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Horror appears in countless guises. At times it's a cursed doll or a ghost-filled home. In other instances it's a restless spirit revealing its presence. However the scariest type of horror frequently unconnected to an item or a spot, but instead a human being. Occasionally, the most frightening creature isn't lurking beneath your mattress. It dwells in your mind.

Internal Monsters of Requiem For A Dream

That's the situation with Darren Aronofsky's year 2000 cult classic Requiem For a Dream, which just celebrated its 25-year mark. Even though a few contend it isn't a scary movie, others insist it absolutely is. Certainly not, it omits a malevolent entity dragging a person from their sleep in the evening, or a spirit board marker sliding across a Ouija board by unseen hands. Yet Requiem For A Dream is all about the monsters that live inside every individual, and the horrific things individuals possessed by drug addiction commit against themselves — and their loved ones — in their effort to cope.

Goldfarb's Decline

The film introduces protagonist Harry Goldfarb when he endeavors to steal a TV set from his older mom, Ellen Burstyn's character. It's obvious Sara cares for her child, however at that instant their relationship is shown, Harry's inner demons are already revealing their presence. Sara has shut herself inside a small room to hide from Goldfarb, who is hoping to sell the television for cash allowing him to acquire the story's primary villain: the narcotic.

Harry's eyes are enlarged, desperate, irises expanded. His top is drenched with perspiration due to narcotic craving. The mother looks through the keyhole of the small room, watching. This isn't her kind, attractive, caring child. This represents the awful entity that appears from his personality occasionally. Sara knows provided she stays long enough, the chaos will end, and her real son will return with her.

This is not the initial occasion the young man has hocked his parent's set. To avoid the ongoing stealing, she's chained the TV to the warmers, and keeps the opening tool to the security device on her person in the closet. When Harry discovers this situation, he promptly adopts a tactic borrowed from the standard manipulator's guide, exclaiming, "Oh my, what's your intention? You tryin' to get me to break my own mother's set? And damage the radiator too, and possibly blow up the entire apartment, Mom? Is that your aim?"

The mother quietly passes the opening tool to the security device under the door.

It's evident Harry feels guilty, yet his remorse is surpassed by the anxious suffering of acute heroin withdrawal. The moment he wheels the dated set outside, where his close companion Marlon Wayans' character has been anticipating, every notion of shame disappear. Subsequent to moving the television halfway across the city, Harry and Tyrone sell it for funds. We don't even see them obtain the drug, and the word "the substance" is never once said out loud during the whole movie. The sole representation are various brief close-up shots of the drug being heated using a utensil, then injected. A mysterious sound sighs. The demon within Goldfarb is satisfied.

For now.

Sara's Parallel Struggle

Meanwhile, Sara Goldfarb has traipsed across town to reclaim her TV set restored, and rapidly grows clear that she experiences a minor obsession of her own. Because her partner left and her son unrecognizable, Sara seeks comfort in eating and watching for solace. Other than her son's irregular appearances and the time she spends exterior bronzing with other ladies in her residential complex, the mother rarely goes out. The screen is her window to the outside world, and she's especially fond toward an unusual entertainment program combined with advertisement presented by a diet expert known as Tappy Tibbons. She uses considerable time eating sweets and observing the broadcast, where select spectators are occasionally selected, receiving funds and a possibility to be on television, that likewise acts as an ad for the guru's diet products.

Eventually, the mother receives a phone call letting her know she's been selected to appear on a gameshow, which is the most significant information she obtained over an extended period. She immediately establishes an objective: She desires to fit into the scarlet outfit she dressed in to Harry's high school graduation, enabling her to use it during filming throughout production. Upon being unable to the back of the dress closed, she decides to decrease her mass. She experiments with food restriction, soon feels discouraged. Following the suggestion from a companion, the mother visits a physician, who promptly issues her energy-increasing medicine for slimming.

Ambitions and Ruin

The two friends, though, are working on personal ambitions. The strategy requires acquiring quality narcotics, mix it with other substances to extend its quantity more than its pure form, {and