Which film or TV has disturbed you the most?

I've been watching the second season of Twin Peaks for the first time after seeing the first season and Fire Walk with Me many years ago. I'm half way through and finding it much better than I was lead to believe. At the very least, it's gotten me sufficiently hyped for the upcoming revival. Anyway, the depiction of Maddy's murder was quite disturbing and very well done. Much of the scene was shot wide which might've turned comical if it wasn't for the way sound was handled. The decision to really sit in the scene was also ballsy for any show, let alone a network show. Even today, most shows would shy away from portraying such material so vividly.

All this got me thinking about the most haunting movies that's really stuck with me. The one that made me sick to my stomach was Strange Circus by Sion Sono followed by Takashi Miike's Visitor Q. The willingness for those films to make the distasteful not the conclusion or the punchline but the jumping off point and exploring the boundaries beyond the borders allows them to find some piece of humanity where it shouldn't exist. It's quite powerful how some images stick with you for years and years, never being able to shake it off.

Lars von Trier's Antichrist. Movie fucked me up for a bit.

Definitely election coverage. Scarred for life.

As a young child, I watched Gremlins and was deeply shaken. Since then, I've avoided stuff that creeps me out too badly.

That being said, the episode of Luther where the guy licks the ladies face at the beginning before kidnapping her was pretty unnerving.

Also just started Black Mirror. I can't see that show getting any lighter, that fist episode was incredible, and totally horrifying.

Just remembered I lost a little sleep a few Halloweens back when I watched 3 of the Paranormal Activity movies back to back, but I think that was just overexposure causing my dreams to be saturated with that stuff. Doesn't make my skin crawl thinking about those movies now. Looking back, not the best move for a kid with anxiety...

Films: Safe (1995) and Happiness (1998)

Edit: Gaspar Noe films, too.

Capturing the Friedmans, made me sick to the pit of my stomach.

I really don't gravitate towards disturbing stuff, but I think End of Evangelion probably messed me up a little bit when I was 15. That movie's mix of pretentious nonsense with nightmare-fuel imagery is seared into my brain for all of the wrong reasons.

I saw Lars Von Trier's Melancholia with a friend. We both were exhausted and didn't talk as we walked out of the theatre.

Hannibal the TV show for whatever reason really disturbed me. I think that's kind of the point of it, but the imagery and intense music just makes me feel gross and uneasy. Good show, but just not for me.

Blame! the manga is pretty disturbing, but pretty cool at the same time. If you're into unique manga art and like bio-mechanical creepy things check it out.

That being said, I could not for the life of me watch H.R. Gigers documentary on Netflix. Something about it just really put me off.

The Russian movie "Cargo 200" from 2007 was an really disturbing adaption of Faulker's "Sanctuary". It's a thriller set in the Soviet Union during the 1984 Afghanistan War and is just pitch black at every turn, with some really unsettling and cynical black humor. I think that and Lilja 4-Ever are two only movies that have made me feel physically ill.

I suppose the part from Time Out's review quoted on the Wikipedia page sums it up pretty well: "Whether this superbly-acted, finely-directed, vision of hell is intended as a despairing state-of-the-nation address or a shocking spirital wake-up call is unclear; what is certain, it's certainly provides this year's grizzliest cinematic ghost-ride.".

I wasn't disturbed per se, but I was definitely in a bad place when I finished watching A clockwork orange. Oh yeah, I saw Mars Attack when I was like 3 or 4 and it scarred me for years. I watched it a few years ago, and while it's very cheesy and dumb, I still hate it.

The Exorcist when I was 13-14 did a number on me. That was the first time I walked away from a movie feeling scared. (The next day I was fine though. This was just how I felt going to bed after the fact)

I'm trying to think of what else. A lot of the really, really, REALLY messed up movies I haven't seen or avoided because I don't want to see a movie where the centerpiece is "X".

The only other thing that comes to mind is I sometimes have weird reactions to violence, so when that happens I will feel physically not so great or I end up stopping the movie and coming back later.

Hmm. The end of The Town really stuck with me as one of the only times I've felt depicted violence came close to looking real. The scene in The Lovely Bones when you see what really happened (particularly seeing the bloody sack thrown in the safe) fucked with me for a while, and also the thought of what was in the box in Se7en.

