Most shocking or disturbing scenes from film

There's a scene in "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can" (1982) where Jill Clayburgh (after several days of Valium withdrawal) has been tied up to a chair after her alcoholic boyfriend (played menacingly by Nichol Williamson) has beaten her up into a bloody pulp. In the scene I find so disturbing, she's concocted a plan to escape their apartment by pretending that she had plans with friends of theirs and that they'll be concerned if they don't show up. He gets them on the phone and she screams for help. I saw this scene at around the age of ten when the movie was playing on television and it gave me nightmares for years.

We actually have a great thread about The Exorcist, but it's old so it wouldn't have come up in a search. Good thread though if anyone is interested.

The scene that gave me nightmares as a kid was when the priest bites it in The Omen, after a lightning rod turns him into a kebab.

The scene that freaked me out and gave me nightmares was that movie with Pedophile Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates, when the fat whale/pig takes off her clothes in the hot tub. Ooooohhhhhie, just imagining that Ring-Ding gorging cuntess naked makes me vomit a little bit.

The rape scene in Irreversible.

The central scene in Irreversible. Ugh.

Jinxies, r6. I was confused why there was a video attached to my post when I hadn't added one!

Also the club scene in Irreversible.

The scene in ALBERT NOBBS (Is that the title of that thing?) when the audience realizes it's not meant to be a comedy.

So I'm told. I never saw it.

Michelle Pfeiffer being eaten alive by cats and her eyes rolling to the back of her head. Getting killed by Christopher Walker, considering his past, is also pretty creepy.

This is the first time I can remember being truly horrified at a movie.

I can't watch the scene in Apocalypse Now when the water buffalo is killed with the machetes. I know it wasn't special effects.

I still can't watch the part in se7en where the sloth guy sits up.

Same thing for poltergeist when the steak crawls across the counter & eats the guys face, WTF

The Exorcist is filled with terribly disturbing scenes.

I am still shocked that the film somehow made it into theaters in 1973.

And couldn't be made today, r14.

The Lake Berryessa stabbing from Zodiac.

Scar face. The chainsaw killing as Tony was hooked to the shower rod in the shifty south beach motel.

The original Tx Chainsaw. When the guy gets hit in the head with the hammer and starts convulsing. Then the steel door slams as he drags him into the room straight out of hell. No words. Just fucked up.

I agree with R13. Se7en. I've only seen about 1/2 the movie, I couldn't watch most, if not all, the deadly sins acted out. Horrific. I sat through The Exorcist easier than Se7en.

I don't know how to link but that part from that movie where the thing happens

What's interesting about Se7en is that you only see the aftermath of the murders, which makes them even more disturbing.

Salo ... pretty much all of it

Second for Salo. Unbelievable movie. Still banned in Australia if I'm right.

Also, in The Piano Teacher when Isabelle Huppert sits on the edge of the bath and slices up her cunt with a razor blade

Haneke in general. I can't think of many specific scenes from Funny Games that were disturbing... perhaps the blood covered TV screen... but the film as a whole disturbs me.

When James Franco cuts of his hand in 127 Hours; I became nauseous and thought I was going to pass out.

Agree re Haneke. The only time I've ever heard an entire, completely full cinema gasp in horror: when the Algerian man slits his own throat in Hidden

Seven: the scene where the panicked sex club guy describes doing something nasty to a woman with a dildo/knife thing. So f****Ed up. Silence of the Lambs: Clarice takes a load in the hallway -- and the movie still won best picture! Neon Demon: the girls push Elle Fanning into the pool and the way she squirms like a doll with broken limbs Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me: um, the whole third act when Laura Palmer gets f***Ed by her dad and killed by him/a demon in Gap jeans. Sleepaway Camp: Angela has a penis!

The scene in "The Walking Dead" where Negan beats Abraham and Glenn to two literal pulps with his bat named Lucille. Glenn pledging he'd "see Maggie again someday" - as his eyeball was LITERALLY hanging out of his skull - *destroyed* me.

Oh wait. That's not a movie...

I saw "The Shining" on cable when I was 9. I *still* have nightmares about my dad stalking me in a frozen maze, and disgusting old women showing off their pussies. (Is it possible this movie is why I'm gay??)

