Actually, he wins thanks to Napoleons incredible dance moves.
I watched it last year and was underwhelmed. I went into it understanding that the taboo sexuality of 1972 was going to be tame by 2005 standards. It wasn’t that. It was just that the movie was slow moving in that 1970s way (think Taxi Driver), but didn’t really offer much good character development as a payoff for the unhurried pace.
Here are a few notorious movies that, to me at least, have not aged well:
The Last Temptation of Christ
Natural Born Killers
Heavy Metal
Basic Instinct
the entire first wave of “slasher” horror movies (e.g. Friday the 13th)
most of John Waters’ early output, especially his collaborations with Divine
I’ve seen Salo. It’s not as disturbing as I’d feared given its reputation - bad things happen in it yes, but there is a relative restraint in play compared to similar fare. But then again, I’ve seen most of the films mentioned here so I guess I’m pretty seasoned. 
How about In the Realm of the Senses?
Keep in mind that I loathed The Pillow Book.
What about Eraserhead? I’ve always heard it was terribly distrubing. So much so, that I was curious – but not enough to ever seek it out. Worth it?
I haven’t seen The Pillow Book, so I don’t know if In the Realm of the Senses will be your cup of tea.
It’s slow-paced, and far less erotic than a movie aiming at eroticism. However, the whole thing feels natural and uncontrived, without anything that looks like it was added just to be weird, as Peter Greenaway has a tendency to do. The scenes meant to shock are still pretty out there, and as far as I know it’s a relatively accurate portrayal of the actual events.
Verdict: not earth-shattering or gut-wrenching, but definitely not boring or pretentious. Recommended.
Thriller: En Grym Film - I personally found it blood curdling.
Oh.
Yes.
I’m undecided about David Cronenberg’s William S. Burroughs’ NAKED LUNCH or VIDEODROME tho. Still pretty worth it, but not as much as ERASERHEAD.
Yeah, yeah, yeah but WHY?? What’s it about? What’s so disturbing? Will I want to bleach my brain. What?
Um… “notorious” != “cult.”
Maybe I should have been clearer with my intent. Just because something is offbeat, even extremely offbeat, and therefore adored by a small segment of the audience, doesn’t make it notorious.
Cult, but not notorious: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! — Blue Velvet — Forbidden Zone — Army of Darkness — El Topo — Repo Man
Formerly notorious but eventually mainstreamed at least to some degree: Dawn of the Dead — Re-Animator — Texas Chainsaw Massacre — A Clockwork Orange — Peeping Tom — Kids
Still notorious: Bloodsucking Freaks — Forced Entry — Men Behind the Sun — Legend of the Overfiend — Untold Story — Entrails of a Virgin
For the purposes of this thread, I’m mostly interested in the last category: not so much movies that used to have a certain cachet (e.g. Myra Breckenridge) and have become passé, but movies around which the whispers still swirl. Freaks, named by xizor, is an excellent example, not least because it’s more than seventy-five years old and still has an impact. Also worth discussing, I think, is stuff like Fritz the Cat, which today is marginal but whose legend was so pervasive in its time that a whiff of notoriety still lingers. Naked Lunch, I think, doesn’t really qualify; it’s weird, but it’s not, y’know, notorious. I hope the distinction is clear.
Just trying to narrow the intent of my OP. Thanks for the contributions so far, and please continue. 
Showgirls - It’s got tons of sex, tons of nudity, it’s about Vegas nightlife, it stars Gina Gershon, a former teen idol, and yet it has not one redemable attribute. It’s so bad I’m quite convinced it oozes carcinogens off the screen. I mean relentlessly, aggressively, assaultingly bad. Every bad, awful thing you’ve heard about it? It’s utterly true. You just can’t imagine until you see it. With unyieldingly fetid dialogue, like “It must be weird, not having anybody cum on you”, or “I used to love dog chow too”, you simply cannot go right with colostomy bag of a flick.
People often cite Requiem For A Dream as one of the bleakest, most depressing movies they’ve seen. It definitely deserves that rep. It’s the story of how drug addiction destroys four people in different ways.
Dude! :eek: You did not just go there! :eek: :eek: Might as well have mentioned Cat Declawing and Circumcision too, while you’re at it. 
Cervaise- although I agree that Caligula is more boring that can be thought possible given the parameters, it is still worth watching for the “Yes, I have seen it and can tell you it’s bad”. (He leaves the ring on!!!) Everyone really needs to see it for themselves, so you shouldn’t tell them not to bother.
One word: Baby.
Jennifer Grey is in it???
:Shudder:
It is not gory.
It is not sexually explicit.
There are a very few moments that are somewhat disgusting, but in a very non-realistic manner, and nowhere near on a par with much of the rest of this thread.
It is simply very, very disturbing. Especially when viewed alone at 1:30 in the morning.
On Eraserhead, I find it very disturbing but then again, I am a David Lynch fan. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people who find his style to be an automatic turn-off (and I can certainly see why) – and I think these viewers are likely to think Eraserhead is a snoozefest. You kind of have to buy into the emotional language of the film before you would find it disturbing, IMHO.
More details on the disturbing baby:
So there’s this baby, only it looks nothing at all like a human baby. It’s like a lizard/puppet/E.T. looking thing. The baby is obviously sick and distressed (its body is covered in bandages) which is disturbing if you have gotten on board with the idea of it being a baby, because it has a lot of film time. The baby is so alarming to its mother that we see her grow more and more freaked out until she eventually abandons it. At the end of the film, the father takes the initiative to cut off the bandages which releases all of its innards, so then it’s like a baby puddle on the table, and so the father stabs it. The End. There could be some debate on whether the father thought he was helping or hurting it when he started cutting the bandages off.
Picture of the baby here:
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/lynch.html
Interview with David Lynch about the baby, which I now find more disturbing than the actual baby in the film:
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My God! I do not want to see this film, ever. Thanks so much, delphica, scotandrsn and Otto.
The Brown Bunny: Terrible. Vincent Gallo drives around endlessly, you listen to his bad music selection, and then Chloe Sevigny blows him. And really, that’s pretty much it. You watch like 45 minutes of shitty movie so that Gallo can get completely uninspired sloppy head from this unattractive chick. It doesn’t even qualify as acceptable porn.
Donnie Darko: I still don’t get it. I tried, I really did. I was going to watch it again while stoned in the hopes that it would make more sense, but then Iron Chef America came on. Donnie Darko: profound? No. Thought-provoking? No. Entertaining? Not really. Deep? Not remotely. Yeah, the bunny’s name is Frank, hee hee, it’s like an alternate universe but they don’t say that because you’re supposed to figure it out, hee hee. Hurrr.
I’ve seen a lot of formerly notorious movies, apparently, but I’m not as current on the truly notorious.
One director who may qualify: Lars von Trier. Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, The Idiots, Dogville – all of them have reputations as wrenching emotional experiences. I don’t think any of them show any gore or contain imagery that’s hard to look at, but no one disputes that von Trier is a master at button-pushing. Whether or not that’s a good thing, well, I guess it depends on what your buttons do.
Another candidate that still has some punch: Deliverance, or at least the “squeal like a pig” scene.
On another note, did The Blair Witch Project have one of the fastest notorious-to-passe transitions in cinema history?