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There are some films that really leave you with that sinking feeling.  You just can't stop thinking about them, even days after you've watched them.  So... what is the most disturbing film you've ever seen?  Here are just a few ideas to get you started:

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989)

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Nekromantik (1987)

Night and Fog (1955)

Happiness (1998)

Ichi the Killer (2002)

Dr. Lamb (1992)

Pink Flamingos (1972)

Eraserhead (1977)

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

The Angel Guts series (1978-1994)

Begotten (1991)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

The Guinea Pig series (1985-1991)

Singapore Sling (1990)

Vase de Noces (1974)

Men Behind the Sun (1988)

The Devils (1971)

The Untold Story (1993)

In a Glass Cage (1987)

The August Underground series (2001-2007)

Scrapbook (2000)

Caligula (1979)

In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Chaos (2005)

Vulgar (2000)

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Murder-Set-Pieces (2005)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

Poison (1991)

Cannibal Ferox (1981)

The Faces of Death series (1978-1996)

Mondo Cane (1962)

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)

Combat Shock (1986)

SS Hell Camp (1977)

Forced Entry (1973)

Ken Park (2002)

Gestapo's Last Orgy (1977)

Bully (2001)

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Snuff (1976)

The above list is just a few possible choices to help get you started.  You don't have to pick from the above list.

Again, what is the most disturbing film you've ever seen?

In no particular order:

* Nekromantik

* Funny Games (the original . . . I haven't seen the remake yet)

* Audition

Any movie in which cruel people do not get any comeuppance or, in fact, get rewarded for what they do.

The first two Ilsa movies (SS & Harem Keeper)
also Bitter Moon.

Disturbing films fall into two categories: those that set out simply to shock and disturb, and succeed, and those that use disturbing imagery and themes to some other artistic effect, so that I feel disturbed, but not dirty.  I tend to hate movies in the first category and love movies in the second.

I've listed the following disturbing movies in order, from my least favorite to my most favorite.

SALO: Pure literal sadism, with no purpose other than to shock.  Passolini pulled a fast one on the arthouse crowd with this one, who sometimes defend it as "poetic."

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS: My first foray into modern torture porn.  Stylish but unpleasant, stupid, pointless.

TWO THOUSAND MANIACS:  The strange thing is that I absolutely love BLOOD FEAST, which I found to be campy and fun.  This one seemed to side more with the victimizers than the victims to me, which makes it disturbing rather than fun.

PINK FLAMINGOES:  I was too jaded by the time I saw this to be really disturbed anymore.  I just thought it was the equivalent of watching a sideshow geek bite the head off a chicken: you can't turn away from watching it, but afterwards you feel bad about yourself for wanting to see it.  

FEMALE TROUBLE:  I think even though there is less geekery in this one (no talking rectums or coprophagia), I found it more disturbing, and also more effective and surreal.  I end up with mixed feelings about it.  

MEET THE FEEBLES:  I absolutely loathed this when I first saw it.  On a second pass I found it more bearable and reacted better to some of the humor (although it's not funny enough overall to excuse some of the cruelty), but it still stinks of evil to me.

AUDITION:  The ending is highly disturbing, but because it evolved naturally and sort of inevitably out of the plot and the characters, I really thought it worked and was horrifying rather than gratuitous.  

REPULSION:  I just watched this for the first time last night and was impressed.  Not disturbing like a few of the others on the list--there's no gore or shock scenes--but psychologically it's very disturbing and it creates an incredibly tense and uneasy feeling throughout.

ERASERHEAD:  I can't think of a better expression of the logic of a nightmare on film.  Like REPULSION, I like it because it manages to be very psychologically disturbing without resorting to cheap gross-out tricks.

Most disturbing (and most hated) for me was SALO.

That's a mighty long list, Metropolisforever...  :lookingup:  Interesting topic, though. 

HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK disturbed someone?  (Other than having spent money on a ticket or to rent the thing?)  Here is a posting from a while back of my opinion of that stupid garbage:
http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,114234.0.html  (http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,114234.0.html)  

I have to give LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT lowest marks for being "most disturbing."  I've seen gorier, more violent, sleazier, but, that was the first film that I personally found very upsetting.  I still loathe it and won't look at it.  Ranking just above it, as slightly less upsetting, would be I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. 

