Most disturbing film

[COry G]

Audition Is a great film but yes the trailer does make itout to be more exciting than it is. Grotesque is a cool film.

[Danny]

Im the total opposite, after reading that and looking at a couple of clips on youtube this a movie to add to my to-watch list. I get so bored of the same stale routine most movies go through, anything genuinely different or shocking is worth a watch in my opinion. audition is a very good film, but not to watch if you want to see gore or something 'fucked up'. dont get me wrong the final is so out fo nowhere you will probably yell "what in the fuck!" when it happens but the film itself is much more subtle and nuanced than the usual thriller.

[Andy]

Im not a total gore hound although i do enjoy seeing somebody get eviscerated, i like movies that are genuinely outside the box, shocking, trying something different (whether it works or not) or that just make you think.. i tend to dislike the mainstream hollywood direction of movies which feels very tame, stale and repetitive to me which i think is what draws me to alot of asian cinema, low budget video nasties and cult movies. Both audition and a serbian film are on my to-watch list, but for different reasons.

[COry G]

I also love movies that are fresh and different. Which is why I think Insidious is the best horror film in the last 5 or 6 years

[Danny]

Im not a total gore hound although i do enjoy seeing somebody get eviscerated, i like movies that are genuinely outside the box, shocking, trying something different (whether it works or not) or that just make you think.. i tend to dislike the mainstream hollywood direction of movies which feels very tame, stale and repetitive to me which i think is what draws me to alot of asian cinema, low budget video nasties and cult movies. Both audition and a serbian film are on my to-watch list, but for different reasons. Shock and gore are two very different things for me. As a filmmaker myself i see gore as a cop out. a cheap alternative to subtlety and nuance any dumbass with a camera can do instead of an actual artist with a camera can back a scene truly disturbing with something as simple as a smash cut to someone sitting still or something- see things like the shining or the original funny games. Good horror should be either a theme park haunted house ride that aims to shock or something that makes you think and decades later says something about the point in history when it was made. the rest is gore porn made only to repulse and disgust. I know there are people who enjoy that almost to the point of jerking off over it but personally its just padding and filler that makes a film lowbrow life filler to graze on disgusting sights for an hour before going back to watching reality tv or something.

[Tricky]

the rest is gore porn made only to repulse and disgust. I know there are people who enjoy that almost to the point of jerking off over it. Thats the reason I don't like a lot of films like that, I don't mind gore at all when its used effectively, hell I loved Rambo 4 and thats brutal, but I worry about these people who seem to get off on torture/gore porn and how desensitized they seem to be towards the content in these graphic films. And its not just that, they get off on the real life videos shown on websites like Ogrish or Rotten.com which is actually real people being killed or badly injured

[shootemindehead]

I've never agreed with the statement that "gore isn't shocking". When done correctly, it damn well is. It also isn't a "cop out" either. Again, when it's done correctly, it can be a very painstaking exercise that can backfire terribly and needs a good hand on the tiller to come off well. There's no "cop out" involved. However, that said, a lot of cheap horror films tend to use gore as titillation, just as they use sex and nudity for the same purposes. But films like that aren't and should be held up as some sort of example. They haven't got a lot of feathers in their cap, so they are forced to use every trick in the book. But, because of budget limitations, their efforts at a shocking gore effect usually comes off as lame, just like the production, acting, directing, etc. What I dislike more than any attempt at gore, is the awful attempts at "shock" that appear in a lot of horror films. Like the "magic teleporting bad guy" shtick that gets rolled out far too often. The huge axe wielding nutter has managed to creep up on the girl in the knickers and bra in two seconds without making a single sound! Or the "Loud noise when the film goes quiet" malarkey, that anyone who has seen even a few horror films can expect, as it's arrival is usually notified with the silence that precedes it. "Bloody" and "gore" when done correctly can be shocking. Take Quint's death in 'Jaws'. Bloody and terribly shocking...and the shark shows up in the next scene with bits of Quint stuck in his teeth! Or, Rickles death in 'Day of the Dead'. Very gory, very shocking. Or even Auretta Gay's death in 'Zombie Flesh Eaters', where she gets her throat ripped out by a maggot infested corpse, again very shocking. So, both "shock" and "gore" can well done and...er...shocking, if there's a steady hand on the wheel.

[LouCipherr]

the rest is gore porn made only to repulse and disgust. I know there are people who enjoy that almost to the point of jerking off over it but personally its just padding and filler that makes a film lowbrow life filler to graze on disgusting sights for an hour before going back to watching reality tv or something. This is the exact reason i thought the first Saw was good, but the rest of them were completely and utterly worthless. Gore can be shocking, yes, but there's the little thing called "desensitizing" that makes too much of it just look like a bunch of hokey bullshit that is neither shocking nor scary. Used in the right portions, gore kicks ass and really adds intensity of the film. When the entire movie rests on how much gore they can provie (ala the Saw 2 though 312 or whatever one they're up to now - and that's not to say they're the only film that's fallen victim to this) it becomes nothing more than a boredom piece.

