Top most difficult horror movies I’ve seen and why.

It’s not the worst, the goriest or filled to the brim with insanity, it’s the ones that stick with you after the credits roll…

I know there are others that could even be harder to watch than those ones, but there are so many out there that it’s hard to see them all to create an objective and complete list.

If you’ve stumbled upon this website, it’s most likely that you know -and possibly even enjoy- a little bit of gore here and there.
This list will not go massively mainstream.

I do like my little Art the clown gore-fest, but it doesn’t make me feel uneasy the way the following movies do.
Gore, violence and overall awfulness are common in horror, but those stick out.
There will obviously be spoilers, and graphic content description, so proceed with caution.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

It’s on every single list. And for good reason.
One of my best friends, when we were in college, love independent old movies.
She bought it, watched it, and thought « Oh you like horror, you’ll love this ! » and lent it to me.
No info, no backstory, I went in blind.
While eating dinner.
There was no going back after the wedding scene. I’m -luckily- not easily nauseous, but scatophilia gets me.
It left a scar in my brain that I haven’t fully been able to remove.

Mum & Dad

No joke, I thought I was going to see the Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair version.
I had no idea two horror movies with really similar names existed.
I was in for a ride. Not a fun one, but a riiiiide.
When watching Terrifier 3, I was reminded of Mum & Dad.
The dude at the end nailed to the wall, it felt familiar, and then it clicked.
Also, the scene where the dude masturbates inside a fresh liver stuck.
I guess I’ve found my threshold back then.

The Human centipede 2

For years I’ve heard about the first one. For years I avoided it (see Salò for the reason haha).
And then one day I had nothing to watch, and put The Human Centipede on.
And it was soooo boring.
Ok the concept was disturbing and new, but the first installment felt like a theater play written while on drugs.
The second one on the other end is everything I was afraid the first one would be, but worse.
The diarrhea, the barbed-wire rape, the close-ups, everything felt wrong.
So so wrong.
And then the third one happened. And it took everything away from the franchise.
Those movies feel like a disturbing fever dream. Or nightmare.

Train

Train flies under the radar so much it hurts.
It’s not a perfect movie by a mile, but it stood out to me back then.
I went in blind as well, and expected a weird cross-over between Hostel and Tourista.
Which is mostly what I got.
But there is one scene, tucked away in between torture and necrophilia, that stuck with me.
The one girl that was still alive. She had her leg chopped off, and we knew she was a goner, but the movie dug her fate even deeper.
She was given away, alive and injured, as payment to the military that were inspecting the train.
We all know what will happen, and it’s far worse than anything the movie could have shown us.

I’m still looking for the 5th one, and honestly, I’m in no rush to find it.

Eden Lake could be a good contestant with its ending. I watched it once, and never went back.
It’s far too real, and happens way too often in the real world.

Martyrs isn’t on this list because, to me, it doesn’t hold up.
I know it has a HUGE following and that it resonated with its audience to an incredible extent, but I couldn’t take it seriously from the get-go.
The organization wanted to achieve martyrdom to be able to know what lies after death, right ?
They could only achieve it through torture and the only sign was the eyes, right ?
Then why did they cover the girl’s eyes in the bathtub exactly ?
Those were not only covered, they were screwed in if I remember correctly.
And our protagonist is only beaten up in the face area, with no other trauma to her body, but survives being flayed ? It pissed me off to no end. I’m sorry.

I’ve never gotten around to inflict A serbian film upon myself. Same with Irréversible for the same reason.
Usually if rape is massively involved, I tend to skip it.
I haven’t watched Revenge, and got caught with Last house on the left by mistake in a Wes Craven marathon. So yeah, those must be awful, and stick with you after, but I’m too weak to willingly watch them.
Give me a sawed-off leg, cut an eye out, but those are too nasty.

Honorable mentions go to : Wolf Creek, Speak no evil (the danish version) and The devil’s rejects.
Mainly because of Otis.

Have you seen the common denominator between all the movies on this list though ?

It’s all humans who inflict pain willingly. They are not demons, not ghosts, nor supernatural in the slightest.
They are just random dudes with either time or money, and a fucked up way of entertaining themselves.

They could be your neighbor, the cashier at your local supermarket or you boss.

And that’s so much scarier than any possible entity out there.

I’ve already talked about this in lengh right here, just in case you’re willing to read a bit more.