Films like Creep take the audience into the mind of a sociopath as he worms his way into his victims life, and movies like The Exorcist, Last Tango in Paris, Cannibal holocaust were all controversial movies for their time. But what are some films you’ve seen that you’re curious how they got released. Movies with subject matter so grotesque or troubling that you wondered, what audience it was aimed for? Was it a box office bomb or a low budget indie film?
__________________ "Happiness is a lie. Life is horror. The light is always dying all across the universe. The last star will flicker out someday, when it does, all that remains is shadow. And I will be its king!"'-Amahl Farouk
To this day the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in a film was in a movie called the girl next door (no not the Elisha Curthbert film), wasn't a controversial film at all. Basically through out the film a teenage girl is tortured by her very religous aunt and her sons, that was disturbing enough...BUT then came a part in the film that to this day stops me watching it. The aunt takes a blow torch to the teenage girls vagina, you don't see the damage the blow torch does but you do see it happening.
Stephen King said about the film, "The first authentically shocking American film I've seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer over 20 years ago. If you are easily disturbed, you should not watch this movie. If, on the other hand, you are prepared for a long look into hell, suburban style, The Girl Next Door will not disappoint. This is the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand by Me."
It's hard to find movie content controversial or disturbing after you've seen real Mexican cartel videos of guys being skinned alive and young kids getting their limbs and heads cut off. Or ISIS slow motion videos of people getting shot in the faces with shotguns or burned alive.
Something I simply won't watch, especially violence to do with children.
Still recall way back when I was new and naive to the internet I watched the video of the Soviet soldier having his throat slowly cut and then left to bleed out by the Taliban. I thought it was fake/SFX at first and then realized that shit was real. Wish I could un-see that.
Its so much worse now. The cartels arguably inflict the most sadistic violence. The ones of flayings are insanely disturbing. The ISIS ones have slow motion, 4k multiple angles and high production values so the gore is extremely brutal but almost feels like a movie so even though its real it feels less so than the cartel ones. There's one where they've skinned a guy's face off and his blood covered skull is screaming as they slowly cut his head off with a box cutter. He tries to shield his face but they already chopped his hands off. There's one where they peel all the skin and muscles off a guy's chest and stomach so his bowels start bulging out. He's still alive and moving when they eventually cut his rib cage open and rip his heart out.
Here's a list of the most disturbing/unsettling films I've ever seen, several of which have already been mentioned.
Salo, Irreversible, Antichrist, A Serbian Film, Audition, 12 Years a Slave, Come and See, August Underground series, Cannibal Holocaust, Cutting Moments, Aftermath, Megan is Missing, Happiness, Several movies in the Guinea Pig series - A Flower of Flesh and blood, Devil's Experiment and Mermaid in the Manhole - Martyrs, Freaks, Men Behind the Sun, Man Bites Dog, Visitor Q and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,