**The Isle **was 1/2 star; just above zero. I didn’t like it at all (obviously) but it didn’t want to make me curl up in the shower afterwards to, I don’t know, cleanse my soul or something, like after watching Bad Guy. If I saw that at a screening with the director, I’d have gone up and punched him in the nose. And that, of course, would have proven his point. Yes, he can make a film that affects people.
Or instead of my getting all riled up like that, I could put Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring… in the DVD player and watch something beautiful, simple, peaceful, and a little more uplifting.
Anyone ever seen a movie called The Dark Backwards? It’s got Judd Nelson and Bill Paxton? Nelson grows a third arm from his back and they try to get him on TV with the help of Wayne Newton (as a sleazy talent agent). It was extremely bizarre and I wouldn’t be surprised if Nelson and Paxton have forgotten all about it. It was one of your more odd films, indeed. It made me feel gross.
I’ve seen the Dark Backwards. I found it more grimy than disturbing. I think only two points are worth mentioning.
Paxton and Nelson are garbage men. While dropping of a load at the dump, Paxton finds a female corpse clutching diamond earrings in her hand. He takes the earrings, licks her nipples and walks off as if it’s all routine.
In another scene, Paxton rapes a woman. She protests. He says ‘Shut up! Ya know ya want it!’. After some fierce resistance, she does start to like it and becomes very enthusiastic.
Yep, the grime. The whole movie feels like it’s covered in a grimy film that needs to be scrubbed off. I couldn’t help but feel filthy (as in physically filthy, not emotionally filthy) after watching it.
I agree about that. I was watching it with a friend of mine that grew up in American Samoa and he said that everything that happened in the movie among the Maori happened to someone he knew in Samoa. The cartoon violence of most movies is nothing in comparision to Once Were Warriors. It isn’t like watching a movie; it’s more like watching your neighbor beat his wife.
It makes it hard for me to watch Temuera Morrison in other roles. He is always Jake Heke to me.
The Green Mile disturbs me, even though I love it. What happens to John Coffee makes me bawl like a baby, but seeing what he does to the sadistic, asshole prison guard kinda makes up for the bawl factor.
Good question. jordanr2 summed it up pretty well. I think I watched them just to see what all the fuss was about really. I’ve always been interested in horror films, had a subscription to Fangoria when I was 12, etc. so yeah I guess I wanted to see just how shocking something could be. I kind of went on a kick once where I read all these ‘Top Ten Most Shocking Films’ lists online and then had to try and see them all, just because of curiosity I guess; Mordum, Salo, Ichi the Killer, Oldboy, I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Men Behind the Sun, Visitor Q, Anti-Christ, etc.
After seeing it mentioned here a few times, I just read some synopses of *Martyrs * online and it honestly sounds like it might be intriguing. I’m curious what all the twists mentioned are.
I guess it’s just a sense of hearing someone saying “This is the most shocking/goriest/disturbing film ever!! You won’t believe it” which then makes me curious as to just how bad can it be? Is it really all that shocking? What are they talking about?
Now, there are several topics and films that I just won’t watch, because there are some things I don’t want to see at all: Eyes being poked out & animal cruelty mostly. I haven’t seen certain infamous gore films like Faces of Death or Cannibal Holocaust because I know they have those scenes.
Oh, I just thought of one film that actually made me turn it off halfway through because I was just really sickened by it: Baise Moi.
Were you sickened by the content or by how horrible a movie it was? I had an ex-girlfriend who, for whatever bizarre reason, loved that movie and always suggested we watch it. That movie is a big ole’ steaming pile of crap.
Yeah, I couldn’t tell which was worse: the concept of the “gun in the ass” murder or the horrible “I’ll keep some corn syrup in my mouth and spit it out when you the pull the trigger on a toy gun” special effects they used to depict it.
I can’t even describe how much Requiem For a Dream disturbed and sickened me. I’ve (unfortunately) lived through some of the same things depicted in the film and I can honestly say remembering my own experiences is preferable to watching that. It is far and away the best movie that I will never watch again.
Another one that stuck with me for months is Heavenly Creatures. To be honest, I don’t even remember most of it but “that scene” sent me into absolute hysterics like nothing ever has before or since.
Hard Candy, starring a pre-Juno Ellen Page. Yeah, I know the guy in it had it coming, but it’s still hard too watch and even though he’s a pedophile, you still a feel a little sorry for him, which makes it even more disturbing.
There are also a few movie that I think are great but the experience of watching them is so intense or so disturbing that you really only need to see them once. The Exorcist for me is the prime example of that.
Happiness. Everything about this film made my skin crawl. Every scene was calculated to be as uncomfortable as possible. Every single character was either a complete asshole, miserable, and/or morally bankrupt to an appalling degree. Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character was so repulsive to me I haven’t been able to warm up to him in any other film he’s done since then. So gross. The final scene between the pedophile and his son? Oh God. Horrifying.
What’s worse is that I saw it with a pretentious and self-consciously cynical acquaintance of mine, who wouldn’t shut up afterwards about how “true” everything in the movie was, and that this was the most insightful movie about the human condition she had ever seen.
There are those who love this movie, but I find it totally vile, false and artless. There are some moments of really good acting, especially from Hoffman and Camryn Manheim, but so much of the dialogue is ill-conceived and obvious, the nadir being that ridiculous scene where Lara Flynn Boyle flops around on a bed while wishing she’d been raped so that her poetry could be more authentic.Solondz has done some stuff that actually rings “true” in the sense your acquaintance meant - Welcome to the Dollhouse is more on this level, and Storytelling has its moments - but Happiness is an inept freakshow, repulsive but not disturbing in a skillful way.
I have heard that the video game series Silent Hill takes a lot of cues from Jacob’s Ladder. I generally do not enjoy horror, but the Silent Hill series was such an amazing work of art I have to admit I’m curious about this film.