What is the most haunting *film* you have ever watched?

[dreamingofblueskies]

Blatantly stealing the idea from the haunting book thread!

Mine has got to be 'Dreams of a Life', the film about Joyce Vincent, the lady who died in her flat and wasn't discovered for years. It just breaks my heart that she lay there for so long. And the thing that haunts me the most is the fact that her TV was still on.

Another one is 'As Above, So Below' a mediocre 'found footage' film set in the Paris catacombs, although it isn't a brilliant film, it really unnerved me.

Eden Lake
Wolf Creek
American History X
Anything real life - war/rape/abuse etc - I cannot watch as it upsets me too much.
I remember seeing a bit of a film when I was (too) young about a japanese prisoner of war camp where all the women refused to bring the young girls out of their shed despite the guards hitting them etc. I asked why they didn't just bring them out. My Mum's answer haunts me.
We need to talk about Kevin but the book version, the film was poor compared to the book.

Grave of the Fireflies - I started watching this and cried so much I almost threw up. Anything with a dying child just gets me.

Ditto The Orphanage. I remember crying so much at the end I gave myself a sore throat and a migraine . Even now it makes me tear up just thinking about it.

Benjamin Button . The film as a whole was utter rubbish but the bit at the end when Daisy is holding the baby...oh my god just thinking about makes me cry. I started crying describing it to a colleague once! In my defense I watched it when I was off on maternity leave, holding my own baby. Probably not very sensible!

I watched The Giver recently. Sobbed my heart out. I sobbed because I knew what they'd left out of the book though, the film was ok.

I like crime movies but horror and really bleak things I stay away from. They stay with me for far too long.

(original version) IS available with English subtitles on Youtube. You need to click on the little white box at the bottom of the screen to bring up the captions.

Just to clarify, it is a Dutch film, but as the action mainly takes place in France, most of the dialogue is in French.

I've only seen the American The Vanishing. I was left unmoved.

Thanks so much BothEndsBurning.

Going to watch it next week.

I found Dead Ringers (1988 film, not the TV programme) very disturbing, especially the end. The synopsis I read made it wound like a comedy. It lied.

Just looked up that film Smart - it is a David Cronenberg movie after all

It sounds horrible, and as the mother of ID twins I will NOT be watching it!

Brian de Palmas Obsession.

A rich mans wife and daughter are killed after being kidnapped ...or so we are led to believe.

Years later the man meets a young woman in an Italian cathedral who is the spitting image of his late wife......... and falls for her.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsession_(1976_film)

Can I just say, how weird is it that I have just looked up both Dead Ringers and Obsession - Jeremy Irons plays identical twins in one and Genevieve Bujold plays a mother and daughter (two separate characters) in the other, and is also in Dead Ringers!

OK I am obviously overtired I'm going to bed now

Obsession did make me cry at the end. Haunting and sad.

Brian de Palmas supernatural drama The Fury.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fury_(1978_film)

The Horror channel has shown this a couple of times in the last year.

WARNING, SUICIDE TRIGGERS.

Oh I've just thought of another one, a documentary called The Bridge. It's filmed over a year at Golden Gate Bridge and is about the people who go there to commit suicide.

I thought it was going to be a heart-warming 'this person has come to kill themselves but after talking to me on camera they're off to get help.' Nope, it films the 'jumpers' it just talks to the people who were left behind after they have died.

There's a really moving bit where a young man who actually jumped off the bridge says about how, just after he'd jumped, he changed his mind so he spun himself around so that he wouldn't hit the water head first. He shatters his legs but he does survive. It made me wonder how many people did change their minds after the jump but just weren't as lucky as him.

It follows this one man pacing up and down on the bridge throughout the whole documentary, and 'saves' his death for the end. The way he climbs up and then just... gives himself up to the fall is so shocking.

A totally heartbreaking documentary.

I came to say 'Dear Zachary', just a stunning film.

This thread is handy because I am rubbish at watching anything scary so I now have an 'avoid' list...

I watched the bridge, bit gloomy but overall also a bit boring, I wasnt haunted by it.

I remember being very little (under 5) and my Mum left me in charge of the TV while she made lunch. I made the terrible mistake of turning over from BBC 1 to BBC 2 just in time to see a mother slit her son's throat in a play. So I'm guessing it must have been 'Titus Andronicus'. This was in the 1970s and it has stayed with me ever since. What I always end up thinking is, didn't they have watershed times back then?

Hi all,

With the OP's kind permission, we are going to shimmy this rather excellent thread over to Films.

The music in Moon is a big clue as to what's going on, I realised at the end. I think we're so used to cinematic music just mirroring emotions of the characters that we can be surprised when it becomes almost a character in itself, or part of the plot driver.

I have a DVD of Moon that I've never watched. When I get round to it, I'll listen to the music Cooger. Thanks for the tip. I usually miss stuff first time round.

SmartAlec DH hates Dead Ringers too. I don't know why. When I asked he just said 'I hated it'. I didn't find it disturbing but I can barely remember anything about it apart from Jeremy Irons playing twin plastic surgeons who operate on women so I probably wasn't paying attention.

What is so creepy about it? Apart from the twin plastic surgeons operating on women's intimate bits thing

One or both of the Viel brothers specialise in penis enlargement too. So at least they're spreading it around.

YY to many mentioned already:
Sophie's Choice
American History X
Blackfish
Dead Ringers
Fish Tank - definitely makes you think
Duel
Deliverance

Would like to see Dreams of A Life, Calvary, The Hunt - but have to be in the right mood and I haven't been yet!

One of the things reading this thread has revealed to me about myself is what a thorough wuss I am.

I couldn't watch most of the horror films mentioned here

On the rare occasion I've watched a horror film I've had that feeling of unpleasantly raised adrenalin for many many hours afterwards.

I'm the same, Fabsmum

I can't watch actual horror, prefer haunting, melancholy and perhaps slightly creepy, but that's it!

Oh, I had blocked out Dead Ringers. The really horrible instruments he has made .

There's a wonderful film called The Phone Call

It deservedly won the Oscar for Best Short but unfortunately as soon as it did it was withdrawn from view.

I understand that the makers should make money from it but the sad thing is that you can't see it.

If you can catch it, you should.

Oh blimey I remember Dead Ringers.

Speaking of twins this gets shown on the Horror channel quite a lot.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_(1973_film)