Big Night In: Violent flicks please those fed up of love

Valentine's Day is almost upon us and so comes the same romantic films with a lovable but unlucky-in-love heroine, a mysterious and dark stranger who whisks her off her feet, a romance filled with trials and the eventual embrace in the rain.

They're not for everyone, neither is Valentine's Day. Not feeling cuddling up to a rom-com this year? Cuddle up to these anti-Valentine's Day flicks instead....

You would think that by reuniting one of film's most iconic couples you would have the recipe for the most romantic movie ever to be born. Wrong. Revolutionary Road (Amazon) unites Titanic's Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in a Public Service Announcement for the single life based on Richard Yates' classic novel.

Happy times dining together and genuinely enjoying each other's company are shown only in rosy-tinted flashbacks as April and Frank's marriage unravels following one last ditch attempt to revitalise their love.

Tension mounts as the couple drive further apart and it makes for an uncomfortable watch.

Taking failing marriages to a whole darker level, Antichrist (Netflix and Amazon), directed by Mr doom and gloom himself Lars Von Trier, takes a variety of uncomfortable and taboo subjects and how they can destroy a marriage. It tells the story of a couple who, after the death of their child, retreat to a cabin in the woods where the man experiences strange visions and the woman manifests increasingly violent sexual behaviour and sadomasochism.

Coupling terrifying and wince-inducing scenes of extreme gore with heart-breaking scenes of grief and despair – Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg give mind-blowing performances as a couple on the edge of madness.

If these films are anything to go by, we should be punished for loving people in the first place and especially if we do wrong – enter the film that revived the entire slasher sub-genre, Scream (Netflix and Amazon).

No longer is the girl punished just for being a female. Scream champions strong female characters with heroine Sidney Prescott and her foul mouth, masculine movements and feminine ideals that bust open the generic conventions of the slasher genre.

Scream's central focus is how love and infidelity can destroy a family – and with devastating consequences. Sidney is targeted similarly to how her deceased mother was targeted ahead of her murder and it becomes apparent her mother's infidelity has set off a chain of events that leaves multiple, unsuspecting teenagers dead in the gutter. Nail-biting from start to finish, you'll never trust another lover again.

If you do happen to fall in love, even after reading all of this, make sure your partner is a stable member of the community and won't boil your beloved pet in a crock pot. Fatal Attraction (Amazon) has had cheaters quaking in their boots since 1987 with the story of a married man who's one-night stand comes back to haunt him and his unsuspecting family.

Glenn Close expertly plays the obsessive bunny boiler Alex Forrest from shy-yet-sexy workmate to psychotic stalker, her performance will send chills down the spine and make your hairs stand on end wondering what could possibly happen next.

Trapped lover Dan Gallagher, played by Michael Douglas, is a protagonist you can't help but hate as it is his selfish actions that have brought danger to his family's doorstep – and through uncomfortable close ups and explosive music his feelings of entrapment and panic are felt – love will triumph, but love for who?

By Becci Stanley