Who goes to Hell willingly? That is the question you need to ask yourself before you read this. I have an answer, but you have to wait until the end for it. To start off, there are basically two types of people on this Earth. Those who recognize the darkness and acknowledge it, and those who pretend it doesn’t exist. I am one of the former. My whole life has been a shit show. Here is but one example. I find comfort in dark and disturbing movies, because they show me lives that are worse than mine. They show me people who have had it way worse than me. They remind me, even when I end up in situations like this, my life could be one million times worse. So back when I started writing, I decided I was going to make it my goal to find the 100 most disturbing movies ever made, and to watch them all. I stretched them out across three years, because to watch these films close together or back-to-back I genuinely believe could do some real damage. Not even kidding you. We are talking about baby rape and shit like that. We aren’t talking about horror cinema, specifically. We are going miles below that. We are talking about the most undeniably, unquestionably, unflinchingly disturbing stuff ever thought up, so walk away if you soul is tender and brittle, because you won’t last a minute into this piece. For the rest of you who are drawn to dark and disturbing cinema, let’s talk, shall we? Like Kid Cudi says, I love the dark, maybe we can make it darker, give me a marker….
Angst, the movie that inspired Gaspar Noe’s career, was the final movie of the 100 I watched this week.
So the film that started my interest in disturbing cinema (though I have adored horror my whole life) was a Gaspar Noe movie called Irreversible. It was this film that introduced me to French extreme cinema, which changed my perspective on disturbing movies completely. Up to that point in my life, disturbing movies were movies like The Exorcist and films of that nature. Horror, creepy, but not even a glimpse into the darkness that some other genres offered. Irreversible, upon my first viewing, I could not get through. The rape scene was too much for me. Nine minutes, uncut, with a CG penis put in so the rape looked as real as possible. Fucking awful, amid the rape, she is beaten severely. I could not find merit in that moment and wanted to crawl off and die for all mankind. But then something hit me. Once I made it through the entire film (which starts at the end, and ends at the beginning), it was one of the most powerful displays of nihilism I had ever seen put on film. This was the worst day ever in an otherwise blessed life, and shows you how quickly your world can unravel before your eyes. Hell, even the simple fact (most people miss, and SPOILER ALERT FOR IRREVERSIBLE), they take revenge and kill the wrong guy blew my mind, because most people don’t even notice that the real rapist is sitting in the club in that scene, watching an innocent gay man have his face beaten in with a fire extinguisher. That movie jawed me like a punch to the face. I didn’t want to go deeper, but I knew I had to.
A part of your soul WILL die during this movie, but that is good because it means you still have one.
But now, let’s take it back a step. So how does one truly find the 100 most disturbing movies ever made? How does one come to the final conclusion about what is or isn’t a disturbing film? That’s easy, but not in execution. It took about a culminated years worth of work combing the web. From Reddit forums to major websites, right down to word-of-mouth from friends and directors and people in the industry. Hell, I found some shit no one should ever find, but that is all part of the process when you go down a rabbit hole as fucked up as this one is, and I knew it before I leapt in. I had even been keen on some urban legends about disturbing films up to that point as well. Still, I had no idea what was in store for me or how twisted shit was really gonna get. I may have some regrets, but too late for that now, huh?
The worst part of “Men Behind the Sun” is knowing it is based on real war crimes.
Generally, on most of the lists I read about fucked up movies I would find the same movies. The ones we have all already seen, like Requiem for a Dream and the aforementioned Irreversible. The ones you know about but refused to watch, like Salo and Ken Park. And you would also start noticing trends of movies you had never heard of popping up. I documented my experience with one of them in-depth here, and millions of hits later, didn’t realize I gave the nasty film great exposure. Ooops. Oh well, you live, you bleach your eyes, you move on. Some of the movies I kept hearing about but knew little about were:
Baise-Moi
Antichrist
Men Behind the Sun
They Call Her One Eye
Slaughtered Vomit Dolls
Seed
Visitor Q
August Underground Series
The Bunny Game
Imprint
Begotten
Dumplings
Angst
……and about 90 or so more. It is really daunting when you lay them all out (even hypothetically) in front of you, because you realize you have to crawl through the darkest aspects of human nature before you come out the other side. Most humans would’ve walked away. But you know what, my life has been a shitshow. I would gladly watch (fake) movies of people being ruined by life, because it would be a nice change of pace of my own ruination. Keep in mind, at no point did I watch any snuff. I don’t fuck with videos of real people being assaulted or hurt. There is a sickness to that, and it is unforgivable in my eyes. So at no point, is anyone really hurt or killed in these movies. The closest I came to that was the movie The Bunny Game. Not sure if you know anything about this movie, and though it sucks, what the actress endured for the film should be stuff of legend. I will refrain from saying more right now. This is a teaser, after all.
Put it this way, she is not acting in this movie.
One thing that did pose a major problem to me and will be addressed in a future piece about the 100 most disturbing movies ever made is, in the seventies exploitation era (and even in some foreign countries), animal cruelty sometimes popped up in these flicks. Like, genuine animal cruelty. Thankfully, these examples will be very few and far between, and I had enough foresight to avoid those moments (you hurt an animal, I will fucking curb stomp you, straight up). That, to me, is not okay and real cruelty has no place in faux horror. I will also warn you about said movies so you can avoid them. But that will be its own article soon. For now, I just wanted to whet your appetite and exorcise some of my celluloid demons that have been keeping me up at night for about 1000 days straight now, give or take one or two. So like I asked during the intro, who willingly goes to Hell?
I do, apparently.
Eye see no problem with this pic whatsoever.
So you like dark and twisted shit, too? Then how come you aren’t a REMlin? I have sleepovers where people get selectively killed off. You should come join!
The post My Three Years Watching the 100 Most Disturbing Movies Ever Made: A Teaser appeared first on Remy Carreiro.