I haven't seen the movie but A Serbian Film is supposed to be one horrific scene after another.

I'm not M, but this scene from Albert Nobbs actually was shocking, mainly because I didn't know Janet Mcteer had such big tatas. The expression on Glenn's face was priceless too.

Many scenes from The Paper Boy but especially the one where Matthew M. Is found beaten to a pulp- his choice. I walked out of the theater. And now I HATE MacBongo.

I've never been able to bring myself to watch the murder of Pauline Parker in [italic]Heavenly Creatures.[/italic]

^ Whoops -- Honora Parker

[quote]And couldn't be made today, [R14].

R15, you don't watch much horror if you think The Exorcist couldn't be made today. Practically every modern horror movie is scarier. I saw the film the first time around 2000 and the only scary thing about it was the hospital scene.

I did read the novel in my teens in the 80s and that did scare the hell out of me. That's why I never wanted to see the movie until I finally did. At that point after seeing zombie horror films, the Omens etc. the movie seemed very mellow and slow. Modern horror films go way deeper in their shocks and scares.

[quote]I haven't seen the movie but A Serbian Film is supposed to be one horrific scene after another.

Yes, the film is disgusting. The whole thing is clearly a metaphor for the Bosnian War, and it certainly goes too far. Then again war is disgusting and apparently the Bosnian War really was terrible with neighbors killing neighbors. In that sense I get the film. Thankfully I've blocked out most of the scenes and really only remember the last shocking scene where it's revealed whom the main character, a washed up porn star with apparently a big dick, is fucking. The film is so effective partly because it shows sex and you sort of get turned on until you realize what you're watching. I honestly don't even remember if the film even showed explicit sex scenes but for some reason I remember the main character having a big dick. Not sure if they showed it. In any case I've thankfully forgotten that one scene apparently has a newborn baby being raped. I just read it from a review. The last scene also involves a child, and that one I do remember.

I've seen many war movies over the years but there's no denying that A Serbian Film is probably the one that truly made me realize how horrible a war can be. And the film isn't even a war film.

R36 I think they show the dick going into someone's eye socket.

The ending of Martyrs.

The most disturbing scene in any movie that I've seen is the scene in Cannibal Holocaust--a really shitty film (that was apparently an inspiration for the Blair Witch Project)-where the actors flip over a giant sea turtle, cut off it's head, rip off its shell and start eating its organs. That turtle was REALLY killed, per the director's orders. Fucking disgusting.

Here it is

The Green Inferno, when they hacked the first guy. All the killings are shocking but I wasn't expecting that kind of gore. And I love horror movies.

The rape scenes in The Accused and the original I Spit On Your Grave.

The end of "Looking For Mr. Goodbar."

The "bite the curb" scene in American History X... I was appalled and refused to watch the scene and turned the film off in protest.. It has to be one of the most disturbing disgusting and graphic violent scenes in all the history of film...

Just about every scene of "The Cook, The Thief, The Wife and Her Lover"

"Try the cock, Albert. It's a delicacy, and you know where it's been."

Second for R41. Used to love horror movies. Now I can't stomach them after that scene from The Green Inferno. From what I've heard, A Serbian film is the worst though.

The rape scene in "Showgirls", the only realistic moment in that thing. Although rape is a recurrent theme in Verhoeven movies, it's interesting that he makes the victim African American.

These movies sound so demented. Glad i havent seen most of them and dont intend to.

Ok, last week's Call the Midwife has a woman who was circumsized and sewn up. They are in an ambulance trying to deliver the baby and the nurse picks up a pair of scissors and .........

It's not the "scariness" R35, it's the fact that Linda Blair was 13 years old when she filmed it.

When Jaws originally ran, audiences almost universally jumped in their seats when the shark is first clearly seen surfacing behind Roy Scheider's back.

Gummo was a disturbing movie

[quote]It's not the "scariness" [R35], it's the fact that Linda Blair was 13 years old when she filmed it.

Are you saying there aren't kids playing bad things in horror movies or tv shows?

