You’re probably annoyed that you don’t have a hoverboard yet. Time travel movies are almost as old as time itself; well, not exactly, but you get the point. We could go on and on about the pop culture allusions on this list, but that’s a job for the Merc with a Mouth (who, wouldn’t you know, has had his own time-bending adventures?). All of this is to suggest that time is fickle (cue Bryan Danielson clip), and filmmakers have never shied away from exploiting it by peeled aside the veil of space-time to reveal a character’s past, future, and all potential alternate-present forms.6
The results are frequently amusing, occasionally melancholy, and nearly always weird; Alligator Loki greets you. But the idea of altering the fabric of reality by plucking a nexus moment from time and turning it into something else entirely; the concept of traversing the plane of time should elicit existential dread- if we can change the course of history with a simple wristwatch, how real is our understanding of time, and indeed, reality itself?
Time-travel/Time Loop stories are fertile ground for harnessing Lovecraftian levels of awe-inspiring terror; and yet somehow, the closest we’ve gotten to exploring that perception of time is in the hardcore science fiction aisle or a re-run of David Tennant’s tenure as The Doctor until now.
As it turns out, not everyone in the film business is interested in inconsequential time-traveling love affairs with their mothers; some took the road-not-taken, and delved into the dark side of Father Time to create some truly heart-stopping time-thrillers that are equally exhilarating & terrifying to behold.
We apologize for saying “time”too many times; and that time; and that one as well. Without further ado, Marvelous Videos presents to you the Top 13 Time-Travel/Time Loop Movies that are just too damn good to ignore!
Triangle (2009)
Hermione Granger should be grateful that the only bad thing she learnt about herself during her little time heist was that her hair looks weird from behind; if Prisoners of Azkaban was directed by Christopher Smith, Dementors and werewolf professors would be the least of her troubles. Triangle follows Jess; a single mom who lives with her autism-afflicted son Tommy.
They’re supposed to go on a boating trip with her friend Greg, but someone rings her doorbell & disappears, unsettling her. Jess drops Tommy at his special needs school and takes a cab, promising him that she will be back. She meets Greg and the rest of the group, and they embark on the high seas.
A few hours into the trip, Jess & her party encounter a violent storm that capsizes their boat, but luckily, they’re able to board a seemingly-moored ocean liner called Aeolus. The group is puzzled to find the liner completely abandoned with fresh supplies, but decides to keep exploring it anyway.
As time passes, Jess gets a horrible feeling in her gut; someone is following them, and what’s worse- she’s felt it before. The events that follow leave us scratching our heads, clenching our guts, and covering our mouths as we realize the terrible fate that the group has been resigned to and slowly acclimate to the grim reality of Jess’ ordeal. The movie ends with Jess resolving to put an end to her situation, through any means necessary. If you don’t want spoilers, skip to the next title.
Christopher Smith directly referenced the Story of Sisyphus (Pronounce: Sis-E-Fuss) as being an inspiration for this film, and that is evident in the way it plays out. Although the movie tries to sell you on the idea that Jess really loves Tommy, it is only towards its end that we see her “real” thoughts & feelings towards her own son.
It’s subtle if you don’t pay attention to dialogue, but throughout the film, Tommy’s autism has been a bone of contention for Jess from a social and personal standpoint. All the insults & frustration come to a head when we see “Jess” (the time-loop version) abuse Tommy for his autism.
Special shoutout to Melissa George for her intense, borderline-manic performance that is as unsettling as it is empathetic. And this is where the true horror of Triangle reaches a crescendo; Jess’ time-loop “curse” reflects Sisyphus’ own. But where Sisyphus’ worthless labour is bloodless, Jess must commit bloody murder to avoid getting stuck in the loop. The titular Triangle is, in fact, her presence on the Aeolus at 3 different-yet-converging points in time, where she is the hunter, the hunted and the survivor, all at the same time in a surreal mash-up of death and destiny.