[Danny]

This is the exact reason i thought the first Saw was good, but the rest of them were completely and utterly worthless. Gore can be shocking, yes, but there's the little thing called "desensitizing" that makes too much of it just look like a bunch of hokey bullshit that is neither shocking nor scary. Used in the right portions, gore kicks ass and really adds intensity of the film. When the entire movie rests on how much gore they can provie (ala the Saw 2 though 312 or whatever one they're up to now - and that's not to say they're the only film that's fallen victim to this) it becomes nothing more than a boredom piece. and that right there is the point of it. SAW is gory. but its never about the gore. its a mystery about the identity of the killer and how the people got where they are. Gore has its place. but only when its used for connotations of some story progression. If its just pandering "YO BRAH CHECK. THIS. SHIT. OUT how gross is this?" its ,well, literally disgusting. Film is meant to be an artful medium. Gore for the sake of gore is like going into a fine cuisine restaurant and ordering the big mac and fries. If you want lots of flesh and juices go to redtube and save your movie going dollars for someone who worked to tell you a story and had something to say. Not every random douchebag with a film camera and some strawberry syrup who, like, totally has this gnarly idea for this, like, gorady ass gore flick.

[LouCipherr]

and that right there is the point of it. SAW is gory. but its never about the gore. its a mystery about the identity of the killer and how the people got where they are. *nods head in agreement* Yup, that is exactly why the first Saw was good and the rest of them were garbage. At least in the first one, there is a need to find out who the killer is, and a need to figure out why this particular killer is stalking/trapping/kidnapping these people and putting them through hell. That idea, which made the first one interesting and a good watch, was lost once Jigsaw was identified and it was explained why he was doing what he was doing. After that, it became a series of movie about "what cool new torture devices will be in this one?" and "how are they going to torture the people in the next flick??" and "how disgusting can we make this next torture device?" Boring. *yawns* I think the Final Destination movies suffered from this exact same issue. The first one I enjoyed, the rest of them went from "meh" to eye-rolling "oh dear jesus, are you kidding me?" I will say, however, that the highway accident in part 2 was BY FAR the BEST sequence of a highway pile-up I have ever seen put on film, period. Other than that, back to "meh"

[Ragnarr]

Tough OP, but I would have to agree that "Threads" was likely the most disturbing to me. Nothing cheery about radioactive fallout.

[MinionZombie]

You know what was good about Final Destination 3 though? Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She made that flick worthwhile seeing, even if the rest of it was pretty ropey. The fourth one was outright pish, mind ... it became really pointless, because there was no chance of the characters escaping with their lives - so what's the point? Saw was a kick arse horror flick - really chilling and original at the time. Sadly it did become about the violence, and the plots became so ludicrously over-complicated - indeed, like with Final Destination, it become impossible for anyone to survive the traps (or survive all that far beyond 'surviving' Jigsaw's 'lessons') ... so again, there was no point in anything. Redemption was impossible for some characters, while others - who apparently were so clued up on Jigsaw's modus operandi and intentions - blundering through the 'obviously wrong door' (quite literally in Saw 4, IIRC).

[SymphonicX]

Most disturbing films for me aren't at all horror films. Horror is horror...boo...jump...cat in an alleyway...etc...real "horror" for me is caused by the human story, not by the method of death (although we'll get to that later). Gummo, and Kids are two movies that are quite socially horrific. I think Gummo wins out for just plain fucked up-ness. Usually we base disturbance in a film on one or two shocking moments or contexts within a film - such as Saw, Grotesque, I spit on your Grave etc etc etc - these are usually acts of extreme violence portrayed in movies and played out to be as visceral as possible...sometimes these scenes betray the rest of the movie. But for me a real sense of horror comes from the unrelenting coldness of human nature as portrayed in films like Kids- those socially poignant, gritty urban tales based on the reality of poverty and crime....Irreversible is another one - I am truly horrified by what Monica Belucci's character goes through in that film, seeing a guy get his ankles twisted off in Saw just makes me flinch and grit my teeth. The true horror (as I think George Romero realised years ago) isn't the extreme act of torture resulting in gore, but the extreme situations which boil up and ruin lives and result in an extreme act of violence. Horror movies by and large don't deal with this - they can invent a character or monster to inflict willful pain by any means necessary - but its the realistic nature of events portrayed in urban dramas which are far more horrifying and far more poignant.

[Purge]

You know what was good about Final Destination 3 though? Yeah--the end credits.

[Mike70]

Gummo, and Kids are two movies that are quite socially horrific. Kids is a hella fucked up movie. i remember thinking to myself after watching it: "if that is representative of even 25 % of young people today, the future is totally fucked."