Most disturbing movies?

[Monkeyleg]

My wife loves horror movies. Every so often, I'll watch one with her. No matter how gory the movies are, they don't bother me.

But when I watch "The Exorcist," I'm really disturbed by it. One reason is that it's very professionally-produced, which adds to the frightening aspects. But there's something else I can't identify that causes the movie to really unnerve me.

The other movie that really disturbs me is "A Clockwork Orange." It's not a violent movie by today's standards, but it bothers me because the violence is real. When I watch "Goodfellas" or "We Were Soldiers," the violence is remote. I'm not in the mafia, and I'm not in combat. But the potential for the kind of violence portrayed in "A Clockwork Orange" is always a possibility in my life or in the life of people I love.

What movies are especially disturbing to you?

[slzy]

way on back me and my girlfriend went to the drive-in,and saw Night of the Living Dead,ithe one in b+w, it was first run and we knew nothing of it before we saw it. Robert Mitchums Night of the Hunter is a good one too. the original Village of the Damned with George Sanders.

[Unisaw]

Silence of the Lambs is excellent but very disturbing to me.  (Incidentally, Jodie Foster's use of a speedloader to reload her Model 13 is a great detail.)

[Monkeyleg]

Unisaw, I love "Silence of the Lambs." But it doesn't disturb me, perhaps because I know that the chances of me or anyone I know being killed by a serial murderer are extremely remote.

Agreed, though, that Jodie Foster was well-coached on her gun handling in that film. And Anthony Hopkins is brilliant in his role.

[The Rabbi]

The Hunger with David Bowie playing a vampire.  I had to walk out after 45 minutes.  Of course I was half-drunk at the time so maybe that added to it.

[Cosmoline]

"Jacob's Ladder" disturbed me a great deal.  "Se7en" is pretty intense and very widely coppied.  "Blue Velvet," "Eraserhead" and other Lynch films are all disturbing.  Peter Greenaway's films are all pretty weird and disturbing.  I've seen several Australian independent films that are very disturbing, but they're also pretty stupid.  "Sweetie" and "The Last Wave" come to mind.  "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" used to scare me, but now I see it for the rather funny, crudely made film it is.  Likewise, I can't watch "Silence of the Lambs" without laughing at much of it--though in that case I don't think the humor is intentional.  It's one of the most overrated movies of the 90's. 

[Monkeyleg]

I just remembered one reason why "The Exorcist" may bother me so much.

The first time I saw it, I was on LSD.

Talk about a fun time.

[Cosmoline]

Yeah, that would do it 

"Come and See" is HIGHLY disturbing.  I don't like to watch it. 

[slzy]

Natural Born Killers and Something Wicked this Way Comes

[Dannyboy]

Yeah, that would do it 

"Come and See" is HIGHLY disturbing.  I don't like to watch it. 

Sure is.  I bought it a few years ago and have only watched it once. 

[Stand_watie]

Natural Born Killers and Something Wicked this Way Comes

I found "Natural Born Killers" to be very disturbing, but not at first viewing...it was the reflection on it 

a) how likable a pair of mass-murderers could hypothetically be

b) a writer/director deliberately setting out to make mass murderers likable 

That bothered me in retrospect.

[roo_ster]

Yep, the Exorcist was disturbing.

"A Clockwork Orange" is disturbing 'cause it is pretty much occurring around us.

I thought "The Thing" (Kurt Russell version)was bowel-loosening when I saw it at a young age.

"Nat Born Killers" I though way over the top & too campy to be taken seriously as a movie.  The mind that would produce serial-killer camp qualifies as disturbing, though.

The "squeal like a pig" & "you sure do have a purty mouth" scene in "Deliverance" gave me the willies as did the Edward James Olmos flick "American Me."

A couple of movies I have refused to see did their best to sympathetically portray pedophiles.  One is "The Woodsman" with Kevin Bacon and the other is "American Beauty" with Kevin Spacey.  Oh, there is another named "Happiness."  There is a term that ought to apply to those who produce and participate in such, "Not fit for polite society."