The sheer terror of realizing that she is out to kill herself gives the film an eerie, déjà vu-esque vibe that intertwines itself with the building tension. Every action is impactful, every jump scare, horrifying, and by the time the film ends, we see the very real effects & consequences that a dysfunctional family life can have on a seemingly normal woman. Triangle will force you to sit through it with an uncomfortable, fist-clenched anxiety, as the pace ebbs & flows, and you & Jess with it.
Time Lapse (2014)
Three friends, one camera, 24 hours. H.G. Wells would have killed for such an apparatus back in his heyday, if only to figure out his literary compatriots’ reactions to his craft. Time Lapse is the story of struggling artiste Finn, his live-in girlfriend Callie and their gambling-addicted roommate Jasper inadvertently lending credence to the ominous tagline of the film: Once you’ve seen the future, you can’t look away.
Mr. B is an elderly tenant in their apartment building who has failed to pay his rent for over 2 months, so Finn goes to check on him. But upon entering Mr. B’s place, Finn and his friends trigger a sequence of events that start off as bizarre and end up in a schizophrenic frenzy of violence, madness, and cold-blooded murder.
They find 2 things in that apartment: Mr. B’s inexplicably charred corpse, and a camera that can apparently predict what will happen 24 hours later. The trio decides to use the device to their own ends, but find themselves clutched in the throes of one of humanity’s greatest mortal sins: greed, and the immeasurable desire to indulge in it.
Director Bradley D. King has written an unapologetic, 104-minute love letter to The Twilight Zone episode “A Most Unusual Camera” with this film, tweaking certain aspects (the camera’s prescient powers) and toying with others (the number of survivors). But what it improves on by leaps and bounds is the sense of foreboding that keeps compiling with every passing frame. They know what’s going to happen.
They can see it. But this idea that they cannot change it is what generates Time Lapse’s true horror; if death is unavoidable, why not actively fulfill your role in it, and lose your mind along the way? Time Lapse isn’t groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination; what it is, though, is a solid, well-paced thriller that initially unfolds as you might expect, and then devolves into a delirious, blood-soaked, straight-faced fever dream with a blatant disregard for life, emotions, and free-will.
The uneasy urgency of each action in Time Lapse is masterfully conveyed to us by the cast, all of whom turn in poignant performances. The last few moments of this movie will leave you unsettled to your core and wondering if there’s a picture with your blood in it stashed somewhere in the flat downstairs.
Last Night in Soho (2021)
If you want to take away one thing after watching Last Night in Soho, it should be this: be careful of what you idolize, because you might not like what’s underneath the surface. Eloise is a young, aspiring fashion designer who is fascinated by the Swinging Sixties: the sights, the sounds, the people, and the designs, especially. She moves to London for her education, but is soon shunned by most people (including Jocasta, her roommate) because of her rural background.
She shifts to a bedsit run by the elderly Ms Collins, and soon starts experiencing surreal dreams that give her what she’s always wanted; a life in the 60’s! Ellie starts mirroring a swanky blonde bar singer called Sandie, and is inspired by her confidence to turn her own life around. But as the famous adage goes, all that glitters isn’t gold, and Ellie’s veil of innocent adoration is pierced by the arrow of stark reality.
She sees the ugly truth about all the things she admires; she also starts encountering ghosts from years gone by, leaving her entangled in a web of mystery and murder that ends up becoming a threat to her own life. As her mind continues to unravel, a menacing revelation forces her to confront her own demons.
Man, we miss Diana Rigg and all the dainty sass she brought to our screens. Her final film saw two of her most-recognized works coalesce into a single, menacing, time-warping entity that is in equal parts friendly and deadly. The cigarette-toting Ms Collins is a full-tilt diva with a disturbing penchant for murder.
While that might seem like your ordinary horror trope in play, the way it is tied into the overarching themes of the trials & tribulations women face in society is what produces much of this film’s haunting tension.
