Horror is a genre established by its relationship with the audience. That relationship is built upon the emotional response the viewer has whilst engaging with the audiovisual sensations of cinema. Horror is the one genre to contrive the most immediately powerful emotion from the audience… fear. Fear is perhaps one of the more difficult emotions to pull from the viewer. The film must completely suspend disbelief and make the audience feel as though they are in danger, when in reality they are as safe as can be.
There are many films in the horror genre over the past century to garner powerful emotional responses. However, with the development of realistic special effects, the visuals have become more grotesque and believable. Horror flicks tend to use practical and computer generated images to suspend disbelief even further by showing the audience everything. Very little is left to the imagination with these selected groups of gut-wrenching and sickening horror films.
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Evil Dead (2013)
TriStar Pictures
Sam Raimi’s classic original The Evil Dead from 1981 was a groundbreaking horror flick which utilized effective sound design and practical effects to capture gore in a way only Raimi could. However, the 2013 remake Evil Dead from director Fede Alverez took this to the next level.
Capturing the most disgusting and sickening imagery mixed with elements that made the original so popular. Fans of the original could see glimmers of tribute in the remake. However, the film is an overall sickening gorefest with expendable characters we know for a fact will not see the final frame. The next installment, Evil Dead Rise will be released in theaters.
The Human Centipede
IFC Midnight
Fans of horror hear the title The Human Centipede and can’t help but hold their stomachs. This film was independently released in 2009 and certainly turned some heads… away from the screen. Director Tom Six’s sick and twisted vision of a horror “film” has been panned by critics and fans alike, but became a modern cult classic for fans of sick, cruel cinema.
Shockingly, the film received two sequels growing in production scale. To Six’s credit, few have or likely will ever conjure up another sickening series of motion pictures like this for even the most seasoned horror viewer. If the film’s intention was to parley sicken the audience, and not to tell a cohesive narrative, perhaps they’ve succeeded.
Terrifier 2
Cinedigm
Terrifier 2 is the 2022 sequel to the 2016 cult slasher film. The two and a half hour slasher flick directed by Damien Leone is filled with violence that surpasses the first installment, and made audience members vomit and pass out during screenings. With its massive runtime, there are plenty of moments of intense gore and sniveling sneers from the fan favorite Art the Clown. Though the film was just recently released, it’s already become established as one of the most sickening horror flicks of all time.
Mother!
Paramount Pictures Studios
The 2017 film Mother! by famed director Darren Aronofsky features a star-studded cast including Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Barden, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. While Aronofsky has a history of making films to sicken and disorient the viewer, Mother! is perhaps his most divisive and shocking yet.
Seasoned horror fans are no strangers to chaotic sequences of inhumane acts. However, what Aronofsky does in this film is completely shred any innocence away from the characters and use it against our protagonist. The film uses biblical allegories and metaphors in addition to strange unsettling images that, while not gory, are still capable of causing panic attacks and anxiety in viewers. Mother! is a great example of being disturbing without being soaked in blood.
Cannibal Holocaust
United Artists
No film like Cannibal Holocaust has ever been released prior to its 1980 debut. It is often labeled as one of the most sickening and most controversial films of all time. The film features real acts of animal cruelty and brutal up-close simulated murders with unnamed actors. These actors were hidden from the film’s promotions where audiences members truly thought they were truly murdered on screen in the most brutal way.
The Blair Witch Project
Haxan Films
The 1999 horror and found footage classic The Blair Witch Project is one of the most raw films ever made. Similar to Cannibal Holocaust, the film features unnamed actors who audience members thought were missing after the film’s production. While it is not a violent movie, the cinematic authenticity and organic acting (like the running nose during a moment of panic) accentuates the realness of the character’s emotions. While no viewer will probably be disturbed like the original audience who often didn’t know whether this was real of fictional, The Blair Witch Project is scary to this day, with a finale that continues to terrify first time viewers.
