Top Ten Most Disturbing Movies of All Time...

Funny Games.

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPO/505125~Little-Man-Posters.jpg

please lock this thread now

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

Reflecting Skin

"Last House on the Left" on original list is questionable at best.

as if you posted a poster that said "white chicks" on it and yet... not white chicks

For some reason Caligula disturbed me to the point where I couldn't finish watching it.

I think that reason may have been the fact that it's really, really bad.

ichi the killer is the only movie i've ever seen that made me physically ill (definitely moreso than audition)

Titicut Follies

I sat through "Little Man" the other day (it seems to be on a loop on some Sky channel). It's interesting - even though you expect the joke about the baby having a large penis, it's still creepy when it happens. (Not to mention the gag built around the baby raping Shawn Wayans' wife). It's an astonishing movie, actually, in many ways (most notably its almost pathological witlessness)

That movie my roommate was watching on Lifetime circa 2001 where the crazy ex-husband drags the battered wife from her apartment and beats her up in broad daylight and JUMPS UP AND DOWN on her face while the whole town stands around doing nothing.

Sin City

i felt kind of lame being disturbed by Happiness because that's obviously what dude was going for but it still creeped me out

googled "movie domestic violence husband jumps on head"

A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story

I mean come on.

Oh, man. That scene in A Cry For Help may be one of the creepiest I've ever seen on TV. (Nancy MacKeon, aka Jo from Facts of Life, played Tracey.)

oh man i could not stand Happiness.

i still have never watched all of eraserhead because the baby creeped me out too much (though i was watching it by myself at night)

I may lead a sheltered existence, but Pan's Labyrinth disturbed the crap out of me.

Cook, Thief, Wife & Lover seconded.

Also, how about The Vanishing?

Straw Dogs
The Birds

Some of the movies are genuinely disturbing, but I found Eraserhead and Salo more like boring.

I wonder if the people making this lists assume that "disturbing" automatically equals "good"? Cause Irreversible may be disturbing, but it's still not a good movie.

do you see the word good anywhere?

I really dislike Cook, Thief, Wife, etc., but it absolutely deserves to be on this list.

xpostssss

No, but I see little point in making these sort of lists unless they're considered recommendations or something.

(xx-post)

well, if you liked to be disturbed by art, then they are recommendations. if you do not like to be disturbed by art, then they are not.

it's certainly not a list of MOVIES NOT TO SEE

you are a mystery

salo is a movie that is meant to be disturbing in one way, fails, but is still disturbing cos people being made to eat shit is horrible to watch however the scene is intended.

i think i just find watching intense cruelty hard to watch, though, rather than 'disturbing' -- if something contradicts my 'moral scruples' or whateverthefuck i'm not 'disturbed', just hostile to it.

a clockwork orange is not a tenth as disturbing as it needed to be.

Freaks is just a very sad little unrequited love story. I didn't find it disturbing. I forget how the lady turned into a chicken at the end.

the piano teacher was plenty disturbing

googled "movie domestic violence husband jumps on head"

A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story

I mean come on.

-- Kerm, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 19:16 (35 minutes ago) Link

Before I saw this post with the link, I was about to ask if the wife was played by Jo out of Facts of Life. I too have seen this and it's burned in my memory forever.

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUSTO

2 girls 1 cup

SPANKING THE FUCKING MONKEY

armageddon

i think dead ringers is inexplicably disturbing

piano teacher movie not quite as disturbing as the book, except for prolonged BJ scene.

Oh jesus cutty is SO RIGHT...Dead Ringers,,,,gah

I think Salo, like its source novel, is meant to be more blackly humourous than disturbing. I also wonder if he's skitting Fellini with it.

SPOILER ALERT:

DAY OF THE LOCUST
Donald Sutherland gleefully stomps young girl to death, is torn limb-from-limb by angry mob. Also features Karen Black

the Gary Indiana BFI book on "Salo" is excellent. the film is most definitely not.

anyway, i've not seen "Begotten" but from what i've heard it should probably be on this list.

