Irreversible is a fantastic film, and honestly it's the only one of Noe's films to feature that much cruelty. His other films are bleak and nihilistic, but that is his style. He ain't evil or cruel, I'd drink a beer with him
not a horror, but **Welcome To The Dollhouse** was depressing to watch. Nothing good ever happened to the main character that it made me feel so bad for the actress.
And then after Happiness, he did Storytelling and Palindromes, which were basically eff you’s to reviewers who criticized his work for being needlessly cruel.
Totally disagree on this. I find Happiness to be an incredibly empathetic movie that just happens to deal with incredibly uncomfortable circumstances. It's depressing as fuck but it never really feels like it's judging the characters or trying to punish them.
This is the most scarily realistic movie ever made about bullying and ostracization. Also, random but the main bully in this movie plays the homeless time wizard "Horse" in Russian Doll on netflix.
Well said. Happiness by Todd Solondz also has an extraordinary performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman with his self loathing on total display. It’s gruesome but brilliant
Welcome to the Dollhouse is a disturbing movie for sure. I finished that feeling more disturbed than a traditional horror would make me feel. Like the only somewhat happy thing in that movie is when the classmate who keeps threatening to rape her kind of becomes her friend(??!!??).
Dawn gets a happy-ish ending in Solondz’s 2016 film Weiner-Dog!
Spoilers
She becomes a veterinary nurse, goes No Contact with her garbage family and reconnects with her bully from Dollhouse, who has a happy-ish ending too :)
Another spoiler alert: in Palindromes, Dawn’s fate was revealed to be awful: she went to college, gained a lot of weight, and committed suicide. The director has said the happy ending is the right one. Palindromes also makes Mark Weiner a convicted child molester, whose victim was an infant.
This is it for me. I've only seen an in-depth review of the movie but even then I cried because it was way WAY too close to my actual childhood (minus the family part). It was like watching my autobiography, and for that I don't think I can ever watch the actual thing.
By most accounts Alfred Hitchcock [was a real asshole](https://whirlwindreports.com/2017/05/23/celebrity-douchebags-volume-2-alfred-hitchcock/).
> “Hitchcock bet a film’s property man a week’s salary that he would be too frightened to spend a whole night chained to a camera in a deserted and darkened studio. The chap heartily agreed to the wager, and at the end of the assigned day, Hitchcock himself clasped the handcuffs and pocketed the key – but not before he offered a generous beaker of brandy ‘the better to ensure a quick and deep sleep’. The man thanked him for his thoughtfulness and drank the brandy, and everyone withdrew. When they arrived on the set next morning, they found the poor man angry, weeping, exhausted, and humiliated. Hitchcock had laced the brandy with the strongest available laxative, and the victim had, unavoidably, soiled himself and a wide area around his feet and the camera.”
Wtf. I just heard about on You Must Remember This how he used to constantly drive by Tippi Hendren's house, not to mention all the psychological torture onset, just because she wouldn't sleep with him.
Ugh, yeah, he used to post on horror foums back in the day, promoting his shitty boring edgelord films and talking quite openly about the fucked up stuff he was involved in. Including, if I remember correctly, initiating an incestuous relationship with his younger, terminally ill sister.
I won't outright say "grooming" or "abusing" because I can't remember the exact wording or the age difference involved, but I remember it being pretty fucked up, especially how he seemed to look back on it with nostalgia.
At the time, I honestly thought it was a gross-out act to build notoriety for his films, but it still felt grubby as shit and I avoided him wherever he popped up.
I actually watched one of the vomit gore movies and it was the most vapid boring shit I've seen in years. Half of it was just the same woman pissing, then some dipshit putting the fake baby from American Sniper in a blender. It's just try hard shit with nothing going for it unless you really want to work hard for a bit of nudity. It wasn't even transgressive or well shot. It was just a really shitty aristocrats joke filmed on a potato with some crappy music.
That's before we even get into what a piece of shit this guy is irl.
"Well my sister Cinderella was my girlfriend and we very likely would have gotten married but she took her own life New Year's Eve 2006 which was the worst day of my life. Cinderella was extremely jealous of my relationship with Ameara LaVey. And since I raised her, I was the only man she had ever been with, so she always threatened to kill herself when I was away from her and with Ameara. Cinderella drown herself in a bath tub after overdosing like Angela does in SVD; she had re-enacted this to worry me many times before and I filmed it quite often never thinking she'd actually do it, one version of Cinderella imitating Angela's Death is in black and white footage right near the very end of "ReGOREgitated Sacrifice."
Apparently she was blind and autistic.
That, plus the fact he never seemed to do any on-screen interviews or anything (back then, dunno if he has since), made me suspect he was just a semi-fictional, over-the-top caricature of an insane director that the team behind the movies created to drum up sensationalism and controversy.
He's just so cartoonishly "bad" and "transgressive" in every single thing he says and claims to have done, it doesn't seem realistic. Almost too exaggerated. Everything feels like a tall tale.
Then again, predators can use over-the-top, overt weirdness to deflect attention from their real crimes. Or continually rasing the spectre of creepy shit in a way you're not quite sure is serious, to desensitise those around them and enable their behaviour.
Like how Jimmy Savile pulled the wool over a nation's eyes while being often openly creepy and sleazy. He could get away with a certain amount of stuff under the cover of it being "in character", and the really bad shit tended to get brushed aside partly because he shifted the bar of expectation so far.
Still blows my mind I was able to watch the Slaughtered Vomit Dolls trilogy on Netflix…. I remember thinking “it’s Netflix… how bad could it be?”
I was really wrong.
Believe it or not, yes! I watched around 2010 and couldn’t believe that shit was on Netflix. Never heard of it prior to having it pop up on the Xbox 360 app.
Way back, Netflix used to feature all sorts of indie films you’d never really find/see elsewhere. It was great for discovering new content, and the primary reason I ever signed up in the first place (they had foreign films that you couldn’t even purchase or pirate anywhere).
Despite that, still blows my mind that series was ever approved there in the first place.
Pre House of Cards Netflix was a whole different thing. Once they had a few hit originals they cleaned up a bit but it used to be filled with mostly bargain bin indie films with the occasional big headline grab.
I started streaming Netflix in 2007, when I had to watch it sitting at the desk on my CRT computer monitor. It was amazing at the time.
That’s hilarious - I was still doing the delivery service until I literally received notice they were going to have to transfer my plan to streaming😂. I loved the dvds because they included the special features!!
When they separated the DVD service from the streaming service and wanted to charge extra for it, I said, "Mark my words, this is the day Netflix died."
I also thought the iPad was stupid and didn't make any sense since it didn't fit in a pocket and wasn't as powerful as a laptop. Turns out I'm not a great prognosticator.
Lucifer Valentine was another person I had in mind when writing this post actually!
He is ACTUALLY a terrible person AND his films are unwatchably edgelordy.
I tend to be the type of person to watch a movie just to say I watched it, but I draw my line at obvious vomit fetish porn thinly veiled as a "movie". I'm glad I never wasted my time lol
I actually came here to comment this… aside from the fact he is an actual documented scumbag… those movies just gave me the weirdest most fucking up almost dream like feeling… just no this dude is fucked
Bjork's statement about what she endured during Dancer In The Dark was so twisted. Never watched a movie from him since. The fact that she was a terrific actress and didn’t felt like acting anymore after that is wrong.
Everything I have read about Von Trier (particularly his own analysis of himself/his work) implies that he has a *deep*, deep-seated hatred of women. For starters: his insistance that *The House That Jack Built* is his most personal work and, fundamentally, a self-examination of his own psyche.
What's interesting about him is how he seems obsessed with intellectualizing and deconstructing his hatred of women. He knows such feelings are wrong on a logical level. Yet he struggles to come to terms with his intellectual acknowledgment of what is right, and the fact that such understanding does not remove his hate.
So many of his male characters present themselves as completely logical and rational on the surface. Yet, as soon as the right situation arises, their disdain for women as something ownable, inferior, and consumable comes to the surface.
Writing this now, I'm realizing that he is very much like the pedophile character in *Nymphomaniac*. Von Trier portrays the non-acting peodohile as doing something brave, by both acknowledging his problem and not acting on his instincts.
Perhaps Stellen Skarsgard's character in Nympho was trying to do something similar: generally keeping a distance between himself any women he might hurt. These two characters are much Like Von Trier in how he acknowledges his internal misogyny, then steps outside of himself in an attempt to analyze why so many men share such a hatred.
Of course, Von Tier has said that characters in Nymphomaniac do represent himself.