Kill List (2011) The last scene the main character fights a masked hunchback and stabs it to death. It turns out to be his wife and the hunch is his son.

Funny Games (2007) The entire film is disturbing but when the killers play eenie meenie miney moe with a shotgun the blast is heard off screen and the camera pans back and you realize they just blew the young son's head off.

The last half of Eraserhead gave me nightmares for years.

Speaking of Lynch... Inland Empire was the first film of his that I saw, and I was way too young and unprepared for it. I still remember this moment terrifying me.

The worst film of all time is the German film "The Angel's Melancholy" where a guy tortures and rapes a woman in a wheelchair in an abandoned building through the hole where her colostomy bag goes. You see the shit coming out of the hole. He fingers the hole, fists it, fucks it. She screams. No one can help her. It goes on for hours.

And then of course there's this scene:

Lynch does cheap jump scares surprisingly often and exceedingly well. Those quick cuts to Bob on Twin Peaks still freak me out.

The scene in "One False Move" where the killer who likes to use a knife is stabbing his tied up victims. The nonchalant way he does it is terrifying.

" A Serbian Film" can be streamed for free at 123movies dot gs. I'm starting it now.

The Silent Partner, a nearly forgotten but excellent thriller with Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer from 1978.

The aquarium scene - horrifying. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

R3 Also in The Omen, the scene where the big glass sheet slides off the back of the pickup truck and slices David Warner's head clean off.

Two words:

Different places!

That actor who recites his dream in the Mulholland Dr. clip is so unforgettable in that scene that I was shocked to see him turn up as a nasty Borscht Belt comedian on "Mad Men."

He's also in Veep.

The scene from 1980's SCANNERS, where the guy's head explodes like an over ripe melon. It was pretty graphic.

Toni Morrison's Beloved, where in the first scene a dog's eyeball pops out of its head, and is dangling from the eye socket.

I just said, this is not for me, and turned it off.

As a kid, I accidentally watched the original Death Wish on cable. Seeing Hope Lange and the actress playing her daughter being beaten and raped really did a number on me.

The beginning of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter when they're loading bodies into ambulances, the cop says "yeah, they're all dead" and then the calvary leaves and it's pitch black and quiet for a second. Very eerie.

Second r43 and "American History X"; that curb-stomp scene is fucking brutal. It's a pretty good film, but thanks to that one scene, I never want to see it again.

"Sunshine" (1999): Ralph Fiennes plays 3 generations from the same Jewish Hungarian family, one of which is an Olympic fencing gold-medalist (based on real-life champion Attila Petschauer) who is later arrested and put in a nazi concentration camp. He is then beaten and tortured to death by being strung up naked in the snow by his wrists as an officer sprays him with a water hose until he's completely encased in ice.

R67,

His haid blowed up real good!

Why do people watch this stuff?

[quote] Practically every modern horror movie is scarier.

Absolutely ridiculous. R35 thinks over-the-top CGI effects and blood and guts is scarier than real psychological horror. And no, you don't have to be a Catholic to find the Exorcist frightening or disturbing... you really think there is nothing frightening about a mother watching her 12 y/o daughter slowly turn in a raving, homicidal lunatic?

The rape scene in Showgirls.

The chainsaw scene in Scarface.

The dumbell v tooth extraction from Dogtooth

All the scenes in the 80s horror movies. They gave me nightmares.

I was an impressionable 16 y/o when I saw that chainsaw scene from Scarface, and it screwed me up for years.

The video at OP is a fairly accurate depiction of the USA right now.

The transformation scene from an 80's horror movie called The Beast Within.

"Loewenstein.... Loewenstein..."

The final beating in "The Burning Bed". Harrowing for a film, nevermind a tv movie.

Agree with the mouth on the street curb moment in American History X.

The first murder in Suspiria, with the girl getting so severely slashed that the final stab wound directly stabs her heart.

The ear cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Lucille Ball singing in Mame.

Joan Crawford's close-ups in Harriet Craig

The murder that really fucks me up in "Suspiria" is the barbed wire scene. ::shiver::

That has to be one of the worst ways to die. My god.

Doesn't Bette Davis drown a child in a movie? I saw that a kid and it was disturbing.

