The 411 Top 5 10.24.08: Week 136

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.24.2008

The Top 5 Most Horrific Non-Horror Movies

With Halloween right around the corner, it's that time of year to kick back and enjoy some terrifying cinema. But you don't have to stick exclusively to the horror genre for your cinematic scares. In fact, a number of non-horror movies are just as frightening or disturbing as some of the horror genre's best known classics, as we demonstrate this week with a look at:

THE TOP 5 MOST HORRIFIC NON-HORROR MOVIES



Trevor Snyder

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Silence of the Lambs - For the record, I actually think this is a much better movie than anything else on my list (in fact, I consider it to be the best American film of the ‘90s). I'm only including it here because I do believe it's a horror movie. And yet, I've noticed that a lot of people still don't seem to want to admit that, perhaps because they can't stand the idea of a horror movie sweeping the Oscars. Well, c'mon people, it's about a guy making a suit out of people.

Midnight Express - Turkish prison. Yikes.

Deliverance - I'm a guy…of course I think this is horrific.

THE TOP 5

5. Safe

Todd Hayne's absorbing tale of a woman who starts becoming allergic to everything might not sound that horrific on paper, but give it a watch and try to imagine the same thing happening to you. Safe presents the case that our very environment and culture is poisonous…an idea that should deeply resonate with anyone who has ever had even the slightest bit of concern over the different chemicals and additives we're exposed to on a daily basis. I guess you could call it "environmental horror."

4. Passion of the Christ

This isn't meant as a knock against Mel Gibson's controversial film. Despite my agnostic attitude, I'm actually a great admirer of this movie. I might not agree with or believe everything Gibson is saying with this movie, but as an artistic realization of what he believes I think it's amazingly powerful. The debate over this movie's merits as religious teaching tool will probably go on for years, and quite frankly I'm really not that interested in it. What I do know is that it's one of the most brutally violent movies I've seen, and is really the only time I've ever personally seen an entire sold-out theater left in stunned silence. This probably isn't the kind of compliment Gibson is looking for, but I think this movie shows that Gibson the director might just have one hell of a horror movie in him.

3. Irreversible

The horror of rape has never been more fully realized on film than in this devastating French shocker from director Gaspar Noe. The scene in question, in which Monica Belluci is brutally raped, is incredibly tough to watch, and I remember reading that this film became infamous for the number of walkouts that would occur at each theatrical screening. Don't get me wrong, it's a very well-done movie, and should appealing to the more open Memento fans (as it employs the same backwards-stoytelling). But it's an endurance test to get through.

2. Requiem For A Dream

I'm actually of the opinion that Darren Aronofsky's haunting adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel should be shown in schools – who the hell would think drugs are "cool" after seeing this thing? Of course, the film is so unflinching in its brutally honest look at the depths of addiction that a lot of kids would probably come home from school traumatized by what they've seen, and I guess I'd be out of my imagined job as President of the school board. Still, parents out there should at least consider sharing this one with their kids when the time is right. Just remember that I'm not responsible for any mental scars that may occur when it gets to the "ass to ass" sequence.

1. United 93

Oliver Stone's World Trade Center was a more upbeat, "triumph of the human spirit" take on the events of 9/11. In making United 93, Paul Greengrass decided to take another route, choosing to highlight the heroism of the flight's doomed passengers by making us share the exact horror they went through. He manages to do so without ever seem exploitative (in fact, Greengrass wouldn't go ahead with the project until he had the permission of the families of each and every United 93 victim), and ends up crafting a beautiful but almost unbearable tribute to those poor individuals.



Shawn S. Lealos

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, M, and Taxi Driver

THE TOP 5

5. The Wizard of Oz

If this movie were made today there is no way in hell it would be marketed as a kid's movie. The flying monkeys scared the piss out of me when I was a little kid. I can't imagine how many children were scarred by this movie. It is violent, scary and has some very horrific scenes. What is a child to do while watching the Scarecrow getting ripped apart? Even the little puppy is threatened. "I'll get you my pretty... and your little dog too!"