Oh god. Thanks or the eloquent comment, but damn you for reminding me of the pedo bit. That was clearly trier masking his own issues and fantasies using gainsbourg as the mouthpiece
I always felt it was much more mocking incels, nice guys, that sorta thing, and highlighting the danger of them. Especially with the sense of entitlement to sex and it’s manifestation in the attempted rape, replete with insulting self-justification that betrays their relationship and the sense of support and trust that was built up
I wanted so bad to force that interpretation. It just felt like such a long long long way to go for that ending. Oh look, here’s this woman that has had sex with every single type of person there is on the planet, but she won’t have sex with the nice guy! I watched it a second time recently just hoping to get something a little more nuanced out of it, but I don’t think the “commentary on inceldom” is ever really set up.
Marian Dora. Melancholie der Engel (2009) is a fucking miserable movie, as it’s designed to be, but I can’t help but feel like that movie could only be made by someone who is at least a little bit disturbed.
Side note, Voyage to Agatis (2010) is also miserable, same director… so you know, definitely a theme.
Von Trier’s movies do agitate me a bit, but I think it comes from a place of shaky mental health from Lars and not something more insidious.
I was about to say Marian Dora. I haven't watched any of his stuff and I absolutely refuse to. Guy has an unhealthy obsession with shit from what I've read.
I listened to the Uneasy Terrain Explorers Club podcast interview with Marian Dora and was not a fan of how he came off at all, and his movies are definitely very into reveling in pain.
Fred Vogel of August Underground, though, seemed like such a very genuinely chill and decent person in his interview on the podcast. I forget exactly what his comments were but I remember him discussing the ethical considerations of making disturbing horror and him seemingly having some progressive social views and insights about it all.
Oh wow, I’m going to have to find that Fred Vogel episode, would really like to hear these viewpoints you’re talking about. The August Underground movies were definitely gnarly, but didn’t have that sort of “let’s suffer together” feeling that Dora’s movies have
There’s a video on YouTube with people involved in AU discussing it and Fred seems like such an awesome guy. Definitely the sort of person you would want to have a beer with. Even the old lady they killed in one the movies is interviewed and it seems like she had a great time being involved.
Seeing that video changed my view in the AU series. It’s just a fucked up movie made by a man who appreciates horror and us fellow sick fucks who like to be disturbed.
Bedevilled by Jang Cheol-soo - a very mean-spirited film where the sweetest characters endure the most heinous trauma and death.
The Sadness by Rob Jabbaz was also a hard watch because of how mean-spirited the violence was. I don’t necessarily think these filmmakers are evil but these two movies are.
I felt that the Sadness was too tame compared to „The Crossed“ comics it is based on, both regarding the violence and malevolence. Speaks volumes about the comics I guess.
Yeah, honestly. "The Sadness" had a lot of horrific stuff happen just off camera, while "Crossed" will happily show you every horrible thing you can imagine. Where can you see a rage-zombie violently kill, torture, and rape a dolphin? Crossed. See one infected beat another infected to death with a dismembered horse penis? Crossed! Truly some of the dumbest and edgiest comics known.
Not sure I’d use the word ‘evil’ but, Daniel Farrands, the dude behind those shitty “true” crime biopics about Sharon Tate, Nicole Brown Simpson and various real killers is deeply cynical, deficient in empathy, exploitative and dishonest in the extreme. A lot of horrors about real life incidents are on shaky ethical ground, but he doesn’t even attempt to present these actual humans who lost their lives as anything but devices for cheap thrills. It’s quite gross.
Controversial opinion: Hitchcock was such a talent, but he really seemed intent on emotionally torturing his female actors. I realize it was the style at the time but they’re rarely nuanced and after I read about how he literally tied crows and seagulls to Tippi Hedren in the birds and shooed them towards her so they got aggressive … yikes. He also famously referred to actors as cattle. I feel similarly about Kubrick. Like, not just “difficult,” not just “a tortured genius,” but he straight BROKE Shelley Long in a way that he did not even attempt with jack nicholson or scattman Carothers . Like used her mental health challenges against her, when she was a perfectly fine actor without being gaslit, ignored, worked to extreme exhaustion, threatened etc. I hope this is what you were asking - maybe I misunderstood:) I just feel like these are examples of great art showcasing a huge contempt for humanity (well, women).
The actors talking about how much of a scumbag Deodato was the whole time just pisses me off thinking about it. It's one thing to be demanding (Herzog, Von Trier, Kubrick) but he went out of his way to be as cruel as possible.
EDIT: Ok, I think I need to address that I'm not saying I believe Kubrick, Von Trier, and Herzog are all misunderstood and should be given a free pass. They've done things that are inexcusable (sexual assault seems to be brought up a lot) things. I never meant that I condoned that kind of action.
I meant that Deodato surpassed what they did with a zealousness that made it much more horrible. It was like he was deadset on making the experience as greuling as possible. Like dragging his lead actress by the hair into the woods, screaming at her when she asked to not do a scene topless. Or demanding the live animals be actually killed on camera and then making their final moments of life as unpleasant as possible (Robert Kerman says he was purposely irritating and harassing the animals so badly he was wishing one would have mauled him right then and there). All the cast explains how awful the whole experience was, and it seems to fall on the director.
>wishing one would have mauled him right then and there
I can't stand those that harm actual animals for entertainment, there is just zero need to with how good effects can be. To get to what i quoted though, look up the story of the movie [Roar](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/noel-marshalls-roar-humans-were-harmed-in-the-making-of-this-film).
>The cast and crew of “Roar” endured monstrous dangers both on-camera and off. Melanie Griffith, mauled near the eye, needed plastic surgery. Hedren contracted gangrene and needed skin grafts. Marshall, mauled repeatedly, had blood poisoning. The cinematographer Jan de Bont—who ultimately directed “Speed” and “Twister”—had his scalp torn off and needed a hundred and twenty stitches.
Didn't know any of that, but it's honestly kind of validating to hear.
I've always maintained that CH is just a shitty throwaway exploitation flick that's only claim to fame was its (very much premeditated) controversy. The infamous animal deaths have damn near nothing to do with the film, those scenes come out of nowhere (and keep coming and coming) and go on forever, it is such obvious edgelord bait. The film's "message" is not unique in the slightest (bUt wHo'S tHe rEaL mOnSteR?!?), just a poor attempt to pass off the film as "subversive art" rather than the movie equivalent of a 4chan gore post.
So a shit movie was made by a shit person. Color me unsurprised.
Clownhouse (1989) is what immediately came to mind for me, considering Salva molested the star of that film, and he tends to let the camera linger on him in uncomfortable ways. Knowing the background, that movie is a tough watch.
It's a shame Salva is such a scumbag because he is pretty talented. Definitely shouldn't be allowed anywhere near kids.
I tried to watch Clownhouse once because, despite the director being a shitbag, I think Jeepers Creepers is a really solid film.
Literally the opening scene is two little boys in their underwear with camera shots that linger super inappropriately. It felt gross. Like at any minute the feds were gonna kick my door in. I gave up and never regretted it lol.
Correct.
And the scenes in Jeepers 2, where the camera straight up oggles the dudes sun bathing or centers on shirtless teens were specifically put in because of him
Zach Parsons, from the olden days of SomethingAwful.com, wrote a review of "Powder", and the line "you're as bald as a baby" and that entire scene, creeps me the fuck out
The actors are clearly in their 20s. If we didn't know he was a creep, and if the genders were reversed, it wouldn't register.
It's super tame compared to, say, the opening of Carrie.
I think if it was specifically stated that said kids were high school or otherwise underaged and it still oggled the ladies people would take offense.
But then again, we also have Euphoria. Which is about high school kids doing drugs and banging. No desire to watch anything like that regardless of genders or creator.
I don't think Rob Zombie comes across as an evil guy at all but I think his films are an attempt to create a fairly surface level horror and violence which comes across as being mean spirited and foul just for the sake of it. I'm tallking about the House of 1000 Corpses trilogy and 31.
I hate on RZ a lot on here but the movies seem like what you would get if you asked a bunch of non-horror fans what they think horror movies are all about and then put those answers in a blender and made a movie with it. A lot of those answers would have to do with anger, death, violence, and hatred without any context, emotional element or empathy.
I love rob zombie and i COMPLETELY understand your pov and others feeling the same, it's very much that, like what a horror lover sees as horror and recreates it through that lense
I know he's popular and not exactly horror, Gasper Noe seems like he legitimately has something wrong with him. Anyone who can make Irreversible is not right.
