These Movies Are So Disturbing They'll Haunt You For Days

It’s only right that a movie about someone being locked in a mental institution against her will should feel so claustrophobic and, well, unsettling. And to capture this queasy feel, Ocean’s Eleven director Steven Soderbergh used only an iPhone to shoot Unsane. The result? As one reviewer put it, Unsane “is effective to a deeply disturbing degree.”

Did you ever see Hereditary? That was messed up, right? Well, the guy who made that – Ari Aster – also made Midsommar. So you know when this movie is praised for being “a waking nightmare” and “genuinely disturbing,” you can probably believe the hype. Midsommar’s about a couple unwittingly becoming part of some seriously weird pagan rituals. And we’ll never look at cliffs the same way, that’s for sure. 

Hostel is essentially about backpackers getting tortured. But when director Eli Roth told Quentin Tarantino the story, Tarantino reportedly thought it was the “sickest” movie plot he’d ever heard. The filmmaker also told New York magazine that Hostel was “the most horrifying entry” in the contemporary crop of “ultraviolent, get-under-your-skin movies.” And that’s coming from the guy who made Kill Bill.

Stephen King thinks The Blair Witch Project is terrifying. And if Stephen King thinks something is scary, you better believe it’s going to freak you out! Why did King react so strongly to Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s “found footage” horror? “The damn thing looks real” and “the damn thing feels real,” he wrote in his book Danse Macabre. 

If you tell a horror movie director that someone fainted watching their flick, chances are they’ll be pretty pleased with themselves. Take Eli Roth. He said that a moviegoer passing out during The Green Inferno was his “best review ever.” But given the fate of The Green Inferno’s activist heroes, blacking out seems like a pretty reasonable reaction.

Oliver Stone thought he’d made a media satire with Natural Born Killers – but that’s not how some people saw it. Because his violent depiction of lovebirds on the lam apparently inspired real-life killings. Some even went so far as to blame the Columbine High School shooting on, in part, Natural Born Killers. You have been warned.

We won’t spoil anything here, but rest assured that most people won’t make it through Hereditary without gasping in horror. There is even one scene – that scene – that left the actor involved “haunted.” Yep, director Ari Aster certainly messed with a few heads with his brutal tale of grief. And don’t even mention the haunting tongue clicks from actress Milly Shapiro!

People either love Mother! or they hate it. There is no middle ground with Darren Aronofsky’s startling horror. And the reason why is because the movie is packed with disturbing images that will stay with you for a long time. Sure, the plot sounds like a standard home invasion movie, but trust us: this goes to very dark places. 

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer proved so disturbing that it took three years just to get it past the censors and into theaters. The problem seemed to be that people felt the movie was too good at showing shocking and violent acts. Why? Because director John McNaughton made a realistic docu-drama about a fictionalized serial killer.

YouTube yanked an ad for The Nun off its site before the movie had even hit theaters. The six-second clip, you see, contained enough “violent and shocking” content to warrant an outright ban. And considering Corin Hardy’s possessed-nun horror is 96 minutes long, that doesn’t bond well for any viewers with nervous dispositions.

Requiem for a Dream is a real only-watch-it-once movie. Those final images? Eesh. What a gut punch. Darren Aronofsky’s drama so effectively details the disturbing, depressing and downright horrifying consequences of addiction that it’s story will haunt you forever. You’ll never look at diet pills in the same way again.

The good news is that director Michael Haneke seemingly wants you to be offended by Funny Games. That’s the whole point of the movie. And plenty of people have never made it to the end of this unconventional home invasion thriller. So don’t be surprised if you find yourself reaching for the “off” button halfway through… 

IMDb lists Coraline as an animated movie suitable for all the family. But we know it’s really a scary-as-hell horror movie, don’t we? Henry Selick’s creepy fantasy about a girl who stumbles on a hidden world is just all kinds of wrong. There are characters who want to give a kid buttons for eyes, for crying out loud!