[Antibubba]

Alien.

[mtnbkr]

The Ring
The Exorcist

Those are the only two that get to me. 

Chris

[AJ Dual]

"Naked Lunch"

Not disturbing in the "scary" sense, just in the "I feel soiled" sense. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch_%28film%29

[280plus]

The Omen

I LOVE "A Clockwork Orange", I found it more like something to think about as opposed to disturbing.

Willard

[Cosmoline]

b) a writer/director deliberately setting out to make mass murderers likable 

That bothered me in retrospect.

That was the whole point of the movie, but most people missed it. In films such as "Bonnie and Clyde" hollywood has tried to make sociopathic monsters into lovable characters.  "NBK" tweaked this around, and juxtaposed this tradition with graphic violence and sadism.  It's as though someone cast Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow again, but this time showed him blowing the heads off innocent people as that animal Barrow did in real life.  I'm not sure Stone really pulled it off, but I appreciate his efforts.  Plus, the soundtrack from Leonard Cohen is fantastic.

FYI, here's a clip from "Jacob's Ladder" that's been stolen from many times in subsequent films and video games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCZN60mBeaQ

Whoever uploaded it added some more music, I'm not sure why.  But it's still disturbing stuff.

[K Frame]

Marathon Man.

The dentistry scene makes me very sick to my stomach.

[brimic]

I thought "The Thing" (Kurt Russell version)was bowel-loosening when I saw it at a young age.

me too.

I thought "The Dreamcatcher" was really disturbing.

[S. Williamson]

I hate to admit it, but when I saw The Exorcist for the first time, I couldn't help but giggle.  Dunno why... and it wasn't from excessive alcohol consumption (I don't think--Halloween 2003 is pretty hazy).

The Alien trilogy bugged me for the longest time, until I actually sat down and watched all three in a row to try to scare myself.  Instead, they're now in my top 20 favorites because they're sci-fi.

The tiny bits of House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects that I've seen looked interesting to me, and indeed scary, but nothing to be too worried about.

The movie I refuse to see? The Day After.  I did some growing up in Olathe, KS with family in Salina, Kansas City, and Lawrence.  nowadays, just seeing the locations gives me chills. 

[BakerMikeRomeo]

The Alien trilogy bugged me for the longest time, until I actually sat down and watched all three in a row to try to scare myself.  Instead, they're now in my top 20 favorites because they're sci-fi.

I'm 100% with you on that. I was really little when I first saw Alien and Aliens, and they freaked me out. A couple of years later I busted them out to watch, and now Aliens will forever be in my top 5 movies.

~GnSx

[S. Williamson]

P.S. Not to sound like a ninny, but a few things from the Indiana Jones trilogy give me the willies. Melting nazis, dusty half-mummified corpses falling out of walls, another nazi aging 200,000 years ina  matter of seconds... ugh. 

[gunsmith]

Alone one summer eve, I had taken some "magic mushrooms"
and wondered into a mostly empty movie theater in Manhattan
that played old and obscure and art films...
The movie that night?
Night Of The Living Dead

Over 20 years later the memory still disturbs me.

A 1930's film Freaks (one of us, one of us)

I saw a disturbing movie called crash in the mid nineties
about   erotic car crashers, the next day Princess Di died..that was weird.

Blair Witch  Project has to be one of the scariest movies ever.

Exorcist is terrifying because it portrays a modern family without
any beliefs dealing with an ancient demon.

There was a movie that dealt with aliens already being here and infiltrating
our society..."The Arrival" maybe? ...seemed plausible at the time
It had that freak sheen in it, I wasn't as politically aware then or I would not have watched it.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Event Horizon is the only movie that's ever scared me enough that I stopped watching midway through.

The opening scenes of 2001, with the apes and the big black monolith, were definitely disturbing.  Not scary, just disturbing.  Stanley Kubrick was one seriously messed up dude...

[280plus]

How 'bout "The Wizard of Oz"?