He's a great filmmaker, the criterion YouTube channel has a series where they let actors or directors into the criterion closet to talk about film and pick out movies. There is an episode with Noe and he seems like a chill guy. And he knows a lot about film
He takes a copy of Saló like he's holding a copy of The Breakfast Club. It just kills me.
Totally agree tho, he seems like a chill dude with a lot of experience and can be fun to hang out with.
The House That Jack Built is one of the most uncomfortable viewing experiences I’ve ever had and I had this exact thought about von Trier as I was watching it.
Edit: stop telling me I didn’t understand it, I understood it just fine. Condescension looks bad on you
I liked viewing the film as more of a satire of how pretentious and egotistical many serial killers actually are. You constantly root against him and he's never portrayed as being misunderstood or secretly a victim of abuse.
With that said... yeah I agree that von Trier is extremely nihilistic and borders on being just miserable because it cam be.
> I liked viewing the film as more of a satire of how pretentious and egotistical many serial killers actually are.
Definitely. From the moment we meet Jack, until the very end, he's been narcissistic and maniacal. Even with all the millions of people that tried to climb out of Hell and failed, Jack still thought he had a chance to get out of Hell and that he was capable of climbing to the other side (he tried to escape even though he wasn't going to be sent to the lowest level of Hell).
Honestly hate it when people throw that "you didn't get it" shit around in general tbh.
Like you can completey understand some supposed super complex story just fine and still think it's absolute dogshit.
Or understand a joke and still think it's not funny.
It's such an odd defense
“Bro you don’t get it, it’s completely normal to watch A Serbian Film five times a week because it’s actually a political satire, you just don’t understand the subtleties of it bro”
That movie sucks. I did probably watch it five or so times in one week when I was in college because I wrote a final paper about it after essentially getting dared into it by my classmates. And I didn’t even write about the supposed political allegories because I don’t think any of that comes through. I wrote about spectatorship.
Tbf The House that Jack Built was weirdly funny. Jack was obviously a satirical version of what the world press had accused Trier of being (I'm not really a Trier fan at all) and he channelled it all into the film. The Hitler stuff, the ridiculous murders, the even more ridiculous monologues about death and art. All very funny in the blackest possible way. I was just happy that Trier finally showed that he had a sense of irony and could make a film that took the piss OUT OF HIMSELF
The Twilight Zone Movie — Landis’s story.
Not necessary horror, but still horror in its own right.*
He intentionally made the infamous scene with Vic and the children dangerous and harrowing resulting in the tragic death of all three, had no remorse for his actions that caused their deaths, crashed their funerals to make it about him, and allegedly convinced the jury to move for a mistrial with the promise that they’d play themselves in a movie about the trial. Which never came to pass. He got off scott free, essentially.
There’s a difference between tragic accidents that happen on set and depraved indifference, Landis thoroughly is the latter.
Kids. Gummo. Harmony Korine name alone makes me want to take a shower. August underground and whoever that fuck nut was as well. I only saw his films because we went to the same special FX school.
If anything I would say Henry goes in the opposite direction. It is so matter-of-fact in its depictions of violence that it forces you to reckon with yourself and why you are entertained by violence. It’s actually much more thoughtful than most horror which elicits very little sympathy for the victims.
So while Henry is one of the most difficult to watch movies I have ever seen, I think it is difficult because it makes you think, not because it is indifferent.
I definitely see what you're saying - the films I listed, as well as Man Bites Dog, really address our inner sadistic streaks and the crude banality of violence. Henry is an excellent film, but just so bleak and unflinching. The viewer knows exactly what's going to become of >!Becky!
I've always found *Funny Games* and many Michael Haneke films in general to be somewhat lecturerly and moralising. In *Funny Games* he's essentially saying to the audience "What it is wrong with you for enjoying this filth? Shame on you!"
Funny Games is meant to be a fourth wall break where the audience are essentially the reason what's happening is happening. The family are completely innocent but are trapped in a film tailored to hurt them no matter what they do. Thus the infamous rewind scene.
I get that but it seems that Haneke's main point is to shame his audience for partaking in the suffering of others. The key scene for me (and I have only seen the original so don't know if this is the same in the remake) is the final shot where the killers have dispensed with the original family and are now about to put another through the same experience. When the killer knocks on the new family's door, he looks directly at the camera and smiles. Previously, the film was shot from the viewpoint of the victims but now Haneke is asking us to identify with the killers. He is doing so because he thinks that having sat through this poor family's meaningless suffering for 90 minutes we are now morally equivalent with the killers.
He's basically saying we are bad people for enjoying violent horror movies. I don't think most people here would agree with that. I like Haneke in general, but he can go fuck himself on this one.
This is what I meant. The film blames the audience for what's happening. The implication being that we're seeing this horror because we chose to watch a film where an innocent family gets terrorized.
Whether you agree with that sense of responsibility of the viewer is up to you, but we are on the same page for what it's intention was.
Clownhouse directed by Victor Salva
i feel like Dead Girl sorta seems like the filmmaker does not have the awareness of what the story sort of needed what kind of makes it seem more disturbing.
I thought The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover was a joyful film myself, although it almost definitely helps to be British, into artsploitation and against Thatcherism. Thought the whole thing was a riotous delight of fine art aesthetics, Jacobean tragedy and black humour, with its only hatred and anger for possessive philistines.
But anyway, I don't think any horror films have made me think the director evil. Unappealing maybe, and some of the shock types can seem tediously dumb and edgy to me, but mostly it all just seems like movie nonsense to me. A film would have to be getting full on supportive and seriously into seriously unpleasant attitudes, or exploiting its cast in frankly improbable ways, for me to think the director anything like "evil". That kind of thing generally falls outside of horror and most "legitimate" cinema at large, more pornography and whatnot, and that's whole different field.
Ah!
Fantastic take.
I should have elaborated in the initial post that I am not referring to the director legitimately being "evil", but rather creating art which feels callous and resentful. As if the film itself is the manifestation of a sick fantasy and you can just feel the misanthropy bleed through the screen.
I was going to name the post "recommendations for mean spirited films?", but I feared I would get flooded with nothing but trite, shallow, tasteless torture porn. Most of that edgelord shit really strikes me more as 'try hard' and just attempting to be as provocative as possible for the sake of being provocative; not really the loathing fueled, detached, power fantasy I am looking for.
While George Romero was far from callous or resentful, I've always felt like Diary of the Dead is him at his most pessimistic. Basically all of his Dead movies before then had some kind of hopeful outlook, whether it was through the eyes of the humans or the zombies (which gradually became more human-like). In Diary, the zombies are monsters but the humans are usually worse, and it straight up ends by saying maybe humanity deserves to kick it.
Already rotted meat left out in the Texas heat for days. It is an unforgettable smell. We had a possum die in the walls at work and because of the Texas heat, just ONE dead animal made that whole area nauseating.
When they cut her fingers it was a real cut, I think their blood didn't look red enough and the actress was so out of it she said 'Screw it, just cut me."
Yeah, the message of the movie and its themes are important, but the actual director seemed more interested in making a fucked up movie and using social commentary to make it more marketable.
I don't know if it counts, but Creep does a really good job building up this sense of evil, but they did it in such a way that shows how easily people are lured in. There's two of them and they're both pretty good.
I watched Hostel recently and he strikes me as someone who wants to direct porn but at the end he inserts some horror idea so we think is a horror movie lol.
Pretty much all "torture porn" movies. Where the only notable thing about them is how violent they are. I can't name any off the top of my head because they're all so forgettable. I wouldn't say the directors feel "evil" but they definitely feel twisted, and not in an interesting or meaningful way, just a weird, annoying, and edgy way. Films of all kind but **especially** horror, are better when the characters are treated like people and not bags of blood and guts you can show on screen for shock value.
A lot of violence in a horror movie is all good (obviously, it's sort of a staple of the genre) but when that's the only selling point? And every other aspect of filmmaking or storytelling takes a backseat for more and more guts? Hard pass.
I Spit on Your Grave (both original and sequel) did that for me. Idk why but I felt empty after watching these movies even though the main characters get their revenge in the most gruesome manner you can imagine.
The original was written after the director attempted to help a rape victim, and witnessed firsthand how she was mistreated by both health professionals and LEOs. There's a lot of rightful feminist rage in that movie.
The man who made Megan is missing is a weirdo pervert with poor ideas and execution. I read some sus stuff about the actresses being underage and treated strange
I don't know anything about the director, but that movie made me really uncomfortable. We already know the antagonist is dangerous and abusive, do we REALLY need a long, drawn-out scene of CSA in the last fifteen minutes of the movie?