Edgar Wright lures us into the allure of the 60’s with the bright lights, popping color palettes and a suspiciously well-curated psych-rock score before pulling the rug from underneath our feet and showing us that yes, with the right kind of script, even Matt Smith can come off as despicable.
His character, Jack, represents the seedy underbelly of show business, which is where much of this movie’s horror stems from- of course, that and the extremely well-shot jump scares and transitions that convey just how unstable Thomasin McKenzie’s (TOM-A-Sin) Ellie is getting, with the progression of time. If you like your horror stories with a heaping serving of Netflixian production and just a smidge of Sherlock Holmes, Last Night in Soho is the ideal watch for you.
Timecrimes (2007)
Nacho Vigalondo (We-Ga-Lawn-Doe) pulls triple-duty for this Spanish science-fiction thriller, and his fingerprints are all over the project. Timecrimes centers around 4 characters, one of which is played by Vigalondo himself, but the film wrings out every conceivable emotion- jump scary or otherwise- throughout its 92-minute runtime. Hector and his wife Clara are renovating a house in the Spanish countryside to prepare it for a happy marital life.
One day, as Hector is scanning the woods, he spots a woman undressing. Suspicious, he decides to investigate, but soon becomes a living example of the phrase “curiosity killed the cat”; except in this case, the cat is the woman, and now Hector has a problem. Attacked by the supposed killer, he flees and enters a strange scientist’s complex who promises to help him.
Things take a depressingly self-reflective turn when Hector realizes just who the man behind the pink bandages is. Timecrimes is the movie that Hot Tub Time Machine would be if James Wan directed it, with a bit of classic slasher-esque action thrown into the mix.
Vigalondo’s restricted budget allowed his creativity to blossom, leading to a roller coaster of a ride that switches from comical to frenzied to downright unsettling at the drop of a hat. It springs its intelligence onto you with a kind of self-aware smugness that forces you to rewind, look for clues, smack yourself on the head, and continue watching with renewed interest. It’s rare to be able to pull off convincing Come-To-Jesus moments with a pair of dollar-store scissors, but this tense, shockingly funny time-loop thriller manages to pull it off in a convincing fashion.
The Call (2020)
Jeon Jong-seo (G-on Jong C-oh) might just have displaced Jack Nicholson as the scariest maniac to ever grace the silver screen. If Time is linear, then it would only make sense that what’s happened in the past is set in stone and cannot be changed; but what if your past found a way to link itself to the present, warping your future with bloody hands?
Kim Seo-yeon (Kim C-oh Yee-own) is visiting her estranged mother at her rundown childhood home. After arriving, she explores the home where she grew up in and finds a secret room, hidden in the walls. In the room is an old cordless phone which she takes, intending to replace her lost cellphone.
But the strings of time end up entangling her connection and she somehow is able to talk to the previous resident of her home, Oh Young-sook (Oh Y-oong s-ook), in 1999! Excited at first, the two girls form a bond across decades, confiding in each other about their lives, lies & pains. But ever so slowly, we see just how vengeful Time can be, as the seemingly innocent friendship devolves into a haunting cat-and-mouse chase through time.
Despite its science fiction roots, what makes The Call spine-chilling is the immaculate production of the project and the stellar performances turned in by the cast. Jeon Jong-seo’s Young-sook is a cold-blooded killer who relishes in death, collecting trophies as she projects her childhood trauma onto her victims.
It’s the dead-eyed intensity of her bloodlust that makes the contrasting, timid & innocent character of Kim Seo-yeon so easy to root for. These days it’s hard to sit through a film without seeing it through meta-analytical lenses and cheering for the bad guy because we’re all about that edge life, but The Call harkens back to a simpler storytelling formula: the base conflict between good & evil.
It then proceeds to engage its audience like a lion stalking its prey, lurking in the darkness, toying with it before pouncing and devouring it like the alpha predator it is. If somehow you still think that romcoms define Korean cinema, this is the movie that will turn you from a skeptic to a believer.
