THE EXORCIST has some tricky things going on it, designed to scare you.
For example: Remember the early scenes where Chris McNeal (Reagan’s mother) sees the campus riots… only to discover that it’s a movie being filmed?
That was a superb stroke by Friedkin: He shows you a movie being made, and the viewer’s mind sorta goes: “Well, if that’s a movie (ie., a fiction), then Chris’s life must be a nonfiction.”
So the horrific events at her house are subtly implied to be “real” in contrast to the “fictional” movie being filmed on campus.
Juliet of the Spirits
That movie would sum it up for me.There were some thing interesting elements to it, but it just disturbed me not saying it wasn’t a good film though.
Blind Beast by Masumura is a good contender.
Jessica Alba getting punched in the face for 10 minutes by Casey Affleck in The Killer Inside Me.
The Exorcist
If anyone wants to revisit this thread note that Total Film has a list of the 25 Most Disturbing Films Ever
http://www.metafilter.com/94842/Ew
25) Antichrist – Von Trier, 2009
24) Blue Velvet – Lynch, 1986
23) Shivers – Cronenberg, 1975
22) Martyrs – Laugier, 2008
21) Man Bites Dog – Belvaux, 1992
20) Begotten – Merhige, 1991
19) Aftermath – Cerda, 1994
18) The Human Centipede – Six, 2010
17) A Clockwork Orange – Kubrick, 1971
16) Flower of Flesh and Blood (aka Slow Death: The Dismemberment) – Hinu, 1985
15) The Last House on the Left – Craven, 1972
14) Irreversible – Noe, 2002
13) Nekromantik – Buttgereit, 1987
12) Men Behind the Sun – Mou, 1988
11) I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) – Zarchi, 1978
10) Happiness – Solondz, 1998
9) Funny Games – Haneke, 1997
8) Visitor Q – Miike, 2001
7) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom – Pasolini, 1975
6) Cannibal Holocaust – Deodato, 1980
5) In a Glass Cage – Villaronga, 1987
4) Eraserhead – Lynch, 1977
3) Audition – Miike, 1999
2) Threads – Jackson, 1984
1) Exorcist – Friedkin, 1973
happiness? really?
Coming back to the original post in this thread, movies like the Saw series (perhaps excluding the original), Hostel and the remake of The HIlls Have Eyes may seem to point to a decline in a more artistic interpretation of horror, being as they are concerned more with the spectacle of violence and gore than anything else. However, having watched the History of Horror three-parter on BBC4 recently I would like to venture that horror can come and go in trends and that hopefully (if this isn’t too dubious a suggestion) there will be creative filmmakers in the near future who are interested in using horror traditions and indeed conventions to convey more interesting ideas. This is actually likely enough, I would say, to be doubtful about horror ever really dying off completely.
Perplexed by the amount of people saying Session 9. The whole thing came off as a bad made for TV movie, rather than anything else. Don’t remember any sort of dread or scares in that one.
Gore does nothing for me. I think David Lynch’s work typically creeps me out much more than most of the actual horror films I see.
The Day of the Locust
Candyman( a guilty scare pleasure).
Certain episodes of the Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected scared the crap outta me as a child.
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom made me throw up the first time I saw it. Also, Emperor Tomato Ketchup was so close to child pornography, I deleted it from my hard drive immediately after watching it.
So, a tossup between those two.
Definitely Noroi: The curse
I was watching it in the middle of the night with headphones on and I couldn’t even finish it. It was really creepy and…just..ugh
“I deleted it from my hard drive immediately after watching it”
The producer would also be disturbed because you did not paid to watch it….. Just kidding.
@judicial joe: WTF on Emperor Tomato Ketchup, not because you watched it, but because I just looked it up on IMDB and found these delightful keywords: sex, female frontal nudity, topless female nudity, orgy, children. At least Salo had adults…Speaking of Japanese freakiness, I saw the Flower of Flesh and Blood on YouTube once.
michael jackson’s thriller. i was too young. i still can’t watch it. and i think my brain then overcompensated with all those erotic dreams i had about freddy and pennywise as a teenager. i don’t like horror movies.
Thriller did scare me as a child. Heck I remember watching old footage of the Pepsi commercial incident and being disturbed seeing an actual human being on fire to the point I had nightmares.
Audition (love), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (hammer to the neck and the final 10 minutes), The Shining, Irreversible (hate), A Serbian Film (loathe), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Seventh Continent, Piano Teacher, and Funny Games are at the top.
Films that I haven’t seen mentioned but should be are The Re-Animator and Brain Damage if for just both films each having to most sickening, creative, sexualized scenes of violating characters to great effect. I watched the latter with my mother and sister who demanded we leave after the infamous scene.
Requiem (German exorcism film), Buried, Craven’s The Last House on the Left, Martyrs, and Inside are recent ones I have seen that I can say live up to their reputation.
Grave of the Fireflies is a disturbing film. You realize something is going to happen but you just believe there is no way the director goes there. He did and the film became dread but props to the director for going there- it made a real statement about those effected in war time.
I’ve avoided Salo and Come and See (especially after seeing GotF) for years.
I’ve been wanting to see Lucky McKee’s The Woman since seeing a video of an audience member leading and pleading to volunteers at the festival to stop showing the film because of how deprived and sick it is. Make of that what you will.
The 1990 TV movie of Stephen King’s It fucked my shit up.
The Exorcist
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
I Spit on Your Grave
Last House On The Left
Calvaire (2004). If you haven’t seen it, trust me, it’s quite disturbing, especially as it nears the end.
And I’d agree with The Day of the Locust. Disturbing, but also dark and ugly.
I didn’t like Session 9 either. I thought it was a lost opportunity, and a little confusing, and not really scary at all.
The original Salem’s Lost, by Tobe Hooper, when it came out on TV back in the 70s scared the crap outta me. It has aged a bit, but certain scenes still do give me the creeps. “Look at me, teacher!” Brrrr.
In all honesty, Happiness is the most disturbing film I have seen. Just what it implies and the note of total destruction it leaves on is absolutely terrifying (in my opinion). And the depiction of the child molester is haunting.
Martyrs was pretty disturbing.
Without even thinking about it, I have to say Audition, which I actually feel should be banned. I have NEVER felt that way about a work of art, which it is , and I simply do not condone censorship but … Well, that’s how awful it is. I suppose, upon another viewing, I might take a less prissy stand on the thing. We should know just how cruel we can be. We should know that anybody can become monstrous; we are all potentally Nazis, sadists, cannibals, rapists; all of us are Gitmo kids, serial killers, vampires, werewolves, what have you. But there is a certain cold relish taken by the auteur here in the presentation of cruelty that I find a bit sociopathic. Go on. Kick me. Yet, if there is a true horror movie, this is it.
David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Pasolini’s Salo
Francisco, it doesn’t have a DVD (at least in America) so how else could I see it?
And Terayama is great, I just hate that particular film for its skeeviness.
The most disturbing film scene for me was the forced poodle pie eating scene in Theatre of Blood.
Ultra Kebab
“Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs Murder Video”
What kind of a demented sick fuck actually watches that shit? Eww.