# Movies That Really Disturbed You **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 21, 2002, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066 "2002-07-21T06:30:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![torben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@torben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torben)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/1 "2002-07-21T06:30:26Z")
I have to say there have only been a couple of movies that I have seen that have truly disturbed me and kept me up all night thinking about them. I can only think of three movies that I have seen that disturbed me enough to keep me thinking about them for hours. The first movie that comes to my mind is **American History X**. This movie was asbolutely gripping and had me up a night or two. It was frighteningly realistic and showed how hatred hurts everyone but is sometimes vital to bringing about change at the same time. The curbing scene in the movie by itself is disturbing enough to make me shudder every time I think about it. The second movie that comes to my mind is **Sleepers**. This movie is about the sexual abuse that four 11-year-old boys suffer while in a juvenile detention center. I think the main reason I found this movie disturbing is the fact that I was about the same age as the boys in the movie when I saw it. I found it hard not to picture myself in the boys’ situation. The third movie that comes to my mind is **Existenz**. This is a really trippy movie starring Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh. When did the Game start in the movie? By the time the movie is over your not even sure the Game ever ended in the movie. Watch this movie and you’ll know what I’m talking about. So what movies have you guys seen that really disturbed you? ---
**Author:** ![sirtonyh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@sirtonyh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sirtonyh)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/2 "2002-07-21T07:26:41Z")
In fairly recent memory; **Se7en** scrared the bejeezus out of me. **The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover** is very provocative and quite disturbing (especially the ending). **Titus** is similiarly disturbing I also found thought provoking, and by extension quite disturbing were **A Clockwork Orange** and **Minority Report** , both very bleak visions of a not too wonderful future (at least from a civil liberties perspective) But top of my list of disturbing movies is possibly **Texas Chainsaw Massacre** because I had a lot of difficulty with the constant screaming. It completely did my head in. Also **Salo** and **Baise Moi** because they are both seriously fucked up movies ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/3 "2002-07-21T07:34:10Z")
**A Boy and his Dog** when I was … 10 or so. The ending where they ate the girl and complained that she was hairy … _shudder__Twitch, twitch_ I had never even considered cannibalism before. Beside she was soo cute and I had quite a crush on her. **A Clockwork Orange** however didn’t bother me at the same age. **The Meaning of Life** and **Raiders of the Lost Ark** did what with exploding people and melting faces. Nightmares I tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/4 "2002-07-21T08:20:52Z")
**Se7en** and **American History X** have already been mentioned. Those movies disturbed me quite a bit. So did **Boyz N the Hood**. The clown in **Poltergeist** disturbed me when I was a kid. It still disturbs me. The most recent movie to disturb me was **Frailty**. ---
**Author:** ![G.Nome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c89c15/32.png) [@G.Nome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.Nome)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/5 "2002-07-21T09:54:52Z")
Close Encounters of the Third Kind was on television again recently. I loved it in the seventies but something about the ending seems disturbing to me now after September 11, 2001. (I’m going to beone of the first to put 2001. In one and half months everyone will have to do it). Ok, since September 11, 2001 there have been millions of words written on the WTC attacks and some of them have been for the purpose of trying to understand Moslems and their points of views. Essentially, they see America as too dominant a player on the world stage. They see Americans as self-centred and arrogant. They must have seen the last 30 minutes of Close Encounters. Only Americans were chosen to go with the aliens. Only they were good enough. There were no other contenders. It’s a bit worrying. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/6 "2002-07-21T10:05:38Z")
For Close Encounters I thought people from all over the world were contacted and invited but the US military stopped them with the scare. But even then some made it through but they were all stopped on the site and choppered out. The US military had chosen several military officers to go but the aliens only took the people the invited that made it to the site and that was Dreyfus. ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/7 "2002-07-21T10:39:48Z")
Movies that have disturbed me so much that I saw them once and **Never Want to see Them Again** , though they are all good films (at least, if the fact that they affected me deeply is any indication). _SPOILERS_ _The Rapture_ - A good film in its way… so good that the part where the main character kills her kids was far too believeable. Bothered me a great deal. _Jude_ - starring my favorite actress, Kate Winslet… a pretty good adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s _Jude the Obscure_. Again, though, the scene in which Jude’s children are killed is terribly disturbing to me. That sort of thing is what gives me nightmares. _Rosemary’s Baby_ - Sensing a pattern here? One of the most well-made “horror” films ever, but its premise is chilling. _Dancer in the Dark_ - An excellent film, and Bjork is wonderful in it, but its unbearably sad. I was in a piss-poor mood for at least a day after watching it, and even now listening to the soundtrack puts me straight into a funk. ---
**Author:** ![Crepitus\_Fremitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@Crepitus\_Fremitus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crepitus_Fremitus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/8 "2002-07-21T11:05:27Z")
**Ghost** –I was working graveyard shift in a hospital at the time and my job took me wandering through the dark deserted hallways at odd off hours. That, and–Demi Moore always give me the willies. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/9 "2002-07-21T13:42:30Z")
**Eraserhead** : If you haven’t seen it, do so. If you have seen it, where can I get therapy? Bizarre beyond belief. ---
**Author:** ![Crepitus\_Fremitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@Crepitus\_Fremitus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crepitus_Fremitus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/10 "2002-07-21T13:55:19Z")
Another one: **Kids**. Gave me a new kindred feeling for Grampa Simpson when he said “I don’t like the looks of them teenagers over there.” ---
**Author:** ![Francesca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@Francesca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francesca)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/11 "2002-07-21T14:12:25Z")
A film set in a boy’s borstal called **Scum** is one of the few films I’ve ever seen that genuinely shocked and disturbed me. **Shallow Grave** really frightened me. I watched it alone at night and I was terrified to go to bed afterwards. I also found **Pi** disturbing but in an interesting way. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/12 "2002-07-21T14:22:11Z")
8mm… ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/13 "2002-07-21T14:45:36Z")
I was disturbed by **Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory** , but who wasn’t? In adulthood, one that disturbed me was **Natural Born Killers**. For some unexplainable reason, I identified with Robert Downey Jr.'s character. If I watched it again, it probably wouldn’t have such an effect on me. **Raise the Red Lantern** and **Farewell, My Concubine** also left me feeling pretty hollowed out afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/14 "2002-07-21T14:52:45Z")
**Fight Club.** The idea of a completely nihilist organization committing acts of sabotage aimed at utterly destroying our civilization and putting **nothing** in its place. That’s Nechayevism, and that’s just plain evil. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/15 "2002-07-21T15:03:47Z")
Midnight Express. ---
**Author:** ![quarx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/50afbb/32.png) [@quarx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quarx)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/16 "2002-07-21T15:24:59Z")
**The Devils** , **Gothic** and pretty much anything else directed by Ken Russell ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/17 "2002-07-21T16:19:29Z")
Trainspotting. I will never do drugs. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/18 "2002-07-21T16:33:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Estilicon \* > \*\*Trainspotting. I will never do drugs. \*\* A mere stroll through the park on a Sunday afternoon compared to _Requiem for a Dream_, the most disturbing film of all time! ---
**Author:** ![Wearia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Wearia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wearia)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/19 "2002-07-21T16:36:00Z")
8mm I agree. I haven’t seen many of these other ones though. Existenz was like watching one of my dreams. It was surreal in that way but it didn’t disturb me. ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066/20 "2002-07-21T17:06:55Z")
_Memento_ I thought long and hard about this question. Movies that scared me didn’t necessarily disturb me. Movies that made my skin crawl, again, didn’t necessarily disturb me. _Memento_ did. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-really-disturbed-you/120066.md?page=2)