CANNIBAL FEROX is simply a dumb gross-out and not so disturbing. 

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is derivative, contrived, indulgent trash.  Disturbing, yes, but not in any good way. 

REPULSION is a great example of disturbing cinema that is not gratuitous. 

PINK FLAMINGOS is kind of more shock than disturb...?  Well, I guess some could find it disturbing (I thought it was foul - and funny.)

I don't find CALIGULA particularly disturbing as perhaps discomfiting; BULLY did not disturb me very much, but I think it's an effective bit of cinema.  NIGHT AND FOG is disturbing not as cinema, but as document.  HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is never gratuitous, but no doubt disturbing.  AUDITION is an amazing and deeply disturbing film. 

Ichi the Killer was kinda twisted and messed up to watch at 4am after an all night movie-marathon when you're 15.

That probably takes my vote for #1 I've seen, but Saving Private Ryan at times is hard to watch during certain scenes (the stabbing of the heart slowly scene especially).

Some more to add:

Straw Dogs (1971): Sam Peckinpah's foray and descent into the true potential ugliness within humanity.

Nightmare Alley (1947): the ultimate case of fate spitting you back in the face, of what goes around comes around. Is it too nasty here perhaps? (Actually this has become one of my all-time film faves)

Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1968): Vincent Price in perhaps his greatest and most challenging performance as Matthew Hopkins, a thoroughly detestable leech of a man assigned the task of trying and executing witches. Another one that shows humanity at its very worst.

Hmmmm . . . .  JEEPERS CREEPERS did disturb me a bit, I must admit.  Not just creeped me out the way a good horror movie is supposed to, but actually was disturbing on a deeper level.  When I found out on this forum about the director's pedophile past, that made me understand why.

Both BULLY and HAVOC bothered me a lot, too - for similar reasons:  neither movie has a single admirable character in the entire cast.  I teach teenagers, and to see them either refuse all knowledge and wisdom, in the first case, or simply absorb it and reject it utterly in the other, was very, very depressing.  That being said, Anne Hathaway is still the hottest female in film right now. :teddyr:

PATHOLOGY was a genuinely disturbing film too - you can see my thread on it from earlier this week.

I have to say the trash Trilogy (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and Desperate Living) are some of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. The worst in in one of them (Not pink flamingos), Divine is getting boinked on a mattress in an alley buy an old drunk, and you can see a skid mark on his underwear that covers about a full square foot. The reason I notice it is this is FORCE FED to the viewer. NASTY. . .

Gummo!

Hmmm... have you ever seen Ken Park (2002)?

No.  Do I want to?

Films that I would consider to be good but disturbing would include:

Tideland. I love most of Terry Gilliam's work, and this is a very well done movie. It left me numb and disturbed for several days after watching it, however, as I processed the situations presented.

Lord of the Flies (1963). For some reason, I find this to be one of the most disturbing novels I have ever read, and the film captures the mood of the novel nicely. I think it is because it is depraved, but in a totally believable way. I can see people acting the way the kids do in the movie.

As for flicks that I wouldn't consider to be particularly good movies but that left me feeling disturbed, I would definitely agree with Rev. Powell about Meet the Feebles. I loved Dead Alive and wanted to like this movie, but it just left me feeling like I needed to wash my soul with lye soap. I tried watching it again, but it left me with the same feeling.

Would have to say Happiness.

RE: CALIGULA

Having seen trailers for RE-PENETRATOR and DAWNA OF THE DEAD I can say, in all honesty, those who find this movie disturbing for it's "pornographic content" have lived very sheltered lives in relation to exposure to cinema.  Guccione's Caligula, for all it's faults, which are LEGION, is not even as squick worthy as it's Joe D'Amato knock-off, CALIGULA: THE UNTOLD STORY, both of which are tame by comparisson to modern day porn.


Definitely one of the more bizarre Helen Mirren flicks I've ever seen.  (And I have the Imperial Edition of Caligula!)


I thought the CGI blood was just silly.


