Scenes that you just can't watch again

[Selk]

You know, sometimes there are movies scenes that you just can't watch again. I leave the room during the climactic scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I also skip through the eyeball scene in Total Recall. Just not something I want to watch again.

[BenShultz]

The birth scene in Cronenberg's The Fly. I really have a hard time with gross creatures that are way bigger than they have any right to be.

[cdouglas]

I can generally handle all sorts of horrible stuff, but there's a bit in Minority Report that just forces me to look away: the scene where a temporarily blinded Tom Cruise takes a bite of a moldy, green sandwich, spits it out and follows it with a great big swig of spoiled green milk. Makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.

[Selk]

The birth scene in Cronenberg's The Fly. I really have a hard time with gross creatures that are way bigger than they have any right to be.

The fingernails [shudder]

[Steve T Power]

I can generally handle all sorts of horrible stuff, but there's a bit in Minority Report that just forces me to look away: the scene where a temporarily blinded Tom Cruise takes a bite of a moldy, green sandwich, spits it out and follows it with a great big swig of spoiled green milk. Makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.

A group of us JUST finished watching it, and one of the guys very nearly barfed at that scene. I'd forgotten how disturbing the undertones were in Minority Report, I hadn't seen it since the theatrical run. Freakin great flick.

[Selk]

A group of us JUST finished watching it, and one of the guys very nearly barfed at that scene. I'd forgotten how disturbing the undertones were in Minority Report, I hadn't seen it since the theatrical run. Freakin great flick.

Yeah, that was gag-worthy. So is the sight of Peter Stormare blowing his nose.

[Selk]

The eyeball-slitting in The Andalusian Dog. I can't even think about that without cringing.

[SmokestackJones]

Two come to mind:

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls - the whole phlegm scene in the hut. I may be a bit supersensitive as I have serious sinus/allergy problems, but it's unfunny and gross.

Watchmen - Rorschach ripping into that child molester's head with the knife. One shot I could handle, maybe even a few more if framed right but even in the shadows the POV shot of Rorschach just wailing on the guy's head turns my stomach.

-SJ

[Jim_Thomas]

The scene in Saving Private Ryan where the German soldier slowly slides his knife into Adam Goldberg's heart.

[Dan Mancini]

In the Realm of the Senses...pretty much the entire movie.

[Mark Van Hook]

The scene in Saving Private Ryan where the German soldier slowly slides his knife into Adam Goldberg's heart.

Seconded.

[Selk]

I don't know, the scene were the radio guy gets it during the opening scene kind of bothered me. You saw it coming and when it did, it kind of bothered me. That, or the moment where the guy is walking around and picks up his own arm.

[Selk]

I still go back to Toht's face melting in Raiders. I still can't watch that one again.

[Steve T Power]

You're welcome!

[J.M. Vargas]

In the Realm of the Senses...pretty much the entire movie.

I had the same reaction but I think that's the effect that Nagisa Ôshima wants the audience to have. Most 'artsy' movies about sex save the graphic sexual scenes to a few minutes and the rest to fancy period window-dressing ("The Lover," "Lust, Caution," "The Dreamers," etc.) but "In the Realm of the Senses" is the opposite: numblingly graphic sex scene after another, with just a handful of 'period' scenes. This mirrors the tunnel-vision view of distorted reality in Sada and Kichizo's oversexualized world. We, the audience, are made to feel as trapped in the sex as the two characters are within their (dramatized) life. I've seen the movie twice and the repeat viewing wasn't as rough the 2nd time. I love the memory of my first viewing though, since I felt like hitting stop often but didn't want to because I would have broken the spell of entrapment the director had fashioned to make us feel the aprehension and loss of control the movie's protagonists were experiencing (which was pretty ballsy of Ôshima to even attempt to pull off, which he did).

[mavrach]

Every Cronenberg movie seems to have at least one extensively gory scene. The Fly is just what happens when you let him to a horror movie.

[Dan Mancini]

In the Realm of the Senses...pretty much the entire movie.