R87, it was called "The Nanny" and Davis didn't drown the child, exactly. We learn that the girl had slipped and hit her head in the bathtub. Davis unwittingly draws a bath for her not knowing she's in the tub. When she sees her drowned, she has a breakdown and imagines she's alive and begins bathing her.

The Seasoning House (jfc the broken pelvis/rape scene) and The Kill List (the ending) are particularly gruesome. Baskin. Did we really need that extra bucket of blood and shit? Apparently we did. Sheitan? Omg what-the-everloving-fuck? Irreversible, I Stand Alone, and Martyrs worm their way under your skin and will likely never leave you. (Note: when the director apologizes to audiences for the film you're about to watch, you should probably listen even if it is purely a PR move). However, as others have mentioned, nothing quite compares to trying to sit through Salo or A Serbian Film. Truly nauseating, and not enough bleach can scrub your brain clean. I always walk away from these films asking myself wtf did I just watch and why in gods name did I do it? Clearly, I have a problem.

OP, this scene is also insane and disturbing from the Exorcist.

This movie gave me nightmares for YEARS! Serves me right for watching it behind my parent's back!!

And speaking of the above scene, the best acting in that scene is by Kitty Winn (Sharon).. an underrated talent.

ANY abuse/mistreatment of any animals i am OUT....i can't even what the ASPCA commercials but for movies?

every scene in Riding the Bus with my Sister with Rosie O no you didn't.

Caligula fisting the groom.

The scene at r90 at :28 always makes me laugh when her body stops whipping back and forth, because she looks so stupid. I just can't take it seriously.

I must have seen a cut version of the film because I've never seen the fisting scene in Caligula.

You can find the uncut version online

Did they just show the one murder in Cruising?

The poodle pie scene from Theater of Blood. It made me physically ill to watch, and I won't eat pot pies to this day because of it.

I forgot how AWFUL "Showgirls" is.

The fire extinguisher scene in Irreversible both sickened me and made me angry. The rape scene is horrific but in the other scene apparently gay men in the club are happy to jack off as they watch when someone is to be raped and carry on as someone is brutally murdered.

Having worked as the doorman in a gay sex club I can guarantee that at the slightest hint of actual violence they would be running out of there en masse.

I objected to us being portrayed as desperate, mindless, sex crazed immoral zombies. You know, as opposed to the heterosexuals, who are violent and hateful while still having feelings and inner lives.

Then again, there is an intense misanthropy in some French films that I've always wondered about. Witness Basie-Moi and Seule Contre Tous.

Was recently bothered by the chopping and pulling apart while alive of the bloke in 'Bone Tomahawk'.

I used to watch horror all the time when I was younger. My partner still loves them. BuT anything that even comes close to torture porn and I'm out. Shit like that is going on for real right now and I don't want to celebrate it at all.

I won't eat poodles to this day because of that scene. Everyone knows you grill them, not bake.

R11, what made that scene in Cruising demented on top of being disturbing was this:

I remember, from seeing Vito Russo's live presentation of his book The Celluloid Closet, that director William Friedkin edited in two very brief - as in SO brief, they're subliminal - shots of anal sex. No one notices this when watching the movie, and I certainly didn't pick up on it when I first saw the movie on cable. And no, I'm not kidding because you can see one of the inserts in the link you provided. If you stop it around the 1:29 mark, you'll see what I mean.

Phantasm - the scene where the funeral home caretaker discovers the boy, Mike, has broken into Morningside. The alien-like security device, silver orb, stabs the caretaker in his forehead, then begins to power drill deeply into his cranium, while ejecting massive amounts of blood, leaving the caretaker spasming on the ground in his final death throes.

In "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea", the young schoolboys catch and dissect a house cat. It's a terrible scene but went relatively unnoticed because of the sex scenes between Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles.

The build-up of this scene sent me over the edge.

People were squirming in the theatre.

The one that scared me the most was the final scene in "Carrie."

The scene in the film "Causalities of War" where the Vietnamese girl is gang raped and then stabbed to death by a battalion of U.S. soldiers led by Sean Penn.

