Watching a movie in the theater can be an amazing cinematic experience for anyone. However, it can be rather dreadful watching a particular movie, like a horror movie, and can result in an experience nobody ever wants to have again in their life.
Many horror movies have produced uncomfortable reactions from the audience and caused some of the attendees to get up and leave the theater. Here are a few examples of horror films so disturbing, horrifying and utterly grotesque the person watching wished they had stayed at home.
“The Exorcist” (1973)
William Friedkin’s classic “The Exorcist,” based on William Peter Blattey’s novel of the same name, is one of the earliest known horror films to have generated such a visceral reaction from people who waited hours to see it.
The film was so shocking at the time with its explicit subject matter and depictions of violence, crude language and graphic portrayal of a 12-year-old girl named Regan (Linda Blair) being possessed by an ancient demonic entity.
A video by the YouTube channel CinemaTyler shows audio and footage of interviews conducted in 1973 of various people giving their opinions on the film. Some say they fainted within the first 30 minutes of the picture, while others would vomit inside or outside the theater.
What is interesting is no horror elements happen until Regan gets possessed by the demon, making some people question why people were leaving the theater before supernatural occurrences happened. That’s a question for another time. “The Exorcist” is one of the best films to cite when pointing to specific examples of films where people walked out during its showing.
“Paranormal Activity” (2007)
Filmmaker Oren Peli’s “Paranormal Activity” did not cause people to faint and vomit as the previous film did. However, it did leave many frightened that leaving the film felt like the only good choice they had.
The film is about a couple who begin to suspect there is a supernatural presence in their household after moving into a new suburban home. They set up multiple cameras in every room to see what is causing the strange noises they hear on a nightly basis.
The use of jump scares brings “Paranormal Activity” and other films like it to a new level of fright and terror. In 2007, this was a pretty revolutionary idea for a horror film despite existing ones like “The Blair Witch Project” (1999).
Many people today feel like watching “Paranormal Activity” in its entirety is an insane idea. However, nobody can discredit its impact on the horror genre.
The Terrifier franchise
Damien Leone’s stomach-turning trilogy stars the silent but deadly Art the Clown, played by David Howard Thornton, as the main antagonist.
Art the Clown is notorious for butchering his victims in tortuous ways, causing audience members to leave only ten minutes into the opening of “Terrifier 3” (2024). All three of the “Terrifier” films have deaths so disgusting that it makes other gory films like Fede Álvarez’s “Evil Dead” (2013) look less scary.
The deaths are not only bloody and violent but are frequently drawn out to great lengths. The audience is exposed in great detail to the pain and suffering of every one of Art the Clown’s victims.
Leone created a true sadistic villain without any sense of remorse or empathy. A fourth film is currently in the works by Leone and the crew and will contain grizzly deaths just like its predecessors.
These films are only a small portion of an even greater pie of horror films pushed to the extreme when it comes to their scares and their kills. In a way, each film has accomplished what it set out to do.
