I’ll have to second ‘Closet Land.’ It’s not a ‘shock’ movie, just makes you squirm in your seat from about the first ten minutes on.
Dee Snider’s ‘Strangeland.’ It has pretty much the standard ‘girl stalked by crazy guy’ plot, but Snider definetly added his own dimension to it…
I noticed that Dogzilla mentioned ‘American Psycho.’ I haven’t read the book, but I didn’t find the movie very disturbing, just staggeringly violent. Is the movie dead-on to the book, or is the book a genuinely disturbing read?
‘Terror at the Opera.’ I don’t have any idea who stars in it,just that the director is Dario Argento. I have rented this twice, and for some reason or another never had time to finish it
‘Extreme Measures.’ This movie wasn’t exactly scary, but the thought of just lying there…
Khroustaliov, My Car! (Russian film about the Stalinist Era)
Definitely I Stand Alone.
I’m also personally revolted by the entire ouvre of Lars von Trier. The films look good, but they’re manipulative and the message is consistently revolting.
Disturbing in a good way: Lost Highway and Eraserhead - I could not get images from these movies out of my head for weeks after seeing them. Not to mention most of you know me by the name Henry because of Eraserhead.
Disturbing in a bad way: Happiness. Probably the film I’ve hated the most. It was less a critique of society than a wallowing in all that’s disgusting and subhuman. It’s so bad, I think I’m going to have to watch it again just to confirm that It’s worthy of the amount of hatred I have for it. (Yes, I know that’s perverse, but I’m a film buff, and try to give the benefit of the doubt to every film).
I agree with Alessan on Being John Malkovitch. I love that movie to death, but the first time I saw it, I stared at the screen in rapt attention while feeling pretty squirmy and uncomfortable with what I was seeing at the same time. At the end, I just sat there for a moment thinking. “Huh. Wow. That was something else entirely.”
1984 and Natural Born Killers would be my picks. Maybe Threads, too, another British nuke film. For whatever reason, I got nothing out of Seven or Silence of the Lambs, although my wife was bothered by both. I haven’t seen some of the top picks here, so I’ll have to check them out.
The last film that I can recall that actually made me feel dirty was 8mm. I watch a lot of terrible, terrible movies, but I walked out of that one covered in scum.
Interesting side note the title killer in American Psycho is the same guy who played the adorable ragamuffing in Empire of the Sun.
*The Baby of Macon * was one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen.
Sadly, it was masterfullu crafted and wonderfully made but two scenes just left you feeling repulsed and physically sick. I hear they’ve taken the length out of one of the scenes in question on the video version (not that I’ll ever watch to find out) but the content at that point is such that it would still cause shuddering (though the length of it combined with the ambiguity was what actually truly made it so shocking).
This might sound odd, but I urge you NOT to see this flick.
Exactly my thoughts when I read the through this thread. There was not enough hot water nor soap to make me feel clean for several days after watching that celluloid creepiness.
On the other hand, when people ask me what the strangest film I ever saw was, I tell them about Tetsuo: the Iron Man. This 1989 Japanese film is about a guy that becomes infected from a piece of metal, and mutates into an infective metal man with weird sexual fantasies. There is a battle between himself and another metal man. A woman mutates into a metal woman. This page here has an excellent description of the film. I think I’ve thought about this film more than any one I’ve seen.
*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Five months, two weeks, five days, 5 minutes and 46 seconds.
6880 cigarettes not smoked, saving $860.02.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 2 days, 21 hours, 20 minutes.
*“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. (Amen, brother!)
I’ll nominate the movie Threads, a British film about a town after it gets hit with a nuclear bomb, very graphic, and it turned my stomach, something that doesn’t happen often.
The only movie I’ve ever had to walk out of was the Cell. I think that part of it had to do with the fact that it was my first day of college and I was in emotional high gear, though. But I still have no desire to see it. Very disturbing, at least what I saw… and I’m told it got worse.
I agree with many of the above films but I also have to add Boys Don’t Cry. That movie made me want to simultaneously go out and kick the shit out of people and crawl up into a ball in a dark corner somewhere. Ick.
I try to avoid disturbing movies, but Coppola’s version of Dracula made me feel like that. Partly because it did such violence to the book, partly because of its nasty sexuality (women really get off on being preyed upon), partly because of its even nastier humor, and a whole lot because of its infatuation with the villain and all his gory works, and corresponding contempt for the good guys. Bleah.