I recently saw – and enjoyed – T2: Trainspotting. As I’m sure most people have done, I re-watched the original, which had been a huge film when I was in my teens. The scene where Renton is detoxing was genuinely unsettling at the time, and the film as a whole has parts that certainly made you wince.
As I left the cinema, I began to wonder about the last cultural thing that genuinely shocked me. The internet allows a plethora of death, decay and nudity into all our lives – to the point where desensitisation occurs. It’s very difficult for films, bands and artists to shock; any actions designed to elicit shock seem somehow contrived and cheap.
So, my question is simple: what do you find shocking these days? And to what extent has ‘shock’ been sublimated into the everyday?
Bingo Little says
The last thing that really shocked me (as in, I struggled to get it out of my mind for days afterwards) was the last 30 minutes of Bone Tomahawk.
There are certainly a lot of films out there that would shock just about anyone. A while back I read the plot synopsis for “A Serbian Story”, and felt like throwing up. Generally steer clear of movies which are unpleasant for unpleasantness sake (which rules out most of Eli Roth’s career).
Bingo Little says
On a semi related note, last year I read Blood Meridian (which feels like the ur-text on which Tomahawk is based) and found it extremely harrowing. At times, it felt like staring directly into the void.
I don’t know if anyone else has found this, but I also think that having kids sort of “re-sensitized” me. After years and years of violent movies, games and books, suddenly there was a load of stuff I just couldn’t face at all.
moseleymoles says
@bingo-little – totally. Lots of films in particular are unwatchable as parent of children: in particular Don’t Look Now, The Ice Storm. Historical/genre/fantasy/scifi movies are just about OK – I watched Once Upon A Time In The West and completely forgot that Henry Fonda guns down a whole family, kids and all.
Bingo Little says
Don’t Look Now was exactly the film I had in mind! It’s one of my favourite movies, but I’ve not been able to watch it these last few years.
Even as a teenager, I found it shocking. I don’t think I’ve ever been so unsettled by a movie – not that much really happens, but there’s something in the ambience of it that’s just incredibly uneasy.
Gone Baby Gone is another I have absolutely no desire to watch again. Although I’m all good with the Babadook, so go figure.
duco01 says
Yes, I read Blood Meridian a couple of years ago, and I, too, found it harrowing.
McCarthy, in one of his few interviews, said that the book was about “man’s capacity for evil,” and that’s certainly how Blood Meridian reads.
Incidentally, I’ve just finished reading Sebastian Barry’s Costa-winning novel “Days without End”. It’s an excellent book with a similar setting to “Blood Meridian”, i.e. massacres during and after the US Indian wars of the 1850s, but somehow its heart isn’t as grim and desperately bleak as McCarthy’s book.
Twang says
I read “The Road” in a constant sense of dread. It’s an excellent book but I simply can’t face watching the film. I know I’d be all over the place.
Mike_H says
“The Road” is a very grim read indeed. Glad I read it but I don’t think I ever will again.
mikethep says
The book is far grimmer than the film.
MC Escher says
Totally with you on Bone Tomahawk. It’s been hovering around my head since I saw it. Unfortunately.
I think I’m done with explicit horror films now. Not that I had much tolerance for them to start with.
chilli ray virus says
Blood Meridian. A work of genius for sure, but I have no wish to ever read it, or even think about it again.
Doods says
Not much really gets to me, as so much just seems like pantomine, but then you encounter an exception.
The last time ? “Snowtown”. Really bleak, discomfiting, full-on nasty. Brilliant film-making but hardly fun.
My sister phoned me just as the closing credits started. I think I whimpered.
Kid Dynamite says
Not sure it was shocking as such, but it took me a long time to shake off No Country For Old Men.
Totally agree with Bingo’s comment re kids. Much more sensitive since the little one came along (although I did spend three hours last night happily chainsawing up demons in Doom, so maybe not THAT sensitive)
Twang says
Me too. It’s like a whole different bit of my brain has been switched on. Nature, eh!
