The most terrifying thing you've ever watched (or read)?

MerciXFaveur · Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:20 am Post subject:

I don't like to read fiction books but I am partial to the occasional film. I don't think that I can pick out something that has truly terrified me as things stand presently. My idea of being terrified is experiencing a deep sense of inner torment for sometime after the event. More often than not, I'll watch a film with horrific content, go to bed, wake up and recall that I dreamt that I was parading on horseback through the London Stock Exchange dressed as the KFC Colonel or something entirely unrelated. Also, I find that with films of sustained and unrelenting graphic content I seem to desensitise from the notion-in-reality of the displayed content. For example I might initially be shocked by a casual early-film knifing only to find the observable removal of a victims spinal cord later on in the film about as horrifying as being pitched against a hoofless buffalo in a plug wiring contest.

If I were to give a recent example of a film that I watched which contained some rather graphic scenes I would have to say 'Martyrs'. I watched this on Saturday. It is a rather controversial French mystery horror film which lasts for about an hour and a half. It is about a girl (Girl 1) who escapes from an old abbatoir as a child where she has been suffering horrendous physical abuse for some time, on her escape she comes across another girl shackled and chained with a metal helmet nailed into her head. She apologises to this girl and makes a hasty exit. She then ends up at an orphanage where she meets and befriends a young female (Girl 2). 15 years later Girl 1 turns up at a house and interrupts a family enjoying a cheerful breakfast meal by blasting the entire family with a shotgun (the parents she believes as her abusers all those years ago). Girl 2 as Girl 1's friend goes to the house to help her dispose of the bodies. Girl 2 discovers one of the bodies is still alive. Believing that Girl 1 is truly insane she tries to help. Girl 1 sees that this lady is still alive and mercilessly bludgeons her head into the ground with a hammer. Girl 1 continues to be haunted by a bloodied, naked and emaciated figure which eventually becomes too much for her to handle so after smashing her own head against the wall she slits her throat. Upon Girl 1's suicide, Girl 2 discovers a basement where she is amazed to find the emaciated figure chained up. This figure being the embodiment of the figment of Girl 1's imagination (the girl who she left there all those years ago). She tries to help her but is then visited at the house by a group of fanatics who are followers of a martydom cult and subsequently collaborators in their related activities. They kill the emaciated girl and capture Girl 2. The clan leader (a sinister old French woman named 'Madamoiselle' shows girl 2 pictures of torture scenes throughout world history and explain to her that the people in the pictures are rare examples of martyrs who have been able to endure unimaginable stages of torture to the point of a transcendental and euphoric state. This is what they are looking for in their prisoners. Girl 2 is then tied up, force-fed and beaten for a sustained period leading to the onset of a delerious state. This then leads to an auditory hallucination where Girl 1 tells her not to be scared anymore. Girl 2 passes to the last stage of torture where she is told that suffering will stop and that she will enter this life-surpassing transcendental state. She is locked to a metal device and surgically skinned alive. Madamoiselle visits Girl 2, heeds her magical facial expression and sits beside her flayed muscle-exposed body and asks about Girl 2's experience. Girl 2 whispers into her ear. Madamoiselle is amazed that Girl 2 has been martyred. Madamoiselle calls a meeting with all other votaries of the cult. She explains that someone has been martyred. An enquiring follower asks more about Girl 2's account of her experience. Madamoiselle asks if he can imagine what is beyond death before placing a pistol in her throat and shooting herself.