10 Deeply Disturbing Movies That You Need To Watch, But Only Once

A disturbing film isn't one that gleefully stands with its arms outstretched to embrace buckets of blood. A disturbing film is something else, something more - an experience that's undeniably unsettling whilst it plays out, but even more powerful in the lingering sting it leaves behind. A truly disturbing movie doesn't slap you around in your seat on first viewing - instead, it burrows its way into your brain and replays in your thoughts for weeks at a time afterwards. There are plenty of lists out there that attempt to gather the most disconcerting films of all time in one place, but here at We Got This Covered we're gonna evade your textbook entries on this occasion - A Serbian Film, Human Centipede, Cannibal Holocaust etc. - and go for a slightly different flavor. These movies don't simply disgust by serving as commendable pieces of exploitation cinema, but work in a rather different and more complex way to deeply, deeply disturb. Watching them once will be more than enough... 10) Straw Dogs Straw Dogs is most famous for its repulsive - and highly controversial - central rape scene. Couple that with its gory finale, and the movie could be accused of relying on cheap, exploitative methods to disturb its audience. In actual fact, however, the violence present in the film is just a by-product of why it's really so tough to watch. Through an unsettling ambience of ever-present danger, it depicts a world where civilization is just a flimsy facade covering humanity’s basic, savage instincts. The film sees American David Summer (played by Dustin Hoffman) moving with his wife Amy back to her hometown in Cornwall, England. But their bucolic married life is immediately threatened by a group of local men’s hatred of David and their growing sexual interest in Amy (Susan George). Straw Dogs might be a harrowing way to spend a couple of hours, but it certainly deserves to be seen. At least give it a go over the misguided 2011 remake. Starring Superman Returns duo James Marsden and Kate Bosworth, the film shifts the action to a Mississippi setting and emphasizes violence over the all-encompassing atmosphere of the original. 9) Solaris No, not the so-so George Clooney Hollywood remake from 2002. We’re talking about the far superior Russian/German language original. Based on the philosophical novel by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris is often seen as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made by aficionados (such as renowned Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa). In it, a psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting the planet Solaris to investigate the strange psychological episodes that each of the station’s crew have suffered from. While there, though, he's affected by the same emotional and mental crisis – such as hallucinating his wife, who committed suicide years previously. What follows is a chilling yet visually-stunning movie which explores and challenges our notions of grief, our perception of reality and the limits of our minds. Director Andrei Tarkovsky intended Solaris to be an antidote to western sci-fi films which he thought were too shallow. Don’t seek it out if you like straight answers and lots of incident, but it is a must-watch if you fancy having your brain shaken up and taken for an imaginative, unpredictable and thoroughly disturbing ride. 8) The Machinist You've probably heard of The Machinist due to Christian Bale’s famous drastic diet that reduced the 6ft tall actor to a mere 120 pounds (before he then went and bulked up again in just six months for Batman Begins). While Bale’s commitment to his craft should not be understated, the film as a whole is often forgotten under all the talk about its star. Bale plays Trevor, a factory worker who suffers from severe insomnia which has affected his physical and mental well-being. After an accident at work, Trevor sinks into a paranoid meltdown over the belief that all his co-workers are conspiring to drive him insane. The movie is a fascinating journey into the state of mind of someone seriously troubled and, coupled with Bale’s excruciating appearance, it makes for a hugely disconcerting watch. Director Brad Anderson washes out practically all the colour from proceedings, making for a bleak visual experience which heightens the mood of the film. Though it is a powerful piece that we recommended seeing once, you will be hard pressed to view The Machinist a second time. 7) Requiem For A Dream Perhaps the most famous film on this list, 2000’s Requiem For A Dream is both celebrated and notorious for leaving you psychologically disturbed and emotionally drained once you're done watching. One of the most artful and effective anti-drugs movie ever made, the Darren Aronofsky-directed movie gives a heady and uncomfortably realistic account of the lives of four drug addicts – played by Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans, who all give top-notch performances. To ensure the audience are sucked into the disjointed reality experienced by the characters, Aronofsky employs disconcerting, almost psychedelic cinematography, making use of fast-paced shots and in-face close-ups. And, without going