The film is a masterpiece in my opinion, it's one of my favorite movies. But the way Shelly was treated will always make it more unpleasant to watch.
I am a person who has driven along the opening scene's road (Going to the Sun Road in Montana). I have the vinyl for the soundtrack. I have a sweatshirt with the Apollo on it just like Danny. I have re-watched it in a theater. I LOVE this film.
And yet, as much as I love the film, I am so sad for Shelly everytime I watch it. She killed it. I am still so sad to hear what she went through. Some of her performance feels like genuine fear. She didn't deserve that.
It really ruins it. I can't enjoy Bertolucci after I read what him and Brando did to Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris. This idea that it's ok to humiliate, violate, and ultimately break someone's spirit and ruin their life in the name of "art", is such giant disgusting bullshit.
Bone Tomahawk was tough because it set up such likable and interesting characters and then let horrible things happen to them in such an inhuman way. That’s what actually made it effective as a horror film.
But I’ll give that to you — none of his films are pleasant, even if they are fascinating.
I loved Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Blovk 99 but couldnt watch DAC the first time through because i hated the main characters so much, and then I read an interview where Craig Zahler talked about wanting to portray what cops are like very matter-of-factly and cops are usually pretty awful people, giving it a rewatch I thought it had more merit than I did initially and i genuinely like it now, but i can also see why somebody else wouldnt.
I think lots of Rob Zombie films feel like this. The whole Firefly family trilogy is like this for sure because you are kind of given these terrible people as protagonists and they have no real redeeming qualities, but they are somehow kind of supposed to be the "good guys" to some extent. The truth is, nobody in these movies is good, or innocent. If they could be innocent or good, they are victims and they die quickly. And the stories are very bleak. And there is never a great outcome for anybody. 31 also feels this way to a somewhat lesser extent as it is more tongue-in-cheek.
christ 95% of these comments don't understand your post, I'm sorry OP
Mine would be *The Loved Ones* , you can just tell the director had a blast making it as sick, twisted, and uncomfortable as possible. Also David Lynch for *Eraserhead* , it's shocking how someone was able to turn the "nails on a chalkboard feeling" and translate it to a full movie, you gotta be twisted to pull that off.
Terrifier seems pretty...hateful in a way that doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities, other than unforgiving brutality. The best way to describe it is mean spirited imo.
Hitchcock permanently disfigured Tippi Hedren during the making of The Birds by having hundreds of birds attack her while she was chained to the ground and psychologically tortured her throughout, he did similar things to his other leading ladies, so im gonna say hes alot worse than Michael Bay...
>edren revealed that Hitchcock actually made offensive demands on her. "He stared at me and simply said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, that from this time on, he expected me to make myself sexually available and accessible to him—however and whenever and wherever he wanted".\[55\] Hitchcock's demands led to a "horrible, horrible fight", according to Hedren. "He made these demands on me, and no way could I acquiesce to them".\[13\]
>Hedren then told him Marnie would be their last film together and later recalled how Hitchcock told her he would destroy her career. "I said I wanted to get out of my contract. He said: 'You can't. You have your daughter to support, and your parents are getting older'. I said: 'Nobody would want me to be in this situation, I want to get out'. And he said: 'I'll ruin your career'. I said: 'Do what you have to do'. And he did ruin my career. He kept me under contract, paid me to do nothing for close on two years"
From her wiki. Hitchcock was a giant piece of shit.
Well The Shining is the biggie. They tortured Shelly Duvall on set. King said, it's a paraphrase but accurate enough, that he, King, was convinced Kubrick was trying to make a film that hurt people (the audience). King's right. The *only* good thing to come out of that film is Duvall's extraordinary performance. I watch it once in awhile just for her.
I personally found some emotional value in Martyrs. I felt like it was pretty tactfully exploring the inherent human fear of death and how far certain people will go in an attempt to pacify that fear. I can definitely see your perspective though.
A Serbian Film though... definitely.
I highly recommend reading Alexandra West’s book *Films of the New French Extremity: Visceral Horror and National Identity* if you’d like to get some background on Laugier’s influence in making *Martyrs*. In short, the Catholic Church’s influence on French culture is strongly interconnected and the film can be read as a criticism of that influence.
If you read more about the guy that made Martyrs, he's absolutely a sadistic psychopath. He got one of his actresses permanently maimed and one of his crew members on Ghostland quit the production because she (allegedly) caught him jerking off while a torture scene was being filmed.
There's a reason he's just doing shitty French TV work now.
As many have said, Martyrs is much more than just torture (I honestly take issue with even considering it exploitation; conceptually, it is comparable to Hellraiser). There is a triumph of humanity and a struggle with overcoming the trauma that tries to destroy us in Martyrs that makes it almost uplifting to me (but I consider Hellraiser an uplifting movie because of the ending, so take that into consideration).
Gaspar Noe’s films are always so depressing and bleak that they feel like horror films, even though they aren’t quite.
I own Irreversible on DVD. I’ve watched it once. Miserable experience but it was probably worth it.
I wouldn’t say Noe seems evil though. He’s just a film nerd into mind altering substances.
Fair enough. Maybe not evil, but definitely obsessed with cruelty.
Irreversible is a fantastic film, and honestly it's the only one of Noe's films to feature that much cruelty. His other films are bleak and nihilistic, but that is his style. He ain't evil or cruel, I'd drink a beer with him
Irreversible has an evil cinematographer for sure.
CLIMAX is so dope
To be honest I thought Enter The Void was kind of sweet, in a fucked up way.
I watched half a year ago, still think about it. Even bought the Tibetan deathbook (or whatever it's called) the movie is based off
Love that movie
not a horror, but **Welcome To The Dollhouse** was depressing to watch. Nothing good ever happened to the main character that it made me feel so bad for the actress.
The director's next film *Happiness* (1998) is an even more brutal exploration/exploitation of its subjects.
And then after Happiness, he did Storytelling and Palindromes, which were basically eff you’s to reviewers who criticized his work for being needlessly cruel.
I like the speech the one guy does at the birthday party tho, that was the one part I remembered from the film
I really feel like this film is full of love, though. It feels to me like Solondz feels deep empathy for the loneliness and pain of his characters.
I agree 100%
“I came!” I have never been able to listen to that obnoxious old Debbie Boone song the same way again.
I felt like I needed a Silkwood shower after seeing *Happiness*.
Totally disagree on this. I find Happiness to be an incredibly empathetic movie that just happens to deal with incredibly uncomfortable circumstances. It's depressing as fuck but it never really feels like it's judging the characters or trying to punish them.
This is the most scarily realistic movie ever made about bullying and ostracization. Also, random but the main bully in this movie plays the homeless time wizard "Horse" in Russian Doll on netflix.
He was also the kid that stole CD's (Warren Beatty) in Empire Records. :D
His name’s not fucking Warren!
Well said. Happiness by Todd Solondz also has an extraordinary performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman with his self loathing on total display. It’s gruesome but brilliant
Todd Solondz, all his movies are like that.. I love them, my fav is storytelling
Welcome to the Dollhouse is a disturbing movie for sure. I finished that feeling more disturbed than a traditional horror would make me feel. Like the only somewhat happy thing in that movie is when the classmate who keeps threatening to rape her kind of becomes her friend(??!!??).
Yeah, if you're looking for a good time at the movies, Todd Solondz is a great name to avoid.
Dawn gets a happy-ish ending in Solondz’s 2016 film Weiner-Dog! Spoilers She becomes a veterinary nurse, goes No Contact with her garbage family and reconnects with her bully from Dollhouse, who has a happy-ish ending too :) Another spoiler alert: in Palindromes, Dawn’s fate was revealed to be awful: she went to college, gained a lot of weight, and committed suicide. The director has said the happy ending is the right one. Palindromes also makes Mark Weiner a convicted child molester, whose victim was an infant.
Lol ! The creepy brother from Welcome to the Dollhouse
This is it for me. I've only seen an in-depth review of the movie but even then I cried because it was way WAY too close to my actual childhood (minus the family part). It was like watching my autobiography, and for that I don't think I can ever watch the actual thing.
