Oh God, where do I start? I don't lose sleep over films like A Serbian Film and The Human Centipede, because they are trying to freak me out, the atrocities depicted on screen are presented as terrible things to scare and disturb the viewer. The most disturbing films for me are those that present sexual violence and brutal exploitation in such a way as to promote it as a positive end in itself. They are worse because they reflect more negatively upon they world in which I live: it reminds me there is a market people out there who actually get off on this shit.
One example would be Emanuelle in America (1977), Joe D'Amato's unofficial rip-off/spin-off series from the French Emmanuelle softcore sex dramas (note the two "M"s vs. just one). D'Amato took a very different approach to the originals, throwing in a lot of Italian-style violence and 70s hardcore insert material to spice up the product. Most of it was sleazy but harmless fun, but this entry in the series took things way, way, way too far. Emanuelle goes to a swingers retreat and stumbles upon a couple "enjoying" themselves in front of an cine projector playing a real snuff film. Now this isn't your shakycam 8mm-style footage with tasteful cutaways to Nick Cage flinching at the nasty parts, this is full on brutal porno with forced fellatio, brandings, boiling oil poured down a syphon into a bound woman's throat, etc. It's intercut with the couple making out and shots of Emanuelle getting turned on by the experience, and it's shot like porno with lingering, leering close-ups, clearly designed as a sadistic turn-on as opposed to a shock scene. Other scenes include a REAL Animal Farm-style bestiality sequence and Emanuelle learning to enjoy being raped by the producer of the snuff films while watching a woman being murdered in the next room through a one-way mirror. Ultimately, no one really seems to care about the victims and at the end Emanuelle just sort of shrugs her shoulders and chalks it all up to experience. Bear in mind, this wasn't some seedy shot-on-video August Underground-type dealy that no one ever saw, but a shot-on-film movie with a good budget, globe-trotting locations and a theatrical release. Man, the 70s were fucked up.
EDIT: It turns out the woman used in the "snuff" scene had no idea how brutal the sequence was going to be. D'Amato kept it hush-hush until she was actually tied up and couldn't fight back so he would get a more "genuine" reaction, then set a bunch of heavies on her with a loose set of directions and an instruction to refrain from actually killing her (very nice of him, huh?). She suffered so much physical and emotional trauma that she successfully sued the producers and D'Amato narrowly avoided prison.
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Originally Posted by EvilNed
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