The most disturbing film ever made is?

[Chris Kewley]

As far as doc's go Chickenhawk really disturbed me, not just because of the creeps in the film but also because at times it's hard to tell what side of the fence the director is on

[47lab]

THE ACT OF KILLING ..

Documentry about the genocieds in Indonesia in the 1960's....

The death squad killers were never brought to justice (or even blamed) as the govt is basically the same now as it was then.....

A DOC EVERYONE needs to see....but I feel the doc would have been FAR better if edited tighter as it loses focus every now and again (I I saw directors cut 2 1/2 hours...I think the theater version is 2 hours)...Also needed more tougher interview style...but I guess the filmakers were too scared already (many credits are just listed ANONYMOUS for this reason)

I totally concur. I was glued to the screen during the duration of this film. I know the term "banality of evil" has entered the English lexicon far removed from Arendt's original intent but that's what crossed my mind while watching this riveting portrayal of man's inhumanity to his fellow human being. Or perhaps Adorno's oft quoted phrase "Very evil people cannot really be imagined dying" is more apropos here. I'm lamenting the fact that I missed it when it played at the NuArt a couple months ago but I believe it's going to be screened at The Crest in a couple weeks, so I'm going to make an earnest effort to see this on the big screen if possible. I'll be picking up the blu ray once it's put out by Drafthouse as well.

[Richard--W]

The documentary HEARTS AND MINDS shook me up when I first saw it in the 1970s.

[sukebanboy]

THE ACT OF KILLING ..

Documentry about the genocieds in Indonesia in the 1960's....

The death squad killers were never brought to justice (or even blamed) as the govt is basically the same now as it was then.....

A DOC EVERYONE needs to see....but I feel the doc would have been FAR better if edited tighter as it loses focus every now and again (I I saw directors cut 2 1/2 hours...I think the theater version is 2 hours)...Also needed more tougher interview style...but I guess the filmakers were too scared already (many credits are just listed ANONYMOUS for this reason)

[Apronikoff]

The most disturbing film I've ever seen was something shown as part of a trial I was an observer at. So I suppose that doesn't count...


But like others have said I find suggestion to be way more disturbing than the gory bits (not that I don't enjoy those -- they just come across as fantasy.) One that has absolutely no violence/gore or really even so much as a raised voice that managed to be immensely disturbing to me was Conspiracy. For those that haven't seen it -- the film recreates the meeting at which the Nazis decided to being the implementation of the Final Solution using actual transcripts. What really got to me on that one was the whole "banality of evil" aspect -- people sitting around a table having a calm rational discussion about death camps as though they were talking about what kind of lightbulb to use.

[sukebanboy]

HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER was disturbing as hell to me the first time I watched it.....The realness of the characters, thier attitude and the violence....great movie...

[Andrew Monroe]

For me it's SNOWTOWN (I think it's called THE SNOWTOWN MURDERS in the States). I genuinely wish I had not watched it. It is an excellent film though.

I have the dvd here, must get to it very soon but your comments have me approaching it with some trepidation. I have to be in a certain frame of mind to watch unpleasant stuff otherwise it hangs around in my head too long.

Thought of another, THE VANISHING aka SPOORLOOS (not the god awful remake). Not graphic in the slightest but supremely unsettling (at least for me). The fate it suggests for certain characters is actually far more disturbing than a lot of graphic gore.

[Ashbee]

For me it's SNOWTOWN (I think it's called THE SNOWTOWN MURDERS in the States). I genuinely wish I had not watched it. It is an excellent film though.

[Newt Cox]

An amazing film...that I will never watch again. So many of the scenes come back to me over and over again, and it's just so sad and ugly. I can't even imagine how tragic what they DIDN'T show, was.

And the film is majorly toned down from the book. The book was the first novel in years that got to me so much I had to put it down a few times and not start reading it again for a few days. What makes it so brutal is it is based on a real story. And reading up on the real story it seems Ketchum toned it down a bunch for the novel.

Jack Ketchum's The Lost is also a pretty brutal film. The final 10 minutes are some of the most intense,crazy stuff I have seen in a film in years.

Jesus Camp. Seeing an entire generation being brainwashed (and subsequently becoming the next generation of judges, attorneys, politicians, police officers, etc) is very disturbing.

Sadly the area I live in is full of people like the ones in Jesus Camp. That one kid did have an amazing mullet.

[Mark Tolch]

The Girl Next Door messed me up like no other film has.

An amazing film...that I will never watch again. So many of the scenes come back to me over and over again, and it's just so sad and ugly. I can't even imagine how tragic what they DIDN'T show, was.

[Johan Iversen]

The two mondo films "Addio Ultimo Uomo" and "Africa Dolce e Selvaggia", directed by Alfredo & Angelo Castiglioni.
They contain some very disturbing scenes of African tribal rites and traditions.

[Alex K.]

Jesus Camp. Seeing an entire generation being brainwashed (and subsequently becoming the next generation of judges, attorneys, politicians, police officers, etc) is very disturbing.

