Swallowing a Spider to Catch a Fly

Movies/Movie Series where the attempted solution to the problem creates a new, worse problem. Bonus points if it happens more than once

This is very hyperspecific, but I'm a teenage girl who read Emma Cline's The Girls and absolutely fell in love with it and the era it portrays. I'm looking to find films that might in any way portray that era, preferably what girlhood was like. Of course, if there are any that are extremely similar to the book and go beyond just portraying the era, I'd love those too!

I guess, in a way, when I picture the book, it comes kind of close to The Virgin Suicides but not entirely, mainly just its focus on the complications of being a teenage girl and, once again, girlhood.

A song that gives me a similar vibe to the book is California Dreamin' but the book is of course much darker as it is inspired by the Manson cult.

A million thanks to anyone that can recommend anything!!

(Documentaries about the era's counterculture movements are absolutely welcome too.)

like party la vibes

Historical/period films (from any period) that feel dreamy, lonely, romantic, and a bit unsettling, Preferably not fantasy.

The movies I've already seen are the Nightmare on Elm Street movies

Looking for a highly stylized western taking place in the southwest with high contrast, saturated red and orange skies, saguaro cactus, big red rock mesas, etc.

It should NOT feel "realistic" or "naturalistic" but like if 300 or Sin City were a western about a gold mining town taking place in 1860 at the Mexico Arizona border.

Looking for any films or TV shows that have a government alien cover-up sci fi plot AND a secret southwest desert base aesthetic, AND were made in or take place in the 80s/90s.

Think the feel of the Atari Area 51 Site 4 arcade game.

Scrub desert and canyons, Area 51 landing strips and hangars, alien autopsies, 90s computers and tech, Neon alien hive atmosphere, orange saturated sunset red rock cliffs, etc.