Begotten is almost too abstract to be really disturbing. Post-human, though.

BULLY

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPO/505125~Little-Man-Posters.jpg

otm but let's not forget

http://www.tlavideo.com/images/catalog_gaybase/201725.jpg

Did we ever have a Charles Grodin poll?

clifford is an amazing film

Yes re Spanking The Monkey. I was told it was a "comedy." Someone had a good sense of humor, or I'm simply very gullible.

Fatal Attraction was pretty disturbing. In places.

http://www.tlavideo.com/images/z/cg/6/4/193146.jpg

Andre, a Frenchman divorced from his American wife takes his teenage daughter, Nicole, on vacation with him. She's desperate to appear as a woman and not a girl, so in order to impress a local boy, she makes up more and more ridiculous stories, starting with Andre being her lover. Andre is desperate to make Nicole happy and so plays along with her crazy games, and the stories they make up get increasingly bizzare

http://www.tlavideo.com/images/catalog_gaybase/102229.jpg
Caine plays a man on holiday in Rio with his best friend. Both men have teenage daughters with them. When Caine falls for the amorous daughter (played by Michelle Johnson) of his best friend, they embark on a secret, if slightly one-sided relationship. Johnson's father is furious when he finds out about the 'older man' in his daughter's life, and sets out to hunt him down with the aid of Caine!

any movie where an estranged father wins back his family through crossdressing and/or magical powers more than qualifies.

at the end of My Father The Hero, after Gerard DePardieu is revealed NOT to be a pedophile he sits down at the piano and sings "Thank Heaven For Little Girls." B-yo-YOING!

I actually think "Irreversible" is a really good film.

I would throw "Cache (Hidden)" on mine as well.

"Requiem for a Dream" certainly disturbed me when I first saw it, though even then I felt a little resentful at some of the more egregious manipulation.

I really don't see how any of this transgressive art shit (even when its good, like eraserhead) is really that disturbing.

I mean when its SOLD as such, doesn't that cut down on the OMG?

Irreversible is the 2001 of homophobia.

Am I the only person who got nightmares from Sybil?
That movie disturbed the crap out of me. The enemas! The barn! The piano! That mother! Dear baby jesus that movie was disturbing. '70s Sally Field was so vulnerable and tiny and hornrimmed.

da croupier otm

hollywood hackery taken to weird-ass extremes is 9/10 times aways more disturbing

Garry Marshall is probably the most disturbing director of all time.

pg-13 comedy set on an s&m island, the ultimate hooker with a heart of gold love story, down syndrome teenage love, a movie about a construction worker who makes an amnesiac rich bitch think she's his wife, etc, etc.

The only thing that really got to me in Audition was the mushroom-soup-looking vomit.

I used to enjoy mushroom soup.

SPOILER CORRECTION:

DAY OF THE LOCUST

Donald Sutherland gleefully stomps young girly BOY (played by Jackie Earle Haley, later of Bad News Bears) to death, is torn limb-from-limb by angry mob. Also, Sutherland's character name is Homer Simpson.

(great book, good film)

xxxxx-post

http://www.impawards.com/1994/posters/exit_to_eden.jpg

xp

(also, it really wasn't that gleeful, tho i was with him all the way)

Fat Girl REALLY disturbed me. Forget the whole thing or whether it's any good or not, the final sequences of that movie just totally killed me.

Irreversible is the 2001 of homophobia.

I don't know what this means (not provoking; genuinely not sure what you mean).

i would call it the 2001 of rape instead

my memory of Day Of The Locust has been obscured by trauma, obv.

Irreversible steadfastly equates homosexuality with darkness and heterosexuality with light.

i thought fat girl was pretty good but not all that disturbing, just.. abrupt

my votes - Trouble Everyday (beatrice dalle..), Kill Bill (not because it's good, mind you, I just found it infuriating), In my skin (probably not very good but I had to leave the theater halfway through)

same for noe 'i stand alone' - i had to turn it off 1/3 of the way in, just ugly and unwatchable

Irreversible steadfastly equates homosexuality with darkness and heterosexuality with light.

