Dig Out Your Old Security Blanket! These Flicks Aim To Disturb!
Nov 16 '04
The Bottom Line A movie doesn't have to fall under the genre category of "horror" to truly disturb you, as these movies on this list have proved to me.
I'm of the opinion that a movie does not need to be in the genre of horror to absolutely disturb the living hell out of you. If you think about it, rarely are the movies that flip us out really horror movies. But rest assured, when they are indeed horror flicks in the literal sense, we get that immortal mixture of on screen horror/violence, and everything that is totally raw about those seedy dramas filled with psychological horror.
Now, truth be told, I have thought plenty of movies are downright scary, but when a movie is disturbing, it's a different feeling. Scary movies surprise you with jolts and on screen intensity. Disturbing movies stick with you for the rest of your long day and right into your sweet dreams in your dark basement. They make you realize that the world outside of the cinema is indeed a dark and realistically scary place. Now THAT is real horror, my friends. It's the horror that screws with your head and says "yeah, creep, you are mine and I now control all of your sadistic little thoughts...you will never forget me."
I haven't forgotten about the movies on this list, and I never will. Only a handful of movies have really really disturbed me and caused me to lose a little bit of sleep, and on a work night too, so not only have they disturbed me, but I couldn't do my job! All these movies have Caligula's disturbing approval, and are 5 star movies in themselves for either being classic examples of brilliant cinema, or simply making this list of mine.
Here are the movies in alphabetical order:
"Audition"
This movie disturbed me like I had forgotten how to be disturbed. After watching this movie, I had to go to my dictionary and look up the word disturbing. Upon seeing the definition, I immediately responded with "bingo, that's how I felt." When I watched this film, I hadn't been that shocked since the first time I saw "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and I give props to this film for bringing back those old memories. This is definitely a "hand over the mouth" and "eyes wide open" movie. Directed by Takashi Miike ("Ichi the Killer"), it starts out all nice and romantic as if you want to show it to your current love interest, but then it does a complete 180 and gives us some of the most harsh, graphic, and downright disturbing scenes of violence and fright ever put on film. Most notably the very long torture scene involving a high squeaky voice, needles, and some piano wire. I never thought I would say this about a movie, but it really is "You've Got Mail" intertwined with "Mulholland Dr," "Fatal Attraction," and "Last House on the Left." It'll make me very careful of who I fall in love with, if indeed I ever fall in love again.
"Bad Lieutenant"
The master Harvey Keitel gave us his Best Performance Ever in this Abel Ferarra movie concerning the last few days in the life of one of cinema's most corrupt cops. While spending a great deal of his time in such practices as gambling, heroin addiction, orgies, and beating off in the street; Keitel finds himself fascinated in a case involving the brutal rape of a nun, which is depicted in one of the many hard to watch scenes in this film. Somewhere in all of this downward spiral, he manages to find some form of redemption, which leads him into an even deeper hole of self depression. The last 15 minutes are so heartbreaking and real that I was left shaking that teary eyed. Rarely have I ever seen such powerful and shocking material come from just one on screen performance. It's brilliant.
"The Blair Witch Project"
Go ahead, disagree with me. I expect many many many people to do just that. Sure, not everyone sees the true beauty of "The Blair Witch Project," but I sure as hell do! This movie is art. It scares you with stuff that used to scare you as kids: the things that you can see, like the boogeyman, or in this case, a witch in the woods. The night I saw this in the theater, I was crashing at someone's house, and I stayed in the basement. It was a dark and damp basement, right out of a horror film. The sheer fright I got from this movie made it absolutely impossible for me to sleep in that blacked out basement. No movie has ever done that to me in that extreme, so it deserves its spot on here. Plus, I saw it opening day. The hype didn't kill it for me.
"Cannibal Holocaust"
It's true, 99% of Italian Cannibal movies are cheesy and just plain funny, making them very entertainingly fun flicks. But not Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal movie. This movie gives new meaning to the term harsh. Anytime someone says the word "harsh," simply respond with "you mean the basic terminology of 'harsh,' or like 'Cannibal Holocaust' harsh?" This movie will stay with you for a long time after you view it, with it's brutally realistic violence, to the sheer fact that this is simply a beautiful horror film. It deals with a documentary film crew who go missing in the Amazon while filming a documentary on Cannibals. Their footage turns up when a rescue crew headed by Robert Kerman goes looking for them. Once out of the Amazon we witness what exactly happened to these people, as the footage is viewed. The footage depicts the sadistic acts (including rape and torture) by not only the cannibals, but also the corrupt film crew. Deodato was called to court at one point to prove that the events in this film were fictitious. I can see why. The details in this film are very realistic, and ultimately very disturbing.
"8mm"
The most realistic view of snuff films ever made. Anyone who doesn't think that snuff films exist and are just a myth should definitely see this film. The point of this film is that snuff is easily feasible. It exists. And this is one of the scariest movies dealing with the frightening underworld society of amateur pornography. Rarely has such realism been given to us in a mainstream movie like this one, not since the 1970s or early 80s with movies like "Hardcore" or "Vice Squad." A truly stand out scene in this film is certainly its most nerve shattering. Nicolas Cage finds out who the masked man in the snuff films is and takes it upon himself to act as executioner, breaking into his house, quietly searching for this man while a record skips in the background, which sounds exactly like a heartbeat. It's stunning. It is revealed that it's not a monster, but a real human being after all, which is the scariest outcome they could have come up with.
