What is the most shocking, horrifying (but not necessarily scariest) movie?

Cafe Society
1

Inspired by this thread: “What is the scariest movie?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=312322 Most movies named in that thread achieve their effect through suspense – which you can do without actually showing anything horrible. Link (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091415/), for instance, is all suspense, all the violence happens off-camera (probably because they used real chimpanzees and it is impossible to train a chimp to pretend to rip somebody’s arms off). As Stephen King pointed out in Danse Macabre, suspense is usually more frightening than horror. If you finally open the shadowed door emanating the mysterious noise and see a 10-foot bug, part of you says, “Oh, what a relief! I thought it would be a 20-foot bug!” But he goes on to say, “But if I can’t achieve suspense, I’ll use horor, and if I can’t manage horror I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.”*

Let’s talk about horror. (I won’t speak of the “gross-out” because that could include scatological slapstick from teenage sex comedies.) What movies have included the scenes that really made you shudder? Scenes of excessive violence, pain or disgust that made you go, “Oh, no, no, they did not do that!”? Scenes that invaded your dreams for weeks afterwards or put you off your appetite when you recalled them?

For starters, I think we can rule out the Faces of Death movies. The violence is graphic enough, but just too obviously faked.
*King added a footnote: “Once in grade school, a classmate asked me to imagine sliding down a long, polished banister that suddenly and without warning turns into a razor blade. I was weeks getting over that!”

2

Honestly, The Exorcist (original). I went into it thinking I was going to piss my pants it’d be so freaking scary, but it wasn’t scary - just perverse and gross. The voice of the Devil swearing out from the little girl, the head turning…and, of course, the crucifix.

3

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo a graphic and perverse adaptation of the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom*. Grossest movie evah!

4

Silence of the Lamb, that quiet, dry, insistant voice of anthony Hopkins just insistantly probing into Clarisse’s mind, and the same voice so easily describing such dispicable acts. Makes me shudder all of this time later.

Stephen Kings “The Stand” never saw the movie but the book’s relentless building up of the evil Walking Man, traveling closer and closer.

I have heard about Hitchcock movies but I can’t stand to watch them. He was a master at scaring the crap out of you for long after the movie is over. I have heard my parents friends talk about how long it took them to take a shower after watching Psycho…it caused Janet Leigh to never be able to take a real shower ever again after acting in the movie, how much more frightening to have watched it unfold on the screen.

5

Ahem. The Passion of The Zombies, or whatever the new cheezus movie is called. Didn’t see it, saw clips online. That was enough.

6

Oooh, that reminds of Quills, the semi-biography of de Sade. Between priests dreaming about doing necrophiliatic things and men using their excrement to write on walls, it was very squicky.

7

Hotel Rwanda made me nauseous.

8

In the “Oh no they did not do that” category – Last House on the Left and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I heard both movies were both based on actual events, which makes it even sadder, that people are terrorized so before they die.

9

Kill Bill Vol I when The Bride slashes the orderly’s ankle. The whole scene leading up to that.
Also in the First Scream when Drew Barrybmore’s parents are coming up the walk but she can’t yell for help because crazy killer just cut her throat. It’s not the blood and the gore but her outstreched hand and her mouthing Mommy!. . . Horrific.

10

I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard House of 1,000 Corpses goes beyond previous levels of gore, torture, mutilation, and general uncomfortable scariness. I have no desire to see any of those types of movies, but I know they have their fans.

11

I fast forwarded through most of this movie; good thing it was a free rental.
You’re right; those clips were, well, more than enough. Not scary, but horrifically disturbing and brutal.

12

Freaks.

13

Man Bites Dog. Now whenever I watch a “disturbing” movie, I simply think about the second half of this film and realize that nothing else could be nearly as bad.

14

Eraserhead is pretty creepy and unsettling.

15

The scene in Payback where the bad guys take a hammer to Mel Gibson’s bare toes.

THE SCENE in The Exorcist III where the Gemini Killer gets the nurse in the hospital (the hallway scene).

16

Someone was pulling your leg.

17

I don’t know about Last House on the Left, but if Texas Chain Saw Massacre counts as “based on actual events,” then so do Psycho and Silence of the Lambs: all three were “inspired” by the case of Ed Gein. Yeah, there’s a faint correlation to real life, but hardly docudramas.

18

Not graphic at all, but horrifying: the scene in The Grifters with the oranges:

            BOBO
    Get me a bath towel.

She gets up, hurting, and hurries to the bathroom. Bobo sits
on the sofa, crosses his ankles on the coffee table next to
the supermarket bag. He takes out and lights a cigar. Lilly
comes back with a large white bath towel.

            BOBO (CONT'D)
    You ever hear about the oranges?

            LILLY
    You mean, the insurance frammis?

            BOBO
    Tell me about the oranges, Lilly.

He kicks over the supermarket bag. Oranges roll on the floor.

            BOBO (CONT'D)
    While you put those in the towel.

Lilly’s very scared. She drops to her knees, spreads the
towel, crawls around gathering oranges while she talks.

            LILLY
    You hit a person with the oranges
    in the towel, they get big, awful
    looking bruises, but they don't
    really get hurt, not if you do it
    right. It's for working scams
    against insurance companies.

            BOBO
    And if you do it wrong?

            LILLY
    It can louse up your insides. You
    can get puh, puh, puh...

            BOBO
            (impatient)
    What's that, Lilly?

Lilly pauses, bent over, tightly holding an orange.

            LILLY
    Permanent damage.

            BOBO
    You'll never shit right again.

He gets to his feet, leaving his cigar in an ashtray.

            BOBO (CONT'D)
            (hard, impatient)
    Bring me the towel.

Fumbling slightly, she folds the towel edges together to make
a bag, then stands, brings the towel to Bobo. He makes a
production out of getting his grip on the edges just right.
She stands as limp as she can, just wanting to get through
this. He looks at her without expression, rears back with the
towel, swings it forward, lets it drop open. Oranges roll on
the floor. Lilly stares, wide-eyed, recognizing reprieve.
Bobo tosses the towel behind him onto the sofa, then gestures
contemptuously for her to pick up the oranges again.

TWO SHOT, closer, as Lilly turns, bending toward the oranges,
and Bobo picks up his cigar, then lifts a foot and kicks her
flatfooted, hard, in the back. She sprawls on the floor. He
follows and drops to his knees on her back.

AN ANGLE close on Lilly on the floor, Bobo’s knees grinding
back and forth into her back.

AN ANGLE on Bobo, grimacing as he bears down, pressing his
weight onto her back. He leans forward, left hand bracing
himself on the floor beside her head as he reaches down with
the cigar held in his right hand and presses the ember
against the back of her splayed-out right hand.

ECU, Lilly, clenching her teeth, tears squeezing from her
eyes, simply bearing it.

AN ANGLE on Bobo, catching a bad smell, looking back down
behind himself at Lilly’s body. This is the result he wanted,
but it disgusts him. He straightens up, still kneeling on
her, puts the cigar in his mouth, doesn’t like its taste,
removes it, braces his left hand against her back while he
lifts off her, getting back up onto his feet.

WIDE SHOT, Bobo stepping over her, expression repulsed.

            BOBO (CONT'D)
    Go clean yourself up.
19

I would consider Caligula to be a contender.

20

Good pick, Hoops. I think of when Mr. Blonde tortures the captured police officer in ‘Reservoir Dogs’. For movies based in fact, I’d vote for ‘In Cold Blood’, ‘The Killing Fields’, and ‘Caligula’. ‘Repulsion’ would be another possible candidate.