Aesthetically? I clearly need to see this movie again.

fuck a clockwork orange being on there. these "most <fill-in-the-blank> of all time" lists always feel like they have to put token old movies in the list to qualify for the "of all time" part.

being "disturbed" is such a personal concept - how can you really rate it?

a few movies not mentioned on the list or this thread that disturbed me in some way, yet i still liked:

man bites dog
i stand alone (someone mentioned it after i wrote this, but i'll keep it in my short list anyway!)
the isle

man bites dog is hilarious

salo is a movie that is meant to be disturbing in one way, fails, but is still disturbing cos people being made to eat shit is horrible to watch however the scene is intended.

i think i just find watching intense cruelty hard to watch, though, rather than 'disturbing' -- if something contradicts my 'moral scruples' or whateverthefuck i'm not 'disturbed', just hostile to it.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 19:40

This is how I feel about Salo too.

Also I think the most distressing image from the film is when the girl is getting raped and being scalped at the same time. (rather than the shit eating [although that is baaad])

i agree with i stand alone

punching pregnant woman in the stomach a little disturbing

i was actually really disturbed by some of the unexpected brutality in Pan's Labyrinth, too.

and as much as i hate to admit it, the bludgeoning scene at the beginning of irreversible disturbed me more than the famous rape scene.

the humor in man bites dog is what makes it so disturbing to me. especially the scenes where what happens (or the aftermath of what happens) stops the laughter right in your throat.

I've never seen Salo but it's showing at a Pasolini retro soon...

these "most <fill-in-the-blank> of all time" lists always feel like they have to put token old movies in the list to qualify for the "of all time" part.

I hope you're 19.

Day of the Locust is GREAT. Salo is... interesting but yeah kinda boring (which is the basic point of the movie anyway, right? That absolute power is ultimately boring...?)

why is El Topo on this list?

Eraserhead being number 1 is kinda a headscratcher. My number 1 would be Nekromantic, no contest.

closely followed by Henry.

I hope you're 19.

nope - i just don't have a lot of respect for movies/music other people consider classic.

That ... is some spectacularly bad TV movie acting right there.

xp - no matter which ones?

I finda lotta Lynch more disturbing than Eraserhead -- the last 2, and many Twin Peaks sequences (ok it's TV).

http://entimg.msn.com/i/100/mo/losthighway_rblake_125x125.jpg

^this

Morbz OTM re: Lynch

xpost

no, i'd have to pour over some other "all-time" lists to list specific examples of things i believe were selected because of nostalgia, but dealing with a clockwork orange being on this list specifically, i feel that the only reason it's on that list is because it's a "classic" that at the time it came out was controversial for being disturbing. the movie was quaint when i saw it for the first time in the late 80s. i can't stand it and i don't think it belongs on the same list as the original texas chainsaw massacre, let alone salo, henry, audition, or irreversible. just because it was "edgy" back then doesn't mean it still is.

/agree with W4LTER

I find Tex Massacre too creepily funny to call really "disturbing"

i found eraserhead really legitimately terrifying. and not "scary," just totally autistic in a way. it doesn't give a fuck about you.

pink flamingos really freaked me out when i first saw it too, especially the rape scenes, cos i really couldn't get a handle on whether the participants were into it or not (the chicken looked distressed at the very least)

but i haven't seen many of these, and i guess i need to.

http://www.lucidscreening.com/i/troll2dontbelong.jpg
http://www.bad-good.org/troll2/end.jpg

gree hee hee heee

troll 2 is pretty wtf?!-ed up

I think the baby in Eraserhead alone puts that movie in the "pretty fucking disturbing" category

I know that's what the movie's famous for but honestly I barely remember it.

The same cannot be said for some of his more horrifying moments in his other material (Leland killing Maddy, the suicide scene in Mulholland Drive, etc.)