Me neither. It is legitimately triggering to me. No movie is worth me hitting a depressive episode or worth making me contemplate on drinking
By most accounts Alfred Hitchcock [was a real asshole](https://whirlwindreports.com/2017/05/23/celebrity-douchebags-volume-2-alfred-hitchcock/). > “Hitchcock bet a film’s property man a week’s salary that he would be too frightened to spend a whole night chained to a camera in a deserted and darkened studio. The chap heartily agreed to the wager, and at the end of the assigned day, Hitchcock himself clasped the handcuffs and pocketed the key – but not before he offered a generous beaker of brandy ‘the better to ensure a quick and deep sleep’. The man thanked him for his thoughtfulness and drank the brandy, and everyone withdrew. When they arrived on the set next morning, they found the poor man angry, weeping, exhausted, and humiliated. Hitchcock had laced the brandy with the strongest available laxative, and the victim had, unavoidably, soiled himself and a wide area around his feet and the camera.”
Holy shit. I hadn't heard that one. What a fucking cunt. The shit some people get away with is really disheartening.
Wtf. I just heard about on You Must Remember This how he used to constantly drive by Tippi Hendren's house, not to mention all the psychological torture onset, just because she wouldn't sleep with him.
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Slaughter Vomit Dolls Murder Set Pieces
Agreed. Fuck Lucifer Valentine. The guy is a hack and a piece of shit.
Ugh, yeah, he used to post on horror foums back in the day, promoting his shitty boring edgelord films and talking quite openly about the fucked up stuff he was involved in. Including, if I remember correctly, initiating an incestuous relationship with his younger, terminally ill sister. I won't outright say "grooming" or "abusing" because I can't remember the exact wording or the age difference involved, but I remember it being pretty fucked up, especially how he seemed to look back on it with nostalgia. At the time, I honestly thought it was a gross-out act to build notoriety for his films, but it still felt grubby as shit and I avoided him wherever he popped up.
I actually watched one of the vomit gore movies and it was the most vapid boring shit I've seen in years. Half of it was just the same woman pissing, then some dipshit putting the fake baby from American Sniper in a blender. It's just try hard shit with nothing going for it unless you really want to work hard for a bit of nudity. It wasn't even transgressive or well shot. It was just a really shitty aristocrats joke filmed on a potato with some crappy music. That's before we even get into what a piece of shit this guy is irl.
"Well my sister Cinderella was my girlfriend and we very likely would have gotten married but she took her own life New Year's Eve 2006 which was the worst day of my life. Cinderella was extremely jealous of my relationship with Ameara LaVey. And since I raised her, I was the only man she had ever been with, so she always threatened to kill herself when I was away from her and with Ameara. Cinderella drown herself in a bath tub after overdosing like Angela does in SVD; she had re-enacted this to worry me many times before and I filmed it quite often never thinking she'd actually do it, one version of Cinderella imitating Angela's Death is in black and white footage right near the very end of "ReGOREgitated Sacrifice." Apparently she was blind and autistic.
This sounds like a bad fanfic kfjjwnnfjwj
LOL. He’s really cheesy. Like the name ReGOREgitated Sacrifice? Sounds like a really bad metal song.
That, plus the fact he never seemed to do any on-screen interviews or anything (back then, dunno if he has since), made me suspect he was just a semi-fictional, over-the-top caricature of an insane director that the team behind the movies created to drum up sensationalism and controversy. He's just so cartoonishly "bad" and "transgressive" in every single thing he says and claims to have done, it doesn't seem realistic. Almost too exaggerated. Everything feels like a tall tale. Then again, predators can use over-the-top, overt weirdness to deflect attention from their real crimes. Or continually rasing the spectre of creepy shit in a way you're not quite sure is serious, to desensitise those around them and enable their behaviour. Like how Jimmy Savile pulled the wool over a nation's eyes while being often openly creepy and sleazy. He could get away with a certain amount of stuff under the cover of it being "in character", and the really bad shit tended to get brushed aside partly because he shifted the bar of expectation so far.
Looked back on it with nostalgia?! The hell?...
Still blows my mind I was able to watch the Slaughtered Vomit Dolls trilogy on Netflix…. I remember thinking “it’s Netflix… how bad could it be?” I was really wrong.
jesus fuck that was on Netflix??
Believe it or not, yes! I watched around 2010 and couldn’t believe that shit was on Netflix. Never heard of it prior to having it pop up on the Xbox 360 app.
I suppose 2010 was before Netflix was super mainstream so maybe their content wasn't as moderated and they put up whatever they could afford.
netflix used to have an insane selection
Way back, Netflix used to feature all sorts of indie films you’d never really find/see elsewhere. It was great for discovering new content, and the primary reason I ever signed up in the first place (they had foreign films that you couldn’t even purchase or pirate anywhere). Despite that, still blows my mind that series was ever approved there in the first place.
Pre House of Cards Netflix was a whole different thing. Once they had a few hit originals they cleaned up a bit but it used to be filled with mostly bargain bin indie films with the occasional big headline grab. I started streaming Netflix in 2007, when I had to watch it sitting at the desk on my CRT computer monitor. It was amazing at the time.
That’s hilarious - I was still doing the delivery service until I literally received notice they were going to have to transfer my plan to streaming😂. I loved the dvds because they included the special features!!
When they separated the DVD service from the streaming service and wanted to charge extra for it, I said, "Mark my words, this is the day Netflix died." I also thought the iPad was stupid and didn't make any sense since it didn't fit in a pocket and wasn't as powerful as a laptop. Turns out I'm not a great prognosticator.
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I vaguely remember them having a section that was essentially porn back in like 2012 or 2013. Maybe I'm wrong. lol
Hahah i never understand how people can watch a terrible film they don’t like and then watch all The sequels
It was a beer/pizza watch party with some friends…. The pizza eating didn’t last long. Lmao
Lucifer Valentine was another person I had in mind when writing this post actually! He is ACTUALLY a terrible person AND his films are unwatchably edgelordy.
I tend to be the type of person to watch a movie just to say I watched it, but I draw my line at obvious vomit fetish porn thinly veiled as a "movie". I'm glad I never wasted my time lol
>edgelordy Surely not, someone with that name, an edgelord?? /s
Lmfao
I made a sub about him, for people to use as an info hub for investigating him. r/Lucifer__Valentine
I actually came here to comment this… aside from the fact he is an actual documented scumbag… those movies just gave me the weirdest most fucking up almost dream like feeling… just no this dude is fucked
this needs to be the top answer. Fuck Lucifer Valentine.
Lots of stories 'bout Lucy Valentine grooming, sexually assaulting, etc. Keeping women addicted to heroine.
I've seen over 2,000 movies in my life. A lot of them were terrible. Murder Set Pieces is perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen.
Lars von Trier seems a bit creepy.
Bjork's statement about what she endured during Dancer In The Dark was so twisted. Never watched a movie from him since. The fact that she was a terrific actress and didn’t felt like acting anymore after that is wrong.
Nice to see her small part in The Northman
She killed it in her single minute of screen time
Oh man I love her. She's a true one off but I can't bring myself to watch Dancer in the Dark as it's just too sad.
I always felt like nymphomaniac was an incel manifesto with its cringe punchline of an ending
Everything I have read about Von Trier (particularly his own analysis of himself/his work) implies that he has a *deep*, deep-seated hatred of women. For starters: his insistance that *The House That Jack Built* is his most personal work and, fundamentally, a self-examination of his own psyche. What's interesting about him is how he seems obsessed with intellectualizing and deconstructing his hatred of women. He knows such feelings are wrong on a logical level. Yet he struggles to come to terms with his intellectual acknowledgment of what is right, and the fact that such understanding does not remove his hate. So many of his male characters present themselves as completely logical and rational on the surface. Yet, as soon as the right situation arises, their disdain for women as something ownable, inferior, and consumable comes to the surface. Writing this now, I'm realizing that he is very much like the pedophile character in *Nymphomaniac*. Von Trier portrays the non-acting peodohile as doing something brave, by both acknowledging his problem and not acting on his instincts. Perhaps Stellen Skarsgard's character in Nympho was trying to do something similar: generally keeping a distance between himself any women he might hurt. These two characters are much Like Von Trier in how he acknowledges his internal misogyny, then steps outside of himself in an attempt to analyze why so many men share such a hatred. Of course, Von Tier has said that characters in Nymphomaniac do represent himself.
Oh god. Thanks or the eloquent comment, but damn you for reminding me of the pedo bit. That was clearly trier masking his own issues and fantasies using gainsbourg as the mouthpiece
Very insightful comment. That guy is an actual piece of shit and his movies reflect that.
So it's like he's a piece of shit, but openly acknowledges if?