It's John Waters "disturbing" goes without saying.   :teddyr:


I guess you could rank that right up there with ED GEIN or DEXTER.


I've got two of those on DVD and still haven't watched them all the way through.


Disturbing in that "how arrogant egocentric producers can ruin a movie" way.


What, Ilsa disturbing?

Don't you think having meal worms stand in for maggots was friggin hilarious.   :wink:


Over the top.  Crazy.  Insane.  Nuts.  Disturbing.  You name it, it's got it.  Probably space herpes too.


I've only seen a cut bootleg of this so I'll take your word for it.


BLIND BEAST

Very squicky.

WORMS

Or whatever that movie about people eating worms was called.  Very stupid movie.

DEE SNIDER'S STRANGELAND

I find this one more pointless and unnecessary than disturbing, but Snider's character looks freakish in this, so I guess it qualifies.  Barely.

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS

Same as above.  This was a totally irrelevent piece of cliched cinematic garbage that had neither point nor purpose.  What I find disturbing is that producer/director ego trip wastes of celluloid like this and the above got made.

THE NEW BARBARIANS (AKA Warriors of the Wasteland)

Z-grade Italian Mad Max rip-off.  What makes this movie disturbing is 1) The foes, called Templers, are a ravening band of homosexuals who want to see mankind wiped out for all time.  2) The hero, in a WTF scene, gets ritualistically a$$ raped.  It's a very strange PA flick.

Obviously, you haven't seen the uncut version of Caligula: The Untold Story.

The uncut version features a wealth of hardcore footage, including a graphic scene involving a horse.

I wouldn't say that would be disturbing (to me at least). Depending on the movie it could be very meaningful and makes a point(The Great Silence) or either senseless predictable stupid shock value(The Sidehackers).

I don't know why but for some reason,NATURAL BORN KILLERS stuck in my head for a day or so after I saw it.

Ken Russels THE DEVILS disturbed me because the same thing that movie is about,goes on today.I did not expect Oliver Reeds character to end up being the least evil screwed up person in the film.

The end of THE WICKER MAN(original)is disturbing.

One that has not been mentioned in this thread, but I am going to be posting the review of within minutes, is "Thriller: A Cruel Picture."

It certainly belongs among these.  It starts out mean, and just gets worse.

Layer Of The White Worm

Was this the porno version of LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM?

Sorry, I coudn't resist.  :tongueout:

ahahahah....good one :thumbup:

*LAIR

Many people also consider Emanuelle in America (1977) to be an incredibly disturbing sleaze movie - complete with castrations, rape, bestiality, and graphic combination of sex and violence.

you could just as easily be describing any very mainstream french movie

I've never seen it, but I understand LAS VEGAS BLOODBATH (1989) is supposed to be quite disgusting as well as completely inept. I would like to see the scene where somebody gives the hero (?) the finger so he shoots the guy's middle finger off.

Featuring The Ladies of B.L.O.W. (Beautiful Ladies of Wrestling).

Here's the review from Something Awful:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/movie-reviews/las-vegas-blood.php (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/movie-reviews/las-vegas-blood.php)
At the end of the review there's a link so you can listen to the theme song.

(http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/morrisawilliams/lv_finger.jpg)

Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. Enough said.

Oldboy really well made, it really sucks you in and the it gets more and more disturbing as the plot unfolds, highly reccomended.

Visitor Q saw a couple other Miike's on the list, this one is kind of a taboo fest. Its wierd and gross and overall pretty disturbing. I think he made a list of every taboo he could think of and then threw it into the movie, and then made it a comedy.

Meet the Feebles is distrubing to me especially since Jackson is one of my favorite directors, I feel like I should love this movie but I just don't really want to watch it ever again.

I'd say from a young age it was "Wicker Man", "Hellraiser" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", in more recent years it was "Jacob's Ladder" which I thought was really visceral and thought provoking.

When it comes to newer films, my girlfriend showed me "Hard Candy", which was about a young girl setting a trap for a paedophile she meets online - really screwed up and unsettling.