An African-American meets his white girlfriend’s parents for the first time – and things do not go well. At all. Yep, Jordan Peele’s Get Out has jump scares, scenes of violence and the kinds of things you’d expect from a horror movie. But it’s what’s going on beneath the surface that pushes Get Out into truly disturbing territory. Everyone check your brains are okay...

Even if you’ve never seen The Shining, you probably know it’s a greatest hits of disturbing images. You’ve got the blood in the elevators, the weirdo twin sisters and, of course, the iconic, “Here’s Johnny!” scene. But Stanley Kubrick’s creepy tale of a family man going mad in isolation is terrifying from beginning to end. Seriously, he is anything but a dull boy!

After Verónica dropped on Netflix, the scary movie made headlines for being… well, seriously scary. It seemed that people had flooded Twitter confessing that they couldn’t even make it to the end of Paco Plaza’s flick. But then what did people expect from a horror movie about a girl playing with a Ouija board?

Horror expert Kim Newman called Inside (or À l’intérieur, to give the movie its French title) “as gruesome as cinema can get.” That sounds like high praise indeed! The film, directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, is about a pregnant woman defending her and her unborn child from a mysterious tormentor. 

You may be thinking Jaws is so old and creaky that it couldn’t possibly disturb anyone. But you’d be wrong. Because anyone who saw Steven Spielberg’s shark adventure as a young person will probably be scarred for life. There’ve even been studies to prove that Jaws is still the reason people won’t go swimming in the ocean. Now that’s what we call disturbing.

Scarlett Johansson is no stranger to aliens, right? Avengers: Endgame is one of the biggest movies ever made! But seeing Johansson in Under the Skin couldn’t be more different – or more disturbing. She roams the streets of Glasgow in Jonathan Glazer’s film, and does terrible things to unsuspecting guys. It’s hella freaky and unlike anything else you’ve seen before.

People had a real problem with Birth when it was released. The main issue was that Nicole Kidman’s 36-year-old Anna appears to fall in love with a 10-year-old boy she believes to be her reincarnated husband. But Jonathan Glazer’s drama is actually a thoughtful – if creepy and unsettling – examination of grief and love.

Straw Dogs has a big-name director in Sam Peckinpah and a big-name star in Dustin Hoffman. But it also had some big-time controversy. The thriller’s depiction of violence toward women is so intense that it took 30 years for it to get a home video release in the United Kingdom. Be warned: this is not for the faint hearted.

Audiences in the 1970s were clearly not prepared for The Exorcist. But how many other films feature a 12-year-old possessed by the devil spinning her head all the way around? That’s probably why some theatergoers reportedly passed out when watching the movie upon release. William Friedkin’s horror has lost none of its evil power today, either.

The Skin I Live In is rated R for “disturbing violent content.” And that includes just about every depraved act that you can think of – sometimes on multiple occasions. Yet most viewers are still unable to look away from Pedro Almodóvar’s creepy tale of a plastic surgeon playing god. Maybe it’s because that plastic surgeon looks like Antonio Banderas.

Wes Craven knew what he was doing when he directed The Last House on the Left. “We showed violence in its true ugliness, rather than taking the usual Hollywood path of making it glamorous and exciting,” he told The Independent. And people have been disturbed by its horrifying depiction of kidnap and torture ever since.

In 1960 critics hated Peeping Tom so much that their savage reviews basically ended Michael Powell’s directing career. But then the message of the film – about a murderer who records and rewatches his kills – was perhaps one they weren’t ready to hear. And in the age of YouTube, Peeping Tom’s ideas are arguably more disturbingly relevant than ever.

Author Stephen King tweeted that Gerald’s Game is “horrifying, hypnotic, terrific” and was “gonna freak you out.” And guess what? He was right! After Mike Flanagan’s horror adaptation dropped on Netflix, a fan reportedly fainted after one particular scene. And as the flick is about a woman handcuffed to a bed, we’ll let you figure out which scene it was.

