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

252 replies

dreamingofblueskies · 25/07/2015 12:43

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. Sad

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.

OP posts:
MonstersBalls · 26/07/2015 02:19

I used to love horror films until I saw the RingShock. For some reason that film fucked me up for years. I just couldn't get it out of my head.

Onyxia · 26/07/2015 02:32

Funny Games.
We watch a lot of horror films but this sticks in my mind every time. It leaves you feeling crap for ages after.

AbbyCadabra · 26/07/2015 04:11

Life is Beautiful didn't end the way I was expecting and I was shattered for days. There was a scene with a little Jewish boy having a tea party with some Nazi officers' children and I thought my heart would stop.
Calvary (with the gorgeous Brendan Gleeson) also nearly finished me off. Despite the title I didn't see the end coming and I wept for hours.

bertsdinner, I remember that Beasts story about Baby! I was way too young to watch it and it terrified me for years. There was another in the series about rats which was also horrible. I've never come across another person who remembers those shows!

JumpRightIn · 26/07/2015 05:17

I've mentioned this before but I think The Ring was full of subliminal messages. We watched it at the cinema and both of us thought we saw something a couple of times. I was jumping out of my skin at the sight of ladders or horses for WEEKS afterwards.
Bit naughty of the film makers really

echt · 26/07/2015 05:24

YY to the original "The Vanishing".

Hands down winner has to be "Snowtown", shockingly horrible, and with the most compelling bad guy ever. I only know of one other Aussie who's seen it and he agrees.

JAPAB · 26/07/2015 05:43

The Vanishing was indeed a great one. A line that stuck out for me was "Sometimes I imagine she's alive. Somewhere far away. She's very happy. And then, I have to make a choice. Either I let her go on living and never know, or I let her die and find out what happened."

I think one of the most disturbing films I saw was a very cheaply made horror film called Shatter Dead. The basic premise was that when people died they no longer went away they stayed "living" in their now dead bodies, which would never heal if injured and when they stood up after sitting there were black patches on their legs where the blood had settled. Written down it doesn't sound like much but I always remember it, and the scene where the main character wakes up after being betrayed by her dead boyfriend who wants to make her like him, against her wishes. IIRC he spiked her drink with an overdose of painkillers. She is desperately trying to fog a mirror with her breath but can't because as she is now dead too and doesn't have any.

Also, the solitary confinement scenes in Papillon. Spending two years in a small cell with no stimuli isn't a pleasant concept.

nicoleshitzinger · 26/07/2015 06:54

One of the World of Apu trilogy by Satyajit Ray.

There is a scene of the young Apu and his older sister Durga in the forest, running through the monsoon rain, laughing. The music is by Ravi Shankar and is wild and joyful. It's very, very beautiful.

And then Durga dies, as children in poor rural families in India probably did fairly frequently. Sad

I sobbed for ages after watching it but watching the film gives you a feeling of transcendence- it's just so very very beautiful. I love the images from the film that have stayed in my head.

I think the film itself is Aparjito. Oh, and Apu in the Simpsons is named in tribute to the young boy hero of the movie, so it clearly stayed with Matt Groening too. Grin

Like the OP, Dreams of a Life will never leave me.

hesterton · 26/07/2015 07:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
dreamingofblueskies · 26/07/2015 08:19

Another one that haunts me is A.I. by Steven Spielberg. It took me about an hour afterwards to stop crying, I just couldn't cope with the poor bear. That film seriously broke my heart.

Hesterton I have no recent experience of Netflix, but it used to be that if I wanted to watch it, it wasn't on Netflix! It may have changed for the better now though.

OP posts:
HeisenbergSaysHello · 26/07/2015 08:54

Heisenberg yes, that's Watcher in the Woods. I remember watching it with my older sister when we were little, she was terrified by it*

Oh it was awful, it bothered me for ages, can barely remember it now but always remember the scene with the bell

RayofFuckingSunshine · 26/07/2015 09:00

The most haunting film I've seen is probably whistleblower. About the UN involvement in Bosnia as peace keepers. It's the true story of a woman who goes over there and discovers a human trafficking ring involving a large number of her colleagues. It's heartbreaking.