Jans Rautenbach's Jannie Totsiens [Johnny Farewell] (1970) is the most disturbing film I have ever seen. That said, it is also a very funny film in parts but it deals with the ravages of mental illness so it is very, very disturbing.  :buggedout:

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Allegedly autobiographical in tone, this was South Africa’s first film in the avant-garde genre, one of its’ very few horror films and also its’ first black comedy. It is now known to be an allegory about the South African situation in the 1970’s – showing said situation and the country’s inhabitants in the mileu of a home for the insane whose inmates’ lives are flipped by the arrival of a catatonic, mute mathematics professor, the “angel of discord”, as he is referred to by one of the loonies.

Among this merry little band, we find a jilted bride (Hermien Dommisse) whose wedding portrait depicts her holding the hand of a faceless man, a knife wielding nymphomaniac with Bible thumping parents (Katinka Heyns), an ex Ossewabrandwag soldier with an uncanny resemblance to John Vorster (Don Leonard), a judge who went mad after his daughter’s killer was let off scot free (Jacques Loots) and a psychotic woman (Jill Kirkland) who continously writes unsent letters to her dead daughter.

The seemingly mad and mother fixated Jannie Pienaar (supposedly based both on director Jans Rautenbach’s treatment by the critics, some of the more sensitive sections of the South African community after the release of Katrina and Rautenbach’s experiences as a clinical psychologist) finds himself both restored to life because of two major factors: a love triangle which involves him and two of the inmates and the horrific finale when, on the suicide of one of those inmates, Jannie is condemned to death by hanging.

One would have to go very far back or far forward into the future of the South African film industry’s history to find a film as horrific, comic (yes, it is very funny in parts) and perfect as this, with brooding photography (courtesy David Dunn~ Yarker and Koos Roets) an eerie credits puppet show in which the spectre of death intrudes and is frightened away, haunting music by Sam Sklair and oppressive, claustrophobic set and art design. Starring Cobus Rossouw, Jill Kirkland, Hermien Dommisse, Phillip Swanepoel, Katinka Heyns, Don Leonard, Lourens Schultz, Patrick Mynhardt, Betty Botha, Sandra Kotze, George Pearce and Jacques Loots.

Not mainstream, but once in college I went to a frat party that was showing 8mm porn movies.  I can still remember them all, as none of them were "vanilla", but involved animals and acts that I can't even type about here.  I suspect I will take some of those images with me to the grave . . .

As far as mainstream goes, Clockwork Orange still does it for me, as much for the imagery as the mixed morals it displays.  Eraserhead bothered me too, but lacks the staying-power of Clockwork.

peter johnson/denny nausea

Not in the horror genre ( maybe it should be).  Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream

A tale about the extremes of addiction and the terrible places it can take you.  The part at the end with Jennifer Connelly and Keith David really knocked me cold.

Gaspar Noé's film Irréversible (2002) has been mentioned in this thread, but his earlier film, I Stand Alone (1998), is often considered to be far more disturbing.  Has anyone seen this one?

Yeah.  It's not disturbing, just boring.  Go to coldfusionvideo.com and read NShumate's review of it.

Jess Franco's 1980 film The Devil Hunter is often considered to be among the sickest achievements of the Italian "cannibal" film boom.  In the most notorious scene, "the Devil" demonstrates "eating p***y" in a grossly excessive, literal manner.

Yes, it's exactly what you think it is.

...but, actually, most of Jess Franco's films are pretty extreme... even by low-budget-Italian-cannibal-shock-porno-exploitation standards.

I have seen many, many films that are a little disturbing.  But I will have to say the most disturbing one I can think of is the remake of "Hill Have Eyes".  The rape scene in that move just made my stomach go south.

I am not sure what it was about that movie, but it just made me go, yuck. 

Later,

John

I found the original disturbing, not shocking or scary but just plain disturbing, I dont think I'll even try the remake.

re: Joe D'Amato

It is rather difficult to acquire his genre movies, fully uncut.  Even when they did get a release most B&M stores didn't stock them.  I know the Caligula VHS was cut and overscanned in FS, not even a proper pan & scan.  Not sure about his latter day films, which were all pornos.  Speaking of which I believe he did a second porno version of Caligula.  Haven't really heard much about that one.