There is a scene in "Bad Dreams" where a character slams his hand down on a huge hunting knife. Yikes

Here. A collection of Exorcist scenes.

"Last Exit to Brooklyn" -- the gang-rape/beating death of the hooker Tralala (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The entire film, though, is beyond-bleak.

I can't believe the video at OP is rated ages "13+."

If ever a clip should be rated ages 17 and up..

"The Exorcist"s "fuck me!" scene in multiple languages:

R102 I thought the anal shown in that Cruising clip was obviously edited into the film. I've heard of the movie, but haven't seen it. That moment was noticeable and felt very intentional. Was Friedkin likening the act of anal penetration to that of a knife? Equating the fears of both? Again, haven't seen the film so not sure what he was going for there.

Linda Blair's character is seen peeing and violently masturbating with a large crucifix. In today's pedophilia-aware culture, no a 13 year old girl wouldn't be allowed simulate that on screen.

And look how messed up she was for years after that, hanging out with Linda Lovelace and Keith Moon when she was still under aged.

Martyrs, as a whole, is one of the strangest and most haunting film experiences I've ever had. That film will stay with me forever. It's quite good, too. Full of crazy twists. The American remake was truly awful and seemed to forget what made the first film as great as it was.

There's another French film called Inside (which is also getting an American remake) that stuck with me, too. Very creepy, intense, gory, and bleak.

For me the most frightening scenes in the Exorcist were the medical tests they gave Regan. I was a kid then and they thought I had a brain tumor and I went through those very excruciating tests plus more. It was really hard seeing them on screen. They didn't have MRIs in those days. Also any scene in any film or TV show where an animal is hurt.

R114, what makes you think those things were simulated?

You don't know nearly as much as you think you do, fatso.

[quote]The first murder in Suspiria, with the girl getting so severely slashed that the final stab wound directly stabs her heart.

As a kid, I was horrified by it, but it's so schlocky and fake that it's really just high-concept camp. To me the [italic]Zodiac[/italic] clip upthread is much more disturbing.

R112 lmao

The scene in "Carrie" where the horrible girls are pelting the terrified, naked Carrie with tampons and pads and shrieking "plug it up!" The blood dumping scene is nothing compared to that.

"Audition" (1999) from Japan. A horror film with one of the most disturbing torture scenes which lasts about 10 minutes. The worst possible things imagined, done slowly and in close up.

When Ed Harris slaps Jessica Lange around in Sweet Dreams and her kids see.

When Laurence Fishburn slaps Angela Bassett around in What's Love Got To Do With It. Especially that scene during the pool party.

When Shelley Winters pops up as a leper in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

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Thanks, R88 for explaining it. It still sounds disturbing! I saw part of it when I was at home sick from elementary school!

There were some pretty graphic torture scenes in Black Robe that we're difficult to watch. Same with A Man Called Horse.

When I was a kid the scene from Poltergeist where the researcher guy's reflection tears its face off really freaked me out.

The scenes in New York Ripper where the killer shoves a broken bottle into a hooker's pussy and in another scene he ties up the lead detectives girlfriend...also a hooker and slowly slices through her nipple in close up before slicing her open as she screams.

The final scene in Looking for Mr. Goodbar with the strobe light. Gave me nightmares when I saw that movie.

The final scenes in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest": Billy Bibbet slashing his throat, McMurphy beaten into unconsciousness, the lobotomized McMurphy being brought to his bed, Chief euthanizing the formerly hell raising, exuberant man that McMurphy who has been rendered a mental cripple. When I saw that movie in the theater, after the ending the audience walked out in utter silence.

G crying in the shower in The Big Chill while topless

M trying to be hip in "Ricki and the Flash."

Every scene in visitor Q

The scene in Ghost Story where the main character's twin brother finds a naked woman in his bed and when she turns over she's a rotting corpse and the next shot is of the guy flying out of the window of his apartment building naked.

It truly is a testament to The Exorcist that it is nearly 50 years old, and it still dominates the conversation about what is frightening and disturbing in cinema.

