Not because they’re bad, but because the subject matter is so unintentionally uncomfortable.
An example: when I was a kid, my parents went to see the romantic comedy “Mr. Wrong” and took me along. I don’t think I have ever been so horrified by a movie in my life. All I could think the whole time was, “why doesn’t someone help this lady? She’s in danger! This guy is insane, and he’s going to hurt her!” I very distinctly remember asking my mom to take me to the bathroom near the end, and then begging her to let us leave. I was deeply upset by that movie.
Around that time, they also rented “Only You”. I don’t remember that one as well, but I remember someone disguising themselves to stalk the heroine, and it really upset me (and…it was Robert Downey Jr. Huh. I love him. Go figure).
Any movie where someone is embarrassed for humor bothers me. An exception is the first “Meet the Parents” movie, because I knew Ben Stiller was in the right the whole time.
So what films unintentionally make your skin crawl?
What About Bob. At first, I kind of feel bad for Richard Dreyfus, but it always makes me uncomfortable when there’s one annoying person that one guy hates that his whole family loves. Then it just got creepy when Bob started getting…well, obsessive. I’m not sure why, but now the whole thing just skeeves me.
Ha! Oh Lord, that reminds me of when I was 12 and my grandma offered to take us to the movies. My 15 year old sister *insisted *on seeing “American Pie” (I have no idea why). I said that I did NOT want to see that with my grandma, but she insisted. Of course, I sat next to my grandma.
When the guy ejaculated in the beer, I thought I’d die. Then the other guy drank it and puked. Then my grandma turned to me and said, “I don’t get it. Why’s he sick?”
Mine’s actually The Full Monty. It’s not that I don’t like it, because actually I do. I just think that the starting premise is so sad that I can’t see much humour in that aspect. I think perhaps that I over-identify a bit - my dad suffered redundancy several times late in his working career, so it (particularly the Gerald character) makes me think of him very sadly. When I first watched it I wondered if I had missed something, or if everyone else had, since I didn’t feel able to laugh hysterically at these men’s pain in the way I was supposed to. Instead it makes me wince, occasionally physically.
I’m not sure it’s cringe-inducing so much (or at least not for this reason ) but I have a similar reaction to Titanic . It’s not a happy love story! He dies, she lives another gazunty-years without the love of her life. That’s not good!
Some friends invited me to see Twilight. I never read the books, but I figured I liked Underworld, so why not…
I ended up walking out of that glorified emo staring contest three times. As in, I left after thirty minutes because I just couldn’t take the cheesiness anymore, walked around the city, went back in because it was too cold outside and because I thought maybe the second half would be better, left again disappointed, checked out the rest of the theater, hung out in the bathroom because it was more fun, went back in a third time, saw one of the dudes start to “sparkle” and immediately excused myself so I wouldn’t vomit all over everyone. I ended up staying on the staircase outside with my hands over my ears, all the while murmuring, “Please, please let it end. Take me next. Please, please, please.”
Wanna know why it was so bad?
Imagine a boy – a handsome, sweet, but somewhat troubled boy – the retarded lovechild of an incestuous affair between Old Gregg and The Gimp, with a history of deep psychological trauma resulting from extended pre-teen molestation by Uncle Dracula. After a disastrous BDSM incident involving Ted Bundy and blenders, he escapes to the countryside only to fall victim to an unfortunate date rape scheme by Alex DeLarge and Buffalo Bill. He wakes up bruised and bloodied in a pit so full of sexual tension it attracts Edward Scissorhands, who rescues him and silently promises a scissor in unholy union… but their love is nullified not long after by a sinister California proposition. Devastated and desperate for a rebound, he maniacally pursues a series of hopeless romances. The rules of attraction, alas, would not favor his deathly, pheromone-less body and a string of terrified rejections from the Teletubbies, Regan MacNeil, and every single SuicideGirl cruelly crushes what’s left of his dark, shriveled heart. In dejected surrender, he retires to a quiet Washington town where he spends the remainder of his days alternately stalking local schoolgirls and watching Gay Bar on repeat locked in his room.
That is the sad, sad tale of our dear friend Edward Cullen. Or at least that’s what I have to tell myself to justify the $6 I wasted on his eminently crapticular failure of a life story. Ugh.
I don’t like comedy which revolves around undeserved, continual, appalling embarrassment of the main character. The British specialise in it. Fawlty Towers is a good example. Some people clearly find embarrassment and social awkwardness uproariously funny and I don’t.
My personal name for this sort of humour is (fittingly in this context) “cringe comedy” because that’s what it makes me do.
Best yet, apparently…she goes on to marry and have kids with some guy, but didn’t give so much as a “hi, how are ya?” in the neitherworld after she died before trouncing off to her watery mass grave wonderland. (Maybe she divorced him, didn’t like him but stayed-with long enough to outlive him, or she was just a beard. Hey, y’know, whatever’s happier :eek: )
Ditto on this. There are episodes of Extras that had me squirming in my seat because the characters just kept digging themselves deeper and deeper into a pit of humiliation. In fact, I’m cringing now just remembering the Samuel L Jackson episode. twitch
For slightly different reasons, I couldn’t stand Bottle Rocket, despite the fact that I usually adore Wes Anderson movies. There’s just something so deeply creepy and awkward about Luke Wilson’s character, and it sapped all the quirky goodness out of the film.
Akin to Princhester’s bete noir is my not being able to enjoy many movies with where humiliation of “innocents” is the main point. A perfect example is Borat. I tried to watch that movie, I really did, but I just felt so damn sorry for Borat’s targets, and embarrassed for Sacha Baron Cohen.
In 1980, right before I went off to college, my mom inexplicably dragged the 4 of us (Dad & my 14 y/o sister too) to The Last Married Couple in America, without having read any reviews or anything. My mom is a bit of a prude and when the fully-frontal nude woman shows up towards the end, she started giggling uncontrollably, almost hysterically, out of pure embarrassment. Me, I merely tried to crawl underneath my seat and dig a nice deep hole in the concrete-my sister was real quiet during the ride home. The chick in question didn’t turn me on BTW, even tho she was the first nude woman I had seen in a movie, up to that point.
An aside: why the hey does a basic cable station, like TBS, insist on showing a movie like American Pie? Once you cut out all the swear words and the gross-out humor, wouldn’t it be like 5 minutes long?
I couldn’t stand ‘Meet the Parents’. My husband’s whole family was watching it and laughing uproariously, and I felt like I was going to throw up I was so embarrassed the whole time.
I went to see “Casino Royale” when it came out a couple o’ years ago. Every male, myself included, in the theatre cringed and winced involuntarily during the “whack James Bond in the 'nads” torture scene.
) but I have a similar reaction to Titanic . It’s not a happy love story! He dies, she lives another gazunty-years without the love of her life. That’s not good!