Disturbing Flicks (Pt.1)

I have come across some really weird and demented movies over the years.  Obviously, most will not be suitable for children or those who have better sense than to watch them!  I feel a great urge to insert a disclaimer stating that the views depicted in the following movies are not in any way endorsed by me (well, at least some of them):

• Batoru Rowaiaru/ Battle Royale (2000):  WAY before the Hunger Games, we had this wonderfully demented Japanese movie by Kinji Fukasaku.  It has been some time since I saw it so I cannot unfortunately offer too many details but the basic theme is population culling by cold blooded murder!  Several students are chosen from different schools and basically thrown onto an island with bombs strapped to the collars around their necks.  The bombs are set to go off if the kids are in an area on the island they are not supposed to be in at specific times of day.  Also, they cannot leave the island until they kill everyone else off.  In short, it is kill or be killed and the last one alive is the winner!  Some of the kids are partners or best friends so you see them grapple with survival vs. morality.  Very entertaining movie, lots of fun!
• Irreversible (2002):  Starring real life couple, Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel, this movie centers around a really brutal incident of sexual assault.  It is a pretty powerful movie because just as there is no remote control for life, this movie does not censor the realities of assault by shortening the incident on screen.  When the movie portrays the attack it makes you sit there and watch the whole thing without pause for almost ten minutes straight.  It is very unsettling.
• Oasis (2002):  There are few directors out there who will never let you down and Chang dong Lee is one of them.  Most of his movies can easily be on this list because they are all rather unusual and disturbing; they tend to feature characters that grapple with extreme psychological trauma and grief.  Oasis (2002) is I guess a love story, in the most unconventional sense.  The two lead characters have developmental disabilities.  In fact, when Jong du (the guy) first encounters Gong ju (the woman), he attempts to rape her!  Bare in mind, she is non-ambulatory (confined to a wheelchair) and is diagnosed with cerebral palsy.  Right off the bat, the movie starts with a really shocking and uncomfortable scene.  As the movie progresses, you learn about the kinds of lives both characters lead, how they have been abandoned by their families and society in general, and how in being together, they are able to fill the void in their lives.  Very good movie and I would recommend it to those who are looking for something very different in a movie.  This is a movie with a lot of substance and heavy subject matter.
• Men Behind The Sun (1988):  During World War II, the Germans were not the only ones performing deplorable Mengele-esque experiments on other human beings.  Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army would take prisoners of war and perform unimaginably cruel experiments on them, all the while referring to their victims as "materials" to dehumanize them just as the Nazi's referred to the Jews as "cargo" or "merchandise".  I really do not know how they filmed many of the scenes of torture in this movie because it seems so realistic.  I do know that the movie features an actual autopsy of a young boy.  There is also a scene involving the torture of a cat that seems very real but I read somewhere that the director confirmed it was fake.  This movie might be disturbing but what is more disturbing is knowing that this kind of thing actually happens in real life within the world in which we all live.
• Cannibal Holocaust (1980):  I still cannot bring myself to watch this movie again because it is pretty scary namely due to the "found footage" style it is filmed in, it feels so authentic.  Four documentarians travel to South America to film a tribe of cannibals but they end up raping and pillaging the tribes people.  The cannibals eventually get their revenge and it is not pretty.  The acting, the pace of the movie, the SFX.. all feels very real which gives this movie an eerie feel.  There is a scene in this movie where a woman is impaled and it looks so incredibly real that a lot of viewers were concerned.  The directors had to present the actress who played her to prove that she is indeed still alive.  Also, a warning, this movie does feature a scene of a live turtle being killed on camera which has outraged a number of animal activists.
• The Human Centipede Series:   So when I saw The Human Centipede:  First Sequence (2009), I was thrilled.  It has everything a good old fashioned horror movie should have:  bad acting, eccentric and evil bad guys, no-exit scenarios for the victims, a great chase scene, and finally, a bleak and distressing ending.  Honestly, the first movie had it all!  Then I thought I would give The Human Centipede II:  Full Sequence (2011) a chance but with low expectations because how can you master what has already been mastered?  I was in for a surprise.  The second film is pretty scary because it tries to remove the fiction out of the scenario.  The main character is a mentally disturbed individual who is obsessed with the first movie (already, this movie places the main character in our world by characterizing/ recognizing that the first film was in fact a work of fiction, a "movie"), he tries to create a "real" human centipede.  Trouble is, he is no conveniently disposed scientific mind with the tools or skills set required to operate on human beings.  Rather, his tools include a stapler, duct tape, pliers and a funnel.  This makes for an extremely gory movie!  Apparently, there is a third movie coming out next year to be added to this series.  Not sure it could live up to the last one but I have been proven wrong before..
• The Vengeance Trilogy:  This trilogy refers to three movies by a very talented Korean director, Chan-wook Park.  The most popular of the trilogy is probably a movie called Oldboy (2003).  Without giving too much away, it is about a man who is kidnapped one night and locked in a hotel room/ prison for over a decade.  He does not know why he is being imprisoned, nor does he know who is responsible.  There is a pretty epic fight scene in this movie that I love because it goes on forever and was filmed in one long shot (you will know which one I am referring to when you see it).  A quick warning, there is a scene of animal cruelty in this movie where the lead character consumes a live octopus.  Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) is the first of the trilogy and is probably one of the more violent ones.  The movie is about good intentions gone horribly, horribly wrong.  The good guys are inadvertently the bad guys and everyone is caught in a very bloody web of revenge.  Each of the characters has a very touching story so you feel a lot of "sympathy" for their vengeance, hence the title.  The last of the trilogy is Lady Vengeance (2005), which feels really different from the other two because of the femme fetale feel to it.  The lead is a woman who was falsely imprisoned for murdering a child.  She knows who the real killer is and the whole time she is in prison, she is plotting her revenge.  The final scene is so fulfilling and will leave the viewer's moral compass a bit haywire.  Really great movie.