TOP FIVE MOST DISTURBING MOMENTS IN EXTREME CINEMA

BY ALEX DAVIS 

Well, here at Film Gutter we know you all love the stuff that really, really disturbs us. We've looked previously at some of the most disturbing films – a list that will probably be updated some time soon – but never explored those individual moments that have leave us uneasy or possibly just queasy. So here are Film Gutter's Top 5 Most Disturbing Moments in Extreme Cinema...

Five – The Enema Scene, Debris Documentar
Way back to where it all began for Film Gutter, and one of those movies I had heard of in terms of all the controversial content. But the scene in which our lead visits a prostitute who gives herself an enema and allows all the fluid and excrement to pour into a bucket before our main character proceeds to dip his head into the bucket like some lunatic version of bobbing for apples. There's an almost magical moment in which the actor has an expression that says 'Am I really going to do this? Did I really agree to this?' before breathing deep and going for it. I said at the time it would 'haunt me forever' and that's a fairly accurate assessment all told.
 
Four – Eating From The Jars, Vase De Noces
Ah yes, the movie also known simply as The Pig F***ing Movie – I kid you not. I'd put this one off for ages but, in the light of David Cameron's alleged indiscretions of last year I simply couldn't resist the effort to be topical. And weirdly, the bestiality is not actually the most disturbing thing in here. Our unnamed lead early in the movie keeps all this faeces in jars rather than flushing them down the toilet, and had gathered quite the collection. But when his porcine lover is sadly lost to him, he rather loses the plot and proceeds to empty his jars by eating the contents. I had a quite retch to myself and managed to keep watching – barely – through this one...
 
Three – The Entirety of Beyond the Madness
Probably the hardest movie to sit through from start to finish of all my experiences with Film Gutter, this 'horror porno' from Italy I will better remember for being far more disturbing that arousing. The continuous use of dead animal parts throughout this one certainly did nothing to get me going – I suppose skulls, wet eyeballs and organs just aren't my bag. I was blessedly relieved when this one came to a close after an hour of me saying – often out loud – 'oh no, don't do that...' I was ultimately left with the thought of 'I hope I never meet the person who found that a huge turn on...'
 
Two – The Rape Scene, Irreversible
When I was initially scribbling thoughts on this list, the rape scene from Gutterballs leapt to mind – those who have seen it will know what I mean when I call it disturbing. However having only recently revisited Irreversible, I can safely say I'd rather forgotten just how crunching, unpleasant and hard to watch the scene in the underpass was. The unmoving camera gives you a horrible sense of being a powerless spectator to the anal rape of Alex, played by Monica Bellucci, who genuinely looks as though she is suffering horrible in this scene. The physical abuse is topped by a barrage of verbal abuse, and when her attacked is finished he simply kicks the hell out of her before basically leaving her to die. It's an infamous scene in cinema history and rightly so, because it is one that has left many audience shocked, numb and hollow.
 
One – Stamping on a Pregnant Woman, Snuff 102
In the first paragraph of my review for this, I said 'I can't see anything more shocking or disturbing than this getting any kind of release.' Those are big words, but I stand by them. This movie is horrible, grimy, misogynistic and bound to leave a sour taste in your mouth. And when I first conjured up the idea of this list, I knew exactly what would be top, because this very short scene still makes my stomach knot up and a little bile rise in my throat to think of. It's a very brief moment in which our masked psychopath drags a pregnant woman to the floor before proceeding to stamp on her stomach – and it genuinely left me absolutely shaken to my core. It's so short because it actually cuts away to an artistic message I forget the exact content of, but nothing has ever topped it on a personal level.