Friar says
I remember not being able to read Ian McEwan’s The Child In Time shortly after my first kid was born. I’ve never been back to it.
Twang says
I remember the James Bulger case when it happened and being horrified and shocked by it, then reading a retrospective of it years later when Twang Jr was about the same age and being utterly traumatised, tears rolling down face etc.
Clive says
Most of Hacksaw Ridge is more shocking than the first 25 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Very explicit action.
Paul Wad says
There’s not a lot that shocks me any more, save a couple of election results last year, but I was a little shocked by a certain scene in Sacha Baron Cohen’s Grimsby. If you’ve seen the film you know what I’m talking about. What made it more shocking, yet achingly funnier, for me was where I was watching it.
Since I stopped working I occasionally go along to the pictures with a retired (but you wouldn’t think he was) mate of mine. Our local cinema has a senior citizens showing on a Wednesday morning, where retirees get in cheaper. It fits in with school run times for me too. So not only was I sat watching the grossest scene ever filmed, I watched it surround by blue rinses. Yet nobody walked out, so I can only presume that they either weren’t as shockable as me or they didn’t have a clue what was going on!
mikethep says
I saw The Exorcist in a cinema full of pensioners (when it first opened that is, not last week). The elderly lady behind me said, ‘Ooh, i didn’t know it was going to be like this.’
Dodger Lane says
Reminds me of my uncle and aunt who went to see Last Tango in Paris imagining something totally different to what they saw. That was their story anyway.
Paul Wad says
I thought it was funny watching The Hateful Eight at the senior citizens screening, but the Grimsby one was gobsmacking. The manager, who acts as a sort of compere, did warn them, but nobody left.
Bingo Little says
Maybe one for the fully desensitized? Personally, I’ll pass.
http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/news/a52598/kuso-flying-lotus-sundance/
Friar says
Apparently at the end, FlyLo comes out and a guy says to him “what do you call yourselves” and he says “THE ARISTOCRATS!”
BigJimBob says
Anyone seen the film Johnny Got His Gun?
BigJimBob says
Anyone seen Society?
Bingo Little says
Fuck yeah. Great movie.
badartdog says
Me and my ex wife watched it. With my mum and dad. Cringe.
Bingo Little says
Now that’s a Gogglebox I’d pay to see.
Kid Dynamite says
Great film. In the early nineties there was a great run of American horror movies that ran with this kind of explicitly political anti-Republican / establishment theme – I’m thinking this, They Live, The People Under The Stairs…
I’m hoping for some more in the next few years.
badartdog says
Yes. A long time ago. Will never forget it.
Lando Cakes says
Yes. Stuck with me for years. The scene where Jesus turns him away saying “you’re an unluck guy, it might rub off.” did shock me a bit, among others. Didn’t it get used in a Metallica video?
Rufus T Firefly says
Yes. “One”, I think.
Twang says
I generally avoid films which set out to shock, but years ago Mrs. T and I saw “Se7en” (not knowing what we were in for) and walked out in a state of shock at how horrible it had been. We’d have left in the interval if there’d been one.
Gatz says
I remember finding Se7en quite dull in the cinema – including the end; her head is either there or not, and either way is a satisfactory story. I don’t have a strong stomach for gore and avoid Saw type horror, but Se7en didn’t bother me.
But then maybe I’m going in the opposite direction to most other posters; I remember finding Trainspotting quite grim at the time, and what stood out from watching it before going to see T2 was how comic it is (the horror probably not helped by the crap animatronic baby in what was meant to be the most horrifying scene).
chiz says
I remember coming out of Se7en and the whole audience winding slowly down the stairs of the cinema in stunned silence. People stood blinking in the foyer while they gathered the nerve to go outside.
Twang says
We went home and drank most of a bottle of Southern Comfort before we could adequately discuss it.
bricameron says
Have you seen ‘Zardoz’? Shocking!
Lando Cakes says
Sean Connery’s mankini? Brrr.
Arthur Cowslip says
As Bingo says above, it’s definitely having children of your own that opens up your imagination to these sorts of thing again.