I had the same reaction but I think that's the effect that Nagisa Ôshima wants the audience to have. Most 'artsy' movies about sex save the graphic sexual scenes to a few minutes and the rest to fancy period window-dressing ("The Lover," "Lust, Caution," "The Dreamers," etc.) but "In the Realm of the Senses" is the opposite: numblingly graphic sex scene after another, with just a handful of 'period' scenes. This mirrors the tunnel-vision view of distorted reality in Sada and Kichizo's oversexualized world. We, the audience, are made to feel as trapped in the sex as the two characters are within their (dramatized) life. I've seen the movie twice and the repeat viewing wasn't as rough the 2nd time. I love the memory of my first viewing though, since I felt like hitting stop often but didn't want to because I would have broken the spell of entrapment the director had fashioned to make us feel the aprehension and loss of control the movie's protagonists were experiencing (which was pretty ballsy of Ôshima to even attempt to pull off, which he did).

See, I actually think Oshima's socio-political content gets bogged down by the sex -- which is only there because the deal that he made with his French producer was for a trilogy of arthouse flicks that included hardcore sex in order to generate maximum marketing bang (pun intended). It's pretty telling that the second film in the trilogy, Empire of the Senses, has no hardcore sex whatsoever. I suspect Oshima knew that In the Realm of the Senses was something of a failure, that it's shocking content was getting in the way of what he was trying to say. I wasn't so much shocked or appalled at the sex in the flick as just sort of slightly skeeved out and bored. That's pretty much my reaction to any arthouse flick I can think of that tries to do hardcore sex without being porn, whether by Catherine Breillat, Michael Winterbottom, John Cameron Mitchell, or whoever.

[BenShultz]

I wasn't so much shocked or appalled at the sex in the flick as just sort of slightly skeeved out and bored. That's pretty much my reaction to any arthouse flick I can think of that tries to do hardcore sex without being porn, whether by Catherine Breillat, Michael Winterbottom, John Cameron Mitchell, or whoever.

Porn's pretty boring too. Just sayin'.

[Dan Mancini]

I wasn't so much shocked or appalled at the sex in the flick as just sort of slightly skeeved out and bored. That's pretty much my reaction to any arthouse flick I can think of that tries to do hardcore sex without being porn, whether by Catherine Breillat, Michael Winterbottom, John Cameron Mitchell, or whoever.

Porn's pretty boring too. Just sayin'.

True. That may be the best argument that hardcore arthouse flicks ARE porn.

[J.M. Vargas]

Porn's pretty boring too. Just sayin'.

Speaking from experience I suppose.

[Future Man]

The scene in Saving Private Ryan where the German soldier slowly slides his knife into Adam Goldberg's heart.

Seconded.

For me too. He's alive one minute, he knows what's about to happen...Horrible.

[hoytereden]

The ending of Boys Don't Cry, the second half of Million Dollar Baby, a whole lot of Last House on the Left (both versions)

[tucco]

A couple of scenes in Flavia: The Heretic.........especially the flaying scene.

[hoytereden]

The ending of Pink Flamingos!

[Gabriel Girard]

The rape scene in the first 10 minutes of Baise-Moi, never have I been so repulsed. I didn't watch the rest of the ''movie''.

[booklover]

The open heart surgery scenes in "All That Jazz."

[Selk]

The rape scene in the first 10 minutes of Baise-Moi, never have I been so repulsed. I didn't watch the rest of the ''movie''.

How about the 9-minute rape scene in Irreversible. That made me physically sick.

[Burson_Fouch]

The rape scene in the first 10 minutes of Baise-Moi, never have I been so repulsed. I didn't watch the rest of the ''movie''.

How about the 9-minute rape scene in Irreversible. That made me physically sick.

That's pretty much my reaction to the entire film, from the boyfriend using a fire extinguisher to obliterate the skull of some poor guy who's only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time....to the bucolic sex scenes that end the film. I appreciate what Noe was attempting to do with the reversed sequencing but I'll be damned if I'll ever sit through that movie again.

Other scenes I can't watch:

The scene in Pet Semetary where Edmund Gwynn gets his achilles tendon sliced by the little dead kid.

The nearly subliminal flashes of the demon face in The Exorcist, during Father Damien's nightmare.

