.

It’s almost unbelievable that The Naked Prey, directed by and starring Cornel Wilde, was released in 1966. Wilde plays a safari guide who warns his clients to respect the natives. Do they listen? Nooo. The tribe seizes them and subjects several to the most gruesome deaths imaginable, sparing only Wilde, who showed them respect. They strip him naked and give him a head start—as far as they can shoot an arrow—before taking off after him. Wilde barely remains one step ahead of them as he races cross country toward a British fort, his only hope for survival. Like every film here, this masterpiece bears repeated watching.

White Heat is Cagney’s last gangster movie, and it’s a doozie. Raoul Walsh's tragic antihero is a conscienceless killer and mama’s boy whose conniving wife (Virginia Mayo,) resents his attachment. Imprisoned due to uncover cop Edmund O’Brien, Cody Jarrett goes berserk when he learns his mother has died, and engineers a chaotic jailbreak. One of the great gangster films, I don’t want to give away the ending, but it features the classic line, “Top o’ the world, Ma!”

Sam Peckinpah directed two of the greatest existential thrillers, The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. The Wild Bunch needs no introduction. The story of aging outlaws in a rapidly disappearing West who try to pull off one last job is one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Led by William Holden’s Pike and Erngest Borgnine’s Dutch, they ride into a dust-choked Arizona town to rob the bank. When the job turns into a deadly rout, they flee to Mexico where they fall in with General Mapache, a crooked oligarch played by Emilio Fernandez. So many great actors. Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Edmund O’Brien, Robert Ryan. So many unforgettable lines. The final shoot-out is a masterpiece of blood-letting.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia stars Warren Oates in one of his greatest roles as down-and-out saloon pianist Bernie. Learning that a Mexican crime lord, Emilio Fernandez again, offers a million dollars for the man who impregnated his daughter, he joins the hunt, along with Kris Kristofferson and Gig Young. The gruesome journey convinces Bernie that money is second to revenge, leading to another apocalyptic shoot-out reminiscent of The Wild Bunch.

Have I missed any? Post your existential thrillers here.