Salo’ takes the cake. I would nominate some Italian or Japanese gore but Salo’ is probably the only film that “shakes me to the core” though Dead Ringers is pretty twisted too, Salo’ ultimate gross-out.
Se7en – I still get chills during the final moments of the film and it just leaves you feeling broken.
The Blair Witch Project – I’ve only met one other person that shares this feeling with me. The slow buildup of the film radiating dread that climaxes in again, a conclusion that gives you chills.
it might be obvious choice but for me Goodfellas.
I’ve seen it first when I was 10, before Goodfellas I was watching only crowd pleasing features
offered by steven speilberg and james cameron so it had a big impact on me. it was ultra dark,
deeply unsettling, it shocked me and amazed at the same time to the core and forever changed my
view of cinema.
I want to mention a film that never gets mentioned (at least to my knowledge) on this site: Testament. A quiet movie that got under my skin and lingered there for a long while after I saw it. It didn’t “shake me to the core,” but it was disturbing. The filmmaking really was a key part of this: it suggested things that viewers would imagine, and therein lay the film’s power, imo.
I think seeing this blind would be cool, but for those who want to know more…(minor spoilers)
This film is about a family and a small American town after a nuclear strike. The film begins with an attack. What’s cool is that there is really no special effects. When the bombs go off, the family is sitting in a living room and the screen goes white with light, while sirens are blaring. The film follows the family fast fowarding through time and showing different moments and different changes occuring. Gripping film that I couldn’t turn away from and one that haunted me long afterward.
(This should be on auteurs.)
Well, there are a few for me. A few are very disturbing and a few just nailed me deep in the guts.
1. I spit on your Grave. – The long, drawn out neverending rape scene made me want to throw up and although she got her revenge, it has stayed with me.
2. Man Bites Dog – I’ve written on this movie on this site, but will again. I originally rented this movie not knowing what I was getting myself into. By the end, I just stared at the screen dumbfounded.
3. A Midnight Clear. An amazing anti-war movie that basically changed my life by the sheer power that it invoked. At the end of the movie, when he is told Merry Christmas, the look on his face tells us everything.
4. Old Boy – The sheer intensity of this movie and the twists and turns, especially at the end, just floored me.
5. The Devils Backbone – Again…gut wrenching with the social implications involved in this war movie.
6. Audition – What a shocking ending to the movie…and horrid to top it off.
I just saw Fat Girl (side note: I love this free cannes thing) , and my hands were shaking through the last 15 minutes or so. Because when the mom is driving there’s that enormous sense of foreboding, and you think that something is going to happen, but then nothing really does, and you calm down. And then something does happen. So I would say I was pretty “shaken to the core”.
I’ve seen a bunch of movies that have shaken me to the core, but I’m just going to list one. My personal favorite:
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Another list on which I get carried away so here is a pretty exhasutive list of the movies I find disturbing and challenging as a viewer :
In my skin (Marina de Van)
Stand alone (Noe)
Irreversible
Salo
Requiem for a dream
Pi
The Tenant (Polanski)
Repulsion
Bad boy bubby (De Heer)
Henry portrait of a serial killer (McNaughton)
The Cremator (Herz)
The cook, the thief the wife and her lover (Greenaway)
Twin Peaks
Lost Highway
Eraserhead
Videodrome
Dead Ringers
The Fly
The Brood
Crash
Naked Lunch
The Texas chainswa massacre
The seventh continent
Benny’s Video
El Topo
The Holy Mountain
Nil by mouth
Peeping Tom
Scum
Straw Dogs
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia
The tin drum
Come and See
Santa Sangre
Songs from the 2d Floor
Hour of the wolf
Gozu
Audition
Possession (Zulawski)
Cries and whispers
The baby of macon
Breaking the waves
Antichrist
Eyes without a face (Franju)
Innocence (Hadzihalilovic)
Aguirre
Tokyo Fist (Tsukamoto)
Tetsuo
The servant (Losey)
Freaks
A clockwork orange
Jacob’s Ladder
Suspiria
Suicide Club
Strange Circus
The testament of Dr Mabuse
Seconds
The Manchurian Candidate
The Trial
Irreversible shook me to the core with laughter.
Ally the Manic Listmaker
I like this thread.