[Selk]

That's pretty much my reaction to the entire film, from the boyfriend using a fire extinguisher to obliterate the skull of some poor guy who's only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time....to the bucolic sex scenes that end the film. I appreciate what Noe was attempting to do with the reversed sequencing but I'll be damned if I'll ever sit through that movie again.

My reaction was that while I appreciate what he was trying to do and what he was trying to say, the movie was such a gut-wrenching exercise in inhumanity, cruelty and despair that I wondered, why do I want to sit through this?

I felt like that, for different reasons, with Hostel. That movie was such a relentless exercise is blood, inhumanity and despair, created with a director's joy. I found it unwatchable. Why would anyone want to sit through that. Hostel wasn't just scenes that I couldn't sit through, it was a whole movie I couldn't sit through.

In the case of Michael Tolkin's The Rapture, I watched it, I thought it was brilliant but it was so disturbing that I can never sit through it again. That movie really got under my skin.

[Attrage]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned any scenes from Salo... I mean, if there's any movie that really doesnt need the blu-ray treatment, that's the one.

[molly1216]

needless to say some of the above..basically scenes that are meant to be brutally graphic...i think some directors get away with too much. the ear scene from Res dogs, the curb scene in American History X, etc...

[stypee]

I don't know why but everything from ICHI: THE KILLER, every single frame, I detest this movie that much.. It's just so hard for me to watch and I don't mean that in a "I hate this movie" sort of way, I just find everything about it repulsive and I've seen allot of crap that would make anyone's head spin..

[Andrew Forbes]

...basically scenes that are meant to be brutally graphic...i think some directors get away with too much. ... the curb scene in American History X...

Not to suggest that this scene is easy to watch, but what exactly did Tony Kaye get away with here? I don't recall seeing anything explicit, and that moment of violence is a critical point in the story.

[Dunnyman]

The rape scene in the first 10 minutes of Baise-Moi, never have I been so repulsed. I didn't watch the rest of the ''movie''.

How about the 9-minute rape scene in Irreversible. That made me physically sick.

Actually, the whole film. Can't handle it. Too messed up.
However, gross out stuff doesn't bother me, it's a movie. Sure, if it was real, it'd be downright nasty, but I've seen enough blood in hockey and racing that it'd have to be pretty horrific to gross me out, like Richard Zednick almost being decapitated.

[Stubby]

The scene in Catch-22 where Alan Arkin opens the jacket of a wounded pilot and all the pilot's guts spill out

[Attrage]

...basically scenes that are meant to be brutally graphic...i think some directors get away with too much. ... the curb scene in American History X...

Not to suggest that this scene is easy to watch, but what exactly did Tony Kaye get away with here? I don't recall seeing anything explicit, and that moment of violence is a critical point in the story.

For me, what stayed with me more about that "curbing" sequence in American History X was not actually the moment of violence itself, but the look on Edward Norton's face as the cops lead him away. The smile he gives Edward Furlong is chilling.

[azul017]

Stardust - The whole sequence with Mark Strong invading Cap'n Shakespeare's ship and seeing Robert DeNiro in a pink tutu prancing around. The scene just grinds the film to a halt, it's embarrassing to watch.

28 Weeks Later - An infected Robert Caryle putting out Catherine McCormack's eyes out. Brutal.

[Attrage]

To be honest I have actually watched the scene again, but the first time I watched the scene in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer where Henry and Otis sit on a couch drinking beers and watching their camcorder footage of themselves doing a home invasion was the first and one of the only times in my life a movie has actually made me feel physically ill. It's actually a nicely done piece of film-making, because it's abhorrent behvaiour on several levels: that they committed the crime to begin with (and filmed it for posterity) and also that they take such obscene enjoyment in watching it back.

[tucco]

The flaying scene in Flavia: The Heretic.......and even the nipple scene...
I've seen WAY grosser stuff, but.....when the characters in the movie, who are used to seeing torture and have no problem with it slightly flinch at the beginning of the flaying, it just makes me bristle. It's a very nuanced thing but it worth more than a thousand buckets of blood and gore.
I've actually looked away from the screen at that scene simply because of the other characters' slight, but noticeable discomfort, and the realism of the act against the sort of banal, lazy pace of the movie.