Nitpick: That was from Robocop 2. In Robocop 1 there was plenty of gratuitous ulltraviolence, but no torture as such.
I’ve never been able to get all the way through A Clockwork Orange. Disturbing is a good word for it. I’ve tried to watch it a couple times.
Taxi Driver – not for the actual gunplay/violence, which is sissy stuff compared to a lot of the fare at the time and since, but for the generally disturbing insights into Travis Bickle’s mind and personality, coupled with vignettes that make him look mentally and morally healthy compared to some people he encounters.
Triumph of the Will: Not for violence; there is none. Disturbing because it is such well-done thing of its kind that a Jew could watch it and catch himself chanting “Sieg Heil!” For all the uniforms and armaments and dazzling displays of marching, the movie presents the friendly face of Nazism, the face the Nazis wanted the world to see. At one point a Party official speaks of the need for a nation to “preserve its racial purity”; other than that oblique reference, there is no mention at all of the Jews, nor of Communists, the USSR, France, Britain, or any enemies of the Reich real or imagined. Hitler tells the Hitler Jugend they must learn to be obedient and harden themselves for sacrifice (IOW, “You’re going into the Army when you hit 18, kid, get used to the idea”), but otherwise there is no mention at all of a coming war. Instead we see parades of impeccably turned-out SS troops in kewl uniforms, cheering/saluting crowds, beautiful frauleins in traditional Bavarian costumes, Hitler Jugend having good clean fun, Nazi-uniformed laborers with gilded shovels boasting of how many kilometers of freeways have been built since the Nazis came to power, and Hitler all smiles and beaming.
slight highjack:
Don’t know if anyone caught this the other night, but was a Dateline/TrueCrime (or something similar) show on Monday around 2am, and I couldn’t sleep so I watched it. It was called “In Coldest Blood” and it was about these two teenage kids who killed a 16 year old female friend of theirs. Not just an acquaintence, but a person they routinely hung out with. And they video taped themselves planning it at school, driving to the house where she was house-sitting alone, and then after they left. They even video taped her at her locker in the morning of the night they killed her.
I guess what was most disturbing was the fact that the reason they killed her was just that they wanted to. No disagreement. No love triangle. They just wanted to kill someone, so they did.
It was awful.
A five-year-old, unexposed to the concept of torture?
I gather you didn’t have older brothers as a kid growing up … 
I’m not a fan of August Underground or the like, but the documentary S&Man (which includes segments on Fred Vogel and other pseudosnuff filmmakers) is worth checking out, if you can find it. You get to see clips of the stuff that are just long enough to give you the picture, without actually having to sit/sleep/vomit through a whole movie of them. You also get a bit of insight into the filmmakers’ motivations.
Major spoiler below
Although, and I didn’t realize it at the time, one of them – the creepy guy who seemed to be an actual stalker – was almost certainly an actor and a fake, which some people saw as a scam by the director but was actually quite a clever comment on voyeurism and accountability.
Eraserhead. David fuckin’ Lynch. Yeesh.
And then he goes and makes The Straight Story, which is utterly non-Lynchian (well, I suppose it does have a certain surreality to it).
Saving Private Ryan got me. Not because of the gore or death - it was the knowledge that horrific violence could and did break out at any time. That is what to me is the film’s best feature, and I imagine as close as an audience can get to real combat. No wonder combat vets get PTSD - I didn’t relax during that whole movie.
On a completely different level, when I was about twelve I saw a post-apocalyptic horror film called Damnation Alley that featured flesh-eating cockroaches. At one point, a character is trying to get away while they chew on him. He gets into a car. Big mistake.
Yeah, had a few nightmares around that scene…
I saw American History X at a youngish age and was totally freaked out by it, especially the scene when the guy puts his mouth on the curbstone.
What else? Apt Pupil. shudder
And I couldn’t sleep a wink after watching Deliverance.
I’ve heard many speak of *A Clockwork Orange *this way. I just don’t get it.
I mean, c’mon. We’re just talking about rape, murder and mind control. Right? Is that really so bad? Happens every day, right?
Though it might seem pale in comparision, I’ll add *Marathon Man. *I can’t handle teeth pain. For that very reason, although I’ve heard very highly of it, I’m avoiding Oldboy.
It becomes even more disturbing if you know that the kid who played Pixote was a street criminal when he was cast for the role. He later returned to a life of crime (even though the director Hector Babenco tried to help him) and was killed in a shootout with police at the age of 19.
Another of Babenco’s movies is also very disturbing: Carandiru. One of the user reviews says: “This movie makes Oz look like a sitcom” and it is even more disturbing because it’s based on true story: Carandiru Massacre
AGREED!!
Plus has anyone seen Blindness? Wow…the scene where all the women go over to um…service the guys with all the food was THE most disturbing thing I have ever seen. I can’t even think about it without feeling dirty. I felt like I needed to scrub my brain after that. Wow. Wow wow wow. shiver
Yup, leaving behind a kid he fathered.
I had to see a few Brazilian films for my class that all used street kids. I can see the idea of trying to help them, but I still find them messed up.
To be fair, IIRC, a couple of other kids in that movie did make it, or at least got a chance to leave the favelas and go somewhere else.
Shark, That sickened and bothered me too. The total lack of motive other than just to kill a friend because they had the opportunity because she was alone house sitting. It floored me because she was killed by friends. The way they taped it showed how callous they were of human life and it made it scarier. I felt ill after watching it.
Based on a fairly entertaining novel by Roger Zelazny, whose protagonist Hell Tanner was (I seem to vaguely recall) inspired by Hunter S. Thompson. Another cheesy paperback I wish I’d held on to.
I don’t think Bill Paxton noshing on that old chicken or the concept of Blump’s Pork Juice are meant to make you feel good.
Judd Nelson grows a third arm! Out of his back!! Is that not worth mentioning?
I don’t remember that, but I remember the corpse at the dump. “She’s mine, d’ya hear? MINE!” Or words to that effect.
It was weird, but it didn’t disturb or sicken me. One movie that would normally be up my alley (as opposed to slasher flicks or torture porn) but disturbed me to the point I won’t watch it again is Fantastic Planet. It makes me shudder. Brrr.
There’s only a few explicitly disturbing scenes in that movie, but somehow it adds up to one of the more memorably wrong cinematic experiences of the '80s. I love it.
There is no question which movie is currently the most disturbing of all time. Regardless of what freaks you out, “A Serbian Film” has it. The only question would be which flick is #2, because “A Serbian Film” has #1 on lockdown.
Requiem.
It’s an awesome movie, powerful, amazingly acted and expertly directed.
And I never, ever, ever want to see it again. Ever.
I know this is generally disapproved of, but I can’t resist saying that this resurrection of a zombie thread just couldn’t be more apt.