Editorials > Four Great Films that Will Ruin Your Life

Happy endings? Who needs happy endings? Who needs optimism or the triumph of good over evil when you can have your life irreversibly changed – some would say ruined – by these dark, gruesome, utterly incredible films?

Deliverance

Many so-called “disturbing” films of the 20^th century tend to get tamer and tamer as the years progress; one need only look at the original Friday the 13^th or Nightmare on Elm Street flicks for evidence.

Deliverance, however, is still one hell of a grueling, disturbing, redneck rapefest which can and will scare the shit out of anyone in any time period. From the creepy lack of music or sound effects when one of the heroes is shot, to the gruesome detail of their wounds, to the redneck’s constant screeches of “SQUEEEEEAL, PIGGY” as he rapes Ned Beatty, Deliverance will stick with you for a hell of a long time, and – if you’re a city type like me – will instill a permanent fear of the outdoors.

And white people.

Hard Candy

Not only disturbing and tense through its less-is-more depictions of torture and cruelty, Hard Candy does something most other films would be far too terrified to even consider: it gets the audience to actually root for a friggin’ child molester. Fourteen-year-old Hayley Stark (played with remorseless intensity by Ellen Page) is so incredibly brutal, and takes such vindictive glee out of putting pedophile Jeff Kohlver through all different sorts of emotional and physical torture, that one finds it difficult not to end up sympathizing with Jeff.

While still “just” a torture/revenge flick in many respects, Hard Candy is difficult to sit through as the viewer’s sympathies bounce back and forth between torturer and victim. Even when the audience is told that Jeff may have raped and killed a young girl, we still feel a momentary rush of encouraging excitement when he finally frees himself and chases Hayley with a butcher knife. In many of the test screenings, audience members evidently cheered “Yeah, kill the bitch!” as Jeff moved in to stab a fourteen year old girl.

That sort of reaction to a film is pretty goddamned hard to explain to your friends and loved ones.

Requiem for a Dream

I will never, ever, try heroin thanks to Darren Aronofsky. Perhaps the bleakest film of the 1990’s, Requiem pulls absolutely no punches in its depiction of drug addiction and the problems which accompany it.

By the time the end rolls around, the audience is forced to sit through the most unabashedly negative montage ever filmed: a self-medicated Ellen Burstyn goes insane in a hospital bed, Marlon Wayans curls into the fetal position in prison and cries for his mommy, Jared Leto loses his arm due to an infection from shooting up, and – most disturbingly – Jennifer Connelly is forced to have sex with another prostitute in front of dozens of salivating, horny businessmen.

When an old, drunk man in a suit leans in and screams, “ASS TO ASS," shaking a fistful of dollars in the air, it’s an unforgettable moment in the worst way possible. Aronofsky shows us exactly what it looks like to hit rock bottom, and his vision is utterly impossible to forget.

No Country for Old Men

As this is a recent and infuriatingly great film, (I apologize for talking about it on a weekly basis, but trust me – it's that good) I won’t spoil why No Country will ruin your life. I can only say that it is the single darkest film I will probably ever see. The film wears its nihilism not as an ironically cool badge of honor (a la Saw, Fight Club, what have you), but as a legitimate reaction to the world we live in. The film earns its dark, unrepentant nature.

It shows us the real, horrifying, unfair world we all pretend doesn’t exist – where heroism is not rewarded, the innocent are not safe, and there is almost no rhyme or reason to the evil and violence which pervades every aspect of our culture. No Country for Old Men says that the world is a terrible, meaningless, vicious place – and it does a really good job of convincing the audience.