Saw
Lionsgate Films
Saw is James Wan’s first major breakthrough in the horror genre. Similar to films like Hostel and the wave of ’torture porn’ in the 2000s, Saw is a film that relies on gore and treats it as the central part of the film. The violence in the film is meant for shock value but is done in a way that is so creative with intricate traps and ticking clocks. There is something poetic about the idea of choice and how far a person will go to save themselves… before sacrificing another.
The Thing (1982)
Universal Pictures
John Carpenter’s The Thing is a staple to modern horror and visual effects. The film features practical and inventive creatures and gore that set a precedent to the genre that remains to this day. John Carpenter crafts tension that builds silently then ends explosively. For example, the expanding stomach scene is one of the most famous and sickening sequences of all time that features no music, just the practical effects and incredible sound design.
Hereditary
A24
Ari Aster’s modern horror classic Hereditary features one of the most disturbing finales of the last decade. The most powerful moments in the film come from unexpected and grotesque sequences. Annie, played by an amazing Toni Collette, experiences horrors a parent should never have to go through. As an audience member, the terrifying dream sequences and the brutal infamous accident scene get imprinted in the brain and does not leave. In addition, the ending moments feature some of the most disturbing and disgusting shots in recent horror history.
House of 1000 Corpses
House of 1000 Corpses is director Rob Zombie’s first feature debut, which kicked off his extensively controversial movie career. The film is the first of the Firefly Trilogy, which features a family of serial killers known as the Firefly family; the next two films in the trilogy are The Devil’s Rejects and 3 From Hell. Nevertheless, House of 1000 Corpses is a maddening experience that also features disturbing cutaways with graphic imagery. Director Rob Zombie tells Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience of the trials and tribulations prior to releasing the movie in 2003.
Raw
Wild Bunch
Raw is a French made horror drama made in 2016 by director Julia Ducournau. It stars Garance Marillier as Justine, a studying veterinarian who becomes seduced by human flesh and turns to cannibalism. We have seen cannibalism portrayed in films before, but Ducournau takes on a more sophisticated and enlightening approach to the taboo topic. She explains her inspiration in an interview with Film Is Now.
“Basically [Universal] said this is unreleasable. I don’t remember word for word, but that was the conversation in a nutshell. But at the time, you figure, there was no horror coming out of Universal. They were making like The Flintstones movie and that was not the image they wanted. This really vile, sort of backwoods, hillbilly murderfest where the bad people win essentially. I mean, horror films were not even a commercial thing at that point in a way.”
Hellraiser (1987)
Entertainment Films Distributors
The original Hellraiser from director Clive Barker is one of the goriest films ever made at that time. The cenobites are terrifying to look at and present themselves as these ethereal entities with one mission… devour the souls of the living. Hellraiser is groundbreaking in its disgusting visuals, where we see people torn apart or shown inside out. The gore is realistic and will stick with seasoned horror fans. The Hellraiser series has gone on with nine sequels and the recent remake on Hulu streaming now.
“I thought that cannibalism was very interesting because it’s something people tend to reject as not being part of humanity, like they’re diseased [and would] qualify cannibals as being monsters or inhumans. I thought, yeah that’s weird because cannibalism is actually part of the three tablets of humanity, with murder and incest.”
The Exorcist
Warner Bros.
What more can be said about William Friedkin’s The Exorcist that has not already been noted in film history? The movie is a gold standard of effective scares and the use of imaginative visuals to traumatize the audience. Most notably, audience members have been reported, during the film’s release, to have fainted and vomited during various scenes.
Regan’s procedure is often the sequence most audience members quiver during, where needles are shown up close, and realistic blood splatters shoot from tubes in a sickening way — and that’s way before we see any of the demonic possession sequences. The film is brutal, depressing, and is still referred to as the scariest film of all time. David Gordon Green, who brought the Halloween movies back to life with his reboots, is now making new Exorcist movies.