into specifics, the ending will leave you reeling for a long while after the credits have finished rolling. Unlike most depictions of addiction, Requiem doesn’t shy away from either the delirious highs or the excruciating lows of the characters, and in doing so acts as a warning to the viewer of how thoroughly addiction can ruin your life. The message will hit you so profoundly on the initial viewing that you won’t have to go through the experience of watching it a second time. 6) Audition There are several hugely disturbing J-horrors out there, but the one we're going with here is 1999’s Audition, the finest work of highly prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike. Which is really saying something, considering he's credited for helming about 90 productions over his career. Audition follows an aging movie director who invents a duplicitous scheme to find himself a new lover – hold a casting call for an imaginary film and “browse” the young actresses that audition. Unfortunately for him, he chooses Asami, an emotionally-abused psychopath who endeavours to make his life a living hell. The ingenuity of Audition is how the tension builds over the two hour runtime, from a slow-burning, even gently comic, first half until the - mild spoiler warning – intensely harrowing torture scene of the final act. That may make it sound like it ends just the same as any old overtly gory horror film, but it's the dramatic weight and psychological depth of the movie as a whole that makes it far more powerful than any common example of the genre. It gets so disturbing that you’ll be heavily tempted to turn it off at various points, but persevere with it, as this engrossing yet off-putting film needs to be seen. 5) Man Bites Dog A mockumentary that tracks the murderous activity of a serial killer and frames him as if he were a minor celebrity, Man Bites Dog is disturbing in concept, unsettling in execution and terrifying in how it ultimately plays out. Shot in the early nineties in grainy black-and-white photography, the film enraged critics upon its release, and whilst it remains one of the most undeniably sickening experiences you're likely to have watching a movie, the originality of the premise and its thought-provoking suggestions make Man Bites Dog a piece of cinema worth seeing. Even if only for the one time. The camera crew passively observe Ben as he goes about his daily routine of killing innocent victims, but soon becomes consumed by their work to such an extent that they begin to actively partake in the evil doings themselves. It begins with them helping Ben to move a body, and the line between filmmaker and subject blurs to the point where it is rendered indistinct. When he's not caught up in one of his malevolent urges, Ben is charming, friendly, and even intellectual. In a similar manner to the likes of Michael Haneke's Funny Games, Man Bites Dog forces the viewer into a period of sticky self-reflection about how they digest violence, feeling hauntingly authentic in its realist composition. If the stinging social commentary and unblinkingly fearless execution of Man Bites Dog wasn't discomposing enough, the story behind the story has its own unsettling aura. The movie fell victim to several censorship-forced amendments, most noticeable of which was the promotional poster having its main image changed. Originally, Ben is depicted firing a revolver towards an unseen victim, whilst a blood-stained pacifier twirls above them. This was later altered to a set of teeth dentures. Banned in certain countries, the movie remains regarded as an atrocity in particular corners of the world. A sense of unease seems to hang about the picture, a sensation only accentuated and enhanced by the suicide of director/editor Remy Belvaux in 2006. 4) Threads In the same way that Watership Down scarred a nation for life during the back end of the 1970's, the following decade saw Threads leave British viewers quivering in front of their television sets. The UK public had just about managed to rock themselves back to sleep before Mick Jackson's made-for-TV movie beamed out around the country, and after 112 haunting minutes, the viewing public were left in emotional tatters once more. Adopting a theme that appeared to be unsettlingly possible at the time, Threads depicts the aftereffects of a nuclear strike on the British isles, zoning in particularly on the northern city of Sheffield. Widely regarded as one of the most affecting and powerful interpretations of nuclear war ever put on screen, Threads remains somewhat obscured from international eyes given its television release as opposed to theatrical showings. Despite initially finding a limited audience, Threads has since developed an intimidating reputation in Britain, and regardless of its setting deserves to be seen by anyone anywhere in the world. 