4. Requiem for a Dream

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Of you want to keep kids from doing drugs, show them this movie. This movie has no happy endings. It has no happy anything. One woman slips into a drug induced coma thanks to a pain killer addiction. One guy gets an arm amputated thanks to gang green from shooting up with infected needles. One guy ends up in prison and another girl ends up whoring herself out for her drug habit. The smart thinking would be to present a movie where someone figures out their life is going down the shitter and rises up to conquer their demons. Darren Aronofsky is not one to buck to conventional wisdom. He shows us the true dangers of drugs and then lets his characters (an impressive cast - Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans) spiral right down the drain. If you watch this and still want to do drugs, you deserve anything that happens to you.

3. Seven

This is not a horror movie, it is a police thriller. I went to see this movie in theaters and when it ended everyone stood and left, no one saying a word. David Fincher created a world so dark and glum that you knew there was going to be a bad ending. I never dreamed the ending would be as dark and disturbing as it was. Golden boy Brad Pitt let it all out as the young cop with the pretty wife and pet dogs who wants to get involved in the brutal homicide division. Morgan Freeman is the grizzled veteran closing in on retirement. You would assume in this case, Freeman's character would be the one to fall (the "one last case" syndrome). Nope. The climax of the movie with Brad Pitt's angry cop, Kevin Spacey's deranged serial killer John Doe and a mysterious box is an image that still haunts my memories today. All the gore (and there was lots of it) doesn't hold a candle to the psychological terror of John Doe winning the battle at the end of the day.

2. Silence of the Lambs

This one holds a little more true to the horror genre but remains another police thriller. Horror fans will call this a horror movie if for no other reason than claiming it was their first Oscar win. Clarice is a young up-and-coming FBI agent who is used to try to get behind the mask of cannibal Hannibal Lecter. The goal is to learn as much as she can about the recent serial killer Buffalo Bill. Lecter plays mind games and eventually helps Clarice both find herself as well as find the serial killer. The scene where she has Bill in a dark basement and we are seeing the entire scene through Bill's eyes is terrifying. It is a great thriller and the closest on my list to a "typical" horror film.

1. There Will be Blood

When interviewed about this film, P.T. Anderson compares it to Dracula. He actually says he believes it is a horror film. Daniel Plainview is a character so dark and deranged that he destroys everyone and everything that he touches, almost instinctively. Even the one person who he claims to love, his adopted son H.W., is only used as a tool to reach his goals. When he is finished with H.W., Daniel also tosses him aside and attempts to verbally destroy him as well. The metaphor is there as well. Dracula sucks the blood from his victims until they are lifeless and dead. Daniel sucks the oil from the land until everyone there withers and fades away. The end of the movie, when Daniel has chased off his son, destroyed everyone he came in contact with and sucked the land dry, he finally comes in contact with his one nemesis. Unlike Dracula, where he is finally defeated by his adversary, Daniel stares down would-be preacher Eli Sunday and then, in the most brutal scene in the movie, destroys him as well. The final line, I'm finished, is a declaration that he has now completely destroyed everything and is the last man standing. He is a monster from beginning to end and one of the more horrific creatures ever created in a movie.



Owain J. Brimfield

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Irreversible (2002) - one of the very few times I can remember having to turn away from a film, and it occurs in the first fifteen minutes!

Clean, Shaven (1993) - just a terrifying portrayal of mental illness.

Freeze Frame (2004) - a horribly dingy paranoid-noir.


THE TOP 5

5. Caché (2005)

The atmosphere of growing tension generated by this French modern classic is superb, as a family man begins to receive in the post a series of videotapes showing his home being filmed, accompanied by an increasingly disturbing set of child's drawings. There's very little shown in the first hour or so of the film that's anything more than mildly unnerving, but the escalation of paranoia and the onset of panic is so sublimely set up that when the film's one act of violence occurs it's as shocking as anything seen in the past few years (and was accompanied by the loudest collective exclamation I've ever heard from a cinema audience). Although the denouement is somewhat telegraphed it doesn't lose its impact, and the final shot is a wonderful "thinker".

4. Oldboy (2003)

I still can't decide what's worse in this Korean revenge flick: the final shocking twist that reveals the extent of the movie's machinations, or the indignities that our protagonist Oh Dae-Su must suffer through in order to reach that point. The setup to his imprisonment is brief but well done, and it's as disturbing to wonder why he was kept locked in the same room for fifteen years as it is to watch the mental anguish he suffers as a result. Of course, it's the last half hour or so where everything comes together that provides the film's most horrific moments, and with the deftly unsettling final scene that comes after the climax, Oldboy is one of the most memorably disquieting films this decade.

3. Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

A little-seen Brit revenge film that's as unsettling for the acts of vengeance wreaked on a gang of thugs by an ex-soldier as it is for making us sympathise with him - at least until the final reel, when with one horrible soliloquy the entire motivation of the "hero" is turned on its head, and our sympathies along with it. For all the barbaric acts on display, perhaps the most troubling scene comes when Richard encounters the first of the gang and sits in the corner of a bar, following him around the room with a quiet, steely gaze, leading to the film's defining moment - "What the fuck are you looking at?" / "YOU, you cunt!" The sheer ferocity of Considine's performance sets everything up perfectly for a downward spiral into revenge and disturbia.

2. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

I'm sure the sheer impact of Aranofsky's sophomore picture will be covered adequately by my colleagues, but there's no denying that this is one of the most depressing movies in the history of cinema - at each turn you think that things can't get any worse for the central quartet of characters, but Requiem excels at subverting your expectations and pushing its protagonists to the darkest nadir it's possible to experience. Kudos to the main cast for subjecting themselves to some grave indignities during the course of filming; it was certainly worth it as this remains an intensely disturbing movie.

1. Seven (1995)

Predictable? Perhaps. Aside from possessing one of the best "jump" scares of all time, the entire film is relentlessly downbeat, with even the little things like the perpetual rain and the train running by Mills' apartment adding to the claustrophobia and tension. Of course, the film is really about John Doe, and he dreams up the kind of punishments that would make even Jigsaw go "hey, hold on a minute". His final acts of sin are wonderfully realised, and it's so rare that movies actually allow the killer to win that it makes Seven's ending all the better. The worst/best moment for me is when the cops discover the first "help me" message and you realise that the horror has only just begun.



Bryan Kristopowitz

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Bone Dry (2007): I just reviewed this flick in my The Gratuitous B-Movie Column a few weeks ago. Luke Goss is chased across the desert by a wacked out Lance Henriksen for reasons that are not made clear until the end. Goss is exceptional as the protagonist, and Henriksen is insanely good as the villain. He puts Goss through some nasty stuff (handcuffed naked to a cactus, strapped to the hood of a truck, stuff like that). Just a brilliant flick from start to finish.


The Hunted (2003): Tommy Lee Jones, a professional tracker and expert killer, chases down Benicio del Toro in the Pacific Northwest, as del Toro, suffering from shell shock (he was a special forces soldier in Kosovo and did and experienced some nasty ass hooey), has "gone renegade" (basically, it means Del Toro has gone insane). The flick starts and ends in the forest, the wilderness, where both Jones and del Toro are at home. So, what makes this a horror movie? Well, besides the intense war scenes featuring del Toro's "baptism" in violence, it's the way the violence unfolds between Jones and del Toro. Del Toro is an unrepentant killer, while Jones, while he knows how to completely destroy someone, he doesn't really want to. But, as the flick goes on, Jones has to find a way to put that personal inclination on hold because Jones is the only one that can stop del Toro. Watch the final fight sequence between Jones and del Toro. That's some nasty stuff right there.


Blind Side (1993): Rebecca De Mornay and Ron Silver are rich yuppie scumbags vacationing in Mexico (they're also there to check out possible locations for their business expansion), they end up hitting a Mexican cop with their car, and instead of notifying the authorities, Rebecca and Ron just let the cop die. They go back to the U.S., figuring they're in the clear, only they didn't know that perennial creepy guy Rutger Hauer, also hanging out in Mexico, saw what they did. Hauer shows up at Rebecca and Ron's home and starts letting on that he saw what they did and he wants something to keep his mouth shut. Rebecca and Ron play along, until they decide they've had enough and Rutger decides to batshit crazy. Hauer's performance here makes his psycho killer in The Hitcher look like Mr. Rogers. He's just so damn creepy. Rebecca and Ron clearly don't stand a chance. I wish HBO would play this more often. It's one of the network's better TV movies.