Naked Blood - http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/nakedblood.htm

It has a girl eating her own eyeball and enjoying it. Another gets addicted to stabbing herself in the arm with a rusty spike. All the while a third girl appears to be addicted to plugging herself into a cactus via an early-90s virtual reality helmet.

second piano teacher and dead ringers, although piano teacher annoyed me as much as it disturbed me.

recently saw fires on the plain, that's pretty goddamn disturbing.a horrors of war film that is actually horrific.

Casino

While it was not quite as shocking as a girl eating an eyeball, or for that matter the eyeball slicing in Un Chien Andalou, I would say that, after smoking a joint before entering the theater, Polanski's Repulsion was plenty disturbing for me.

BTW, 'shocking' and 'disturbing' seem to me to be separable qualities.

I default to liking most of these types of movies, but I Spit On Your Grave is shit.

This category would be no contest if they chose to consider Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes. Aiieeeeeeee!

"Kids"

yeah CASINO's 'bat' scene is still the single most shocking thing i've seen in a hollywood movie by miles.

um, the exorcist. is that too much of a cliche?

that scene in casino is a breauty.

Exorcist disturbed me big time.

does the Exorcist disturb anyone besides Catholics...? I like it fine but it's always struck me as more overwrought than frightening or disturbing.

As you may or may not recall from the various atheist threads, I ain't no catholic. It was just, for me, a terrifying and 100% convincing depiction of precisely the kind of EVIL that I don't believe in.

ah, sorry.

it's all coming back to me!

it does work better if you have a catholic/christian background, p
robably

the opening scene in the desert is way creepier for me than linda blair projectile vomiting, to be honest. that sequence was really awesome on the big screen when i saw the re-release.

xp: it's a comedy if you don't

i agree with latebloomer about the opening scene in the desert.

The movie that left me the most freaked out for the longest time has to be "Funny Games."

The Shining, for me. Or perhaps Don't Look Now. Donald Sutherland's howl of despair as he pulls his dead daughter from the lake is genuinely disturbing.

A Clockwork Orange is really not that disturbing.

Cannibal Holocaust was a good suggestion. Kids and Exorcist both had effects on me (my mom never let me use a ouija board because of The Exorcist). I think Audition is one of Miike's LEAST upsetting films (which doesn't mean it's not upsetting, obv), so it always baffles me why it gets stuck on these lists over, say, Visitor Q.

While I agree with Morbs that there are some really spooky sequences in Twin Peaks, Eraserhead really disturbed me because I was actually YELLING at my TV for Jack Nance to kill the baby and then later I realized what I was doing (David Lynch you trickster). Lost Highway would be disturbing if it wasn't REALLY BORING.

Those Ilsa of the SS movies are disturbing due to "why the fuck did anyone think this was a good idea"-ness.

Sopranos University ep.

no votes for this?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000CCJOA8/ref=dp_image_0/105-6672461-2675619?ie=UTF8&n=130&s=dvd

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000CCJOA8/ref=dp_image_0/105-6672461-2675619?ie=UTF8&n=130&s=dvd

fuck you ilx and or amazon or something.

it was 'riding the bus with my sister', featuring rosie o'donnel as a retarded adult

Clockwork Orange generally ends up on these lists over and over again because of the Singin' in the Rain rape scene.

"Kids" isn't disturbing really, but seeing it in the theater with my dad when i was 17 was a pretty stupid idea.

People make such a big deal about that scene that it always seems not as bad as you heard. xpost

Did anyone mention Straw Dogs? Naked was a little disturbing too, but not really.

extended pervo-pedo rape scene is totally disturbing. mostly because it made me feel complicit in Larry Clark's totally gross kiddie-porn fantasies.

seriously fuck that guy. what a shitty filmmaker.

Straw Dogs is GREAT.

also totally disturbing. there was a good thread about that awhile back.

i saw a movie on the SciFi channel this weekend called Pterodactyl! about some pterodactyls that come back to life and terrorize people (it stars Coolio)

Mansquito >>>> Pterodactyl!

i want to see Pterodactyl now

i know i hyped this elsewhere, but my best bud lance has a new site devoted to movies/t.v. that creeped people out when they were a kid. and he is always looking for true life confessions to post.

http://www.kindertrauma.com/

'no country for old men' was too movie-movie to creep me out, but

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1183459/photo_01.jpg

definitely got under my skin.