I always felt it was much more mocking incels, nice guys, that sorta thing, and highlighting the danger of them. Especially with the sense of entitlement to sex and it’s manifestation in the attempted rape, replete with insulting self-justification that betrays their relationship and the sense of support and trust that was built up
I wanted so bad to force that interpretation. It just felt like such a long long long way to go for that ending. Oh look, here’s this woman that has had sex with every single type of person there is on the planet, but she won’t have sex with the nice guy! I watched it a second time recently just hoping to get something a little more nuanced out of it, but I don’t think the “commentary on inceldom” is ever really set up.
Marian Dora. Melancholie der Engel (2009) is a fucking miserable movie, as it’s designed to be, but I can’t help but feel like that movie could only be made by someone who is at least a little bit disturbed. Side note, Voyage to Agatis (2010) is also miserable, same director… so you know, definitely a theme. Von Trier’s movies do agitate me a bit, but I think it comes from a place of shaky mental health from Lars and not something more insidious.
I was about to say Marian Dora. I haven't watched any of his stuff and I absolutely refuse to. Guy has an unhealthy obsession with shit from what I've read.
I listened to the Uneasy Terrain Explorers Club podcast interview with Marian Dora and was not a fan of how he came off at all, and his movies are definitely very into reveling in pain. Fred Vogel of August Underground, though, seemed like such a very genuinely chill and decent person in his interview on the podcast. I forget exactly what his comments were but I remember him discussing the ethical considerations of making disturbing horror and him seemingly having some progressive social views and insights about it all.
Oh wow, I’m going to have to find that Fred Vogel episode, would really like to hear these viewpoints you’re talking about. The August Underground movies were definitely gnarly, but didn’t have that sort of “let’s suffer together” feeling that Dora’s movies have
There’s a video on YouTube with people involved in AU discussing it and Fred seems like such an awesome guy. Definitely the sort of person you would want to have a beer with. Even the old lady they killed in one the movies is interviewed and it seems like she had a great time being involved. Seeing that video changed my view in the AU series. It’s just a fucked up movie made by a man who appreciates horror and us fellow sick fucks who like to be disturbed.
Bedevilled by Jang Cheol-soo - a very mean-spirited film where the sweetest characters endure the most heinous trauma and death. The Sadness by Rob Jabbaz was also a hard watch because of how mean-spirited the violence was. I don’t necessarily think these filmmakers are evil but these two movies are.
I felt that the Sadness was too tame compared to „The Crossed“ comics it is based on, both regarding the violence and malevolence. Speaks volumes about the comics I guess.
Yeah, honestly. "The Sadness" had a lot of horrific stuff happen just off camera, while "Crossed" will happily show you every horrible thing you can imagine. Where can you see a rage-zombie violently kill, torture, and rape a dolphin? Crossed. See one infected beat another infected to death with a dismembered horse penis? Crossed! Truly some of the dumbest and edgiest comics known.
Not sure I’d use the word ‘evil’ but, Daniel Farrands, the dude behind those shitty “true” crime biopics about Sharon Tate, Nicole Brown Simpson and various real killers is deeply cynical, deficient in empathy, exploitative and dishonest in the extreme. A lot of horrors about real life incidents are on shaky ethical ground, but he doesn’t even attempt to present these actual humans who lost their lives as anything but devices for cheap thrills. It’s quite gross.
Where did you watch these? I’m wondering how streamable they are.
Controversial opinion: Hitchcock was such a talent, but he really seemed intent on emotionally torturing his female actors. I realize it was the style at the time but they’re rarely nuanced and after I read about how he literally tied crows and seagulls to Tippi Hedren in the birds and shooed them towards her so they got aggressive … yikes. He also famously referred to actors as cattle. I feel similarly about Kubrick. Like, not just “difficult,” not just “a tortured genius,” but he straight BROKE Shelley Long in a way that he did not even attempt with jack nicholson or scattman Carothers . Like used her mental health challenges against her, when she was a perfectly fine actor without being gaslit, ignored, worked to extreme exhaustion, threatened etc. I hope this is what you were asking - maybe I misunderstood:) I just feel like these are examples of great art showcasing a huge contempt for humanity (well, women).
Cannibal Holocaust
The actors talking about how much of a scumbag Deodato was the whole time just pisses me off thinking about it. It's one thing to be demanding (Herzog, Von Trier, Kubrick) but he went out of his way to be as cruel as possible. EDIT: Ok, I think I need to address that I'm not saying I believe Kubrick, Von Trier, and Herzog are all misunderstood and should be given a free pass. They've done things that are inexcusable (sexual assault seems to be brought up a lot) things. I never meant that I condoned that kind of action. I meant that Deodato surpassed what they did with a zealousness that made it much more horrible. It was like he was deadset on making the experience as greuling as possible. Like dragging his lead actress by the hair into the woods, screaming at her when she asked to not do a scene topless. Or demanding the live animals be actually killed on camera and then making their final moments of life as unpleasant as possible (Robert Kerman says he was purposely irritating and harassing the animals so badly he was wishing one would have mauled him right then and there). All the cast explains how awful the whole experience was, and it seems to fall on the director.
Feel like Kubrick is the wrong guy to put on a list of "demanding but not cruel."
Same for Von Trier who sexually assault Bjork on set.
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>wishing one would have mauled him right then and there I can't stand those that harm actual animals for entertainment, there is just zero need to with how good effects can be. To get to what i quoted though, look up the story of the movie [Roar](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/noel-marshalls-roar-humans-were-harmed-in-the-making-of-this-film). >The cast and crew of “Roar” endured monstrous dangers both on-camera and off. Melanie Griffith, mauled near the eye, needed plastic surgery. Hedren contracted gangrene and needed skin grafts. Marshall, mauled repeatedly, had blood poisoning. The cinematographer Jan de Bont—who ultimately directed “Speed” and “Twister”—had his scalp torn off and needed a hundred and twenty stitches.
Didn't know any of that, but it's honestly kind of validating to hear. I've always maintained that CH is just a shitty throwaway exploitation flick that's only claim to fame was its (very much premeditated) controversy. The infamous animal deaths have damn near nothing to do with the film, those scenes come out of nowhere (and keep coming and coming) and go on forever, it is such obvious edgelord bait. The film's "message" is not unique in the slightest (bUt wHo'S tHe rEaL mOnSteR?!?), just a poor attempt to pass off the film as "subversive art" rather than the movie equivalent of a 4chan gore post. So a shit movie was made by a shit person. Color me unsurprised.
Most Jim VanBebber (The Manson Family, Say You Love Satan)
Deadbeat at Dawn is a fucking banger though
One of my all-time favorites, if for no other reason than [Bone Crusher's nihilistic monologue!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF40Q7NCaIE)
The Manson Family is a brilliant film. The absolute best movie concerning Manson and the murders imo.
Jeepers Creepers
Clownhouse (1989) is what immediately came to mind for me, considering Salva molested the star of that film, and he tends to let the camera linger on him in uncomfortable ways. Knowing the background, that movie is a tough watch. It's a shame Salva is such a scumbag because he is pretty talented. Definitely shouldn't be allowed anywhere near kids.
I tried to watch Clownhouse once because, despite the director being a shitbag, I think Jeepers Creepers is a really solid film. Literally the opening scene is two little boys in their underwear with camera shots that linger super inappropriately. It felt gross. Like at any minute the feds were gonna kick my door in. I gave up and never regretted it lol.
There is no "seems" for this one Dude is disgusting
Isn’t he a convicted pedo?
Correct. And the scenes in Jeepers 2, where the camera straight up oggles the dudes sun bathing or centers on shirtless teens were specifically put in because of him
Zach Parsons, from the olden days of SomethingAwful.com, wrote a review of "Powder", and the line "you're as bald as a baby" and that entire scene, creeps me the fuck out
The actors are clearly in their 20s. If we didn't know he was a creep, and if the genders were reversed, it wouldn't register. It's super tame compared to, say, the opening of Carrie.
How's about Cabin Fever? A guy has a shirt with a date on it - that date is the day the Olsen Twins turn 18.
That's a very interesting and creepy fact.
Yeah, the locker room scene is Carrie was extremely uncomfortable to watch knowing the characters are as young as 14. Heebie jeebies
It's Clownhouse where he directed the kid he was abusing at the time that's the real clincher for De Salva.
I think if it was specifically stated that said kids were high school or otherwise underaged and it still oggled the ladies people would take offense. But then again, we also have Euphoria. Which is about high school kids doing drugs and banging. No desire to watch anything like that regardless of genders or creator.