What’s in the box? Oh, you don’t wanna know what’s in the box! Because in a movie about a guy killing people in crazy ways because of the seven deadly sins, the ending of Se7en is truly messed up. And even 25 years later, David Fincher’s thriller still has the ability to creep us the heck out.

Did Dakota Johnson enjoy making Suspiria? No, she did not. It messed her up so badly that she “had to go to therapy,” the star told Elle in 2018. Only she didn’t say “messed,” if you catch our drift. We wonder if it was that scene in Luca Guadagnino’s horror remake about a mysterious dance company that scarred Johnson so much…

There’s a part in Oldboy where the main character eats a live octopus. Like, a real live octopus. But that’s not even close to being the strangest or most disturbing scene. Park Chan-Wook’s revenge actioner is “extreme cinema” in every sense of the phrase. And the ending… Well, we won’t spoil it, but it’ll stay with you for days.

Robert Eggers’ The Witch is disturbing for the things it doesn’t show on screen. So while there are no jump scares or crazy violence in this film about witchcraft, its dread-filled atmosphere will really get under your skin. Or, as Mashable put it, “The Witch is so wicked it could make Satan cry.”

If you know the line “squeal like a pig,” then you probably know Deliverance. But just because John Boorman’s thriller about a canoeing trip gone wrong is infamous, doesn’t mean it’s lost any of its power. The notorious scene in Deliverance, in fact, takes things so far that it’s not surprising so many people find it disturbing. 

Horror fans felt compelled to inflict Martyrs upon themselves after hearing about other audience’s reactions. Because who wouldn’t want to watch a movie that caused people to pass out or throw up? And Pascal Laugier’s brutal revenge tale is full of scenes that will make you want to do both. Possibly at the same time.

“I’ve never seen a more terrifying film than The Babadook,” tweeted William Friedkin in 2014. And when the guy who directed The Exorcist says that a movie is scary, you need to start paying attention. Friedkin also warned that Jennifer Kent’s horror about a children’s book coming to life “will scare the hell out of you.” Watch out for those long claws now!

Robert Pattinson is a long way from Twilight territory here. And even though The Lighthouse is shot in black and white, Robert Eggers’ horror is just as disturbing as anything else on this list. Pattinson stars opposite Willem Dafoe as a pair of lighthouse keepers slowly losing their minds. You might lose yours when you see what happens, too.

Why is Ringu (the original film that inspired the Hollywood Ring series) so scary? Is it the undeniably creepy imagery, or the idea of a curse you can’t hide from? Or is it because the bad guy actually comes through the screen to get you? Maybe it’s all of the above! But whatever it is, Hideo Nakata’s horror flick brought a new wave of terror into the world. 

If you haven’t heard about what happens in Antichrist yet, we’re not going to spoil it for you. Suffice to say… it’s not an easy watch. The story is about a married couple trying to rebuild their lives after a tragedy. But this is a Lars von Trier film so it inevitably ends in disaster.

Nobody ever thought “Singin’ in the Rain” could be disturbing – before A Clockwork Orange came out. The controversy around the movie – and its shocking violence – was so intense that director Stanley Kubrick actually banned the film from being shown in the United Kingdom himself. And the sci-fi cautionary tale about the fate of a brutal gang leader is still disturbing today.

“Who will survive and what will be left of them?” asks the poster for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And that gives you a good idea of what the film is about – and what happens to Leatherface’s victims. It’s not for nothing that Tobe Hooper’s horror is still considered one of the scariest flicks ever inflicted upon the public.

Takashi Miike has grossed people out with plenty of his films before. But Audition stands out from the pack for just being so damn disturbing. It’s about a guy pretending to screen girls for television, getting duped by a woman who’s also not who she says she is. And trust us, the guy gets his comeuppance in more horrific ways than one.

“Irréversible is a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable,” said Roger Ebert in his 2003 review. And truer words have rarely been spoken. Even some critics couldn’t make it to the end of the film. Why? Gaspar Noé’s revenge drama shows the crime and the revenge in such brutal, matter-of-fact style that it causes serious upset. Watch with caution.