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Vivarium poster

Movies that feel likeVivarium (2019)

A young woman and her fiancé are in search of the perfect starter home. After following a mysterious real estate agent to a new housing development, the couple finds themselves trapped in a maze of identical houses and forced to raise an otherworldly child.

If you loved Vivarium, the closest films we have are Color Out of Space (2020), The Little Stranger (2018) and Hellhole (2022). All three share Vivarium's twisty and dread feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Medium (2021).

🍅 73% Rotten Tomatoes★ 5.8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Lorcan Finnegancerebraltwistydreadunsettling
10 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If Vivarium hit the spot, these will too

Color Out of Space poster
Color Out of Space
2020 · dir. Richard Stanley
🍅 86%★ 6.1horror · science fiction · mystery

Cerebral and twisty in the same breath

The difference: Leans harder into thriller than Vivarium does

The Gardner family moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard, melts into the earth, and infects both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly colour. To their horror, the family discovers this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches—including them.

The Little Stranger poster
The Little Stranger
2018 · dir. Lenny Abrahamson
🍅 64%★ 5.5mystery · horror

Both land dread and unease at once

The difference: Trades the ideas of Vivarium for an angle of its own

In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house is now in decline. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?

Hellhole poster
Hellhole
2022 · dir. Bartosz M. Kowalski
🍅 67%★ 5.8horror · mysteryNetflix

Mystery with a pulse of twists, in both cases

In a monastery cut off from the world, the monks run a clinic for the possessed. One day, a young policeman Marek comes to the convent. Posing as a clergyman, he penetrates monastic life and tries to explain the recent, mysterious disappearance of several tormented inmates. It turns out, however, that there is no way out of the monastery.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark poster
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
2019 · dir. André Øvredal
🍅 78%★ 6.2horror · mysteryPeacock

Both lean on dread more than on horror

Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, Halloween night, 1968. After playing a joke on a school bully, Stella and her friends decide to sneak into a supposedly haunted house that once belonged to the powerful Bellows family, unleashing dark forces that they will be unable to control.

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum poster
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
2018 · dir. Jung Bum-shik
🍅 92%★ 6.5horror · mysteryPrime Video

Unsettling science fiction in both cases

The crew of a horror web series travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast, but they encounter much more than expected as they move deeper inside the nightmarish old building.

The Medium poster
The Medium
2021 · dir. Banjong Pisanthanakun
🍅 83%★ 6.5horror · mysteryRent or buy

Mystery built on twists, twice over

A shaman's family learn that their goddess is supposedly controlling one of them. However, their lives take a frightening turn when they realise the goddess has nothing to do with the possession.

A Cure for Wellness poster
A Cure for Wellness
2017 · dir. Gore Verbinski
🍅 42%★ 6.4horror · mystery · science fictionPrime Video

Cerebral science fiction, and it commits to that

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps but soon suspects that the spa's miraculous treatments are not what they seem.

Don't Worry Darling poster
Don't Worry Darling
2022 · dir. Olivia Wilde
🍅 38%★ 6.3science fiction · mystery · horrorRent or buy

Cerebral horror in both cases

Alice and Jack are lucky to be living in the idealized community of Victory, the experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families. But when cracks in their idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something much more sinister lurking beneath the attractive façade, Alice can’t help questioning exactly what they’re doing in Victory, and why.

A Classic Horror Story poster
A Classic Horror Story
2021 · dir. Roberto De Feo
🍅 55%★ 5.7horror · mysteryNetflix

Mystery with a pulse of dread, in both cases

Five people travelling by camper crash into a tree. When they recover, the road they were driving on has been replaced by an impenetrable forest and a wooden house.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw poster
Spiral: From the Book of Saw
2021 · dir. Darren Lynn Bousman
🍅 39%★ 5.2horror · mysteryHulu

Unsettling horror in both cases

Working in the shadow of an esteemed police veteran, brash Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks and his rookie partner take charge of a grisly investigation into murders that are eerily reminiscent of the city’s gruesome past. Unwittingly entrapped in a deepening mystery, Zeke finds himself at the center of the killer’s morbid game.

Paranormal Activity 3 poster
Paranormal Activity 3
2011 · dir. Henry Joost
🍅 68%★ 5.8horror · mysteryParamount+Peacock

Cut from the same mystery cloth

In 1988, young sisters Katie and Kristi befriend an invisible entity who resides in their home.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy poster
Lee Cronin's The Mummy
2026 · dir. Lee Cronin
🍅 45%★ 6.1horror · mysteryMax

Both know what they want from horror

The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace—eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.

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The best-reviewed films that share Vivarium’s defining feeling.