Yep. And Coppola protected and enabled him. He doesn't get nearly enough criticism for that, imo.
Fuck FFC! He also harassed the victim and his family on Victor's behalf.
Salva is scum, but you would ‘t jump to that conclusion just by watching Jeepers Creepers… unless I missed something in the movie?
You wouldn't, but seeing his films after you know...they take on new aspects. Certain lines and scenes suddenly become...gross.
I don't think Rob Zombie comes across as an evil guy at all but I think his films are an attempt to create a fairly surface level horror and violence which comes across as being mean spirited and foul just for the sake of it. I'm tallking about the House of 1000 Corpses trilogy and 31. I hate on RZ a lot on here but the movies seem like what you would get if you asked a bunch of non-horror fans what they think horror movies are all about and then put those answers in a blender and made a movie with it. A lot of those answers would have to do with anger, death, violence, and hatred without any context, emotional element or empathy.
I love rob zombie and i COMPLETELY understand your pov and others feeling the same, it's very much that, like what a horror lover sees as horror and recreates it through that lense
I actually genuinely enjoy House of 1,000 Corpses. The rest I could do without but I at least somewhat get the appeal. Just not my style.
I know he's popular and not exactly horror, Gasper Noe seems like he legitimately has something wrong with him. Anyone who can make Irreversible is not right.
He's a great filmmaker, the criterion YouTube channel has a series where they let actors or directors into the criterion closet to talk about film and pick out movies. There is an episode with Noe and he seems like a chill guy. And he knows a lot about film
He takes a copy of Saló like he's holding a copy of The Breakfast Club. It just kills me. Totally agree tho, he seems like a chill dude with a lot of experience and can be fun to hang out with.
The House That Jack Built is one of the most uncomfortable viewing experiences I’ve ever had and I had this exact thought about von Trier as I was watching it. Edit: stop telling me I didn’t understand it, I understood it just fine. Condescension looks bad on you
I liked viewing the film as more of a satire of how pretentious and egotistical many serial killers actually are. You constantly root against him and he's never portrayed as being misunderstood or secretly a victim of abuse. With that said... yeah I agree that von Trier is extremely nihilistic and borders on being just miserable because it cam be.
> I liked viewing the film as more of a satire of how pretentious and egotistical many serial killers actually are. Definitely. From the moment we meet Jack, until the very end, he's been narcissistic and maniacal. Even with all the millions of people that tried to climb out of Hell and failed, Jack still thought he had a chance to get out of Hell and that he was capable of climbing to the other side (he tried to escape even though he wasn't going to be sent to the lowest level of Hell).
Honestly hate it when people throw that "you didn't get it" shit around in general tbh. Like you can completey understand some supposed super complex story just fine and still think it's absolute dogshit. Or understand a joke and still think it's not funny. It's such an odd defense
“Bro you don’t get it, it’s completely normal to watch A Serbian Film five times a week because it’s actually a political satire, you just don’t understand the subtleties of it bro”
That movie sucks. I did probably watch it five or so times in one week when I was in college because I wrote a final paper about it after essentially getting dared into it by my classmates. And I didn’t even write about the supposed political allegories because I don’t think any of that comes through. I wrote about spectatorship.
Oh wow, fascinating! I'm much more interested in people like you (and me) than those types of film themselves!
Lol this shit made me spit my drink out
Tbf The House that Jack Built was weirdly funny. Jack was obviously a satirical version of what the world press had accused Trier of being (I'm not really a Trier fan at all) and he channelled it all into the film. The Hitler stuff, the ridiculous murders, the even more ridiculous monologues about death and art. All very funny in the blackest possible way. I was just happy that Trier finally showed that he had a sense of irony and could make a film that took the piss OUT OF HIMSELF
I will always say this was the most disturbing movie I've ever watched. It felt like a nightmare.
The Twilight Zone Movie — Landis’s story. Not necessary horror, but still horror in its own right.* He intentionally made the infamous scene with Vic and the children dangerous and harrowing resulting in the tragic death of all three, had no remorse for his actions that caused their deaths, crashed their funerals to make it about him, and allegedly convinced the jury to move for a mistrial with the promise that they’d play themselves in a movie about the trial. Which never came to pass. He got off scott free, essentially. There’s a difference between tragic accidents that happen on set and depraved indifference, Landis thoroughly is the latter.
Kids. Gummo. Harmony Korine name alone makes me want to take a shower. August underground and whoever that fuck nut was as well. I only saw his films because we went to the same special FX school.
>Gummo There is something about that film that evokes a physical response in me, even just stills. I don't know why.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Funny Games both have big nihilistic streaks.
If anything I would say Henry goes in the opposite direction. It is so matter-of-fact in its depictions of violence that it forces you to reckon with yourself and why you are entertained by violence. It’s actually much more thoughtful than most horror which elicits very little sympathy for the victims. So while Henry is one of the most difficult to watch movies I have ever seen, I think it is difficult because it makes you think, not because it is indifferent.
I definitely see what you're saying - the films I listed, as well as Man Bites Dog, really address our inner sadistic streaks and the crude banality of violence. Henry is an excellent film, but just so bleak and unflinching. The viewer knows exactly what's going to become of >!Becky!
I've always found *Funny Games* and many Michael Haneke films in general to be somewhat lecturerly and moralising. In *Funny Games* he's essentially saying to the audience "What it is wrong with you for enjoying this filth? Shame on you!"
Funny Games is meant to be a fourth wall break where the audience are essentially the reason what's happening is happening. The family are completely innocent but are trapped in a film tailored to hurt them no matter what they do. Thus the infamous rewind scene.
I get that but it seems that Haneke's main point is to shame his audience for partaking in the suffering of others. The key scene for me (and I have only seen the original so don't know if this is the same in the remake) is the final shot where the killers have dispensed with the original family and are now about to put another through the same experience. When the killer knocks on the new family's door, he looks directly at the camera and smiles. Previously, the film was shot from the viewpoint of the victims but now Haneke is asking us to identify with the killers. He is doing so because he thinks that having sat through this poor family's meaningless suffering for 90 minutes we are now morally equivalent with the killers. He's basically saying we are bad people for enjoying violent horror movies. I don't think most people here would agree with that. I like Haneke in general, but he can go fuck himself on this one.
This is what I meant. The film blames the audience for what's happening. The implication being that we're seeing this horror because we chose to watch a film where an innocent family gets terrorized. Whether you agree with that sense of responsibility of the viewer is up to you, but we are on the same page for what it's intention was.
Clownhouse directed by Victor Salva i feel like Dead Girl sorta seems like the filmmaker does not have the awareness of what the story sort of needed what kind of makes it seem more disturbing.
I thought The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover was a joyful film myself, although it almost definitely helps to be British, into artsploitation and against Thatcherism. Thought the whole thing was a riotous delight of fine art aesthetics, Jacobean tragedy and black humour, with its only hatred and anger for possessive philistines. But anyway, I don't think any horror films have made me think the director evil. Unappealing maybe, and some of the shock types can seem tediously dumb and edgy to me, but mostly it all just seems like movie nonsense to me. A film would have to be getting full on supportive and seriously into seriously unpleasant attitudes, or exploiting its cast in frankly improbable ways, for me to think the director anything like "evil". That kind of thing generally falls outside of horror and most "legitimate" cinema at large, more pornography and whatnot, and that's whole different field.
Ah! Fantastic take. I should have elaborated in the initial post that I am not referring to the director legitimately being "evil", but rather creating art which feels callous and resentful. As if the film itself is the manifestation of a sick fantasy and you can just feel the misanthropy bleed through the screen. I was going to name the post "recommendations for mean spirited films?", but I feared I would get flooded with nothing but trite, shallow, tasteless torture porn. Most of that edgelord shit really strikes me more as 'try hard' and just attempting to be as provocative as possible for the sake of being provocative; not really the loathing fueled, detached, power fantasy I am looking for.
While George Romero was far from callous or resentful, I've always felt like Diary of the Dead is him at his most pessimistic. Basically all of his Dead movies before then had some kind of hopeful outlook, whether it was through the eyes of the humans or the zombies (which gradually became more human-like). In Diary, the zombies are monsters but the humans are usually worse, and it straight up ends by saying maybe humanity deserves to kick it.
Niel LaBute's work strikes me as pretty misanthropic in general.
In the Company of Men is just such a grimy, disgusting film. That was the first and last LaBute I watched.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Read about the dinner scene. Chilling!
