Movie Subject Matter You Almost Can't Handle

[Thaluikhain]

As others have said, torture porn, and slavery (for similar reasons).

Also, movies that don't know who the heroes and villains are. Not in a moral ambiguous way, Long John Silver was a great character, Riddick rather less so, but still ok. I mean when you have a character that ought to be the villain, and this is never mentioned.

If they are fighting someone more evil than themselves, fine...but this doesn't make them good, and this should be acknowledged.

 

[barbzilla]

Insects in the skin.... It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it, which in turn only intensifies the effect, so just imagine how well I do with seeing it on the screen. Recently there was an episode of Bones that made my skin crawl, it was kinda sweet in its own way, but it was still nasty as hell and all I want to do is burn it with fire and drop a mother loving nuke on it!

 

[Casual Shinji]

Bullying.

And I don't mean the type of pussified bullying from after-school specials, I mean the accurately portrayed bullying that chills you to the bone. The type you see in movies like Welcome to the Dollhouse and Let the Right One In. But then I already have have trouble with the scene from Disney's The Hunchback of the Notre Dame when the crowd turns against Quasimodo.

 

[briankoontz]

It used to be torture, and I still haven't seen any torture movie - no Saws, no Hostels, or the like, although I suspect I could handle it now.

Now it's beatings and/or murder of young children. I look away or fast-forward the movie past that part.

 

[default]

Mildly made uncomfortable by:

excessive violence, gore, suicidal themes



Completely made uncomfortable by:

rape, torture, realistic prolonged screaming, killing of kids and babies, things with sharp things going slowly into eyes.


Not my thing.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Movies about "how this romantic relationship between these two beautiful people ended". Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Blue Valentine, Her, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. All pretty good movies. But I can't bring myself to watch them ever again after the first time.

 

[Lieju]

Also, movies that don't know who the heroes and villains are. Not in a moral ambiguous way, Long John Silver was a great character, Riddick rather less so, but still ok. I mean when you have a character that ought to be the villain, and this is never mentioned.

If they are fighting someone more evil than themselves, fine...but this doesn't make them good, and this should be acknowledged.

Yes, this, and in general if the movie gives the vibe of presenting horrible things as 'cool' or 'sexy' or 'funny' and not realizing it.

That sort of stuff bothers me more than just the subject matter.

Rape being an obvious example.
I'm not saying it should not be ever in movies, or even that it automatically makes me dislike the movie.
But way too often it's sexualized, and the cinematography is focused on tits or the point of view of the rapist, not the victim.
And then if on top of it the victim is just forgotten, ew, no.

It's not just rape, but it's the most obvious example.

And I might be okay with it if the movie acknowledges it.
That for example this main character is killing people who don't really deserve it because cool sword-fights.
But if the movie tries to say it's okay because tragic past bleh, no.

Also animals getting hurt.
For me, seeing a human get hurt, I might fear for the character, but with animals, especially in older movies, I fear for the animal itself.

 

[Nukekitten]

I don't much care for seeing anyone suffering unnecessarily in films; too much cruelty - emotional or physical - is very squicky. It'd take a whole lot of good in the rest of the movie or series to keep me watching after that.

 

[Frank Reading]

I can handle almost anything (although I'm not a horror fan at all), but I can't stand electrocution scenes. Something about the invisible torture of it that makes me feel sick and weak. Slumdog Millionare was more traumatic to me than Kill Bill 1 or 2 because of the scene where they hang him in water and electrocute him.

 

[Gunner 51]

I've always been able to handle torture and mutilation scenes - but only if it's against a bloke. Against a lady or animals, I'll turn it off and never watch that film again. (And generally feel really grubby for having watched it.)

 

[HyperionToASatyr]

Can't do torture porn to save my life. I'm not one of those holier-than-thou crusader type people, but there's something that almost moves me to disturbed tears about a movie whose entire animating philosophy is, for instance, "hey, here's a pregnant woman begging for her and her baby's life while other people scream that she's lying! How fun!" (Saw VI, before you ask.)

 

[likalaruku]

Puns Galore, excessive facial expressions in animation, jokes no one over the age of 13 should laugh at (fart & belch jokes are real eye-rollers), & embarrassingly stupid manchild protagonists in children's movies.

I have a HUGE aversion to Pixar, anything by Dreamworks that isn't Shrek, Elf (Will Ferrell movie), absolutely anything with Brendan Fraser, Robin Williams comedies (I like the serious movies though), any Disney movie with Tim Allen, The Tooth Fairy (Dwayne Johnson movie).