Sneakyweasel · 26/07/2015 09:09

Requiem for a dream. I spent the last 10 mins sobbing hysterically and have never been able to bring myself to rewatch it. It's a fantastic film but I think the fact that it was so bleak and starred Jennifer Connelly (labyrinth is my favourite childhood film) was just to much for me to take.

WixingMords · 26/07/2015 09:15

I've seen two Japanese films, can't recall the names, and I'm not looking it up as it might unleash a curse.

One was something to do with a girl and a well and another about a cat/ghosts.

I also saw one about school children on an island who I think either had to kill each other or just ended up killing each other. Though that one didn't make me what to leave the country and find a safe room I've decided to keep on the safe side and never watch anything Japanese ever again. Even a cartoon.

RabbitDeNiro · 26/07/2015 09:28

Wixing - Was that film called Battle Royal?

WixingMords · 26/07/2015 09:38

Yes pretty sure it was, though I'll look it up as that didn't give me the heepie-jeepies quite as much.

HeisenbergSaysHello · 26/07/2015 09:42

Sounds like Battle Royale

JAPAB · 26/07/2015 15:23

hesterton
"Can I ask a question please? I'm really ignorant about Netflix. If we got it, could I watch most of the films mentioned above? Does it include old films and foreign films? And does Netflix have subtitles for hearing impaired?"

I've been looking for some of the names of the films I haven't seen myself and found only Dreams Of A Life, unfortunately. It also only has the inferior American version of The Vanishing. So you won't have much luck. Many films do offer subtitle options however. Best I can say on the other two queries are "there are some".

JAPAB · 26/07/2015 15:27

WixingMords
"One was something to do with a girl and a well"

The first sounds like Ringu.

This scene from Exorcist III can be creepy even if you know what is coming.

BettyCatKitten · 26/07/2015 15:45

The pianist
Sophie's choice
The haunting (the original)
The lovely bones
Threads terrified me as a child!
The house that bled a hammer house if horror which I watched far to young and scared the

BettyCatKitten · 26/07/2015 15:45

Shit out of me Grin

MissBEverdene · 26/07/2015 15:54

The Magdalene Sisters Sad

There but for the grace of God go I

quirkychick · 26/07/2015 16:16

I think I put The Magdalene Sisters on a similar thread about grim films irrc. I didn't make it to the end, too harrowing!

I used to watch a lot of horror films when I was younger but most weren't really haunting. The Changeling, mentioned upthread, however, is really horrible. The eerie, awful clanging in the bath Shock. I can't remember the end but that the noise is really terrifying. Masque of the Red Death, classic horror.

PsammeadPaintedTheLion · 26/07/2015 16:32

I can't bear horror films.

Children of Men stayed with me. It's pretty... bleak.

The other film which has stayed with me but not because it's scary, is The Truman Show! I suffered from paranoia in my late teens and early 20s and I cannot think about that film too much.

LaurieJuspeczyk · 26/07/2015 16:41

In Bruges is my favourite film and also the one I find most haunting, though it's not scary. Unfortunately I think it was marketed appallingly when it came out, so a lot of people I know who would have enjoyed it haven't seen it.

I flat out refuse to watch Threads. There's 'enjoyably scary' and then there's 'will give me a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I turn on the news in the next two years'.

bringbacksideburns · 26/07/2015 16:59

In Bruges is a great film! For me it's Whistle and I'll come - but the original black and white BBC drama that I think you can still see on YouTube, not the crap one that was on at Christmas a couple of years back. It's when he knows he's being followed on the beach but he can't see who it is. Chilling. I hate any Horror films with women being tortured and brutalised. There was something I saw years ago on TV that stayed with me and I never saw the end. Would be good to find it. Basically a woman was pining so much for her dead partner and then he came back for her. He was banging on the door and she let him in and he looked okay. Then she kissed him. It was just really disturbing. Like a seventies forerunner to The Returned. All I know is Susan Hampshire was in it who usually did Musicals!

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