Donnie Darko (2001)
What do you get when an end-of-the-world prediction, a super-creepy bunny costume and religious (?) time-traveling methods come together? An eerie, Easter Egg-fest that is littered with grab-your-chest moments, mind-bending philosophy and the creepface that cemented Jake Gyllenhaal (Jill-En-Hall)as an all-time great.Donnie Darko is moody, brooding, hypnotic (literally, in some scenes) and above all: voyeuristically unsettling.
It’s about a mentally challenged youth, the titular Donnie Darko, who starts having hallucinations that warp his slipping grip on reality into a psychotic vision-quest to “save the world” from imminent doom. There is so much going on in it that your first watch might leave you confused and your tenth watch will make you unravel. Young Donnie isn’t inherently bad; in fact, we see his heroic side many times across the film, saving his future girlfriend from bullies and generally being an upstanding person.
But when his unblinking, unbroken gaze enchants the camera and peers directly into your soul as a disturbing smirk adorns his mouth, you realize that sometimes, just sometimes, it might be better to believe the rumours rather than trying to disprove them. A thrill-inducing fever dream of a film, Donnie Darko did its homework on the science fiction end of things and then merged it with religiosity in a sort of unholy union of clashing ideologies, which is a running theme throughout its almost 2-hour runtime.
The more you understand it, the more it surprises and scares you at how well-connected every plot thread is. Deeply intelligent and disturbingly funny with a heart-wrenching conclusion that draws out multiple conflicting emotions from your being in an epic mash-up of crazed euphoria, there is no movie that understands the meaning of a “thriller” quite like Donnie Darko.
Coherence (2013)
What happens beyond the horizon, where stars dance and distant, unknown worlds exist? Can those worlds and cosmic objects of fascination influence our lives? And if yes, then how? And to what end? James Ward Byrkit’s (Burr-kit) Coherence attempts to explore these questions with a hefty dose of temporal distortions & existential dread, all set within a single living room that is the epicenter of this movie’s central anomaly.
8 friends reunite for a dinner party at one of the couple’s homes during the passing of the Miller’s Comet. Over the course of an uneasy meal, they chat, throw jibes & threaten to expose each other’s secrets when a sudden power outage throws them all into the darkness. What happens next is a surreal chase through time that sees the octet driven to the brink of insanity, as they begin to doubt their own reality and dish out their dirty laundry in hopes of clinging on to it.
$50,000, a single-location set and 8 experienced improvisational actors transform Byrkit’s 12-page outline into one of the most well-executed low budget sci-fi films of all time, and they do it without using any major special effects. Coherence invokes Lovecraftian terror, minus the mangled monsters.
Many scientific concepts- like Schrodinger’s Cat, quantum decoherence, the Deutsch Proposition (Doy-et-sh)- have been smashed together into a single, giant cosmic event which somehow weaves together alternate universes around one focal point, laying the groundwork for nightmarish realizations.
Everything about the cast’s actions reeks of primal fear & chaos; they don’t understand what’s going on, and are terrified by that knowledge. Some succumb to their circumstances, some fight on, and others decide to exchange their current fates for something more favorable. The interactions of the 8 characters play out like a particularly saucy episode of The Twilight Zone which by-design used, as Byrkit cited, the iconic anthology as a key inspiration. With a compelling story and a dream-like landscape that will suck in your intrigue, Coherence is one of the more layered tales of time-based horror and a great watch if you’re in the mood to question your own existence.
Devil’s Pass (2013)
Personally, we’d like to stay a million miles away from any place referred to as “Devil’s Pass”, but try telling that to these kids. 5 Oregon students set out to investigate the Dyatlov Pass Incident, intent on uncovering the mystery of the event. They travel to Russia and try to contact the survivors of the initial expedition, but are ominously turned away and asked to keep their distance.