THE TOP 5

5. Cobra (1986)

It's Sylvester Stallone as the ultimate scumbum cop Lt. Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, a member of "The Zombie Squad," protecting Brigitte Nielson from a cult of raving, murdering lunatics, headed by the great Brian Thompson. Cobra, probably Stallone's only "horror" movie, features some great action set pieces and car chases, but at its core it's really kind of a slasher movie. It's got a girl in peril (Brigitte), a slasher (Thompson's Night Slasher character), and plenty of stalk and slash type stuff. Think of the Night Slasher cult killings on the street, the stuff in the parking garage, the stuff in the hospital. It's like a goddamn Jason movie in there. Then there's the final sequence, where the cult lays siege to the hotel motel, and then the stuff in the steel foundry, with the slasher tables turned on the killers and then the final fight between Cobra and the Night Slasher. It's a slasher movie on action movie steroids. And think about the opening sequence in the supermarket. It's brutal, it's grim, it's damn near hell on Earth. That's what makes a great horror movie great, right?

4. Predator (1987)

Go into any video store in the world, and odds are you won't find the 1987 Ahnold Schwarzeneger classic Predator in the horror section, although that's where it really belongs. Yeah, it's got plenty of macho Ahnold action hooey in it, and a bunch of stuff involving rebels and arms shipments and the CIA, but, just like Cobra, at its core, Predator is a slasher movie. However, instead of a bunch of horny teens getting butchered in the woods, it's a group of Special Forces soldiers getting their ass handed to them. They're killed one by one, up until Ahnold, as the "final girl" or sorts, has to fight the killer and attempt to defeat him. I do remember director John McTiernan (and he may have said it on the DVD commentary) saying that he wanted to change up the original script a bit so the final flick wouldn't look like a "typical scary" movie or some such. Well, John, in that regard, you failed, because, again, Predator is a slasher movie. It's as simple as that.

3. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

A bunch of people from different backgrounds, trapped in a relatively small, enclosed space, have to band together to fight off a band of relentless, seemingly faceless killers with a purpose: get inside. Kind of sounds like Night of the Living Dead, doesn't it? You know it does. But instead of a rural farmhouse being attacked by the undead (zombies), it's an about to be abandoned police station in the middle of Los Angeles being attacked by a giant street gang (you've also got a black guy as the hero). Plus, there's that seemingly endless suspense (when the heck are all of the storylines and characters going to come together?), and the up close, personal "urban" terror stuff (the stalking of the ice cream truck driver, the shooting death of Kim Richards). People often call it director John Carpenter's first western (it was originally called Anderson Alamo), but, really, it's a reworking of the zombie siege story made popular by George A. Romero. Great stuff.

2. Silence of the Lambs (1991)

You've got a deranged psycho slasher serial killer (Buffalo Bill), a charismatic doctor and cannibal (Hannibal Lecter), and a vulnerable young woman (Clarice Starling) stuck in the middle of a horrendous situation of trying to get information about that serial killer from the doctor cannibal so she can stop the serial killer from killing again. How is this not a horror movie? It certainly wouldn't have won a bunch of Oscars if it had been, that's for sure. It's a dramatic thriller, it's a psychological thriller, it's a police procedural. It's got a pedigree, it's "art," unlike, you know, real horror movies. But, come on, it's a horror movie. It's grim, it's gruesome, it's got a sense of unending doom running through it. It ends on a bit of a downer (Hannibal is loose!). The monster isn't dead. So, come on, let's stop the "art" stuff and just call Lambs a horror movie. The world will be better off for it.

1. United 93 (2006)

United 93 is one those movies where, despite knowing what happens ahead of time, is incredibly suspenseful. You watch as the eventual terrorists prepare themselves for the highjacking of United 93, you watch them actually highjack the plane, you watch the air traffic controllers and the authorites try to figure out what's going on but can't quite do it, you watch as the passengers formulate a plan to try to take the plane back from the terrorists and then execute that plan. You watch as other passengers call home to say goodbye to their loved ones, because they know they're about to die (that bit where the woman calls her daughter to tell her the number of a bank account still gives me the fucking chills). And then you watch everything just go to hell. But, the whole time you're watching and knowing how it all turns out, you're hoping that you're somehow wrong and it isn't going to end as bad as it does. It's such an amazing, dreadful (dreadfully amazing?) experience. Paul Greengrass should be proud of making such an engrossing bad time.