3) La Ceremonie Claude Chabrol was an individual who gave the medium of cinema a little bit of everything. He contributed some fine pieces of analysis to the highly influential Cahiers du Cinema magazine as a critic and he helped to spearhead the French New Wave movement that gathered spectacular momentum and changed the medium forever in the 1950's. And yet, his greatest achievement in film arguably remains his 1996 thriller La Ceremonie - a twisted, terrifying examination of class struggle and social upheaval. The film focuses on a glum, dumb maid named Sophie, a woman who finds herself constantly humiliated by her low-class stature and inability to read. Her only source of pleasure appears to be her television, which she drinks in with the same kind of zoned-out eyes that guide her around on day-to-day basis when she performs her mundane housekeeping duties for the Lelievre family. Her pupils truly light up for the first time after engaging with the ballsy postmistress Jeanne - a woman who despises the Lelièvre's and amuses Sophie by pointing out the flaws and pompousness of their bourgeois lifestyle. La Ceremonie is propelled forward by an eerie friendship that develops between Sophie and Jeanne, a relationship purposely given homoerotic undertones through careful shot selection and editing (Chabrol repeatedly packing the pair's heads close together alongside one another in the frame). There'a a lot more to be said about the film - including where its origins lie - but all of it involves some kind of indication as to where the plot eventually leads. There's little doubt that Chabrol's movie will twist your stomach even if you are aware of what happens in the shocking final reels, but anyone less familiar with the source material behind La Ceremonie will undoubtedly be left shaken and shivering as the credits appear. 2) Come And See More often than not, there's solace and reassurance to be found in reminding yourself that the disturbing movie you just saw was nothing more than a fictitious and carefully constructed piece of art. With Come and See, that logic doesn't necessarily apply, and what we're left with is a rare case of a "pure" horror film that reenacts some very real atrocities that occurred in Nazi-occupied constituent republics of the Soviet Union during World War II. The movie follows a young man named Flyora, a boy who resides in a village that falls victim to Nazi invasion during 1943. Flyora sees German soldiers revelling in his suffering; drinking, laughing and finding pleasure in another group's pain. People burn, people scream, people beg and there is never any indication that there's a chance for mercy. We share Flyora's view, and the sights are sickening enough to make you wonder about humanity. Impactful, despairing and utterly relentless, Come and See is so great that it's almost impossible to recommend. You may need to read that twice, but you were right the first time. It's a film that's so successful in its depiction of war crimes that subjecting it to anyone seems almost unfair. Elem Klimov never made another movie after Come and See, and in a way he never needed to. The material for a truly petrifying horror film was already there in a dark chapter of real human history, and Klimov broke convention by framing it not as exploitation cinema, an action movie, or an inquisitive documentary, but as an unflinching look through the innocent eyes of a terrified teenage boy. It's a nightmarish window into a terrifying part of history. Once you "come and see," you'll never be able to forget. 1) Grave Of The Fireflies There aren't many anti-war movies that manage to evade the genre's typical trappings. War - by its very nature - is fast, furious, and absorbing when it's conveyed on screen, and as tragic as the likes of Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line undoubtedly are, there still remains a thrill to the way in which they're executed. Over the course of film history, there have been just a handful of movies that have performed and behaved as genuine anti-war films. Come and See, as we have already established, is one of them. Grave of the Fireflies is another. Just seeing the still images of Grave of the Fireflies is enough to bring a lump to the throat. The big, round evocative eyes that have come to unmistakably symbolize Studio Ghibli (the gigantic animation studio responsible for gems such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and The Tale of Princess Kaguya) suggest there may be hope, but ultimately there is none to be found in Isao Takahata's haunting portrait of a war-ravaged Japan. The story follows a young man named Seita, who is forced into caring for his young, chirpy sister Setsuko when their mother falls victim to one of the raids enacted by the Allies. After overcoming their initial grief, Seita tries to turn their quest for survival into an adventure in order to keep their spirits uplifted, but as natural sources deplete and citizens become more concerned with protecting themselves, the eternally optimistic pair find themselves left facing a decidedly bleak future. Grave of the Fireflies is almost three decades old, but you could see it after thirty and the effects would be the same. There's a hopelessness that creeps up onto the screen, and instead of this sensation falling by the wayside to make room for fresh optimism like you might expect, it only escalates further as the movie ebbs on. Perhaps if all the pro-war leaders were bundled into a room and forced to watch Grave of the Fireflies on a merciless, endless loop, the blissful prospect of eternal world peace may be a little closer than it's ever been before.