The Ten Most Disturbing Films Ever Made

How’s it going, Fliplisters (yeah, I made that up. I know it’s lame, so shoot me)! Halloween is just a few days away, and we all know what that means… Trick or Treats, Costume Parties, Using the Ouija Board to invite some malevolent spirit into our homes and risk experiencing a real-life possession that would make William Peter Blatty proud (don’t try this one at home, seriously), and our favourite activity of all during Halloween: Horror Movie marathons! But with the recent release of Annabelle, we know you guys are looking for something that will really set apart this Halloween from last year. So we took the privilege of picking out ten of the most psychologically traumatizing, scream-inducing, eye-covering movies you will ever watch.

Be warned though, these are not your typical ghost/monster/slasher movies… some of these films are so disturbing that it’s guaranteed to keep most of you awake and possible staring at your door. It’s time to up the ante and bring on the scares and mindbenders!

1. Irreversible (2002)

Directed by: Gaspar Noe

Starring: Monica Belucci (The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Brother’s Grimm), Vincent Cassel (Black Swan), Albert Dupontel

What it’s about: A French thriller that tells the story of Marcus (Cassel) and Pierre (Dupontel), two men who sets out to avenge the horrendous rape of Alex (Belucci), Marcus’ girlfriend. Described by the late film critic Roger Ebert as a movie that is “so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable”, this is not your typical everyday horror movie. It was so disturbing that when it was screened in the Cannes Film Festival, it caused a mass walk-out, with some viewers even reported to have fainted. Horror is one of the most difficult genres to use effectively and gain desired audience reaction, and for us, Irreversible tops the cake of all disturbing movies ever made. A warning for you all, this movie is not for the faint-hearted.

2. Watership Down (1978)

Directed by: Martin Rosen

What it’s about: Ok, just to let you guys know, this is NOT a children’s movie. You’re probably thinking, what could be so disturbing in an animated movie about rabbits? Based on the book of the same title, Watership Down is an immensely dark cartoon that portrays the lovable bunnies as savagely violent creatures that will do whatever it takes to survive and to be left in peace. The heroes in this film are Hazel and Fiver, rabbit brothers who make an attempt to rally their fellow rabbits into faraway safety after Fiver receives an apocalyptic vision of a rabbit genocide by a yet-unknown force. As the brothers gather their kind and brave unknown territories infested with other wild animals and humans, they start to question whether Fiver was crazy or a true prophet with long ears. What follows next is just downright dark and bloody that parents would be wise to not even let their young children watch this in the first place.

3. Shutter Island (2010)

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Ben Kingsley

What it’s about: Twist after twist after freaking twist, Shutter Island is one of those psychological thriller movies that will have you desperately searching for answers as the story unravels itself. Set in 1954, the story is about U.S. Marshal Teddy Edwards (DiCaprio), who has been summoned in an island asylum to take part in an investigation of the disappearance of a patient named Rachel Solando. As Daniels struggles to find answers, he is drawn deeper into the abyss of uncertainty and unlocks the secrets of the island asylum that could break his very sanity.

4. The Wicker Man (2006)

Directed by: Neil LaBute

Starring: Nicolas Cage

What it’s about: Same as Shutter Island, a policeman named Edward Malus (Cage) is informed by his wife that their daughter is missing. To find her, Malus travels to an island off the coast of Washington where his daughter was apparently taken. Upon arrival in the island, Cage encounters a predominantly female neo-pagan community led by the creepy Sister Summersisle, an old woman treated as a goddess figure in the island. As Malus asks for the whereabouts of his daughter, he is repeatedly given misleading and evasive answers. In the course of the search for his daughter, Malus also discovers the chillingly terrifying secret of the people of the island.

5. Aftermath (1994)

Directed by: Nacho Cerda

Starring: Pep Tosar, Angel Tarris

What it’s about: A 30-minute cringe-worthy short movie, Aftermath is a movie that will leave you with a disgusted twisted expression, guaranteed. A woman dies in a car crash after avoiding a dog in the street and has her body taken to a nearby mortuary for embalming. Seeing the corpse of the woman, a mortician gets strangely aroused and locks himself in the mortuary with the corpse, performing sickening acts of mutilation and necrophilia on it. Have you had your lunch yet?

6. The Human Centipede (2010)

Directed by: Tom Six

Starring: Dieter Laser, Ashley Williams, Ashlyn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura

What it’s about: Two beautiful women encounter a psychopathic surgeon who traps them into his home and use them as subjects to fulfill his dream of creating a human centipede, stitching their mouths to the anus of the other, along with a Japanese hostage. If that’s not seriously messed up for you, Then I don’t know what is.

7. Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985)

Directed by: Hideshi Hino

Starring: Hideshi Hino

What it’s about: Flower of Flesh and Blood is actually part of a seven-series Japanese gore-slasher called Guinea Pig. Explicitly bloody and gory, Flower of Flesh and Blood is about a woman who is ambushed and knocked unconscious by a white-faced killer donning a samurai costume. Upon waking up, the woman is seen tied to a bed and the killer begins to systematically dismember and disembowel her, turning her into his “Flower of Flesh and Blood”, all while a camera records it. Oh, and the director is also the actor here. This movie was so realistically done that even actor Charlie Sheen was convinced it was real, leading him to inform the FBI about it.

8. I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

Directed by: Meir Zachi

Starring: Camille Keaton

What it’s about: A cult classic with a story that revolves in revenge, I Spit On Your Grave is a vile, truly disturbing movie that tells the story of a female author that goes into self-imposed seclusion in a cabin and is raped and abused by four evil local bumpkins. The woman survives and swears a revenge so brutal and unforgiving that it exceeds the degree of what her assailants did to her. A remake was later done, albeit less gruesome and revolting than the original.

9. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Directed by: Ruggero Deodato

Starring: Robert Kerman, Gabriel Yorke

What it’s about: American film crew has gone missing in a vast Amazon forest while on assignment to film a documentary about a cannibal tribe. Anthropologist Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) is then sent with a small team to retrieve the film crew, hoping they are still alive. Monroe then encounters the Yanomano tribe, who reveal to him the fate of the filmmakers and trade in the film crew’s lost footage for Monroe. What Monroe sees next in the footage is unbelievably sickening that his station executives order him to destroy the film, away from the public eye. This movie gained such notoriety for its graphic violence and genuine cruelty to animals that the director was arrested for obscenity charges and was banned in several countries.

10. 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Starring: Paolo Bonacelli

What it’s about: Considered an art film by some and condemned by many for its scenes that depict sadism, sexual depravity and graphic nature, 120 Days of Sodom was extremely controversial that it remains banned in several countries up to this very day. The film is about four corrupt, fascist, rich libertines who kidnap eighteen teenage boys and girls and force them into all kinds of torture, ranging from sexual abuse to mental torture during the Fall of Italy in World War II. Movies like this one will make one question the abhorrable nature of man and why we are capable of doing such undesirable and immoral acts. This is one film that will possibly ruin one’s faith in humanity, you have been warned.