Top Ten Most Disturbing Films

An innocent young girl browsing in a bookstore comes across a wallet full of money lying on a stack of books. There's no-one around. The girl pops the wallet into her handbag. From this incident springs a lifetime of misery for the girl, which as it turns out was a set-up orchestrated by the 'bad guy' of the title. He effectively purchases the girl in exchange for no police involvment and gets her to sign her life away to him. As it turns out he's a pimp who runs a seedy whore house and the girl becomes an indentured slave and abused prostitute for rent to the citys psychopaths, drug dealers and gangsters for the rest of her days. That's certainly no picnic to witness but it's creepy that the girl oscillates between hating the guy and being devoted to him, and also that she developes an appreciation for her new occupation. 'Bad Guy' deftly illustrates how complex human psychology can be and how people can fashion the world into a grim and joyless place.

With Blue Velvet David Lynch unleashed his inner demons for the first time in a coherent, linear fashion that a viewer could easily follow under the guise of an intriguing murder mystery. Kyle McLachlan plays Jeffrey Beaumont - a high school kid with a nose for intrigue who finds a human ear while walking through the woods on his way home from school. He takes it to the local police station and the next thing you know he's embroiled in very dark affairs no outsider could have guessed was going on in such a wholesome seeming community. The real menace in all this takes the shape of a sadistic drug dealer - an outrageous but strangely convincing performance by Dennis Hopper - who drags everyone around him into a vortex of violence, torture and general anarchy. Perhaps a little too stylized to seem really real, Blue Velvet highlights the kind of sordid goings-on that are becoming more and more commonplace in American society these days, and that's unsettling.

When it comes to the cinema of embarrassment Happiness wins hands down. No other film is able to make you just cringe with embarrassment as much as this film. Some of the incidents that occur in this film, though contrived and over the top in the context of absolute reality illustrate some really squirm-inducing truths about the world and some of the weird and twisted people who live in it. It also shines a bright light on awkward family relationships and the different ways people deal with issues of sexuality - resulting in some very uncomfortable moments for the viewer. If that doesn't sound very disturbing would it help if I told you about the family man so desperate to have sex with his son's neighbourhood cub-scout friends that he drugs their hot chocolate and accidentally spikes his own son's drink instead? Happiness is actually quite amusing if you can screen out the atrocities.

We've all seen a bunch of movies about serial killers - they're ten a penny these days. Even TV movies feature serial killers every other week. Some of them, like Silence of The Lambs are fairly interesting and well executed. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster are at the top of their game but there's nothing disturbing about a film like that. We've seen it all before - it's too slick, too manufactured. The characters have snappy dialogue - Hannibal Lecter even has a pretty monologue ready to explain the odd title and everything. That's not what serial killers are like; that's not the world they live in. They have dead end jobs and live in run down apartments. They don't care about anyone, and that's what Henry's like. He doesn't feel pity or remorse, or joy. He doesn't feel much of anything. He doesn't have a grudge against the people he kills. In fact he kills random people for no reason at all as far as the viewer is aware, he does it a lot and he gets away with it. And he's not a super-intelligent criminal mastermind or anything. He's just an ordinary guy who's angry at the world. He's not charming or lovable...he's not even likeable but he's our companion for every second of this film and that in a nutshell is why this film is so deeply disturbing.

Lynch continues his journey of the mind with this horrific tale of madness, obsession, murder, revenge and ghostly dreamscapes. Laura Dern is astounding as a fading Hollywood actress given a part in a film which will surely signal her comeback, but there's a catch: the script was from an old Polish film where murder was afoot and production was stopped - rumour has it it's haunted. We follow Dern's descent into madness over three hours of the most bizarre cinema you'll ever encounter. Lynch filmed this entirely on digital video over the course of four years, and has intercut his internet feature 'Rabbits' throughout. If this is what's inside David Lynch's head - and I believe he's captured it perfectly this time - then that's a pretty scary place to be. I think what disturbs me most about this film is that I can't put my finger on what's so disturbing about it.

Gaspar Noe's first full length feature film gives the viewer a long look into the mind of a sociopathic butcher (played with a charged intensity by Philippe Nahon), during a period of psychic upheaval thrust on him by the mundane brutalities of an uncaring society. The reason this film is so disturbing is the way Noe realistically sets up a world so seedy and bleak that it's depressing enough in itself, then introduces a character who leads such a grim and humourless existence that it can't fail to send the viewer into a deep funk. And just when you're at your lowest ebb The Butcher - he has no name - snaps in such a visceral way that it almost takes your breath away. The problem for the viewer is that the majority of the film is seen from the point of view of a protagonist that despises the whole human race and we're forced to see the world through his eyes, and that's a really scary position to be in.

There really isn't any kind of story to follow in this film. We accompany a bunch of young teenagers hanging around in New York City and doing what teenage kids do. It's shot like a fly-on-the-wall documentary and just as you start to wonder what the point of it all is things take a nasty turn. These kids are malevolant, unfeeling tear-aways whose lives seem completely out of control and unmonitored. You've got rampant drink and drug use, one young boy who's HIV positive determined to de-flower as many virgins as possible - with or without their consent - and a vicious murder committed seemingly just for the hell of it. The kids' behaviour may be a little exaggerated but the worrying thing is I don't think this stuff is far off the mark.

The only word to describe this film is bleak. It's unremittingly bleak and utterly depressing to see the squalor that some people live in, the heinous things they do to each other and the psychological toll exacted on people just trying to get through life when surrounded by vicous uncaring people who have discovered a different, more violent and amoral way of getting through the day. We follow Johnny - a frankly irritating fellow - surprisingly intelligent as it turns out considering his current station in life - who's struggling to find the meaning of existence when everyone else around him really couldn't care less. It's disturbing to be around someone so obviously in need of psychological help when there's nothing but more pain, violence and torment around him.

Here we follow four characters who become involved in the wonderful world of drugs. Harry and his girlfriend Marion, and Harry's friend Tyrone are eager to make their fortune dealing while staying clean. A good plan and the profits start rolling in. But inevitably they start to sample the merchandise, and things take on a life of their own from there. The fourth character is Harry's mother-in-law Sara - played by Ellen Burstyn - a pensioner desperate to lose weight for a television appearance who discovers diet pills (or speed by any other name) and the havoc they cause in her life is considerable. Darren Aronofsky directs Requiem For A Dream with a lot of style and the players - especially Burstyn - are all very good. Predictably Tyrone buys the farm and the fate of the young lovers, by this time consumed by addiction and ill health is all too clear. Aronofsky doesn't flinch from showing just how low people can sink in these situations and a more wretched picture of life under the spell of drugs could scarcely be imagined.