Yes, that’s another example of what I was trying to get at - someone suffering and/or dying alone, in despair, knowing nothing can save them. I find that sort of thing very hard to watch.
There’s a TV I like to watch called Last Man on Earth. It’s mostly funny but often in a very dark way - it takes place in a world that has been devastated by a virus that killed almost everybody. Like The Stand with less religion and more laughs.
Anyway, there was a plot line that took place over several episodes, a character was trapped in an elevator after power went out, bleeding out from a gunshot wound. And that sounds really dark though it wasn’t really played that way. But the character had to deal with real despair, and I found it hard to watch. I don’t think I’d watch it again.
Came to post something something piano wire Audition, but you beat me to the movie. I saw about 5 minutes of this movie and let’s just say I didn’t suddenly start to become a fan of horror movies after that.
127 hours. When he finally starts cutting, and he hits the tendon, the music does this awesome/terrible effect that’s like the stringed instrument version of nails on a chalkboard. It’s horrific and effective at making you “feel” the moment. I’m getting creeped out just remembering it.
That’s a great one, and definitely a surprisingly disturbing movie. But for me, the highlight in max freakiness was the one killer klown using the chief of police as a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Irreversible. I’d say you know which scene, but as horrific as the first scene is, the 2nd is worse.
Also Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Devil’s Rejects - scenes of sudden horrific violence without soundtrack cues that seem disturbingly real, unlike ‘monster movie’ or other over the top horror.
I also found Funny Games so disturbing, I stopped watching (at a friend’s house, and decided to just bail and head home) before anyone actually died. I could see the writing on the wall. I remember watching an interview later w/ Haneke, the director, talking about how the audience should they choose to watch was complicit in the violence. Made me feel pretty good about leaving.
It’s hard to pick just one but…the boy being taken away in Mystic River. Mystic River itself is a movie that I really don’t intend to see again, but their are a lot of memorable, well acted and gun wrenching scenes in that movie.
Blocking any childhood trauma (boy, those Robocop scenes mentionned here…) and the simply shocking stuff, I was totally distraught by most of the early scenes of I am legend. If I were to arbritrarily pick one, It’d be something that might sound very benign: the one where the supposedly last human is going into sleep in his bathtub, while all hell seem to break loose outside.
Sense of loss is something that resonnates strongly with me, and I don’t think I was ever that much depressed by anything in a movie - would have to go to the documentaries section to find something equivalent. I sat on that movie for days, and the impression it left in me.
There is also a family meal scene in A.I.… Well, all the early movie seems “off” for various reasons. Spielberg sure managed to bring Kubrick’s spirit back in those ones, while showing attachment to the characters in his own way.
Seems I am bound to pick apocalyptic movies!
While I understand Audition being disturbing - or a very weird fetish, I guess, to some -, I found Visitor Q to be quite a lighthearted experience? If I were to describe them, a lot of the scenes might sound gross, but the movie felt really cheering, to me.
One scene that is hard for me to forget is in Enemy. At the end of the movie a man enters a bedroom expecting to see a woman, but encounters a huge spider, which shrinks back into a corner, its legs covering the walls and ceiling. It is one of the most scary, shocking images I’ve seen in a movie.
Yes, that was my initial pick too. Possibly the most disturbing thing I’ve watched in recent times. In spite of this, it made me appreciate the movie a lot more for how effectively and economically it drove its point.
Robocop has already been mentioned several times-- in my case, the sheer savagery of the first ED209 “malfunction” stuck with me over the years like a mini-trauma.
Another one would be the ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs.
I didn’t say Visitor Q was disturbing (although some might find it so), I said it was fucked up. Which I hope we can agree it is. It is also a heartwarming comedy about family togetherness. Kind of.