Eventually, they’re able to contact one survivor from the incident whose recollection of the events that transpired pitch the entire ordeal further into the depths of mystery; turns out, there were 11 bodies recovered, not 9 as reported, but the last 2 were…strange. So the government covered it up. As the team approaches Dyatlov Pass, things start going haywire; they reach well before intended, all their equipment is malfunctioning and the Russian government is coming for them.
What ensues is a chase for survival, as Holly & Jensen uncover horrifying truths about the Russians’ experiments and fall prey to a cruel trick of space & time. The very real premise of the Dyatlov Pass Incident coupled with its found-footage presentation is what makes Devil’s Passsuch an effective horror story; well, that and the teleporting, time-traveling “mutants” (the unfortunate Holly & Jenson).
Though the pacing of the film is unbalanced, it lends a sense of primal urgency to the final act. Discovering clues to a seeming freak-of-nature accident is one thing; finding out that the reason is man-made and the subject of a gigantic cover-up scheme is a beast our protagonists are not prepared to tackle in any way, shape or form, and THAT is the real horror. The idea of “how far are we willing to go in our pursuit for power” comes full-circle in a near-Shakespearean tragedy that manages to make Devil’s Pass a reasonably compelling watch.
The Endless (2017)
Before he became a global icon following the success of his groundbreaking fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin was churning out science fiction novels. One of them, A Song for Lya, featured a telepathic couple who arrive at an alien planet with a very attractive hive-mind entity. The man is able to resist its attraction, but the woman succumbs, and allows herself to get lost in the entity.
Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead toy with the same premise, but swap out the hive-mind with an “alien-worshipping” death cult and the partners for a pair of siblings. The Endless is essentially a reimagined, souped-up version of the real-life Heaven’s Gate Cult; except in this movie, the Unidentified Entity exists and has plans that can only be described as apocalyptic. A decade has passed since Justin & Aaron (yes, the directors just named the characters they were playing, after their own) escaped Camp Arcadia; a place that Aaron considers harmless but Justin describes as a “UFO death cult”.
They receive a video tape from the Camp that invites them to the “Ascension” that is to occur soon. Justin is reluctant, but Aaron convinces him to go there for one day. What follows is a series of bizarre, cosmic events involving invisible forces, deadly time-loops and a deeply personal identity struggle that threatens to destroy everyone at Camp Arcadia; especially the brothers.
With a tight-knit script, realistic performances and considerable directorial chops, Benson & Moorhead transform the film’s Far Cry 5-esque storyline into an eldritch nightmare that genuinely feels Lovecraftian at certain stages, capturing the true terror of cosmic madness; the Lake scene, especially, is a masterclass in “less-is-more” storytelling; we see nothing of the entity’s actual body, but the sheer implied scale of its size is enough to send glaciers sliding down your spines.
A highly compelling thrill-ride that progresses rapidly & devolves into ever-worsening lunacy, The Endless is living proof that effective time-based horror doesn’t require big budgets and tonnes of special effects; all it needs is a setting relatable enough to introduce that inkling of suspicion into your thoughts, which feeds on your basest fears and blossoms into an organically horrifying visual treat.
The House at the End of Time (2013)
This Venezuelan, Gothic horror-fest takes some of horror’s most recognizable elements and weaves them into a relatively straightforward screamer that is made scarier due to the fact that all of its dialogue is in Spanish. The House at the End of Time begins with a murder; that of Dulce’s (Dool-say) husband. However, the circumstances of his death remain shrouded in mystery, as Dulce maintains that a spirit is responsible for the crime.
Lacking any solid evidence to defend herself with, she is subjected to a 30-year sentence after which she must remain under house arrest in the same house. She recalls the events that have unfolded in that damned place to a priest, who vows to help her out. As the movie progresses, we take a journey through Dulce’s life, her trials and her trauma. By the time the film ends, we realize that the police officers weren’t exactly wrong; they just pinned the right person at the wrong time.