I suppose it's a lot of violence stuff that stays with me. Stuff like A Serbian Film or even Ichi the Killer are just whatever though. Ya they've obviously got lots fucked up stuff in them, but they're so gratuitous and out-there I just don't fuckin care.

Also if we're including video games, in The Walking Dead season one what happens to Carly reaaaaally messed me up. There one second, gone the next. The Maiden Astraea boss fight from Demon's Souls as well was incredible, and what happens to your mother in Dragon Age 2 was horrifying. Then there's a particular scene in a park in Mafia 2.

I guess it's mostly stuff where there's an unjustified and unexpected and/or grisly death of someone we've come to know that tends to get to me. Episode 1 of The Wolf Among Us had quite a bit of that. Then there's Game of Thrones which has a whoooole bunch of that and then some, fucking Viper.

@clagnaught: Same for me, The Exorcist. After I watched it, I was so petrified I had to put the VHS tape on the back deck for the night. Seemed like the best course of action at the time.

The Salam's Lot mini series did a number on me.

When I was a kid I saw It (1990) with one of my older cousins and it freaked me out. In recent times Bone Tomahawk traumatised me really good, I've noticed that since seeing it I have a significantly lower bar for on-screen gore.

There's a sequence in the original Funny Games (and probably the remake? I think it's basically a shot for shot recreation?) where something awful happens and it just sits and stays in that moment of raw grief for a really long time. It wasn't necessarily traumatic to watch, but it's a really interesting moment in the way in which it is unrelenting and really gives you time to get into the character's heads.

Speaking of heads, the first time I saw The Toxic Avenger yeeears ago, there's a bit where I fairly young child's head is run over by a car with a Troma-appropriate ridiculously gory visual, and that got to me and made me feel a bit weird for a decent while. Also makes me think of a similar bit of upsetting head-squashing gore in Deadman.

Another that comes to mind is The Skin I Live In. The moment where the story all came together and I understood what had happened disturbed me.

Takashi Miike's Audition has some really twisted visuals, that movie is super fascinating.

Oh here's one from left field. There's an episode from the early 90s Batman animated series where Batgirl is pushed off a building to her death. They don't pull any punches with this scene and it's still kind of surprising just how grim it is in the context of that show.

I've seen it so many times now that I don't really think of it in this context anymore, but gotta mention the effectiveness of Oldboy on first viewing.

Yeah there were some scenes that are still scared in my memory. Poor Willem Dafoe. (then again he seems to keep doing von triar trainwrecks so he must enjoy them)

A couple of scenes from Takashi Miike's "Ichii the Killer" and "Audition" also stuck with me.

Also "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" for whatever reason, I did watch that when I was quite young though.

Black Mirror. I saw one episode, and I just can't watch it. I worry it would affect my mental health too much. Not joking.

You don't know disturbing/fascinating until you watch Pascal Laugier's "Martyrs." It's a masterpiece.

Human Centipede 2 because it was such a complete waste of time garbage movie. Until that point I had thought every movie deserved a chance and was worth viewing. But now, I just don't know anymore. In that way, it has disturbed me the most.

I'm not really disturbed by things meant to be completely disturbing anymore. Anything that plays with my emotions and makes me question my morality disturbs me. So something like David Lynch's Blue Velvet or recently the movie Elle, in which the directors use our comfort zone to put us out of our comfort zone. These are movies in which I question whether or not I actually should be ashamed for enjoying them and that disturbs me.

It was an asian movie from like the late 80s/early 90s. I think the name was Guinea Pig. Wow...

Irreversible was pretty disturbing.

A Serbian Film.... sorry to all who looked this up

Requiem for a Dream.

It's not a bad movie, far from it. But I never want to watch it again.

A bad early nineties body horror movie called Society. What I remember the most is a guy getting punched in the balls and literally is turned inside out.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and Cannibal Holocaust. Italian exploitation films are quite disturbing sometimes, but these two are fucked up.

The "Home" episode of The X-Files messed me up for a little while.

I have a healthy suspension of disbelief that helps me like silly or bad movies way more than I should but makes intense movies way more impactful than they probably would otherwise be. Wolf Creek and Human Centipede come to mind. I think if I watched Human Centipede again I would go along with it for laughs but I was not in a cheery mood after Wolf Creek whereas most of the other torture porn movies didn't have a whole lot of effect on me.