"Hardcore"
If you loved "8mm" like I did, then you must check out this 70s Paul Schrader film starring George C. Scott. Scott plays a deeply religious man who finds that his runaway teenage daughter has become a star in underground stag films. Scott then proceeds to go undercover in the business as a freelance porno producer to find his daughter. He gets some help from a hooker played by Season Hubbley, and there is some great matching dialogue between the two in the movie's more quiet moments. Much like "8mm," it doesn't skimp on realism as Scott gets deeper and deeper into the seedy and more dangerous side of the big city.
"Last House On Dead End Street"
Can you tell I like seedy cinema? You can't? Well, this movie's inclusion should add more to the evidence pile. What I absolutely love about this movie is how director Roger Watkins pretty much worked with next to nothing to make it. He shot with no sound, added it in during post-production, and eventually took his name off the credits when an hour and a half was cut from the original 3 hour running time. That 3 hour version has since disappeared, but regardless, he gets his point across with this movie, which is a movie about snuff films spliced with the Charles Manson story. The last part of the movie involves the film's lead psychopathic filmmaker and his cronies doing away with various supporting characters. Those scenes involve a power drill, a severed deer hoof, amputation without anesthetic, and a man who is forced to direct his own death. It's some haunting material, and the image of the snuff film makers descending into the darkness of the snuff set is amazing. The camerawork, sound, and even the acting help it all every step of the way.
"Maniac"
He's a maniac, MANIAC on the floor! Sure, "Henry: Portrait of Serial Killer" is a great movie, but give me "Maniac" and day of the week! Well, maybe some off days in between. This is the original Henry, folks. Joe Spinell gives a scary as hell performance in this character study of a man who prowls the New York streets and takes the scalps off of women so he can add them to his various mannequin collection. Later in the film he becomes infatuated with a beautiful fashion photographer, and seduces her by not being a crazed maniac, but by being a normal and charming citizen. It's 100% nightmarish and frightening, from the mood setting opening, to the tremendously graphic and memorable conclusion.
"The Night Porter"
Here was have it: the most disturbing love story ever made. You're not sure if you want to cry, or simply take pity, or maybe a little bit of both. Some people will just plain shut the movie off before it's over. The movie is about a former nazi (Dirk Bogard), awaiting trail, who works as a night porter in a fancy hotel. One of the wealthy guests turns out to be a beautiful former prisoner of his concentration camp (Charlotte Rampling), whom he carried on an affair with, and even gave her a severed head as a gift. The two rekindle their masochistic union (one scene involves broken glass) all while other former nazis try to kill off the both of them, with Rampling being a witness and Bogard protecting her. I absolutely loved this movie. It's some deep stuff, and there's a lot of great tension and feelings that go through each of the characters, especially in a scene where Bogard slaps her for showing up at the hotel prompting her to want to phone authorities, but then they remember just what they meant to each other. It's like they've accepted what their fate together is, and it's pretty damn depressing.
"Requiem for a Dream"
Think I'd make this list without adding one of the most depressing and indeed scariest filmed ever to deal with the subject of drug abuse? Hell no. You know what, F&^@ drugs. That's what I want to say. I like my arm exactly where it is. Man, I don't want to end up in jail before I'm 30, hell no. And no way am I going to have someone put volts of electricity through my head as some sort of therapeutic treatment. I might end up at a sex party sometime in the future, but no way am I going to be the star. Yes, my friends, this movie is a wake up call, a brutal and graphic, yet beautifully orchestrated, warning and a downright scary one at that.
"Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom"
Truth be told, I would never go so far as to say that I liked this movie, and I doubt I would ever watch it again in my life. I'm conflicted as to whether I would even call it a very good movie, but it very much passes in the disturbing section, so it goes on the list. The movie is about 4 political fascists during WWII who kidnap several adolescents and keep them in a villa where they are to go through several bizarre sadomasochistic sexual games including eating nail infested bread, a lot of rape, and yes my friends, even coprophilia. That very very long poopy scene is the closest I've come to puking during a movie, and I was just fine at the end of "Pink Flamingos." It all ends with a pretty long and realistic torture scene that you will never forget, as well as a lot of other cringe inducing scenes in this movie too, like the multiple storytelling scenes involving incest and pedophilia. The flick is pretty much just rape and torture. It calls itself an "anti-fascist" film, but if a graphic "pro-fascist" movie were made, it would look exactly like this film. Still, I couldn't get the its brutality and harsh nature out of my head, no matter what problems I had with the movie itself.
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
Yes, this is the original. It's a movie that I still say is above having a remake, but I've come to terms with that, and that's all there is to it. There is not another horror film out there that can truly match the disturbing terror that is brought to us by this ulti-nightmare classic about a family of cannibalistic grave robbers who terrorize a group of young passerbys. Nothing can ever surpass this film in terms of realistic terror, which, with it's grainy quality and acid trip camera movements, looks to be the closest thing to ever resemble a genuine snuff film. I wish I could go back to when I first watched this film, and experience that kind of terror over again, because I have not seen a more disturbing movie than this. I even remember my reaction when I first saw Leatherface come out of that room, beat the man in head with the sledgehammer, then drag him away, slamming the door in front of him, and that horrifying soundtrack that followed. It's quite the viewing experience. This is a movie that will be cherished for all eternity as one of the top 3 most realistic horror (psychological and otherwise) movies of all time, no matter what list you look at. The remake is just a flavor of the month. If this list weren't in alphabetical order, I'm not sure where the others on here would place, but I do know for a fact that this would be #1 as the most disturbing movie I've ever seen.
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Epinions.com ID:
caligula79
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Member: Brad
Location: Long Beach, CA
Reviews written: 141
Trusted by: 21 members
About Me:
Reside in both Long Beach, California and Springfield, Illinois. I'm region-polar.
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