Alejandro Hidalgo’s (AAL-Ay-Han-Dro, He-Daal-go) first and ONLY directorial offering till date makes the effortlessness that The House at the End of Time is pulled off with even more impressive. It’s classic horror with its look, feel & story, and the time-bending twist at the end makes everything that made us jump out of our seats with straws in our nostrils make sense.
It is old-school without being cheesy, and doesn’t insult the intelligence of the hardcore horror fan; rather, it is a gratifying watch with more than a few suspenseful jump scares in its arsenal. Over the course of 101 minutes, Hidalgo manages to tell the intermittent story of Dulce’s life in the past and the present, converging at a satisfactory nexus point thatdials up all the elements that of a great film to 11 and the horror bits to 15.
Happy Death Day (2017)
If Phil Connors was being pursued by Ghost Face in his time loop; you’d basically be watching a gender-reversed version of what unfolds in this Christopher Landon-directed 2017 horror-comedy. You just know that this movie was pitched to a bunch of execs as an eclectic mash-up of Scream and Groundhog Day with the requisite amount of bloody violence that is expected from such an offering.
ButHappy Death Daytakes that premise and stretches belief to its breaking point, creating moments that are as scary as they are funny. The story sees us following a day in the life of Theresa “Tree” Gelbman; except at the end of her raunchy, profanity-laced day, she’s killed by a masked murderer. Things get bizarre when Tree wakes up and finds herself back in the bed of her one-night-stand from the previous day; she’s stuck in a time loop and the only thing she can do is die, repeatedly, in increasingly funnier & more frustrating fashion.
Now, she must figure out how to escape the loop and trap her assailant, all the while reliving her past transgressions towards various people & trying to reinvent herself. Granted, as far as time-loops go, this movie is fairly straightforward; wake up, live the day, eat the cupcake (spoiler alert) and die, only to do it all over again. What makes it so goddamn addictive is Jessica Rothe’s Tree.
Wild, uninhibited, vulnerable and confident at the same time, Tree’s multi-faceted personality makes you genuinely feel for her, so much so that you actively root for her towards the end. Happy Death Day breezes through its 96-minute runtime with enough sass & chick-flick-esque montages to keep you entertained while satiating your bloodlust; well, kind of, anyway.
The Final Girls (2015)
If David from Pleasantville was a fan of Scream, had romantic notions like Tom from Purple Rose of Cairo and a loving relationship with his mother, a la Terms of Endearment, you’d be slightly closer to understanding the bizarre time-warping oddity that isThe Final Girls. The movie focuses on the titular “Final Girls” of this 2015 offering: Max Cartwright and her Scream Queen mom, Amanda.
It begins with a failed audition, where Amanda muses to her daughter that she seems to be destined to be relegated to starring exclusively in slasher movies. Fastforward 3 years and Max is mourning her now-dead mother. She goes to watch her mom’s cult classic movie “Camp Bloodbath” and its sequel with her friends, but the movie theater is set ablaze, and the group escapes by tearing through the screen.
Only, they’ve somehow been transported into the movie itself! Over the course of its events, the teenagers try to apprehend the movie’s antagonist, Billy, while trying to keep all other characters alive through extreme (and often hilarious) means. Despite its 4th wall-shattering meta-narrative, The Final Girls retains enough elements of theslasher genre to qualify as one; especially the countless, outrageous stripping scenes that attempt to “lure the killer” towards our self-aware protagonists.
Yes, we’ll admit that we cheated by including it on a time-traveling list, as the characters are transported into the movie set in 1986, not the year itself. But in our defense, any movie where the killer is summoned with a pop-tuned strip scene is too hilarious to pass on. Funny, gruesome, and oddly heartwarming at the same time, this movie will remind you that while the core issues of a horror movie might be intense, it is all possible through your suspension of disbelief. Now, whether you should stop watching the scary movie or go all-in on the sequel, is your choice; for you, yes, not so much for Max, though. We’re sorry, Max.