Also, not a fan of kissing or face sucking kissy sounds. Chick flicks & romcoms are an absolute no-no. I also live with & take care of my aging parents, so sex scenes in TV shows during dinner make for an uncomfortable atmosphere.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

I can't stand it when a serious movie or series is using "science" as "magic!". Comedies or light-hearted series (like Eureka) are fine because they're self-aware. Also, works which feature non-realistic laws of the universe, but explain them. We're dealing with an established rule here, good, go on with the story. But every time a movie or series striving to be "realistic" (or rather "believable") pulls some crap right out of its darkest crevice and explains it by "because SCIENCE!", I just lose any interest there and then. Sometimes after going on a rant.

Film nudity makes me rather uncomfortable. I don't like sex scenes, and if anything seems to have tits just for the sake of tits, it won't hold my attention long. It's why I didn't get swept up in that craze for the "new fantasy/historical fiction" that seems to be going around. To me, it seems like all those series are focusing on gore & tits first, and MAYBE some characterization and story in the background.

There's one other thing which I think has been going away from movies for a while now, but was a staple of 80s cinema for example. The "butt-monkey" character, to whom all the bad things happen, quite often undeserved, and always, always played for laughs. I always feel sorry for them, even for the more unscrupulous ones, because their "punishment" always seems so disproportional to any wrongdoing they might have been guilty of. For some reason, implied rape seemed o be extremely common, or maybe those scenes just stuck in my head. I really don't want to watch movies having that.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

The last movie I ever nearly lost my shit over was Event Horizon, hands down the last movie to ever freak me the fuck out. I love it but it did border on the shit I almost couldn't handle. Since then (I saw it in theaters on release day) I have experienced some real life fucked up shit that no movie can ever come close to. I'll say this much, if you've seen the things I've seen or experienced at least one of those events, nothing a movie can show you will ever match up to the horrors of reality.
By no means am I desensitized to real world violence and things like that but I will say that knowing movies are just special effects makes a world of difference. I also have a vivid imagination and culminated with life experience, movies just don't come close. And thats a good thing, I hope it stays that way. Same with games, no matter how fucked up a game can be, it still is far enough removed from reality to where I can sense the disconnect.
If I live another 34 years and never see any of the things I've seen again in any form, I'll die a happy man. Just put it this way, when you've pulled a dead guy out of the water because he was too stupid to listen to your instructions on how to safely operate a jetski, most notably not to follow in a boats wake, and ended up crashing into and getting sucked under a boat... well there's little a movie can do to top that experience. Propellers are dangerous.

 

[Scarim Coral]

To me that would be the person transported from one culture/ setting to another different culture/ setting. Prime examples of this are Jungle to Jungle and Just Visiting.

I just get all cringe up at the character acting all "what is this and what is that?" sort of reaction! I just want to shout at that person being idiotic.

Ok sure not all films is like that like Back to the Future since it was less about that (Marthy didn't acted like that alot) and more onto the story.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yes, this, and in general if the movie gives the vibe of presenting horrible things as 'cool' or 'sexy' or 'funny' and not realizing it.

That sort of stuff bothers me more than just the subject matter.

Rape being an obvious example.
I'm not saying it should not be ever in movies, or even that it automatically makes me dislike the movie.
But way too often it's sexualized, and the cinematography is focused on tits or the point of view of the rapist, not the victim.
And then if on top of it the victim is just forgotten, ew, no.

It's not just rape, but it's the most obvious example.

And I might be okay with it if the movie acknowledges it.
That for example this main character is killing people who don't really deserve it because cool sword-fights.
But if the movie tries to say it's okay because tragic past bleh, no.

Yeah, second that...almost everything with "Sexy" vampires/werewolves seems to dabble in this.

Film nudity makes me rather uncomfortable. I don't like sex scenes, and if anything seems to have tits just for the sake of tits, it won't hold my attention long. It's why I didn't get swept up in that craze for the "new fantasy/historical fiction" that seems to be going around. To me, it seems like all those series are focusing on gore & tits first, and MAYBE some characterization and story in the background.

Yeah...shows that go "look at us, we are adults, we've got lots of boobs for no reason". No. Not how that works.

Torture porn and period dramas. The former disgusts me, the latter just feels like the longest, most shitty Christmas day ever.

Oh, period pieces about identical rich people sitting round in mansions and complaining about rich people stuff.

 

[The Lunatic]

I'm kinda unfazed by violence and stuff in films.

I watched Cannibal Holocaust, and it was uncomfortable at times, but, it didn't disturb me on any grand level.

So, I guess it'd have to be psychological more than anything. But, as for what, I can't say exactly.