[Toyboy]

Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, I find graphic films to be less disturbing than those that rely on the power of suggestion.

That's the way it is for me, usually, and I think it's pretty common for people to bothered by the idea of something before, or in place of ever seeing the act.

Broken record time - the movie that's probably caused me the most emotional discomfort was Lars Von Trier's BREAKING THE WAVES, specifically the final bit...(apologies if I don't get the details right on this one as I haven't seen this movie in 16 years)



***SPOILERS***

Emily Watson's character believes that by prostituting herself to a ship full of men God will bring her injured husband out of his coma. We see her being brought onto this ship and down to the lower berth where a group of scuzzy, evil looking men (led by Udo Kier) await. We never see what transpires, just the looks on the men's faces as she enters the chamber. Later we see her back in the village, clearly having been brutalized by these goons. She goes to the hospital expecting to find the husband conscious and in good health but his condition hasn't changed.

We then see her back on a dinghy, on her way to the same ship and we know she's going to die. These pieces of shit are going to rape and murder her and she's going to passively allow it to happen and the fucked up thing is that the husband is healed after that.



Fuck. That scene killed me when I saw it and I will never watch that film again. Fuck that shit.

[Richard--W]

...The stuff that disturbs me these days is the emotional stuff and stuff about relationships. POSSESSION disturbs me. CRIMES OF PASSION disturbs me. The verbal fights in both those movies between spouses, the frustration and anger rings true to me in a way that's unnerving. Love both of them.

Then you might find Mike Nichols' CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971) disturbing, too. Ingmar Bergman's films from the 1960s are lacerating in their emotional upheavals and metaphysical rumblings. But you come out of a Bergman film richer than when you went in.

Blowing up the Enterprise in WRATH OF KHAN (1982) upset me. They did it because it was the only way to get Leonard Nimoy back. That spoiled the Star Trek films for me, forever. It meant the wrong people were in control, and that they didn't care what they did to the franchise. From now on all the films would play up the possibility of blowing up the ship and murdering the favorite characters, as if they couldn't think of anything else to do. I would rather they simply left the character out and done a completely different thing. I'd rather they told Nimoy to fuck off than blow up the Enterprise.

I find the gender war waged on James Bond in the Daniel Craig films deeply unsettling. And delusional. It signifies a rejection of the character, of the fantasy, of its roots, of the male role. A lot of people don't see it, but that's because they don't want to. That bothers me, too.

For violence, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is disturbing. The impact it had in England is unprecedented.

[Paul L]

Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, I find graphic films to be less disturbing than those that rely on the power of suggestion.

THE PLAGUE DOGS really funks with my head. I find that one almost impossible to watch, despite it being an animated picture about talking animals.

Two others that haven't been mentioned. Gary Oldman's superb NIL BY MOUTH. That's an unsettling film. Tim Roth's THE WAR ZONE is really disturbing too, imo. Both feature Ray Winstone. Mike Leigh's NAKED must get a mention too.

Elem Klimov's COME & SEE has to be near the top of my list too. Plus THREADS, although I've only seen it twice - once in the 1980s and again about 10 years ago.

THE NINTH CONFIGURATION aka TWINKLE, TWINKLE KILLER KANE has always made me feel uneasy after watching it. I find it more disturbing than THE EXORCIST.

Agreed with this. I'm a big fan of THE NINTH CONFIGURATION. It's an excellent film.

Also Shinya Tsukamoto's KOTOKO is pretty disturbing as well. I can imagine it will really unnerve parents of infants in particular. The real or imagined scene of infanticide near the end has go down as one of the most graphic in cinematic history. It makes the bashing of the baby against the wall in CALIGULA seem tame.

Definitely. I'd also add that COMBAT SHOCK and ERASERHEAD have become deeply disturbing for me, for similar reasons, since I became a parent.

The stuff that disturbs me these days is the emotional stuff and stuff about relationships. POSSESSION disturbs me. CRIMES OF PASSION disturbs me. The verbal fights in both those movies between spouses, the frustration and anger rings true to me in a way that's unnerving. Love both of them.

I'd agree with this too, Scott. Also, having been raised in a home where my father regularly beat my mother during bouts of drunken mania - and some of my earliest memories being of those traumatic scenes - I find sequences of domestic violence deeply unsettling. (There's that sequence in Doug Liman's wretched MR AND MRS SMITH in which Pitt and Jolie slug it out in their home, and I remember seeing the film at the cinema and feeling really troubled in a shot where - if I remember correctly - Pitt is in a medium shot as, offscreen, he boots Jolie's character who is lying on the floor. Whoever thought that sequence was 'funny' was so far off the fucking mark it's unbelievable.)

I remember seeing Tsukamoto's BULLET BALLET at the Dublin Film Festival in 1999. That one really got to me, but I don't think it would have the same effect on a home viewing - thus I've never revisited. I also remember seeing SEUL CONTRE TOUS at around the same time, and that one also upset me - particularly the sequence in which the Butcher beats his pregnant wife.