Wow, just wow. I was cruising through my favourite news site, Digg, when I stumbled upon a very awakening list entitled, “The Most Controversial Films of All-Time.” I quite enjoyed seeing how many screwed up and politically incorrect films out there (turns out there is a truckload I don’t know about :p) A lot of the films are art house flicks although there are some mainstreams ones. I will quote two and link you to the article.
I warn you, some of the pictures and even descriptions are graphic. I am going to quote some of the more mainstream movies, so please only continue if you are truly interested in this list.
I spit on your Grave (1978)
This exploitative, X-rated (later released in an R-rated version) notorious gang rape/vigilante revenge splatter-horror film was banned outright in many countries (for its misogynistic theme), and vilified by critics. Its theme of violent revenge placed it in the category of filthy and debased exploitation film (masquerading as an anti-rape diatribe), and reviewers such as Ebert and Siskel (who described the unrated version as vile garbage) attempted to have the film pulled from theaters.
It told how NY writer Jennifer Hill (Camille Keaton, grand-niece of Buster Keaton) rented a remote and woodsy, lakeside dwelling for the summer. After skinny-dipping – she was confronted and repeatedly raped by four men (Eron Tabor, Anthony Nichols, Gunther Kleeman, and Richard Pace) in a graphic, long and violent sequence (40 minutes) that was particularly uncomfortable to watch. Afterwards, she visited a church to ask for forgiveness before the brutal and bloody counter-assault she had planned, followed by the scenes of her angry (yet seductive) revenge against each of the four attackers: a hanging, a lethal bloodletting castration seductively conducted nude in a bathtub with a conveniently-placed knife, an axing, and a disembowelment with an outboard boat motor.
Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer (1986)
John McNaughton’s realistic, disturbing “fictional dramatizaton”, his directorial debut film shot in 4 weeks on a budget of about $100,000, was based on the confessions of famed, pathological, ‘real-life’ convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas (played by Michael Rooker in his feature film debut), who ended up on death row in Texas. The grisly horror-slasher film’s detached and amoral documentary style and tone of filming enhanced each brutal, gory and violent killing (15 in the film) by the murderer, first viewed as a series of grotesque tableaux.
There were numerous sickening, brutally-violent cinema-verite off-screen and on-screen murders by psychotic murderer Henry, including the death of a young woman left disemboweled and lying in a ditch, and shots-to-the-heads of a storeowner couple (Elizabeth and Ted Kaden), a prostitute (Mary Demas) killed in a bathroom with a broken soda bottle in her face, and especially the beating, torture, sexual assault, and killing of a helpless family in their suburban home – and then afterwards, the viewing (and re-viewing) of the grainy, unfocused, and poorly-photographed account of the crime shot on videotape by murderers Henry and his prison buddy Otis (Tom Towles).
It was so controversial that it was given an X-rating, and had very limited release in the US. Due to a ratings controversy with the MPAA, its release was held up for a few years. Its release was delayed until 1993 in the UK and even then, two minutes of the film’s violent content was spliced out. An uncut version of the movie was eventually allowed for video release in 2003.