If that's the movie where Harvey Keitel plays the titular role and pulls over a car with two "teens" in it and then, well, the less said about that scene the better.

Very squicky flick.

Yep, that's the one.  I still really like this movie despite it's disturbing and overblown nature.  It's actually a deeply religious film about the ability to forgive the absolute worst sinners among us.

I also thought it was a great film, but... let's say most of the stuff it depicts wouldn't be so disturbing if it wasn't for the realistic approach Ferrara takes. We're used to watch all kind of sick stuff as far as it doesn't look too real, so we don't have to identify with the victims. Many of the films named on this thread belong to that cathegory. But Ferrara plays a different game, he seems determined to make the audience re-examine their reaction towards strong material, and he doesn't pull his punches.

Oops!  Did I say Joe D'Amato?  I meant to say Jess Franco.

I was confusing them.

Silly me. :tongueout:

Many will argue that those "shocker" films are too stupid to be truly disturbing.  This may be true for some people, but many others will find the grotesque imagery to be very disturbing, no matter how stupid the film may be.

However, some films are so campy and stupid that they become laughable (Blood Feast, anyone?)

There's always been something disturbing to me about The Wizard of Oz.

Can't believe I forgot about this one...

"The girl next door" (2007) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830558/)

Not the film starring Elisha Cuthbert, but a dramatization of a real murder of a teenage girl who was tortured and abused for days in a basement. There are not, strictly speaking, any horror elements in it, but the whole thing verges on the unwatchable. It's an excellent film, by the way.

I went to Youtube to look for a clip of this film and I found a animation film.   Is it animated??

No, Jess Franco's film is not animated.

I think what you saw on YouTube was probably a clip from an anime called Devil Hunter Yohko.

Philosophy of a Knife (2008) is considered by many to be an extremely disturbing, nightmarish film, despite its extreme running time of 249 minutes.

While the above film shocks with its extreme length, the short films Broken (1992), Aftermath (1994), and Cutting Moments (1997) are considered by many to be among the most disturbing short films.

Kichiku (1999) is another oft-cited disturbing film, as well as Schramm (1993).

Well, there's good disturbing, and there's bad disturbing.  I have top choices for both categories.

"Good disturbing" would have to be Jacob's Ladder.

"Bad disturbing" would have to be The Last House On The Left.

The All Night Long trilogy is another example of "extreme" Japanese cinema, considered by many to be extremely disturbing.

I'm a little late to this thread, but I don't believe it's been mentioned yet. The Butterfly Effect. Children get molested, a baby gets blown up, a dog in a sack gets torched. I can watch a lot of things, but I can't stand mistreatment of children or animals. Just an ugly, ugly movie.

The new Rambo flick leans alot toward the disturbing zone. I didn't think it was going to be as brutal and gory, even though I love that type of thing - especially when it looks real. People get cut it half by machine gun fire, people get their guts ripped apart, set on fire, bones stick out and a village gets attacked, where one child is held down then shot and another has it's head stamped on!  :smile:

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Nekromantik 1&2

Schramm

The Burning Moon

The Guinea Pig series (1985-1991)

Men Behind the Sun

Cannibal Holocaust

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

Forced Entry (1973)

Naked Blood

Black Sun:The Nanking Massacre

Philosophy Of A Knife

Captured For Sex 2

The New York Ripper

Irreversible

The Girl Next Door

There was an Indian/Bollywood film that I saw a few years ago that was about the Sri Lankan civil war and featured a scene with a suicide bombing. It was painfully built up with a character shiftily sneaking around behind a military patrol that the main characters were standing next to. There was a horrible inevitability about the ensuing well-staged panic and chaos.

I just saw a snippet (hehe) of one of the more infamous scenes in Cutting Moments and all I can say is WOW. Knocked me on my ass. Yes, it was gross, but it was also gutwrenchingly sad. I do however remember reading a brief little plot sysnopsis about it years ago, but I cannot remember where from. If anyone would let me know where I can get a copy of this, please let me know.

Philosophy of Knife is on Netflix Instant Watch, split into two parts.