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.

"plant people thingy"

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers?

The Russian Roulette scene in Deer Hunter was a bit disturbing.

And yes yes yes to that scene above out of exorcist 3, always hated it !!

JAPAB

Betty - just to say that I watched The Vanishing for all the reasons you give, people say it's amazing, haunting etc. I profoundly wish I had never seen it as it disturbed my sleep for months afterwards and I can still be upset by it years later if the image comes back to me at the wrong moment. Given the films you list as upsetting, I would strongly advise you not to see it, there I no need to.

There's a tales of the unexpected where he turns into a bee I think it is, that's grim. Is Timothy west.

The Wicker Man (as PP original version)
Face Off

Funny games. I wish I could expel it from my head.

Into the wild
Hotel Rwanda
Gandhi
The Impossible
Gorillas in the mist
Cry Freedom
The Lady
Blackfish
The Cove
Sharkwater
Salvador

anna I've just googled it and seeing as it has a theme of being buried alive I will give it a miss, as being buried alive is a particular fear of mine

Is no one else willing to admit that they shit themselves watching Ghostwatch?
I also remember a Raymond Briggs cartoon about Nuclear War- When the Wind Blows, I think it's called
Both helped made me the chicken I am today!

Also
Betty Blue
Saviour -set in war torn Bosnia
In the time of the butterflies -about womens heroism against a dictator in the Dominican Republic
Missing -a bit dated now,but with a theme of The Disappeared (countless young men going missing in South America)

Oh and...

The Mission -for the music if nothing else.

I watched some of requiem for a dream but I got bored and gave up, certainly wasnt remotely haunted.

There are films that stayed with me when I was younger but I suspect that if I watched them now for the first time I'd be distinctly unmoved

I find Mike Leigh's films stick in my mind with their melancholy heroines and everyday stoicism. Vera Drake (wow, what a performance!), Another Year (Jim Broadbent nails it again) and Secrets and Lies (charismatic big brother holds an entire family back from the precipice) have all haunted me.

annandale
Perhaps you could try watching the American version of The Vanishing as an attempt at an antidote.

Oldboy. The concept of being kidnapped and kept imprisoned in one room for 15 years is not a nice thought.

Dreams of a life- I started watching when I was up bf my then newborn dd one night and only managed halfway through I was a mess. Kept thinking 'that's someone's baby' :( several months later I sat abd watched it in its entirety very affecting but a story that needed to be told.
'We need to talk about Kevin' I felt sick for a couple of days after watching it. I don't think I could ever watch it again.

I don't watch horror films so mine are:

Jude
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I've only ever seen a clip of Sophie's Choice - the bit where she chooses. DD was about 14 weeks and I had undiagnosed PND at the time, and I was so hysterically upset I think my mum nearly slapped me!

I could never watch the whole film, I feel physically sick even thinking about it.

Has anyone else seen Moon? Very bleak and haunting...

The film of The Road is one that'll stick with you.

recently watched 'the beach' the scene where they bury the guy who got attacked by a shark was quite haunting
I thought the book was much better though

I enjoyed the Kevin film but preferred the book

Cooger god yes A Field in England had such a terrible bleak weird horror to it. Still shudder when I think about it.

I was going to watch the road, but after the book I just thought it's going to be grindingly and gratuitously depressing so didnt!

Eden Lake

It is suzanne.

Another few

Out of Africa
The English Patient
White Material

Hilary Swank, playing trans teenager Teena Brandon in, Boys Don't Cry was disturbing. Seeing her being beaten, raped and then murdered by those redneck scumbags was horrible. The fact that it is a true story makes it even more horrific.

What Dreams May Come was both haunting and disturbing. Especially when Robin Williams is walking over those faces in hell.