Movies stay with you. Horror flicks scare, rom-coms mold our ideas of love, and dramas tear at our hearts. Filmmakers are aware of the impact that they have on the human psyche and that's what they feed off of.
But it's that select group of films that forever stays with us. The films that disturb us, scare us, or leave us questioning what we know. Even if the content is too much to stomach, it's hard to disagree -- these movies have certainly changed the portrayal of cinematic value, even if their impact was less than tolerable.
10. Audition
In Japanese culture, women are perceived as docile, delicate
creatures who are encouraged to marry and bare sons. Or at least that's
what is usually portrayed in film. But in Takashi Miike's Audition,
this entire image comes to a screeching halt as a disturbed young woman
not only eerily wiggles her way into a widower's family, but also puts
him through one of the most horrific torture scenes in modern cinema.
9. The Human Centipede
It kicks off as a typical horror movie: two girls get lost and end up at
some creepy old guy's house. But this creepy old guy goes beyond the
typical slasher film and instead kidnaps the girls for his intense, raw
and sick experiment -- turning three living, breathing human beings into a
medically correct centipede. While most of the movie is kind of a bore,
the actual 'connecting' of the girls to the lone male victim is
twisted. Imagine having your mouth connected to another person's anus.
Films portraying drug addiction are never easy to enjoy, but in Darren
Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, we see the characters' transitions from
four drug addicted struggling individuals to full blown mental cases as
a result of their 'medicine.' It's difficult to watch but even more
difficult because the actors' stunning performances force you to believe
that they may, actually, be dependent.
7. Taxi Driver
This film may not fall into the 'gore' category, but it certainly comes
into this list for Robert Deniro's disturbing performance alone. As a
Vietnam war veteran who violently lashes out at the perverted streets of
New York City, his rants alone are intense enough to instill fear in
those of us who use the taxi cab system.
6. Martyrs
In the first revenge film to make the list, this foreign flick leaves
little to the imagination. Torture and violence are the kindest words to
describe what happens to the individuals living in this world of sick,
twisted human depravity. It's a wild ride that certainly isn't for the
faint of heart.
5. The Last House on the Left
Another intense revenge movie, Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left has
been done twice- the original in 1972 followed by a recent remake. Both
are equally intense. The act of rape is never one to be taken lightly
and, after watching two innocent, virginal females be tortured by their
devilish attackers, the fact that the parents brutally take revenge on
these sick men is almost a point of vindication.
Kubrick's classic novel adaption of A Clockwork Orange is certainly a
film that sticks with you. From the chilling, unmotivated acts of
murder, rape, and deception to the disturbing correlation between the
film's violence and the otherwise joyful "Singing in the Rain," it's a
truly mind altering film that takes us into the dark depths of the human
mind.
One of the first documentary-style horror flicks, Cannibal Holocaust is a
sick and twisted journey into a film crew's discovery of a
cannibalistic society that not only rapes, tortures and kills each other
for fun, but also pushes the limits by murdering animals, the most
notable of which is a giant turtle. It may not be scary, but the Italian
courts thought the content was so real the director had to go to court
to prove that it was nothing more than 'entertainment.'
2. Salo
When four powerful men -- a bishop, duke, magistrate, and president --
take advantage of a group of kidnapped men and women, as well as a group
of prostitutes, requiring them to participate in some of the most
horrific sequences ever captured on film, it's so brutal it's difficult
to look away. It's truly a film that is not meant for entertainment.
Quite possibly one of the craziest films we've ever had the displeasure
of viewing, A Serbian Film is disturbing on more than one level. Child
pornography, snuff films, rape, murder and extreme violence, this film
is beyond where movies should be taken. The filmmaker truly accomplished
the shock value he was going for, but this is certainly an un-enjoyable
film.
Follow Cultist on Facebook and Twitter @CultistMiami