I’ve seen nearly every film in this thread and few have bothered me, but I agree ‘No Country for Old Men’ made me seriously depressed. I can’t articulate any particular reason why this was but I still feel a bit uncomfortable.

where's Sleepaway Camp?

Audition
Dead Alive (but it was hilarious)
Frailty
God Told Me To
Ichi the Killer

in the last five years only session 9 and cure got to me. both through the sound design, mostly.

The Seventh Continent.

although that's more depressing, i suppose.

recently saw fires on the plain, that's pretty goddamn disturbing.a horrors of war film that is actually horrific.

I would add Come And See to this list (pretty disturbing and way off the scale horrific)

No version of Lolita has ever been disturbing enough.

THE PLAGUE DOGS

omg heartbreaking/graphic cruel disturbingness. Plus seeing people get realistically shot in a somber animation!

we seem to do this a lot. my list in no order:

- Sombre (this is one of the most beautiful, sickening things i've ever seen)
- Seul Contre Tous (Noe at his best)
- Audition
- Funny Games
- Benny's Video (oh shit this one still gives me shivers)
- Gold Told Me To (surprised others have seen this one, thought it was hard to find for some reason)
- Session 9 (this is a very fucked up movie, esp. for TV)
- Capturing the Friedmans (made me feel sick to my stomach after finishing it)
- Man Bites Dog (duh)
- this film by Ron Giii that contains footage of people cutting into each other's feet with scalpels and other sordid scenes, but which i cannot locate on the internet or remember the name of.... help plz art film nerds?

God Told Me To (surprised others have seen this one, thought it was hard to find for some reason)

I can thank AllMovieGuide and Netflix for that!

seriously, though, has anyone else seen Sombre by Grandrieux?

"A hand-held camera follows murderer Jean (Marc Barbe) as he strangles French women while driving about France. When Claire (Elina Lowensohn) has a roadside car breakdown, she and her sister Christine (Geraldine Voillat) get a lift from the demented Jean, who later attacks Christine while she's at a lake for a swim. Back at the hotel, he menaces both sisters. Claire succeeds in extricating Christine, who leaves on a train for Paris -- while Claire makes the mistake of sticking around in order to "help" the crazed Jean. Shown in competition at the 1998 Locarno Film Festival where it provoked controversy and an official statement: "Half of the jury would like to call attention to Sombre. Our jury split between those who were morally offended by the film and those who saw a purpose in its darkness, and in the strength of its mise-en-scene and images."

Movie I haven't seen but have high hopes for: <i>Men Behind the Sun</i>.

Triumph of the Will

I'm obsessed with Shinya Tsukamoto, and I don't find any of that sort of thing (Japanese art-horror) to be disturbing. Tetsuo has a happy ending, after all...

The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a bit disturbing.

seriously, though, has anyone else seen Sombre by Grandrieux?

I've seen this, years ago at a film festival. If I remember correctly, it was done in such a weird artsy way, that half the of the time you couldn't literally understand what was happening on the screen. So it was more boring than disturbing.

actually, city of god, and mainly the young kid.

holy shit, yes/otm.

tuomas, you is wrong. it's only about half-way through that Sombre becomes remotely understandable.

but eh.

also, City of God isn't 'disturbing' in the same way as most of the films mentioned on this thread... i'd say the violence is incredibly jarring and troubling, but the psychological effects of the film on the viewer don't match Funny Games or Sombre or even Audition.

most disturbing intro to a trailer ever?

Make Up? Me? BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAiamgoingtoeatyoursoulHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

yeah i know "clowns are sooo creepy omg" shit is played out but still

Surprised nobody mentioned 'Threads'

'Save the Green Planet' should be mentioned here.

Lol at kid in wheelchair outrunning everybody.

Kids was the one movie that truly made me uncomfortable.

2 girls 1 cup

― bell_labs, Wednesday, November 7, 2007 8:56 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

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