Directed by Rubin Stein, Netflix’s ‘Tin & Tina’ is a Spanish psychological horror film about Lola and Adolfo, a married couple who cannot conceive. The couple adopts twins Tin and Tina from an orphanage to fulfill their desire to have children. Unknown to the couple, the twins have grown up with an intense Catholic education and take the words of the Holy Bible literally — acting on them without a second thought or remorse.
Once left alone with the twins when her husband goes on a business trip, Lola learns of this as the children indulge in increasingly disturbing behavior daily. Set in 1981, Spain, ‘Tin & Tina’ is based on an eponymous 2013 short film and will keep the audience ready to run from their seats. If you enjoyed the film’s premise and would like more such recommendations, we’ve got you covered.
8. You Should Have Left (2020)
Directed by David Koepp, ‘You Should Have Left’ is an adaptation of the 2017 eponymous novel by Daniel Kehlmann. Theodore Conroy (Kevin Bacon), a retired banker, goes with his wife Susanna (Amanda Seyfried) and daughter Ella (Avery Essex) to stay in Wales for their vacation. They book a house to stay in during their time there, but strange occurrences soon start. Time passes differently for them inside the house, mysterious writing keeps appearing in Theodore’s journal, and worst of all, neither he nor Susanne remembers booking the house in the first place.
Things are made even more complicated when Theodore finds out that his wife is cheating on him, just as he suspected, and the tragic death of his first wife is brought to light in front of his daughter. Much like ‘Tin & Tina,’ the psychological horror film moves forward by the conflict the horror elements create between the married couple, mainly due to one becoming increasingly paranoid and the other thinking they are overreacting until the truth comes to light.
7. Goodnight Mommy (2022)
‘Goodnight Mommy,’ directed by Matt Sobel, is a remake of the 2014 Austrian film of the same name, which Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala directed. Twins Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nicholas Crovetti) visit their mother (Naomi Watts) after their parent’s divorce to stay with her after months of living with their father. However, the person who greets them has her face covered entirely in bandages and acts a lot more angrily and irritable than they remember their mother to be.
Though the woman assures the twins that the bandages are because of cosmetic surgery, her increasingly violent behavior towards them makes the brothers confident that the woman is not their mother. Thus, they decide to take matters into their own hands. Much like ‘Tin & Tina,’ psychological horror film features a pair of twins central to the story. And while they may not seem as creepy as Tin & Tina, the twist ending will undoubtedly make the audience see them in a new light.
6. The Lodge (2019)
Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, ‘The Lodge‘ follows Richard Hall (Richard Armitage), his two children Mia (Lia McHugh) and Aiden (Jaeden Martell), and his soon-to-be-wife Grace Marshall (Riley Keough). They all spend their Christmas at the Marshalls’ family lodge in Massachusetts. Soon after Richard decides to marry Grace, his estranged wife, Laura (Alicia Silverstone), dies by suicide.
Consequently, Mia and Aiden blame Grace for their mother’s death and are hostile toward her, but soon the three of them become entangled in a mysterious and inexplicable situation. This makes her break down and regress to her family’s religiously extremist practices, much to the children’s horror. ‘The Lodge’ uses Catholic symbolism to create the horror elements in the film to great effect, with Grace believing that she can only be free of sin if she makes a great sacrifice, much like Tin and Tina’s literal practice of the Holy Bible in ‘Tin & Tina.’
5. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
An adaptation of the 2018 novel ‘The Cabin at the End of the World’ by Paul G. Tremblay, ‘Knock at the Cabin‘ goes apocalyptic with its horror. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, it revolves around Andrew, Eric, and their daughter Wen as they take a trip down to a cabin in rural Pennsylvania. The family is soon approached by four strangers — Leonard, Sabrina, Redmond, and Adriane.
The intruders tie up the trio and then ask them to choose one family member they wish to sacrifice, failing which the End of Days will claim the world. Believing that the attack is fuelled by homophobia at first, the family soon begins to question what is real themselves as natural disasters start wreaking havoc one after the other. ‘Knock at the Cabin’ also uses Biblical themes — specifically, the Book of Revelations in which the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — are described to invoke horror, which is quite similar to both ‘Tin & Tina’ and ‘The Lodge.’
4. Last Night in Soho (2021)
Directed by Edgar Wright, ‘Last Night in Soho‘ follows Eloise “Ellie” Turner, an aspiring fashion designer who moves to London to pursue her dreams. She chooses to move into a bedsit owned by Mrs. Collins, where each night in her dreams, she is transported back into the 60s and sees the life of a preppy young blonde named Sandie play out in front of her.
Sandie, a singer in Soho, inspires Ellie’s designs, but soon more of the girl’s personality starts to bleed into the latter’s own life. Just when things are looking up for Ellie, the presence of a mysterious man and her dreams about Sandie becoming more disturbing each night send her into a spiral. The level of paranoia that Ellie feels about Sandie’s fate, and subsequently her own, as well as the fact the police don’t believe her about it, is similar to Lola’s paranoia and her husband’s refusal to believe her in ‘Tin & Tina.’
3. Orphan (2009)
‘Orphan,’ directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, centers around the Coleman family and Esther, a 9-year-old Russian girl they adopt from St. Mariana’s Home for Girls. Well-educated and well-mannered, Kate and John Coleman are pretty happy with her becoming a part of their family after their third child’s unfortunate passing at birth.
But Esther soon starts to behave strangely, making Kate suspicious of the little girl and her background — a suspicion solidified after Sister Abigail comes and visits them from the orphanage to warn them to be careful around her. ‘Orphan,’ as the name suggests, features an orphan that is the cause of every inexplicable and dangerous incident around the Coleman family, echoing the titular twins’ behavior in ‘Tin & Tina.’
2. Midsommar (2019)
‘Midsommar‘ follows Dani Ardor, a psychology student who is grieving over her family’s untimely demise in a murder-suicide, and her boyfriend Christian, as they take a trip to Sweden to be part of a Midsummer Festival hosted by his Swedish friend Pelle’s (Vilhelm Blomgren) commune. Once there, the couple and a few other outsiders are fed psychedelic mushrooms and other substances and are asked to participate in the commune’s rituals.
But when the rituals become more and more disturbing and invasive, the guests try to leave one by one, resulting in dire consequences for them. While in ‘Tin & Tina’ only the twins use religious symbolism to inflict physical and psychological pain in pursuit of divine redemption, ‘Midsommar,’ directed by Ari Aster, uses an entire community and their practices and beliefs to do the same in their quest to purge the evil from amongst them.
1. Hereditary (2018)
Another Ari Aster masterpiece, ‘Hereditary,’ revolves around Annie Graham (Toni Collette), whose mother has recently passed away. Following this, her daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) also dies in an accident. Seeking refuge in a support group, Annie befriends a woman named Joan, who teaches her how to perform a seance to communicate with Charlie to find out how she died.
The ritual is somewhat successful, but soon afterward, Annie learns of a terrifying secret about her mother and her mysterious group of followers that puts her entire family in danger. Though the horrors in ‘Hereditary’ are supernatural in origin, as compared to the psychological aspect of ‘Tin & Tina,’ both instances become living nightmares for the women in them after the loss of their child.
Read More: Is Tin & Tina a True Story?
