The thriller movie The Voyeurs is designed to make the audience think about the power of vision, how looking at other people can sometimes distort and damage individuals and their way of engaging with others. In doing so, it also forces the audience to contend with the essentially voyeuristic act of watching a movie in the theater.
With its story about a couple that begin spying on their neighbors and find themselves caught up in a deadly game, it shares a lot in common with other similar thriller movies from earlier periods.
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Rear Window (1954)
Alfred Hitchcock is rightly regarded as one of the most talented directors to have ever been in Hollywood, and movies like Rear Window show why. It focuses on an injured photographer who, in the act of spying on his neighbors, accidentally witnesses a murder. It hits some of the same notes as The Voyeurs, and it keeps the audience on the edge of their seat as they wait to see whether the hero will become a murder victim in his turn. As always with Hitchcock, there are quite a few scary moments in this movie.
Blowup (1966)
Part of the plot of The Voyeurs includes a questioning of how much one can learn about one’s neighbors from technology, and that is part of the plot of Blowup, a movie in which a photographer thinks that he has taken a picture of a man that has been murdered. It’s a tightly-woven thriller movie, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats as they, like the character, try to figure out what it is that he took a picture of. And, like all good thrillers, it doesn’t answer every question that it poses.
One Hour Photo (2002)
A good thriller like The Voyeurs is at least in part about obsession, about the lengths to which people will go in their pursuit of information and knowledge about the other. One Hour Photo pursues a similar theme, though this time it focuses on a man who develops photographs and develops an unhealthy obsession with a particular family.
In addition to being suspenseful and disturbing, it also features the late Robin Williams in one of his best dramatic roles, showing that he was more than a comedic actor.
Greta (2018)
Dangerous desires are a key element of the thriller, and The Voyeurs taps into that generic convention. Though it doesn’t deal as much with vision, the movie Greta does delve into desire, when its title character, played by Isabelle Huppert, develops an obsession for a young woman, who she spies on and manipulates in very destructive ways. It’s a disturbing movie, in large part because Huppert delivers a powerhouse performance, creating a villain who is as compelling as she is disturbing and violent.
The Gift (2015)
The Voyeurs keeps viewers guessing right up until the end and, like many other thriller movies, there’s a moment in which one of the characters finally gets the justice that they deserve. The Gift has a similar theme, and it features some very powerful performances from its cast, including Joel Edgerton. However, what makes it stand out as a thriller is that it doesn’t always go in the directions that the viewer might expect, leaving some surprises and mysteries that it doesn’t entirely resolve.
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele has established himself as one of the finest horror directors working in Hollywood, and while Get Out earned him an Academy Award nomination, Us is just as compelling a movie. Like its predecessor, it asks tough questions about American society and the way that it treats its lower-class citizens. Just as The Voyeurs probes the power of the gaze, so Us also interrogates what it means to be complicit in acts of violence and oppression, even unintentionally, challenging the viewer with Peele’s unforgettable quotes. And, like all good thrillers, it has many twists and turns, as well as a powerful revelation near the end that changes everything that came before.
Funny Games (2007)
The best thrillers are those that leave the audience thinking at the end of the movie, wondering what they’ve watched and how it has changed the way that they look at the world. The Voyeurs accomplishes this, and so does Funny Games, a viscerally terrifying movie about a family that gets taken hostage by a pair of sadistic youths.
Even though it indulges in quite a lot of violence, the movie is also a commentary about the power of movie violence to impact its viewers.
Get Out (2016)
With Get Out, Jordan Peele demonstrated that he is a director of tremendous talent and that thriller horror is a genre well-suited to interrogating race in the United States. Those who enjoyed the social commentary aspect of The Voyeurs will find much to enjoy in Get Out, as well, particularly in the way that it shines a light on how many African Americans are made to feel in a world that is often exploitative or actively hostile toward them.
Insomnia (2002)
Insomnia has a well-deserved place in the canon of thriller movies, due in large part to the powerful performances delivered by Al Pacino and Robin Williams, the former a cop investigating the murder of a young woman and the latter the man who was responsible for it. This is a good movie for those who enjoyed the suspenseful nature of The Voyeurs, because Insomnia does everything it can to keep the audience as disoriented and apprehensive as its lead character.
Body Double (1984)
Like Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma has a reputation for creating well-crafted and sensual thriller movies, and Body Double is regarded as one of De Palma’s best. Its plot is very similar to that of The Voyeurs, in that it involves people spying on their neighbors. There are several twists and turns to the movie, and though it ends on a fairly optimistic note, it’s still one of those movies that remains unsettling, even after the final scene.