Best movies like When I Was Alive
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies similar to When I Was Alive? Share your knowledge to help others find tv series and movies you've viewed already that might suit them too. Aid in growing the cohort of people putting forward videos to one another. We welcome your contribution!
Plot Summary:
After losing his job and the end of his marriage, Júnior returns to his father's house. But that is not his childhood house anymore. His old room has been rented by a young woman and the place feels unwelcome and oppressive. Júnior develops and obsession for his family history, as strange things start happening in the house.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 766
Genere: Drama, Horror, Musical, Thriller
Country: Brazil
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, scary, post-horror
Best tv shows and movies like When I Was Alive (2014):
Similar in 83%
Hidden (2009)
Plot Summary:
Painful memories arise when Kai Koss inherits his dead mother's house and goes back to his childhood home after 19 years.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: Norway
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, scary, mind bending, serious, suspenseful, atmospheric, realistic, suspense, slasher, disturbing
Similar in 83%
Urban Ghost Story (1998)
Plot Summary:
After a car accident, Lizzie lies dead on the roadside - slowly she is taken into the light - but is pulled back to earth when she is revived by the doctors. Lizzie feels sure that during the 184 seconds that she lay dead, something latched on to her and came back into her world. The nightmares and visions that follow only crystallize her belief that she should have died in the crash... Then the disturbances start, at first merely tappings and bad smells - but soon the activity escalates. Lizzie seems to be the focus, but according to others, she's just playing games for attention. Only when Kate, her mother, is confronted with inexplicable events does she face the possibility that they may be the victims of a poltergeist infestation.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 653
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: independent film, scary, atmospheric, mind bending, serious, suspenseful, suspense
Similar in 81%
The Beckoning (2009)
Plot Summary:
Francesca is a pediatrician who is dedicated to both motherhood and children, married to another physician, Pedro. Following the birth of a new child, Francesca begins to suffer from postpartum depression. Following the advice of friend and psychiatrist Jean, the couple move to a new home away from the city. But Francesca's obsession with her new baby engulfs her. Regardless of Pedro's and Jean's attempts to help her, she seems to drift dangerously close to madness. And to make matters worse, she is starting to hear and see things. Furtive figures and ghostly shadows start tormenting her. The large house in which she and her family live alone seems to hide terrible secrets. Both the cellar and the attic are locked and barred to the family, and it is from both these places that Francesca receives nocturnal visits that are slowly driving her mad.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Horror, Mystery
Country: Spain
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: suspense, psychological, serious, suspenseful, tense, atmospheric, scary
Similar in 79%
The Lazarus Child (2004)
Plot Summary:
A road accident leaves seven-year-old Frankie Heywood gravely injured and deeply comatose, when she is hit by a bus, and her twelve-year-old brother Ben severely depressed and traumatised after he witnessed the event. Their parents, Jack and Alison, have to put aside their fights over their unstable marriage to focus on their damaged children. But as life looks as if it will never improve for the Heywoods, Jack and Alison hear of a controversial medical therapy that could cajole Frankie from her coma. The treatment involves communicating with the comatose patient to coax them back to consciousness and Ben is the key to unlocking Frankie from her sleep. But will the Heywoods risk their son to save their daughter...?.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Horror
Country: Italy, Canada
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, serious, touching, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 85%
The Turn of the Screw (1999)
Plot Summary:
A governess put in charge of two young children begins to see the ghost of her dead predecessor.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 991
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: gothic, spiritual, slasher, costume drama, psychological horror, scary, psychological, tense, atmospheric, serious
Similar in 75%
Dark Remains (2005)
Plot Summary:
After their daughter is brutally murdered in their home, a grieving young couple, Allena and Julie Pkye; escape the city to find solace in the mountains. Julie photographs an abandoned prison she finds in the woods. Upon developing the prints, she becomes convinced her dead daughter is contacting her through the photographs.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Horror
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, rough, suspenseful, suspense, scary, serious, slasher
Similar in 78%
Childish Games (2012)
Plot Summary:
When flaky novelist Mario turns up one day at the school where Daniel teaches, the educator is convinced the writer is a spirit from his repressed past, buried deep in his subconscious. As children, the two might almost have been brothers. But the marriage between Daniel’s father and Mario’s mother never materialised. This unexpected re-encounter brings both families together. When Mario slits his wrists and dies, Daniel and his wife Laura provide a home for the dead man’s daughter. Laura, who is childless, loves the girl from the moment they meet, but Daniel feels increasingly nervous around her. The demons of his past guilt continue to torment him. Daniel suffers agonies – until things come to a head during a show down in the mountains.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: Spain
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, tense, suspense, demonic, twisted, scary
Similar in 76%
They're Watching Us (2002)
Plot Summary:
