There are some films that you see over the course of your life that you wish you could forget. Then there are a handful of ones that once viewed you can never "un-watch". For better or worse, here they are…
#10: HAPPINESS (1998)Director: Todd Solondz
DON’T EVER GET THIS FILM OUT TO CHEER SOMEONE UP JUST BECAUSE IT’S CALLED "HAPPINESS"!
At first you think it’s a film about the quaint interconnectedness of three sisters and their associated partners/family/friends etc - but what it turns out to be is the most frank and confronting dissection of the American (nightmare) Dream ever concocted.
Happiness is a jet-black tragi-comedy, seething with societal ills ranging from shallowness and depression to death and child abuse.
Deeply unsettling.
#9 BAD BOY BUBBY (1993)Director: Rolf de Heer
A twisted story about a 35-year old man-child named Bubby who leaves his dead mother wrapped in glad-wrap on the couch and then ventures out into the world for the first time. Bubby traipses around the stark streets of Adelaide with a petrified cat (also wrapped in glad-wrap) and has a really messed up adventure.
Add one-part incest, one-part Tourette’s syndrome, a punk band needing a singer and a dash of slutty Red Cross charity dames and you get
Bad Boy Bubby.
#8 GUMMO (1997)Director: Harmony Korine
Gummo is the ultimate crumpled snapshot of small town U.S.A. gone pear-shaped. Welcome to hell (aka Xenia, Ohio), a rusted ol’ town rife with white trash devil spawn, high on glue, drowned cats and cheap thrills. Your peepers will rot watching this downright disturbing masterpiece of aimless nihilism and human absurdity portrayed by a rabble of venomously amoral characters.
#7 LILYA 4-EVER (2002)Director: Lukas Moodysson
Lilya 4-Ever charts the trials and tribulations of an abandoned teenage girl Lilya and her downtrodden friend Volodya in ghetto Russia. Lilya eventually gets a boyfriend who puts her on a plane to Sweden to start a new life. When she arrives he’s not there, but her new pimp is. A harsh blend of prostitution, glue-sniffing and bleak cityscapes assaults the senses and blackens the heart, making this a real "downer" flick.
No hope at the bottom of this barrel.
#6 ANATOMIE DE L’ENFER (Anatomy of Hell) (2004) Director: Catherine Breillat
Focusing specifically on male fear and resentment of female sexuality, the movie depicts what happens when a gay man and a straight female are in a room for four days. The two characters are naked for most of the film and eventually the gay male decides to have a tumble in the hay with the woman despite the fact that "Aunt Flo" is visiting.
The French just love to take things too far, and this film is the ultimate visual representation of over-the-top philosophical wank and confronting sexual imagery.
Sexually retarding!
#5 MYSTERIOUS SKIN (2004)Director: Gregg Araki
Brian suffers from violent nosebleeds and believes aliens abducted him as a child. Neil hangs around public parks and turns tricks for creepy guys in cars. Are they two lost teenagers or do they both share the same secret?
Mysterious Skin is a harrowing cocktail of drug abuse, small town suffocation, prostitution and child abuse, which distills itself into a visceral cinematic puree of human suffering and personal alienation.
Don’t break out the Tim Tams and microwave popcorn for this one.
#4 REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2004)Director: Darren Aronofsky
The fast and feverish editing in this disaster-piece makes you feel as though you’re seeing the world through the eyes of four junkies simultaneously.
Requiem For A Dream is a pure hellride through the desolate lives of its very disparate and desperate characters, which quickly morphs into an unforgettable nightmare.
Ever wanted to know how far people will go to get their next fix? Watch this bad-boy and find out for yourself.
“ASS TO ASS, ASS TO ASS, ASS TO ASS!”
#3 THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)Director: Mel Gibson
A far more apt title for this film would be "The Stomping of The Christ". Welcome to Mad Mel’s religious guilt-trip 101, starring the world’s ultimate star/undisputed catalyst for war, Jesus Christ. Ever wanted to watch a 2-hour "snuff" film and still be able to include the whole gang? Well look no further than this fun-filled family treat. This movie makes every slasher-flick ever made look totally lame.
Turn the sound off for this one and put on Slayer’s
Reign in Blood album to act as the soundtrack.
Fucking brutal.
#2 IRREVERSIBLE (2002)Director: Gasper Noe
Done in the classic "bad-to-worse-to-worser-than-the-worsest-shit-ever" style of filmmaking,
Irreversible is a French story that is comprised of 13 scenes, which are shown in reverse chronological order. Starting (ending) at a charming lil’ place called Club Rectum, the ball gets rolling when some dude gets his head caved-in with a fire extinguisher. Every section in the film thereafter is a little less violent, but the physical violence is replaced with something far more damaging to the viewer as
Irreversible reaches its tragic ending (beginning).
You could watch
Amelie a thousand times over after seeing
Irreversible and it would do nothing to erase this film from your brain.
#1 SALO O LE GIORANTE DI SODOMA (120 OF SODOM) (1975)Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini (banned worldwide for 25 years)
Pasolini was murdered just before
Salo was released, but his last film left the highest watermark on the high-tide pole of messed up films. Set in the last days of Mussolini’s regime and based around the book by Marquis de Sade,
Salo charts the depraved sexual games of four wealthy men who have taken nine teenage girls and nine teenage boys hostage.
Salo is a Fecalpheliac’s wet-dream come true and a germ-o-phobes worst nightmare come to life. A sadistic onslaught of torture, rape, coprophagia, sodomy, human depravity and grim death is what
Salo centres around. An unrelenting barrage of visual torture and inhuman dread awaits if you choose to witness this film.
Hands down the most evil, twisted and fucked film ever committed to celluloid.
- By Jordan Bloomer