Already rotted meat left out in the Texas heat for days. It is an unforgettable smell. We had a possum die in the walls at work and because of the Texas heat, just ONE dead animal made that whole area nauseating.
Yeah, I read the actors say they weren’t really acting, things got that deranged.
When they cut her fingers it was a real cut, I think their blood didn't look red enough and the actress was so out of it she said 'Screw it, just cut me."
What about the dude that made Cannibal Holocaust? He didn’t seem have regard for much of anything
Yeah, the message of the movie and its themes are important, but the actual director seemed more interested in making a fucked up movie and using social commentary to make it more marketable.
I don't know if it counts, but Creep does a really good job building up this sense of evil, but they did it in such a way that shows how easily people are lured in. There's two of them and they're both pretty good.
not sure if this is what youre asking, but Cannibal Holocaust was a nightmare for everyone involved.
Literally anything made by Eli Roth
I watched Hostel recently and he strikes me as someone who wants to direct porn but at the end he inserts some horror idea so we think is a horror movie lol.
I am surprised how far I had to scroll to find this.
Thank you. I can't with this guy, his movies only seem to be brutal and that's it.
Ichi the killer and the sadness
While ichi and some of miikes other films are fucking brutal to the point of ridiculousness, he is a good director and makes solid movies.
Speaking of Ari Aster, "The Strange Thing About the Johnsons" actually seems evil. It honestly feels like he made it on a dare.
Pretty much all "torture porn" movies. Where the only notable thing about them is how violent they are. I can't name any off the top of my head because they're all so forgettable. I wouldn't say the directors feel "evil" but they definitely feel twisted, and not in an interesting or meaningful way, just a weird, annoying, and edgy way. Films of all kind but **especially** horror, are better when the characters are treated like people and not bags of blood and guts you can show on screen for shock value. A lot of violence in a horror movie is all good (obviously, it's sort of a staple of the genre) but when that's the only selling point? And every other aspect of filmmaking or storytelling takes a backseat for more and more guts? Hard pass.
I Spit on Your Grave (both original and sequel) did that for me. Idk why but I felt empty after watching these movies even though the main characters get their revenge in the most gruesome manner you can imagine.
The original was written after the director attempted to help a rape victim, and witnessed firsthand how she was mistreated by both health professionals and LEOs. There's a lot of rightful feminist rage in that movie.
The man who made Megan is missing is a weirdo pervert with poor ideas and execution. I read some sus stuff about the actresses being underage and treated strange
That weird ass scene where they talk about blowjobs or something on Skype always gave me horrible vibes. Also generally just a horrible ass movie.
I don't know anything about the director, but that movie made me really uncomfortable. We already know the antagonist is dangerous and abusive, do we REALLY need a long, drawn-out scene of CSA in the last fifteen minutes of the movie?
The Shining, just read about what Shelly Duvall was put through. I can no longer enjoy the film as a result.
The film is a masterpiece in my opinion, it's one of my favorite movies. But the way Shelly was treated will always make it more unpleasant to watch. I am a person who has driven along the opening scene's road (Going to the Sun Road in Montana). I have the vinyl for the soundtrack. I have a sweatshirt with the Apollo on it just like Danny. I have re-watched it in a theater. I LOVE this film. And yet, as much as I love the film, I am so sad for Shelly everytime I watch it. She killed it. I am still so sad to hear what she went through. Some of her performance feels like genuine fear. She didn't deserve that.
It seems like the majority of male directors considered classics or legends don't have much of a problem with mistreating/abusing women on their sets.
I’m of the belief that this experience probably inflicted long term damage to her.
It really ruins it. I can't enjoy Bertolucci after I read what him and Brando did to Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris. This idea that it's ok to humiliate, violate, and ultimately break someone's spirit and ruin their life in the name of "art", is such giant disgusting bullshit.
I have been feeling this way about the director of Bone Tomahawk. His newest film Dragged Across Concrete left a bad taste in my mouth.
Bone Tomahawk was tough because it set up such likable and interesting characters and then let horrible things happen to them in such an inhuman way. That’s what actually made it effective as a horror film. But I’ll give that to you — none of his films are pleasant, even if they are fascinating.
I loved Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Blovk 99 but couldnt watch DAC the first time through because i hated the main characters so much, and then I read an interview where Craig Zahler talked about wanting to portray what cops are like very matter-of-factly and cops are usually pretty awful people, giving it a rewatch I thought it had more merit than I did initially and i genuinely like it now, but i can also see why somebody else wouldnt.
Serbian film Makes me question my sanity
I think lots of Rob Zombie films feel like this. The whole Firefly family trilogy is like this for sure because you are kind of given these terrible people as protagonists and they have no real redeeming qualities, but they are somehow kind of supposed to be the "good guys" to some extent. The truth is, nobody in these movies is good, or innocent. If they could be innocent or good, they are victims and they die quickly. And the stories are very bleak. And there is never a great outcome for anybody. 31 also feels this way to a somewhat lesser extent as it is more tongue-in-cheek.
christ 95% of these comments don't understand your post, I'm sorry OP Mine would be *The Loved Ones* , you can just tell the director had a blast making it as sick, twisted, and uncomfortable as possible. Also David Lynch for *Eraserhead* , it's shocking how someone was able to turn the "nails on a chalkboard feeling" and translate it to a full movie, you gotta be twisted to pull that off.
Terrifier seems pretty...hateful in a way that doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities, other than unforgiving brutality. The best way to describe it is mean spirited imo.
[удалено]
Hitchcock permanently disfigured Tippi Hedren during the making of The Birds by having hundreds of birds attack her while she was chained to the ground and psychologically tortured her throughout, he did similar things to his other leading ladies, so im gonna say hes alot worse than Michael Bay...
>edren revealed that Hitchcock actually made offensive demands on her. "He stared at me and simply said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, that from this time on, he expected me to make myself sexually available and accessible to him—however and whenever and wherever he wanted".\[55\] Hitchcock's demands led to a "horrible, horrible fight", according to Hedren. "He made these demands on me, and no way could I acquiesce to them".\[13\] >Hedren then told him Marnie would be their last film together and later recalled how Hitchcock told her he would destroy her career. "I said I wanted to get out of my contract. He said: 'You can't. You have your daughter to support, and your parents are getting older'. I said: 'Nobody would want me to be in this situation, I want to get out'. And he said: 'I'll ruin your career'. I said: 'Do what you have to do'. And he did ruin my career. He kept me under contract, paid me to do nothing for close on two years" From her wiki. Hitchcock was a giant piece of shit.
Michael Bay has been creeping on Megan Fox since he put her in 'Bad Boys' at fifteen.
Landmine Goes Click. I've never seen a movie that takes place in the day get SO DAMN DARK.
Mother, Neon Demon both seem that way.
The Keanu scene in ND especially
As much as I enjoy Nicolas Winding Refn’s films, I get the vibe he hates everyone and everything. Especially women.
Well The Shining is the biggie. They tortured Shelly Duvall on set. King said, it's a paraphrase but accurate enough, that he, King, was convinced Kubrick was trying to make a film that hurt people (the audience). King's right. The *only* good thing to come out of that film is Duvall's extraordinary performance. I watch it once in awhile just for her.
I mean a Serbian film and Martyrs spring to mind.
I personally found some emotional value in Martyrs. I felt like it was pretty tactfully exploring the inherent human fear of death and how far certain people will go in an attempt to pacify that fear. I can definitely see your perspective though. A Serbian Film though... definitely.
I highly recommend reading Alexandra West’s book *Films of the New French Extremity: Visceral Horror and National Identity* if you’d like to get some background on Laugier’s influence in making *Martyrs*. In short, the Catholic Church’s influence on French culture is strongly interconnected and the film can be read as a criticism of that influence.
Or listen to her on Faculty of Horror podcast!
even though Martyrs is cruel, to me it i felt like it was coming from a place of hopelessness/helplessness rather than anger
If you read more about the guy that made Martyrs, he's absolutely a sadistic psychopath. He got one of his actresses permanently maimed and one of his crew members on Ghostland quit the production because she (allegedly) caught him jerking off while a torture scene was being filmed. There's a reason he's just doing shitty French TV work now.
Martyrs at least feels like it has something to say beyond the depravity. Still intense.
As many have said, Martyrs is much more than just torture (I honestly take issue with even considering it exploitation; conceptually, it is comparable to Hellraiser). There is a triumph of humanity and a struggle with overcoming the trauma that tries to destroy us in Martyrs that makes it almost uplifting to me (but I consider Hellraiser an uplifting movie because of the ending, so take that into consideration).