Norberto Lopez Amado's They're Watching Us is about a cop who becomes obsessed with a case. Juan (Carmelo Gomez) is ordered to head up an investigation concerning a businessman who has been missing for almost three years. The officer who worled on the case previously now resides in a mental institution and is unable to say anything other than, "They're watching us." A priest (Roberto Alvarez) explains how a series of disappearances in the area have supernatural underpinnings. As Juan is absorbed deeper and deeper into the case, his mother is concerned for him.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 718
Genere: Drama, Thriller, Horror
Country: Spain, Italy
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: scary, atmospheric, mind bending, serious, suspenseful
Similar in 85%
Presence of Mind (1999)
Plot Summary:
Henry James' classic tale of terror The Turn of the Screw receives yet another screen adaptation in this thriller shot in Spain. A young woman (Sadie Frost) is hired to serve as a governess for two children, Miles and Flora (Nilo Mur and Ella Jones). She is hired by their uncle, the Master (Harvey Keitel), who became the guardian of the youngsters after the death of their parents. While the governess is initially enthusiastic about her job, Miles and Flora soon prove to be quite a handful, and the housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Lauren Bacall), who oversees most of the activities at the Master's estate, is openly antagonistic to her. Before long, the governess discovers the house bears a dark secret involving Miss Jessel (Dayne Danika), the previous governess, and Fosc (Agusti Villaronga), the Master's former valet. El Celo was the first feature from director Antoni Aloy.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 713
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Spain
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: gothic, scary, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, psychological, tense, stylized, psychotronic
Similar in 90%
Acacia (2003)
Plot Summary:
A Korean horror film about an adopted young boy with a strange link to an old, dead acacia tree. As the boy settles in to his new home, the tree comes to life. When the family who adopted him becomes pregnant, he is to go back to the orphanage, and horror ensues.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: South Korea
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, scary, suspense, tense
Similar in 89%
The Disappeared (2008)
Plot Summary:
Following the disappearance of his younger brother Tom, Matthew Ryan tries to put his life and sanity back together. However the past keeps coming back to haunt him.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, tense, suspense, mysterious, thrilling, scary, mind bending, realistic
Similar in 85%
Dark Mirror (2007)
Plot Summary:
The story about a photographer who moves her family into a home filled with mirrors which seem to reflect a different reality.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, scary, atmospheric, serious, psychological, suspense, mind bending
Similar in 82%
London Voodoo (2004)
Plot Summary:
When ambitious analyst Lincoln Mathers (played by Doug Cockle) relocates his family from New York to London, his wife Sarah (Sara Stewart) discovers a new disturbing power and becomes hostage to an ancient spirit. As Mathers notices that the family is tearing apart and that his wife's behavior becomes more violent and erratic, he accepts that to save the woman he married he must take a leap of faith. London Voodoo is one of the few films about voodoo to show the belief system in a positive light. Here, it's "work" that's evil. The film shows multicultural voodoo followers in a contemporary urban setting (London). As research for the script, the filmmakers travelled to Cuba, Miami and New Orleans to experience voodoo first hand.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 438
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, tense, suspenseful, suspense, serious, psychotronic
Similar in 81%
13 Curses (2002)
Plot Summary:
Jacobo is a young sculptor that returns to native city, Santiago of Compostela, to see his mother, locked up a psychiatric hospital for to kill to her husband, when he believed she dead years ago. To their arrival, visions of Mateo, his dead father eighteen years ago, begin to persecute to him, since his father died by shot gun, peculiarly, when thirteen peals sounded in the cathedral, fact what obsesses to Jacobo. After watching several times, Mateo convinces his son to make the work for the cathedral that his father couldn't finish in life, but what begins as a simple work becomes a madness spiral when Jacobo discovers the true intentions of the ghost of his father: to kill to his son to usurp his body to finish the statue, and after to return to the life.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 490
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: Spain, Portugal
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: scary, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, mind bending, offbeat, realistic
Similar in 90%
Purgatory (2014)
Plot Summary:
A woman must survive the night after she welcomes a neighbor's child into her home.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 442
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: Spain
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, scary, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Not Forgotten (2009)
Plot Summary:
Set in a Tex-Mex border town, Not Forgotten is a classic psychological thriller about Jack and Amaya Bishop, a couple who must come to terms with their tortured pasts in order to save their kidnapped daughter. It is a tale taut with intrigue and steeped in Latino mysticism, where the line between what's real and what's imagined becomes hopelessly blurred.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: scary, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 82%
Secrets in the Walls (2010)
Plot Summary:
A single mom and her two daughters move from their cramped Detroit apartment to the suburbs but scratching, cries and shadows haunt their new home.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: scary, suspenseful, serious, slasher, exciting, tense, thought provoking, touching, suspense, gothic
Similar in 85%
First Born (2007)
Plot Summary:
