By which I mean…well, let me tell you mine and that should explain it…
"No Country for Old Men" - the audience knows how this game goes. The gas station guy doesn’t. I have a very high tolerance for all kinds of mayhem, but the way this was done, I couldn’t take it and I actually had to stop watching about halfway through the scene to gather myself together… the stress was too much. I was having palpitations.
I adore Saving Private Ryan, but the scene where Mellish is killed is very uncomfortable for me to watch. The up close and personal nature of it, and the slow inevitably, just twists my guts in knots every time.
In Babel, the scene/scenes where the housekeeper is stranded in the desert with the two young kids. I had to pause it and leave the room for a minute because I was hyperventilating out of concern for the situation. That’s never happened to me from a movie before. It sucked me in like nothing has ever done.
I can’t think of specifics right now, but I often get stressed – mostly due to anger – when the character does something incredibly stupid (in a drama, of course, though I’m not a fan of stupid characters in comedy, either). “What the hell are you doing that for, you moron?”
The beginning of Cliffhanger. I wasn’t really afraid of heights till I saw that. “I don’t want to die”.
Oh, and for some reason the plane scene in Flight had me hyperventilating and tearing up.
Yeah, that’s what sprung to mind for me. I think it’s partly because I was expecting just a typical dumb-but-fun action movie, and to have such a harrowing opening sequence was really quite jarring. :eek:
The scene in Reservoir Dogs where Mr. Blonde tortures the cop with a straight razor. I hate those kinds of scenes where Dude 1 is looking for an excuse, any excuse, to fatally harm Dude 2. Nothing Dude 2 says is the right thing to say. It reminds me too much of a job I left.
Blue Velvet
well, many of the scenes but when Frank (Dennis Hopper) puts on lipstick saying “pretty pretty pretty” and proceeds to talk to Jeffery (Kyle MacLachlan) about love letters is pretty intense.
I can never listen to “In Dreams” the same way again.
When John Travolta and Eric Stoltz were trying to figure out how to inject Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. I remember hearing reports (pre-big-Internet) how people would faint in the audience.
Any scene with Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. I recall visibly relaxing when he was lecturing them about Lee Harvey Oswald on the bleachers. For the first time, he wasn’t heaping abuse on the recruits.
The reentry scene in Apollo 13.
The scene in Jame Gumb’s basement at the end of Silence of the Lambs. Agent Starling finally figures it out and goes down to confront him, and then he cuts the lights.
Jared Leto’s infected arm in “Requiem for A Dream”. Actually, most of that movie was disturbing.
The scene in *Misery *were James Caan is trying to escape while captor Kathy Bates is at the store. I find that harder to watch than the dreaded hobbling scene.
Sophie’s Choice. The scene that gave the book/movie its name. Just harrowing and heartbreaking.
In Boogie Nights, the scene in which Dirk and his pals attempt to pass baking soda off as cocaine during a drug sale to a Russian roulette-playing drug dealer, all set to Sister Christian and *Jessie’s Girl * on Awesome Mix Tape #11 and the sound of the houseboy Cosmo (“He’s Chinese”) setting off firecrackers, is pretty tense.
Irreversible, the rape scene, I watched it once. Once. And I’m a guy, it’s not like I could really put myself in her place. It’s just so brutal.
In Breaking Bad, when the two cousins are waiting for Walt to come out of the shower.
Same series, when the cousins go after Hank.
The last scene of The Sopranos, in which nothing really happens.
The rape scene in Deliverance. I still can’t watch that movie.
In Of Mice and Men, when the old man is waiting for the gunshot that kills his dog.
I agree with this, but I have issues with torture scenes in general.
Once, coming off a very intense training course, I started Stop-Loss on the plane ride home. I had to stop it since it was making me jumpy with the firefight at the beginning.
In Sometimes A Great Notion, where Paul Newman (isn’t it?) is trapped under a log while the tide is coming in while his son can’t do anything to help. The stretched out inevitability is what I couldn’t take, plus my own daddy issues.
If I have the details wrong, sorry, but I had to stop watching before the scene went on very long. And I’ve never wanted to watch it since.