Rick Tym

5. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Stanley Kubrick is responsible for some of the most awe-inspiring, hilarious and horrific ideas ever to be placed on celluloid. 2001: A Space Odyssey is considered by many to be the quintessential science fiction film of all time. Dr. Strangelove is both comedic and worrisome in its depiction of the nuclear alternative. The Shining is an example cited in many of the 411 horror-related lists seen during the month of October due to its stark depiction of the degradation of the human psyche, aided by blood-flooded hallways and creepy twin girls. Eyes Wide Shut is a unique animal of quite the different breed, which examines the thrills and terrors that can result from the consideration of, and near indulgence in, infidelity. With a haunting score and tempting yet forbidden scenarios, the film examines the fears and insecurities that arise when questioning the strength of marital bonds. The prevailing unease of the underground sexual world explored by a husband and his admittance to such curiosities, along with his partner's own admission of carnal desires and fantasies, prove just how scary it can be to commit to another, and the terrible things considered by lovers in the moments when they examine their relationships and themselves.

4. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

I remember when the annual showing of this classic film was a cause for celebration. Nothing captured my imagination in my early years quite as much as watching Dorothy's farm house being whirled away by a tornado and the transformation from a black-and-white Kansas to the Technicolor Land of Oz. While fondly remembered and still mandatory viewing for many families today, this film has much more substance than a simple fairy tale. First and foremost, The Wizard of Oz taps into every child's (and some adults') fear of losing their direction and not being able to find the way home. And while Oz is a land of wonders, it is also a thinly-veiled world of darkness, complete with melting witches and somewhat sinister munchkins. I probably need not remind you of the army of flying monkeys which to this day can give children nightmares, even if they are still too early in their development to properly express to their parents exactly what it was that made them so scared of the shadows they saw outside their bedroom window.

3. Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher's somewhat overlooked crime procedural perfectly captures 1970s San Francisco at the onset, height and eventual uneasy silence of the Zodiac Killer. While the film was more concerned with the meticulousness and obsession of one cartoonist's investigation into the still-unsolved crimes, Fincher brilliantly stages several crime reenactments, managing to capture the sheer brutality of the Zodiac's wrath, whether they take place during a fireworks-lit night or a sunny lakeside day. Most chilling are the sequences when Robert Graysmith is lured into a possibly deadly cellar and final scene when he comes face to face with the most likely suspect in the case, Arthur Allen Leigh. Actor John Carroll Lynch conveys more intimidation and terror as Leigh with his haunting, empty stare in the film's closing frames than most current works manage over their entire lengths.

2. War of the Worlds (2005)

The most current adaptation of H.G. Wells' science fiction classic is wrongly derided by many because of leading actor Tom Cruise (or the constant shrieking of Dakota Fanning). While alien in nature, the film's threat is most definitely horrific in origin. Living under the Earth's crust for perhaps centuries, the tripods are awakened from their slumber via lightning bolts too numerous to even attempt to count, intent on only one thing: the extermination of the human species. This film works best because it is centered on weekend dad Tom Cruise, his children and their attempt to escape the invaders; events are seen only through their eyes and the alien attackers are kept mostly at a distance, rather than being viewed from the vantage points of world governments and wide angle camera shots. Although the basement scene with Tim Robbins is memorably creepy, the sequence where Tom Cruise literally runs for his life, covered in the dusty remains of those being disintegrated around him by extraterrestrial rays, is as terrifyingly memorable as Spielberg's earlier efforts in Jaws and Jurassic Park.

1. Pi (1998)

Darren Aronofsky won the Director's Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival for this depiction of a genius who is convinced that all world events can be reduced to their mathematical patterns. Using his homemade supercomputer, Euclid, he attempts to crack the code of the financial world to correctly predict stock market fluctuations. His efforts lead to more than he bargained for, including the discovery of a 216 digit number that has the ability to actually crash Wall Street and may just be the true name of God. Although it is billed as a psychological thriller, Pi is scarier than most slasher films to this writer because knowledge itself can be fearsome, as are those who use terrible means to attain it. Whether it be for religious or financial gain, groups seeking power will do anything within their capabilities to seize it. Perhaps most horrific is the avenue taken by the mathematician to rid himself of this intelligence, which involves the use of a power drill and leaves him lobotomized but happily ignorant of all things related to geometrical theorems and differential equations as the credits roll.



