Top 10 Uncomfortable Movies
With the release of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, starring Oscar-nominated Naomi Watts and Oscar-nominated Tim Roth, on DVD this week, we are counting down the films that have made us fidget in our seats or make us refuse to look at the screen in blind horror.
Funny Games, a remake of the 1997 German film directed by Haneke also, centres around a family who decide to take a vacation to their lakeland summer home. However bliss is short-lived, as they encounter a visit from two brothers who claim to be friends of neighbours. What was supposed to be a quiet family holiday turns into a cat-and-mouse chase for survival as the family undergo a series of terrifying games, led by their hostage takers who seem to have a sadistic appetite.
Becoming a socio-political commentary on how the media portrays violence, be sure to expect unsettling scenes and plenty of gore. Whether it is a banquet of gore, or atmospheric tension; here is a collection of the top ten most uncomfortable movies.
 | What is considered to be David Lynch’s masterpiece, after his very successful Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive effectively combines the ambiguous with the straight up bizarre. Keeping the audience guessing to the very last minute, the eerie atmosphere is established by an unsettling soundtrack and a plot narrative that rejects the conventional linear structure. It may not be high up on our list, but Mulholland Drive definitely drives the audience into a world of disturbing mystery and disconcerting intrigue.
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 | Becoming the ‘ancestor’ of a new tide of horror genre in the early Noughties, Saw examined the true brutality of human nature and the extents humanity will go for survival. Centred around two victims of the notorious Jigsaw, the film builds to a horrific climax of bloodshed and a completely surprising twist; one that is still regarded as one of the best the horror genre has seen in recent times. Watching how inhumane we can all be is uncomfortable itself but it soon becomes clear that Jigsaw’s message is right; ‘we have seen nothing yet’.
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 | Mel Gibson’s harrowing tale of Christ’s final few days sparked severe controversy when it was released in 2004. But what shocked cinemagoers even more was the brutality of the torture and crucifixion displayed on screen. With all religious considerations aside, Gibson reduced man to the flesh and bone as we witnessed two hours of gruelling torture, thus making it a very unnerving film to watch – certainly not for the light-hearted.
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 | Released in 2008, this rare gem was looked over when it was released in the midst of summer blockbusters. Based on a true story, a couple is terrorised in their holiday home (in the same vein as in Funny Games) by three masked strangers, simply, as the strangers put it, ‘because they were home’. The clever use of incongruent and very little music creates an atmosphere that can only be cut by the killer’s knife. What is even more unsettling is the director, Bryan Bertino’s, choice to not show any graphic scenes. Instead, it all comes down to the imagination of the audience; a prospect that makes this film even more terrifying.
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 | With ‘The Shining’, A Clockwork Orange is an example of Stanley Kubrick’s finest work. The now infamous ‘Cat Lady scene’ exemplifies what this film is all about; the social and political pressures that have to be stamped upon an idol society. The film, banned in many towns, at the time of its release for its violence, deals with the threat that revolutionary generations have upon peace and order within society. The brutal realism of Alex DeLarge’s actions reminds us that crimes occur around us everyday. This, also set against Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, creates a very distressing and awkward masterpiece.
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 | A relatively unknown movie starring both Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 days of summer) and Michelle Trachtenberg (17 again) before they were better known. Dealing with various issues such as child molestation, paedophilia and homosexuality, this multi-award winning independent movie is both a treat and yet a chore to the eye. Led by its taboo subjects, this film reveals the real cruelty of child abuse and whilst it reveals a glimmer of hope for its protagonists, the film continues to remind the audience of its harsh reality. Scenes of a sexual nature and implicit innuendo furthermore make this a film that is recommended for viewing but yet leaves a disturbing afterthought.
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 | This recent film, by Gus Van Trier, has been at debate by many critics on what it actually is about. Whether it is a misogynistic statement on the evil of women in society, or a more biblical allusion to Paradise lost, it has created a recent stir. The highly graphic scenes of sexuality and gore makes this a very recent addition to the genre of films that make the audience uncomfortable by ‘gratuitous’ horror. With stunning cinematography and an unusual narrative device, this film is highly recommended, but only if you can handle scenes of an extreme condition. The explicit nature of this movie, combined with the very bizarre scenes involving animals, has made this one of the most uncomfortable films we have seen in a long time.
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 | Directed by Pascal Laugier, this French film caught the attention of critics by its attempts to deal with very broad themes such as death, religion and the afterlife. What seems to first be another film in the vein of Saw and its predecessors, the film soon becomes a religious commentary on what life actually is and the expectations that humanity have of an afterlife. The torture scenes, interlinked with mystery and a quite depressing end to the movie makes this very unnerving to watch. What is special here however is that this movie becomes more than just simple gore. Instead, it attempts to deal with the extents humanity will go in their pursuit for knowledge and advancement.
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 | Surrounded in controversy for its involvement in the Virginia Tech Massacre on April 16th 2007, this South Korean film deals with the imprisonment of a man who is released after 15 years and is forced to unravel the reasons for his captivity and the captives who were responsible for it. This film is a perfect example of how gore or atmospheric tension is not needed to make an audience uncomfortable. Instead, the plot itself takes a nasty turn towards the end of the movie, and in trying to not give anything away, the film ends only to leave a very bitter aftertaste in the audience’s mouths. Being the second movie in Park Chan-wook’s ‘Vengeance’ Trilogy, it is a stand-alone film that can be enjoyed by itself but the other two films very similarly are perfect examples of uncomfortable viewing in not what is depicted but to the depths we are all capable of going to.
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 | A list of uncomfortable films would be nothing without this masterpiece. Being his first major film, Darren Aronofsky creates a surreal world of drugs and celebrity where nothing is as it seems and the pursuit for glory only leads to a path of self-destruction. Both Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly beautifully portray the honest dark world of drugs but it is Ellen Burstyn who steals the show with her portrayal of a woman who simply wants to recreate the days of her youth but her ambitions ultimately spiral out of control. This traumatic film reveals the brutality of addiction and how it can not only tear families apart but can also inadvertedly destroy the inward self also. The addictive force of dreams makes us re-examine our lives and thus the film deals with more than just the addiction of drugs; it highlights the threat that aspirations and achievements can have. Oscar-nominated and winner of many independent awards, this is a film that is a double-edged sword; it is an experience everyone has to undergo, but the experience itself is certainly not a pleasant one.
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FUNNY GAMES IS RELEASED ON DVD MONDAY 9TH APRIL