I saw Alien Abduction: Incident at Lake County on TV around when it came out. Also factor in that this found footage film came out a year before The Blair Witch Project, and I think I saw it somewhere in the age range of 10-12. I almost completely forgot about it, but Patrick brought it up in one of his articles about found footage or something. I wonder if it holds up were I to watch it again. I suspect the small amount of special effects might not hold up.

For real though, I'm gonna say that the movie gave me anxiety about being in an isolated rural area for about a year or two after watching it. The aliens antagonize the characters quite a bit, whereas man, so much of Blair Witch is just undergrads arguing with each other.

I Saw the Devil is dark.

@razzuel: Ugh. I felt numb after watching that fucking movie.

IT (1990) freaked me out as a kid more than anything else. These days it's laughable, but back then it was the only horror movie to give me nightmares.

Funny Games (1997) was really distrubing to me, especially since I had no idea what kind of movie it was going to be, it just happened to be on tv, iirc.

I would say A Serbian Film if I actually watched it. So I'll go with Margot at the Wedding 'cause that shit was pretty weird and not in a fun way.

Probably The Act of Killing, which is an incredible but absolutely horrifying documentary.

@clockworktony: @superdomino: hmm, those are his movie's I connected the least with. Dogville impacted me the most followed by Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark.

@fisk0: sounds interesting, wanna check it out!

@yummytreesap: great movie!

The birthday party scene in Signs ruined my shit when I was a kid. Gotta say it's a pretty (unintentionally) funny scene, going back to it now.

Also, that one episode of Courage that everyone was afraid of as a kid.

More recently, I watched that "top 10 grossest anime deaths" or whatever video Vinny and Austin talked about in a quick look once, that got pretty unpleasant.

I don't think a film has ever 'Disturbed' me at all, but Han Gong-ju made me real sad a bunch. Great film tho.

I've never seen Serbian Film, I never will, and I kind of judge people who do but that film still disturbs me. A friend talked to me about it and that was enough for me to get sick.

My sister and I insisted on seeing Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978. I'm not sure why, maybe it had a good commercial on TV, maybe it just sounded like science fiction and all we knew was Star Wars. Or, maybe it was because nothing else seemed interesting at the theater.

My mom tried to talk us out of it, but we whined so she said fine in frustration. About 30 minutes in both of us wanted to leave, but my mom has spent the money, so she said we HAD to watch it - It was gross. But, here is the real deal; those slimy bodiers dumping out of pods, the old mans face on a dog, and all the other creepy bits NEVER affected me as much as Donald Sutherland at the end of the movie...

She was 12 and I was 9, and i don't think either of us wanted to see another horror movie for another ten years.

Blue Ruin took me for a turn - just very bleak and the main character's droopy Patton Oswalt-ness makes it more disturbing somehow.

Not a movie but the novel version of American Psycho was the most impacted I've ever been by a piece of media. A couple of scenes very much haunted me, as did the overall nihilistic, hopeless tone. The movie is absolutely tame compared to the book.

@monkeyking1969: Ah good choice. There's another very disturbing scene where Sutherland bashes his pod clone to death with a baseball bat.

I watch too much horror to really be disturbed by much, but here's a bit of a guilty secret of mine: The Final Destination series? Leaves me a paranoid mess every time. The movies themselves are dumb fun, but the accidental (not really "accidental", but you know what I mean) and brutal nature of the kills really keeps my head on a swivel for the rest of the day.

Halloween 2 made me afraid of hospitals. Still get kind of creeped out at night. Hobo with a Shotgun was fucking weird. That burned out school bus...

Event Horizon, The Exorcist, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari come to mind. The latter I can't really explain other than to say there was something about the antiquity of the quality of film that made it super creepy.

It might seem tame, but the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I haven't seen it for ages so maybe the effects are laughable now, but I remember it being genuinely horrible. The things they aimed to depict are certainly horrible.

I am still amazed that it happens in a PG film.

My family used to do a movie night many years ago, and I was probably 12 or 13 when my dad got a movie called Skeleton Key for us to watch. The ending of that movie to this very day still disturbs the fuck out of me, and it has honestly given me some sort of irrational fear of old people.

The scene in Casino where

It really made an impact on me because I have a brother who I love very much, and in that scene I immediately could empathize with Joe Pesci's character's pain and anger.

I also saw The Lobster recently.That has some pretty disturbing stuff too, some of it ALSO involving brothers. Funnily enough I saw this movie on a date.

The dog scene in The Thing. No explanation needed