5 Serial Killer Movies More Disturbing Than Netflix's The Whisper Man

This article contains spoilers for The Whisper Man.

Michael Keaton's latest crime thriller, The Whisper Man, does a lot of things right. It kicks off with an interesting premise: Garreton police officials suspect a recent child abduction is connected to the incarcerated serial killer, the Whisper Man. When Tom and his young son Jake move to town, they quickly find themselves victims of the next crime. With creepy children's rhymes, imaginary friends, and taunting voice recordings, The Whisper Man quickly sets up a chilling missing-child mystery and a few disturbing twists.

As dark as The Whisper Man can be, it's far from the most disturbing serial killer movie out there, which is great news for anyone who felt the 2026 film's predictable plot left them wanting something more. With real-world brutality, psychological horror, and a genuinely fresh exploration of the serial killer movie formula, these films will get under your skin far more than The Whisper Man.

The Clovehitch Killer takes one of the most disturbing ideas imaginable and places it inside an ordinary American family. The movie follows teenager Tyler, who begins to suspect that his seemingly normal, respectable father may actually be the serial killer responsible for a string of unsolved, 10-year-old murders. It's a particularly bone-chilling premise because Tyler isn't investigating a dangerous stranger; he's questioning whether the person he trusts most could've been hiding an unimaginable secret all these years.

That gives The Clovehitch Killer a different kind of unease from The Whisper Man, but there are still familial ties evident in both stories. While The Whisper Man excelled in some particularly creepy shots, specifically the surgical gloves creeping through Tom's letterbox, The Clovehitch Killer excels with something much more sinister: the idea that a potential monster is sitting at the dinner table with you. It's a quieter thriller than other movies on this list, but it's still exceptionally effective because it focuses on a horrifying possibility as much as a horrifying reality.

Like The Whisper Man, The Black Phone understands that there are few things scarier than a child being targeted by a seemingly unstoppable killer. Scott Derrickson's horror movie centers on Finney, a young boy who is kidnapped by a masked murderer (known as the Grabber) and locked inside a soundproof basement.

The Grabber's mask, crimes, and unpredictable behavior put Finney in a genuinely grim situation, but an old black telephone gives him a chance at survival. There are some scary moments in The Black Phone, and its supernatural element gives it an edge over straightforward serial killer thrillers.

The Grabber is already terrifying because of what he does to his victims, but the movie surrounds him with an increasingly nightmarish atmosphere as Finney attempts to survive. Perhaps the biggest reason The Black Phone is more disturbing than The Whisper Man is that the latter uses the idea of a killer to create unease, whereas Derrickson's film places viewers directly in that nightmare while refusing to break away from Finney's horrifying situation.

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