By Andrés Muñoz
Why do people watch movies? There are infinite reasons. I love to watch high fantasy movies like The Lord of the Rings or sci-fi dramas like Interstellar. Others prefer a quintessential action hero leading the plot one gunshot at a time, and others prefer romantic tales, where unlikely romances bloom, or star-crossed lovers fight against everything the universe throws at them.
Then there are some who enjoy disturbing films. These folks get their thrills from watching characters be scared, maimed, tortured or worse, all as they cringe in terror or excitement in their seats.
Why do people enjoy these films? Maybe it’s because of the thrills and feeling of danger and helplessness you have for the characters on screen? If you are keen on being frightened or drawn by morbid excitement, here are 5 disturbing movies that some of you might not have the stomach to finish. Good luck!
Splice
Released in 2009, Splice stars Academy Award winners Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as a couple of genetic engineers. As they experiment with animal DNA to create new species, they venture into the “Playing God” trope and secretly combine an animal DNA strain with a human one.
The result is a creature with human characteristics, but things get quickly out of hand as the lifeform grows. This film thoughtfully combines, in the words of Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, “…chewy issues like bioethics, abortion, corporate-sponsored science, commitment problems between lovers and even Freudian-worthy family dynamics.”
Splice had it all to become a classic but pushed it in the end for the average moviegoer. Definitely an interesting take on genetic engineering.
Hostel
Horror stories of backpackers in Europe come to life in this 2000s classic. Hostel tells the story of three backpackers in Slovakia that are taken by a secret organisation of sadists. The organisation is well structured and allows rich people to torture and kill other humans. This fantastic film has you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
Written and directed by Eli Roth, the movie was a box office success and gave birth to two other sequels that expanded the original story’s universe to a much more international level. However, they were not as successful as the first one. Check it out…if you dare!
The Human Centipede
Following the “tourists” vibe, this Dutch film is another disturbing icon from the 2000s. It tells the story of a German surgeon who kidnaps three tourists and performs horrifying surgery on them. The inspiration behind the movie’s villain was Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed brutal experiments on his victims at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Add a modern gore element, and The Human Centipede was born.
The film spawned two sequels that went deeper into the graphic and dark elements, and it has been an overall staple of body horror films.
The Sadness
This list isn’t complete without some Asian horror. “The Sadness” is a 2021 Taiwanese film set in a fictional version of Taipei. The story revolves around a virus that infects people, causing them to act on their most violent and depraved impulses.
The film, directed by Rob Jabbaz, is about a young couple struggling to survive the epidemic while confronting their inner demons. It delves into the darkest corners of human nature and explores a society when it faces an unimaginable horror. You might enjoy this if you haven’t had enough of pandemics and viruses recently!
A Serbian Film
A Serbian Film is one of the most disturbing films of all time. Directed by Srđan Spasojević, it is about a middle-aged porn star who is requested to perform in an independent art project, only to discover that the director is creating a snuff film. Banned in the Philippines, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Norway, and some other countries, the movie ventures into heavily graphic and sexual elements like necrophilia and paedophilia.
Aleksandar Radivojević, the film’s co-writer, mentions that he was inspired by famous pornographic actor Rocco Siffredi’s films where he engages in brutal scenes with girls from Eastern European countries. Radivojević mentioned in an interview that “by making the main character in that original synopsis an ageing male porn star, I began to incorporate this notion of modern-day colonialism via sexual exploitation of a poor country’s human resource”.
Honourable Mention: Requiem For A Dream
While definitely not as gory as the other titles, this 2000 classic by Darren Aronofsky disturbs you by showing the downward spiral people can go into when feeding their addictions, namely drugs. The cinematography is absolutely top-notch.
Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly star in this thriller about heroin addicts engulfed by their “fix”. It shocked audiences when I was young, and it still does today.
We are only scratching the surface of the dark corners of disturbing cinema. What other titles do you think should be on this list? Tell us about them in the comments section below!