Any scene in Mr. Wrong

The snuff film scene from 52 PICKUP where the baddies tie Kelly Preston up and shoot her five times in the chest is horrifying. The sheer terror on her face as her character realizes she's going to die and then pleads for her life is tough to watch. It's her best acting.

Since MARTYRS, A SERBIAN FILM and even VISITOR Q have been mentioned (DL never disappoints)...

Lars Von Trier's ANTICHRIST (and both genital mutilation scenes in it).

Has anyone mentioned the first "chest-bursting" scene from 1979's Alien yet? Now it's almost banal, or cliched, but back when it first came out... for this young kid, it was extremely shocking

I love Alien. Everything about it. I miss John Hurt. Also, if I remember correctly, the actress' reaction at 1:30 is genuine. No one knew the blood would splatter like that.

Jesus Christ, I regret watching OP's video. I had forgotten about that scene.

I'm looking for the title of an old spanish film, it went something like Man Facing NorthWest or something like that. Any idea?

Look up the Society feeding/orgy scene.

R142 I know that film, and I had trouble locating it myself. It's actually called Man Facing Southeast.

It's now available on DVD at Amazon, link below.

I have blocked out a scene that is disturbing. So much of the film is disturbing in a beautiful, elucidating way.

The climactic dinner party scene from "Hannibal", in which a drugged-up but still conscious Ray Liotta has pieces of his brain sauteed and fed to him by Anthony Hopkins.

The pie scene in The Help.

Most of La Grande Bouffe

"A long, deep sound." More creepy than anything, but it is David Lynch, so.

"BABY WANTS TO FUUUUUCK" from Blue Velvet deserves a mention as well.

I'll never understand why anyone would consider torture porn as entertainment.

In 'Hannibal' when Dr. Lecter cuts open the skull of Paul Krendler (played by Ray Liotta), cuts out some brain, sautees it and then feeds it back to him. I was nauseated...never happened to me while watching a movie.

Why is every other gay man obsessived with this film and that scene?

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover has few scenes that are not disturbing, but this is the one that curdled my stomach.

"Perhaps the film’s most terrifying scene is when The Thief forces a young choirboy to eat his own buttons before slicing his belly -button – it’s probably the film’s pre-eminent example of the corruption of capitalism violently destroying that which is innocent and pure."

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R5 R6 Yeah...a movie you only watch once. Good acting, certainly...but grossly disturbing.

Julie Andrews baring her breasts in "S. O. B."

[quote] Why is every other gay man obsessived with this film and that scene?

Because their secret goal in life is to tell Ellen Burstyn, "Lick me! Lick me!"

It's no longer considered shocking or disturbing because it was 50 years ago, but the final scene of Bonnie & Clyde haunted me as a child. You just didn't have violence like that on screen. It changed everything and started the revolution continued by The Wild Bunch through The Godfather and today. It freaked me out as a kid.

R156 Burstyn's performance in THE EXORCIST is very good, but that film is so shallow and pseudo-serious.

R33 That scene IS very sad...though beautifully filmed (cutting to the contrasting shots on the ocean liner...if I reecall coorectly)

SUCH a good film!

Seeing the shot showing what he did to the housewife repelled me...

: (

The Towering Inferno disturbed me as a kid. I had never seen people die on fire before....and in front of gorgeous Faye Dunaway!

The scenic elevator explosion where legend Jennifer Jones plunges to her death, hitting the side of the building half-way down haunted me. It seemed so real. Seeing it on the big screen back in the day in one of those huge old theaters, you felt like you were there. I was already feeling woozy from all the burning alive, and then you witness a sweet older lady fall out of the elevator barely managing to hand off the child she's carrying....AND she plunges backwards. My wooziness turned to nausea. Traumatizing to a 9 year old.

Tonight is the 106th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

....

A Night to Remember, full film, high quality video.

r152 jesus, that blog you linked to is a pretentious piece of shit

Interesting that so many found The Exorcist disturbing. I did not. I find the last ten minutes of Salo much more disturbing. The sight of innocent children being cruelty tortured by gleeful monsters..the young girl who's bare brests are being burned by a old sadistic man while she is being brutalized..or the young boy who's Tongue is being cut out..then his eyes gouged out....total merciless victimization of the imnocent.