Laura's expecting. Her husband, Steven's a loving guy but has little time for her. Her mom lives thousands of miles away. Forced to give up on her dreams, she's always been a bit edgy. A C-section drives her over the edge, making her see things in a different light. A creepy babysitter doesn't make things any better. She begins seeing things, trusts no one, as she goes into self-destruct mode.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, serious, suspenseful, tense, suspense
Similar in 81%
Inheritance (2004)
Plot Summary:
Inheritance tells the tale of sinister old lady Lillian Baker (Marjorie Nelson) & her kind hearted, good natured carer Abigail Nielsen (Jen Taylor). Abigail feels sorry for Lillian & does her best to keep her happy, however one fateful night Lillian passes away in her sleep. Abigail is obviously upset & attends Lillian's funeral to say her goodbyes, it soon comes to light that Lillian has left Abigail her large house & it's entire contents a situation which Lillian's daughter Joan (Kathryn Mesney-Hetter) is unhappy with. The reason for Lillian's generosity becomes clear as her spirit starts to possess Abigail & take complete control of her body.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 287
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, suspense, independent film, scary
Similar in 83%
Find Me (2014)
Plot Summary:
Before boxes are unpacked in their new home, newlyweds Tim and Emily, find themselves playing a very creepy game of hide and seek with a vengeful spirit.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: scary, suspenseful, serious, independent film
Similar in 86%
Mummy An' the Armadillo (2004)
Plot Summary:
Secrets, murders and lies... all in the name of family. In the middle of nowhere sits the Armadillo Café.The once popular, but now desolate, café is run by a strange family led a troubled, booze-addled mother (Betty Buckley) and a disturbed family (Lori Heuring, Brad Renfro, Jonathon Schaech). Their dark secrets are threatened when Sarah (Clare Kramer) arrives, seeking answers to her past.Turmoil reigns and emotions boil over as the horrifying truth unravels and Sarah barely escapes with her life.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 412
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, scary, serious, suspenseful, offbeat, suspense, independent film, atmospheric, realistic
Similar in 83%
It's in the Blood (2012)
Plot Summary:
One year after a tragic incident tore their family apart, a grieving son and his estranged father embark on a journey into the wild to reconcile their past. When a horrifying accident leaves Russell badly injured, and strands them in the wild, it is up to October to save them both. However, this wilderness is not what it seems, and as they deteriorate, so to does their concept of reality.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 737
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: psychological, suspenseful, bleak, disturbing, lovecraft, mindfuck, scary, serious
Similar in 86%
Entity (2013)
Plot Summary:
Eugene, a man dealing with the tragedy of his family's death by living at the vacation cabin that they last stayed, discovers he's completely snowbound. During Eugene's desperate attempts to dig himself out, he discovers he's not alone.
IMDB Rating: 3.1
IMDB Votes: 138
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: scary, serious, suspenseful, suspense, twisted, psychotronic
Similar in 77%
Deadline (2009)
Plot Summary:
A screenwriter who travels to an abandoned house to finish a script on time, but a series of strange events lead her to a psychological breakdown.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: scary, bleak, psychological, suspenseful, atmospheric, serious, satanic, psychological thriller, suspense, psychological horror
Similar in 76%
Il nascondiglio (2007)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 741
Genere: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Italy
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, tense, mind bending, serious, suspenseful, atmospheric
Similar in 86%
The Inheritance (2011)
Plot Summary:
Five ambitious cousins set out on a family reunion during the dead of winter. The purpose of the retreat is to secure their inheritance, a fortune that dates back many generations. Upon their arrival, Uncle Melvin (Keith David) welcomes them with open arms, but warns them to respect their family traditions. During the weekend, as each of the cousins mysteriously disappear, they learn the truth about their family legacy, blood ancestry and the ultimate sacrifice they must make in exchange for their beloved inheritance.
IMDB Rating: 2.8
IMDB Votes: 841
Genere: Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, rough, serious, suspenseful, slasher, scary, independent film, black cinema
Similar in 75%
Soft for Digging (2001)
Plot Summary:
A man wanders into the woods in search of his cat and witnesses a murder.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 580
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 74 min
Plot tags: scary, serious, atmospheric, realistic, suspenseful, spooky
Similar in 84%
Dark Water (2002)
Plot Summary:
A woman in the midst of an unpleasant divorce moves to an eerie apartment building with her young daughter. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 34000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, atmospheric, splatter, suspenseful, disturbing, suspense, intense, creepy, slasher
Similar in 81%
The Bleeding House (2011)
Plot Summary:
The Smiths -- a family with a secret past -- are visited by a sweet-talking southern gentleman who is looking for small town humanity. But they'll soon find out that kindness towards strangers is not always rewarded, and the secretive stranger will find redemption does not always come easy.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, rough, scary, serious, psychological, depressing, mysterious, surreal, mumblecore, southern gothic
Similar in 76%
Echo (2007)
Plot Summary:
A divorced policeman loses custody of his young son, only to kidnap his boy and retreat to a remote cottage, where his plan soon turns into a nightmare.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 453
Genere: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Denmark
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: scary, psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful