"Some truly unsettling horror movies have been based around the concept of making horror movies themselves. Mise en abyme (French for "placed into an abyss") is a concept about images within images that dates all the way back to the early-modern period. But in terms of movie parlance, this means a film-within-a-film.
Movies of this kind are inherently meta, exploring the conventions of the genre or reimagining previous works from a different perspective. They may be works of fiction, but films of this kind provide fans with what is seen as a raw and unfiltered look at how the sausage is made.
The films within the films, meanwhile, often serve as a comment on the wider movie as a whole, occasionally poking fun at the tropes associated with the genre. It's a bold way to frame any movie but when it works, the results are what many fans today may describe as "elevated horror." Here are some standout efforts from this unique subgenre."