Gory stuff like Bone Tomahawk or Hateful Eight, I don’t mind so much. More wince-inducing than shocking.
But the last film that truly shocked me and left me breathless in the cinema was Under The Skin. That scene with the little boy on the beach.
Bingo Little says
Oh christ. That movie wins this thread. Took MONTHS to get it out of my head, and I have no desire to ever watch it again. Absolutely superb film-making, but egad it was tough viewing.
The kid on the beach was definitely a horrible, creeping feeling up the spine moment, but I actually found the [*SPOILERS*] bit where you finally see what happens to the victims lured into the house to be the toughest viewing. The shot of the guy groggily looking at his own hands, and then another dude floats into view, all withered and just kind of…. bursts. Horrible, horrible, horrible. The whole look and feel of the thing didn’t help either.
Friar says
It was SUPER creepy, and somehow managed to even make the prospect of Scarlett Johannson in the rik a thoroughly unerotic prospect. That’s skill. Stayed with me for ages too. An incredibly disturbing film – I felt like I’d been immersed in cold dirty water for hours after watching it.
Malc says
Cracking soundtrack though – such an essential part of the creepiness.
Friar says
Absolutely – some of the coldest creepiest music I’ve ever heard. Like Ligeti without the feelgood danceability.
Moose the Mooche says
I have to say, when I first heard the 2001 soundtrack I was disappointed that Atmospheres wasn’t the song later made famous by TV’s Russ Abbott.
Milkybarnick says
I’ve actually watched some clips on Youtube of Under the Skin based on the comments above. Part of me wants to watch the whole thing; part of me doesn’t (likewise Bone Tomahawk. Crumbs). The film that has always shocked me, and taught me a lesson about watching horror for kicks is “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. The mechanical, brutal killings (particularly the first) , and the descent into something that’s just, well, grim, really bothered me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a brilliant film, just not one for an enjoyable horror fest.
Bingo Little says
Bone Tomahawk is nasty because it all feels like a trad Western (albeit with a growing sense of dread) and then suddenly it becomes a horror movie. It’s the genre flip that makes it so unsettling (well, that and that horrendous shit that actually happens).
Under The Skin is just uncomfortable viewing all the way through. A cold, dark universe with no decency, no empathy and no hope. We might as well all go kill ourselves.
You could read the plot summary for BT and you’d know what’s unpleasant about it. UTS you actually need to experience the entirety of – it’s very hard to explain in words what’s going on with that movie. I sometimes like to imagine Jonathan Glazer’s wife, sat next to him at the UTS premiere, just slowly wondering to herself “who the fuck am I married to, and should I climb out the bathroom window now and run”?
Milkybarnick says
Cheers Bingo. Might seek out Under The Skin on amazon. Saw a bit of “It Follows” last night – while that didn’t shock me, it was really creepy, and I’d quite ancy watching the whole thing. Oh, and the end of Borderlands made me go all funny too (Mrs Milky and I sat and thought about that for a while afterwards).
Bingo Little says
I really enjoyed It Follows too! Thought it was a very clever idea, well executed.
Gary says
That was the one where a zombie slowly follows a teenager, until the teenager shags another teenager and it starts slowly following that one instead?
Bingo Little says
Yep. Lemme guess: hated it?
Gary says
Au contraire. With a plot like that you can’t go wrong.
Bingo Little says
It does indeed follow.
Kid Dynamite says
I love Borderlands! It’s a brilliant ending, isn’t it?
Friar says
God I watched Bone Tomahawk on the back of this thread. It’s brilliant, but Christ alive is it ever nasty. Eeeesh. Poor old nick.
dai says
The Cook, the thief, his wife and her lover, nearly had to leave. And going for a kebab afterwards was not a good idea …
Clive says
I saw a preview screening of Drowning By Numbers back in the day. Peter Greenaway introduced it and was one of the most fascinating people I have ever had the pleasure of listening to.
Lando Cakes says
Wow, I would have loved to have been there!
