The Most Baffling Movies Of 2018

There's no question that Hollywood is obsessed with remakes these days: from the trailer for the new live-action (well, CGI) Lion King to Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland all bringing their own versions of Spider Man to the silver screen, it can feel like studios just want to tell the same stories with different casts. But despite all of these new iterations of older plots, there are plenty of screenwriters and directors crafting entirely fresh narratives. Yes, the era of the remake and the retelling is still upon us, but it's also a golden age for those who want to think outside the box and offer up movies that challenge our perceptions, perplex the critics, or revive a genre.

This year, we saw no shortage of experimental indie projects and blockbusters that defied convention to shock audiences and leave them wondering "How did they come up with that?" Want a film that has you wide-eyed and open-mouthed by the time the credits start to roll? Check out a few of the most baffling movies of 2018.

In this intense drama, Reverend Ernst Toller holds services at First Reformed, a Dutch Reformed church with a dwindling congregation. As he grapples with the death of his own son Joseph, he gets a frantic call from Mary Mansana, who reaches out to him in desperation: her husband Michael is a radical environmentalist who sees no hope for the planet, and she fears for his life and the future of their family. As Toller attempts to counsel Mary and protect Michael from himself, he finds that he is forced to contemplate his own beliefs and begins to worry deeply about the current state of the human race.

Directed by Paul Schrader and starring Ethan Hawke (Dead Poets Society) as Reverend Toller and Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!, Dear John) as Mary, First Reformed refuses to wrap up neatly for the viewer. The minimal camera movement and background music make for a purposefully uncomfortable viewing experience. Upon watching First Reformed, one can't help but wonder if the doomsday believers have a point after all.

Annihilation is one of those genre-bending films that combines the best of science fiction and horror into a single compelling storyline. Directed by Alex Garland and starring Natalie Portman as cellular biology professor and former soldier Lena and Oscar Isaac as her husband Kane, the film is based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer.

Kane is the only survivor to return from an expedition into "The Shimmer," an electromagnetic field which is spreading on the southern coast of the United States. What really happened while when he ventured into this mysterious, otherworldly realm, and was it really Kane who came back? Lena is determined to find out with her own expedition, and as she ventures into the Shimmer with a different team, the film plays with the abject and the uncanny: nothing is quite what it seems, and it's as though the rules of our own universe don't apply. "The Shimmer" is not just a place, but an alternate consciousness, acting on the characters in ways they cannot explain. It may work the same magic on viewers attuned to Annihilation's strange wavelengths.

The Happytime Murders is set in a world where humans and puppets coexist, but although this film was produced by Henson Alternative, these are not your typical kid-friendly Jim Henson creations. The Happytime Murders follows a human and puppet detective team as they try to figure out who's behind the recent murders of retired sitcom stars. With puppets engaging in everything from violent crime to petty theft to risqué jokes, it's like a twisted look at your childhood favorites. You won't be able to look at a puppet quite the same way after watching The Happytime Murders.

Sure, you've got to give the cast and crew of The Happytime Murders props for their ambition and willingness to get creative with their medium, but it's hard not to wonder why this story had to be told with puppets. Still, with Melissa McCarthy starring as Detective Connie Edwards and Maya Rudolph appearing as the secretary Bubbles, you're certain to get a few laughs out of this off-the-wall feature.

Assassination Nation lures the viewer into thinking that it's going to be a relatively straightforward film about the perils and pitfalls of social media and technology, but it quickly builds into something much more sinister and terrifying. When an anonymous hacker starts revealing the personal messages of thousands of people in a relatively small town, the airing of dirty laundry turns from petty high school drama into a full-blown bloody conflict.

Directed by Sam Levin and starring Odessa Young (Sweet Virginia), Suki Waterhouse (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), and Hari Nef (Mapplethorpe), Assassination Nation takes a predictable premise and jacks it all the way up to the most extreme possible conclusion. The plot is packed with fast-paced action scenes that won't give you a second to blink. As more secrets are revealed, the degradation of social norms occurs so quickly that it's safe to assume it wouldn't be a realistic turn of events in real life, but it's worth asking what this lack of real connection is really doing to our society.

In the suspenseful thriller Unsane, Sawyer Valentini moves away from home to escape her stalker, David, who won't stop contacting her with declarations of his undying love. His commitment to Sawyer is far from romantic — she's constantly aware of the threat that his unhealthy devotion poses to her wellbeing. But even after she thinks she's in the clear, she finds that she is still troubled by interactions with men, and she meets with a counselor to dig into the healing process. She ends up being tricked into a long-term stay in a psychiatric institution, where she makes a terrifying discovery.

A constant sense of claustrophobia permeates the plot of Unsane: the viewer is always acutely aware of the fact that Sawyer is trapped, seemingly with no way out. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Claire Foy (First Man), Joshua Leonard (If I Stay), and Jay Pharoah (Sing), watching Unsane will have you questioning everyone around you for days after.