20 best movies like Penance (2009)

A teenage boy discovers the perpetrators of several brutal kidnappings in his home town.

When Eva opens her eyes a young girl finds herself chained terrified for being abused. Her fears become reality in a way no one could ever imagine.

Seventeen years ago, Mike kills a new mother of twin girls and took the babies to a house in the woods, claiming them as his own to appease his wife's desire for kids. 10 years later Stacy flees to her uncle's old secluded cabin in those same woods to escape her abusive boyfriend. There she is haunted by the ghosts of the little girls crying for their mother.

Communication is the key to the survival for nine strangers who have been kidnapped by a masked gunman and told that one of them will die every ten minutes until they discover how they are all connected. Who of the nine lives and who dies?

A ransom scheme turns into a nightmare for a group of kidnappers who become victims of a horrifying secret that must be paid every spring.

No one is safe when a killer, wielding the deadly contents of his toolbox, methodically stalks his prey.

Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.

A gang of ruthless highway killers kidnap a wealthy couple traveling cross country only to shockingly discover that things are not what they seem.

Three childhood friends set aside their personal issues and reunite for a girls’ weekend on a remote island off the coast of Maine. One wrong move turns their weekend getaway into a deadly fight for survival.

Young Emily Walton, who has suffered from psychosomatic blindness ever since the car accident that took her mother's life, must summon every instinct at her disposal to protect herself and her loved ones from a mysterious intruder

After a painful breakup, Leah seems to meet the perfect guy. But she soon discovers his violent side that disrupts her life.

Emily, a troubled spirit, haunts her own house every day, wondering why she can't leave. With the help of Sylvia, a clairvoyant hired to rid the house of spirits, Emily is forced into a 'patient/therapist' relationship, uncovering disturbing mysteries about her past that may help her move on to 'the next place

Though no one can see him, Hollow Face lurks in the corners, desperately desiring love but only knowing how to spread fear and hate. He creeps into the life of John Farrow after Farrow’s beloved 13-year-old daughter Mia is assaulted in their home. The line between the real and the imaginary blurs as fissures start to open within the family unit. It seems that no security measure can keep Hollow Face out.

Young Noa and Michael are put in the care of their new nanny, Leonor, who Noa suspects is a malicious supernatural being. Dismissed by those around her, Noa works to uncover Leonor's true identity, but soon finds herself with far more than she bargained for.

A newlywed couple finds their lake-country honeymoon descend into chaos after Paul finds his wife wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night.

Six high school seniors celebrating with day's excursion find themselves on rowboat attacked by man-eating fish and must decide who must be sacrificed as they fight their way back to shore.

In October 2009, the filmmakers went into an abandoned psychiatric hospital to explore the 'haunted' institution, famous for its radical treatment of patients with mental illness. Electroshock, insulin therapy, and lobotomies were commonplace. Once inside, the filmmakers quickly discovered that they were not alone.

Three teenage thieves infiltrate a mansion dinner party, unaware that it is secretly being hosted by a serial killer cult for the social elite.

Seven female directors present seven short films.

Jessica and Dave along with three other young couples are kidnapped in Griffith Park by unseen Abductors and must fight to escape certain death only to discover the world will never be the same.

After a series of bad experiences with men, Shae teams up with her co-worker, Lu, who has a simple, deadly way of dealing with the opposite sex.

A group of elite soldiers sent to infiltrate and extract the lead science team from Pine Gap, Australia's top secret underground military compound, after it comes under attack from unknown forces. The mission is compromised when they encounter a young woman with no memory of who she is or how she came to be there. As they try to escape, the group quickly discovers all is not as it seems and the facility has become a testing ground for something far more sinister.

A celebrity chef exacts revenge on a food blogger who torpedoes his career.

On a bitterly cold December night, a paranormal investigations team has set their sights on the bloody Hillcrest Sanatorium to answer the age old question: Is there life after death? With rumours of hauntings and local children gone missing, they may just get their answer the hard way when members of the team mysteriously disappear, leaving behind unnerving evidence.

A thriller centered on an institutionalized young woman who becomes terrorized by a ghost.

Two estranged brothers reunite at their childhood home in the Alaskan wild. They set out on a two-day hike and are stalked by an unrelenting grizzly bear.

Angela, a corporate climber, gets stuck working late on Christmas Eve and finds herself the target of an unhinged security guard. With no help in sight, the woman must overcome physical and psychological challenges to survive.

Trapped inside his car by a mudslide, smooth talking Jackson Alder suddenly finds himself in a situation he can't talk his way out of. With no hope of rescue, he must defy the odds; battling Mother Nature for his survival.