Moose the Mooche says
The most horrible cinematic spectacle I’ve ever witnessed was the trailer for Ben Elton’s Maybe Baby.
In the terrible silence that fell when it was over, a man three rows back actually moaned in cosmic misery.
Bingo Little says
I’ve probably told this before, but as we neared the third hour of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen in Leicester Square Odeon, there was a short lull during which there was no gunfire or explosions, and in which a small voice could be heard to moan “Mummy… please make it stop”. Quite.
Kid Dynamite says
Genuinely the worst film I’ve ever seen. I watched a DVD at home, and had to split it over two nights to break up the awfulness. I forced myself to get to the end, because I wasn’t going to let it beat me, but I could not tell you anything that happened.
Bingo Little says
There was no such mercy in the cinema. They barred the doors, and savagely beat all those who tried to leave. The moans of the injured were faintly audible throughout, and the leering faces of the attendants as they peered through the glass partition by the main door, reveling in our misery, will haunt me to my grave.
Bingo Little says
Has anyone ever considered starting a blog in which people review movies in the style of H.P Lovecraft? Because I feel like that’s something I could read a lot of.
Lando Cakes says
The last time I was shocked in the cinema was at that Lance Armstrong documentary (is it The Armstrong Lie?). To see someone tell a lie, their face filling the screen, was more intimate and more shocking than pornography.
Dodger Lane says
I have become as soft as shite the older I’ve got, but then I remember seeing The Nun’s story as a kid (with Audrey Hepburn) and being horrified when she was attacked. I couldn’t sleep for days after. Even as a youngster, I just knew you just don’t do that sort of thing to Audrey.
Don’t Look Now, saw that once and never again.
I think the last time I was genuinely horrified was the scene in Downfall when Mrs Goebbels forces her own children to take suicide pills and the eldest (knowing the truth) tries to resist. Even knowing the story, seeing it done on screen was chilling and still chills me. When we left the cinema, we just all went our separate ways without talking about it.
Dave Ross says
I don’t watch horror films, I fit in here sooo well..
However I watched “Bridget Jones Baby” at the weekend and was genuinely shocked by Rene Zellweggers face. I found her strangely attractive in the early films, now it seemed to change scene by scene, god only knows what she’s had done or what she must look like in real life but it was genuinely shocking.
Twang says
I saw “Race with the devil”, a Peter Fonda vehicle, in the 70s which I mistakenly thought was about racing buckle cars but turned out to be about being pursued by devil workers across the mid West. Super creepy and scared the shit out of me. I still wouldn’t watch it again.
No, I didn’t watch the trailer…
Did anyone actually watch “The human centipede”? I remember the review in The Word and thought it sounded absolutely disgusting but I wonder if anyone watched it.
Sewer Robot says
Not seen HC but I recall a review of Human Centipede 3 which suggested that the first film was quite a classy, cerebral piece in comparison…
Marwood says
Last thing on the telly to shock me was the opening episode, season 7 of The Walking Dead.
There is death and mayhem and grue in pretty much every episode of this programme – an unrelenting stream of misery and horror. Yet this episode managed to up the ante and provided genuinely upsetting scenes.
It was quite numbing and cast a shadow over the rest of the season (well, half a season, the second half kicks off next week). Shame Negan turned out to be a less than interesting villain.
I read Lonesome Dove over the summer – and a gorgeous book it is too. However, it features a character called Blue Duck who is one of the most malignant and cruel figures I have come across for quite some time.
Friar says
This could feed into another “commonly held to be canonical things I don’t like” thread, but I think the Walking Dead is shite. I watched this episode just to see all the fuss and thought it was just as poor as the other ones I’ve seen: pedestrian writing, workmanlike acting and a really horrible revelling in pointless cruelty and misery.
Black Type says
Possibly the most shocking/skin-crawlingly horrific/nightmarish film I’ve seen is the Japanese movie Audition. Genuinely unsettling in so many ways – that…thing in the bag! The needles! ‘Kiri-kiri’! *shudders*