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[Film] What's the scariest / most disturbing film, you've ever seen?



atomised

Well-known member
Mar 21, 2013
5,113
So this someone recommended it to you, without any mention of a scene of baby rape? Wow!

Indeed. I'm not sure they'd watched it themselves at the time. Just heard it was a good film. No idea who'd told them that.
 








Acker79

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Nov 15, 2008
31,895
Brighton
Scary and Disturbing can be two different things.

I saw Nightmare on Elm Street at some point between the ages of 6 and 8 (I don't think my parents were aware, my older brother let me watch it). It scared me and oddly the scenes that scared me most weren't any of the bloody deaths, but the scene where Nancy is in the classroom and looks out the window, there is a man (I don't recall if it was clearly identified as Freddie at the time) by a tree, she looked away and looked back and he had gone. It really crept me out. The other scene involved a lonely walk down an empty school corridor.

Unsurprisingly, this gave the younger me nightmares, and my parents comforted me and made me understand it was just a film, it wasn't real blood, they weren't real knives, Freddie was just a man in make up, no one really died. It was just a film.

I then watched nightmare on elm street 2 and found it hilarious.

Anyhoo, since then I have always had that voice in the back of my head saying "it's just a film". This has led to very few films scaring or disturbing me, and not for lack of trying. The only other film that has scared me is the Japanese version of Ring (probably in part to the fact I watched it alone late at night).

The problem with most horror movies for me are the production values. There is too much emphasis put on effects and music that tells you when to be scared, rather than letting the story and the situation do the scaring.

I've found with "disturbing" films I watch them and find myself defiantly watching them with a sense of "go on then, make me forget this is just a film". And very few have. It only tends to be when I'm explaining the film to other people I stop and think "wow, that's actually quite sick"

I watched A Serbian Film. I'd heard of one particular event in the film and when it actually got to that point, my reaction (and I should probably be concerned about this) was more "why all the fuss? We don't see it ourselves, we watch the guy watching it on video?!"

I actually saw Kill List a week later, and throughout the film, I was thinking "this is basically A Serbian Film with hitmen instead of pornstars" so was just bored by it. (Seriously, this is the basic plot to both: Guy who used to be in said profession is struggling financially with a wife and young son to support, former work friend shows up mentions a job, if the guy comes out of retirement for this one gig he'll get paid a lot. He agrees, the job seems a little off, and as it goes on, it gets weirder and weirder and he eventually discovers a mysterious organisation behind everything who were all along manipulating him to the point of the big finale - with the same twist in both).

I've seen
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom - was mostly bored and confused.
Visitor Q - contains projectile lactation
I Spit on your Grave - both the better, although not particularly disturbing original and the dull remake
Martyrs - weird
The Human Centipede - dull
Haute Tension - I thought it was more of a horror than a disturbing film
The Skin I Live In - I list this only because it is in the list in the second link below. There is an oddly perverse revenge idea, but the film itself doesn't seem like disturbing/horror film.
Eden Lake - I felt very 'eh' about this movie as a horror or as a disturbing film
I Saw the Devil - more of a film about desperation, and obsession I thought.
Oldboy - Seem a bit more disturbing than the skin I live in but still seemed more about the idea of revenge being an extreme one
Wolf Creek - I found boring
Ichi the Killer - seemed too comic book-ish (probably as it was based on a manga comic) to take seriously a disturbing cinema
Audition - The first half of the film is a deliberately low key, ponderous romance story that turns into torture porn that feels all the more extreme because of the slow start.
I've seen the remake of The Last House on the Left don't know how it compares to the original, but felt like generic modern remake, and the remake of Funny Games, which felt dull.
Bad Boy Bubby - A low budget Australian film that was visually quite dark so it was hard to tell what was going on at times. But where you could tell what was going on, you'd probably be pleased about missing the other scenes.
Anti-Christ - If you didn't like I Spit on your Grave for the bath scene, don't bother with this one. If you're a woman who found the bath scene in ISOYG to be a vision of your fantasy, don't watch this.


http://horrornews.net/6520/extreme-cinema-top-25-most-disturbing-films-of-all-time-part1/
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-30-most-extreme-movies-of-the-21st-century-so-far/

But I don't think any of them really made me forget I was watching a film.

The one film that has got to me in recent years is Cannibal Holocaust. Not for anything the human characters endure, but because they actually hurt and killed the animals in the film (and got in some trouble for doing so), including the worst scene for me, ripping the undershell off a large turtle.
 


Aveacarlin'

New member
Jul 5, 2011
1,177
A friend of mine got hold of a copy of the 'banned' version of Human Centipede 2. That was very messed up and left me quite numb afterwards........
 




rouseytastic

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2011
1,212
Haywards Heath
the child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang is the scariest crap i ever saw in a film
bloody nightmares for months if not years.

Thank god it's not only me!! People have taken the piss out of me for years about it. Still unnerves me now tbh.

And currently anything with kids and/or old people. They just freak me out (although not in real life. Strange)
 


Tony Meolas Loan Spell

Slut Faced Whores
Jul 15, 2004
18,067
Vamanos Pest
A Clockwork Orange. Watched as a teen it was all about the boobs. Watched again at 42 found it very uncomfortable from the rape to the violence etc
 








Brightonfan1983

Tiny member
Jul 5, 2003
4,809
UK
Eden Lake, Wolf Creek, The Descent, were the only films I had to pause and make a cup of tea during. What we find disturbing must tap into our personal stuff; as has been said, the films some people find hard to watch are laughed at by others.

The original German Funny Games is as pure extreme cinema as you're likely to find - the director had a point to make, the film wasn't about 'let's scare the audience', and in true Hitchcockian style, the only violence you see is in your head. I defy anyone to be unimpressed and unmoved by it.
 






brakespear

Doctor Worm
Feb 24, 2009
12,326
Sleeping on the roof
The original version of 'The Haunting' from 1960 (I think) is the scariest film I have ever seen, all psychological too :thumbsup:
 


maltaseagull

Well-known member
Feb 25, 2009
13,051
Zabbar- Malta
Psycho scared the Sh*t out of me and I didn't take a shower without locking the door for years.
 






looney

Banned
Jul 7, 2003
15,652
Alien-suprised it hasn't been mentioned.

Audition- Thats pretty messed up

Wolf Creek- Boring, by the time itgot going i had lost interest/fell asleep.
 


Blue Valkyrie

Not seen such Bravery!
Sep 1, 2012
32,165
Valhalla
I remember Angel Heart really freaked me out when I saw it at the cinema.

Event Horizon had a similar effect on me years later.
 
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