“Kwaidan” achieves a level of terror unlike anything else. I second “Henry”. I love Salo but I do not find it disturbing. In high school I was terrified upon first viewing TCM but that fear faded in later viewings. “Audition” is fabulous. Mann’s “Manhunter” is certainly creepy. I actually find “Manhunter” to be a creepier film than “Silence of The Lambs”. “Profondo Rosso” is unnerving as well as “Dont Look Now”. Obviously “Exorcist” comes to mind, and one sequence from the third installment. I get depressed and a little sad when I watch “Day of The Dead”, one of my favorites. Ive seen all the really dirty ones like “necromantic” and “cannibal holocaust”…their not my bag. Todd Haynes “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story” is a mini-masterpiece that is very upsetting. “Onibaba” deserves mention. Kubrick’s “The Shining” is, in my opinion, the finest film in the genre. “Seventh Continent”, “Code Unknown”, “funny Games” all come to mind.
Well, I’ve seen Salo. I understand why the film’s regarded so well, but I don’t know if I’ll watch it again. I read a ton about it once I’d seen it and I can respect it for what it is, but I’m not sure I have any use for seeing it multiple times.
Kwaidan gave me the chills. The stories are just so bizzare: killer hair, visions in a tea cup, snow bitch wife. I really truly feel that this is one of the most bizzare and unsettling films I’ve seen (keep in mind I still have yet to see Salo and Henry).
Ichi The Killer by Miike
The Piano Teacher by Henek
I saw Poltergeist when I was around 10 or 11. Scared the shit outta me. But it also made me realize what movies can REALLY do to a person, and how permanent a movie can remain in one’s psyche. It probably wouldn’t scare me now, but ever since I saw it, I’ve regarded the film as some monstrous entity. Something that is unspeakably terrifying.
God, I love movies…
Disturbing… either ERASERHEAD or THE PIANO TEACHER.
I saw ERASERHEAD long after having watched BLUE VELVET, WILD AT HEART and MULHOLLAND DR., and none of those prepared me for the bomb ERASERHEAD is.
Salo.
There were two when I was younger.
One was a movie called Fort Apache, The Bronx featuring Paul Newman, Ken Wahl and Pam Grier as a hooker who is always high and who kisses men before revealing a razor blade in her mouth.
The other one was Looking for Mister Goodbar with Diane Keaton. The ending was extremely disturbing to me when I was younger because I wasn’t sure whether the filmmaker’s were passing judgement on the main character or on society or what. I haven’t seen either movie in years.
Pam Grier with the razor blade, YEAH!
About the topic: I thought “Martyrs” was a brutal experience. The underlying notion, transcendence through agony, made me think Pascal Laugier took off from Clive Barker on that, and raised the ante.
Though not scary but certainly disturbing: Spoorloos, Irreversible.
Mrs.Doubtfire.
…and Baise Moi, Visitor Q, Schramm, Combat Shock, Female Market, La Bete’, Guinea Pig (Flower of.. & Devil’s…) andddd SALO’, of course taking the cake.
Moderated
Ok, I’ll play along. So, why not broaden our awareness and hip us to some real edgy scary off the chart horror films, then?
Waiting…
Waiting…
Drag Me To Hell scared the sh*t out of me at the time, but, ironically, what I remember most about that film is the humor. When I think back on the experience, I think happy thoughts. Probably would be too scared to watch it again, though. Anybody else happen to feel this way about this film?
Irreversible disturbed the hell out of me. I don’t think I’ll be able to watch it again even though it was a fantastic film.
Salo was disturbing but not unwatchable.
Irreversible disturbed the hell out of me. I don’t think I’ll be able to watch it again even though it was a fantastic film.
Salo was disturbing but not unwatchable.
A movie I can’t get through because it is so psychologically disturbing to me (due to the presence of Bruno S.) is Stroszek. I can watch the other movies Herzog made with him, but not that one. Also, Ian Curtis killed himself after watching it. Maybe that’s why. Who knows?
-Twentynine Palms (Bruno Dumont) – this had the most shocking ending i had come across in a long while
-The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (Peter Greenaway)
-Tourist Trap – corny, but somehow gets under your skin.. i think the MPAA said this had the most disturbing sequence ever filmed
-The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley) – only possible to find through download or shelling out like $50+ for a vhs, but is a 1991 precursor to youth-view films like ‘Tideland’ and ’Pan’s Labyrinth’, yet this one is truly haunting and quite disturbing
-Martyrs
-Anti-Christ (von Trier)
-Dancer in the Dark (von Trier) – so depressing it’s disturbing
-The Cement Garden – out of print, but very abnormal characterizations, and involves incest
-The War Zone (Tim Roth)
-Irreversible (Gaspar Noe)
-Salo (Pasolini)
-Clean, Shaven (Lodge Kerrigan)
-Possession (Andrzej Zulawski) – very hard to find, but definitely the most disturbing B-move horror film
-Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch)
-Jacob’s Ladder (Adrian Lynne)
-Requiem For A Dream (Darren Arronofsky)
-1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci) – not sure what it is about this 5.5 hour long epic, but there are a couple scenes that really got under my skin somehow. maybe since you’re watching a period piece you don’t expect anything really that disturbing
-Come and See (Elem Klimov)
I think the only answer I could possibly give to this after seeing it is “Antichrist”.
I’ve never been affected by a film like that… I walked out of that theatre shaking. As most of us (I would assume), I’m fairly desensitized to intense imagery and so I didn’t expect Antichrist to get to me, but it did. I think the biggest factor is how relentless the tone of the film is. It’s sort of like a calculated attack on the inner-workings of your mind, using the performances and aesthetics to really get under the viewer’s skin and into their mind.
The documentary Capturing the Friedman’s was one of the films that came to mind.
One film that may not seem disturbing—in the sense of graphic images—was the terrific film Testament It was disturbed me deeply and haunted me quite bit after seeing it.
Has anyone mentioned Oldboy?
Certainly the most violently/sexually disturbing thing I’ve seen.
The Innocents, with Deborah Kerr (1961), based on Henry James The Turn of the Screw. Even though it’s considered tame by todays standards, for some reason, it scares the living shit out of me.
The Innocents, with Deborah Kerr (1961), based on Henry James The Turn of the Screw. Even though it’s considered tame by todays standards, for some reason, it scares the living shit out of me.
I’d agree, Mariel…there are several good scares, but just that scene of one of the ghosts in the midst of the reeds, staring at Kerr. Brrr. And the sound effects, from the opening to the end, set up a chilling atmosphere, but so does the film as a whole. Less is more…
I had a chance to show it on a big screen in a barn a few years ago for some friends, with a decent sound system, right around Halloween. Several of them told me afterwards that the film was going to make them lose sleep or give them nightmares.
Excellent, I thought…
This thread has a doppelgänger
Cannibal (2005, Dir: Marian Dora)
A guy is gradually killed an eaten (willingly). That’s the whole movie. The scenes of genital violence are more graphic than I ever thought I’d see. NOTE: Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist shows a man hammering a nail through his own penis (for real) and that movie doesn’t bother me at all. Imagine how nasty Cannibal is by comparison.
There was a film online last year of two Ukrainian guys torturing and murdering some poor guy in the woods, then showing up at his funeral to flip off his corpse and talk shit to it. This was not their first victim, either.
They were caught and prosecuted, but the level of sheer human evil on display will haunt me forever.
I can handle movies—Irreversible and Martyrs are some of my favorite films—but the real thing leaves me shaken.
Giovanni Colantonio
Persona terrified me. As did Inland Empire. Both those films left me shaking and silent for hours after.