Jeremy Thomas

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Dark City (1998) - This film, Alex Proyas's second after The Crow, really has it's terrifying moments; most often when The Strangers (and particularly Richard O'Brien's Mr. Hand) are on screen. Proyas cited O'Brien as the inpiration for the Strangers' design, and the results are genuinely creepy. Sci-Fi film noir has never been done better.

Mulholland Drive (1999) - This is the first to two David Lynch films on this list. Lynch is a talented, visionary director who you will either love or hate, and while his films aren't horror, they are certainly terrifying at times. This film has no shortage of those moments, from the discovery of Diane in her apartment to the freaky old couple's appearance later in the film, to the absolutely creepy hallucinations. Even the scene at Club Silencio, as beautiful as it is, is haunting in its own way. This is easily my favorite Lynch film, and it's pretty scary too.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - Let's face it, this is a horror film that isn't being called a horror film by the majority of the world. The dinner scene is on par with several horror "gross out" scenes, and Mola Ram's removal of his victim's heart scarred the minds of many a child of the 80's. While it isn't as scary now as it was then, I certainly think it deserves to be on the short list.

THE TOP 5

5. Blue Velvet (1986)

While Mullholand Drive is my favorite David Lynch film, Blue Velvet is certainly the more disturbing and frightening one. A film featuring the stunning Isabella Rossellini performing several shocking acts and Dennis Hopper's mind-bending performance as Frank Booth deserves nothing less then to be on a list such as this. This is Lynch's most personal film, and it was terrifying enough to earn a spot on AFI's "100 Years...100 Thrills" list. I say it's a spot well-deserved.

4. Pan's Labryinth (2006)

Anyone who took their children to Pan's Labryinth merits my absolute scorn. While the movie was being marketed somewhat as a fantasy film, these people clearly missed the giant "This movie has been rated R" at the beginning of the preview. Thus, they took their kids to the theater, where they missed another chance to realize that it's an R-rated film for "graphic violence and some language." And then they saw some of the more disturbing scenes in recent cinema, including the sadistic Captain Vidal pounding a man's nose in with the bottom of a wine bottle, the child-eating Pale Man, and Vidal's mouth getting sliced wide open by a vengeful Mercedes. Del Toro's dark fantasy is an excellent film and a terrifying one, too.

3. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Shawn said it best...if you want to keep kids from doing drugs, show them this film. It's a film I've always said that everyone should have to see once, and no one should ever have to see twice. The tragic endings aside, this film has some absolutely freaky moments, in particular the hallucinations that Ellen Bustyn's diet pill-addled character suffers through. I only know of one person who's ever walked away from this movie not disturbed, and he walked away laughing. I worry about him.

2. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

"Time for a bit of the ol' ultraviolence." Before he was Linderman from Heroes, before he was Dr. Samuel Loomis is Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, before he was in Tank Girl, Star Trek Generations or The Player, Malcolm McDowell spellbound audiences with his intensely twisted portrayal of Alex, the anti-hero who is the protagonist of this science fiction satire. What happens to Alex once he's been captured is equally as harrowing as what he puts his victims through in the early part of the movie. The terror here is often a more subtle one, a feeling of dread as this dystopian world unfolds and we look at the future that Alex Burgess laid out in his novel, and brilliantly so.

1. Vulgar (2000)

Some people might laugh at me for this one, but screw them. I have a morbid fear of clowns, and for those caulrophobics like me, there are few movies more terrifying then Vulgar. Written and directed by Brian Johnson (Steve-Dave of the View Askewniverse films), this was financed and produced by Kevin Smith and stars Brian "Dante Hicks" O'Halloran as Will Carlson, a guy who works as a birthday party clown due to his love of entertaining kids. This all goes terribly wrong due to a convoluted series of events and he ends up being attacked, beaten, and gang-raped on film by a middle-aged man and his sons. This sends him into an understandable downward spiral, and he ends up having to go through a series of events, including facing down his attackers in a hostage crises, in order to regain control of his life. And it's done in a dead serious tone.

So yeah, with all that in mind, is there any wonder this film absolutely TERRIFIES my clown-a-phobic self?

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