In the wake of a horrific car accident that kills her husband, Michael, expectant mother Madeline Matheson discovers that her daughter, Grace, has died in the womb. Ignoring her doctor's warnings that the fetus must be removed from her body, a grief-stricken Matheson demands to carry the child to term -- even if it endangers her own life to do so. Curiously, little Grace emerges undead -- and with a craving for human blood.

Ten years after he brutally murdered two girls, a killer escapes from a mental institution and returns to his turf, the theme park attraction called Dark Ride. About to crash his path are a group of college kids on a road trip who stumble across the park.

A killer stalks and terrorizes a group of sorority girls on a college campus.

Malcom McDowell, Lou Diamond Phillips and Robert Englund star in three separate stories set in an eerie mental asylum.

When a group of friends decides to follow a car they've seen posted on an Amber Alert, things start to go very wrong.

When a team of explorers ventures into the catacombs that lie beneath the streets of Paris, they uncover the dark secret that lies within this city of the dead.

Fiona Wagner, a journalism student, tracks a cold-blooded killer with the help of her detective father and a therapist.

After watching their best friend get murdered, a group of teens struggle to expose a local hero as the vicious killer and keep from becoming his next victims.

Stranded in the remote countryside after wrecking their car, a couple seeking to start over discovers that there's no escape from the sins of their past.

Doctor Palmer, a former pathologist, wrote a fictional book based on his real cases. In the book, the madman gets caught, but in reality he is still uncaught. After the book is released, Palmer's editor is kidnapped. Palmer soon is sent a present containing a page of his book, and a bone from his editor. Together with the police, Palmer tries to find his editor, who might still be alive. In addition, his own son becomes one of the main suspects. Written by Julian Reischl

When children start disappearing, a rebellious teen under house arrest starts to suspect that a legendary evil, a boogeyman known as the Cucuy, might be responsible.

A teenage boy befriends an escapee from a mental institution who sees visions of horrible murders being committed.

Josh meets a young woman who shortly afterwards collapses and is rushed to hospital in an ambulance. He follows after her only to find that there is no record her being admitted, and he soon learns that her room mate also vanished after being picked up by the same ambulance. Convinced of a conspiracy, Josh proceeds to investigate, despite the discouragement of the police.

Mum and Dad, and their 'adopted' children, Birdie & Elbie, work at the airport. The family live off whatever they scavenge from cargo holds, offices and hotels - including a steady stream of transient workers who populate the airport's soulless hub. When Lena, a young Polish office cleaner, is befriended by Birdie, she gets drawn into a nightmarish world of torture, murder and perversity.

A couple of college students decide to sign up for pharmaceutical testing of a new allergy drug to make some extra cash for their spring break trip. They quickly discover their two week stay will not be as easy as they first believed and fight to save themselves from the grips of the facility.

A sudden and mysterious inheritance brings Danny and his friends to Hobb Springs, a forgotten resort deep in the West Virginia hills. Hobb Springs is being looked after under the watchful care of Jackson and Sally, a socially awkward couple who introduce Danny to the long lost family he's never known. A clan by the name of Hillicker. But soon Danny learns his relatives have a different way of living, that for generations, the Hillickers have observed ancient traditions rooted in cannibalism and other taboo rituals.

When neighborhood kids begin vanishing, Jenny suspects her child psychologist husband, Carter, may be resuming the deranged experiments his father performed on Carter when he was young. Now, it falls to Jenny to unravel the mystery. And as more children disappear, she fears for her own child's safety.

A pierced and tattooed sadist, Captain Howdy, trolls the Internet for naive teens, luring them to his home to torture and defile them. When Howdy kidnaps and tortures the daughter of police Detective Mike Gage, he is caught. Deemed insane, he is sent to an asylum but is released soon after, seemingly better. However, Gage knows it is only a matter of time before Howdy strikes again, and he's ready to unleash his own form of retribution when the time comes.

Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures 24 hours into the future and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.

Melissa and Yul, Americans honeymooning in China, come across the exotic 'Hungry Ghost' festival. When night falls, the couple end up in a remote village, and soon realize the legend is all too real. Plunged into an ancient custom they cannot comprehend, the couple must find a way to survive the night of the Seventh Moon.

After her husband dies of mysterious circumstances, a widow becomes increasingly paranoid of the neighboring religious community that may have diabolical plans for her.

Earth as we know it is gone. A virus has destroyed the planet and rendered all its women infertile, all but one. An elite team of soldiers are tasked with bringing the woman to safety on the newly habitable Earth Two. But when they are forced underground they find themselves fighting for survival from an bloodthirsty creature in a maze of ever shrinking tunnels. As the team's ranks start to dwindle, the tunnels shrink and the ammunition run out, the crawl for survival becomes more and more desperate.