10 Harrowing Movies You Can’t Watch Twice
Cinematic ordeals you'll never want to relive.
Rewatchablity is always a great thing for a movie to have, as it usually means they're full of feel-good thrills, jokes that never get old and characters you never get sick of. Yet, films with no rewatch value aren't necessarily a lost cause.
Sure, there are movies with dour writing and uninspired performances that you'd never want to sit through again, but then, on the other hand, there are films which move you to tears the first time around, right before you vow never to sit through it again.
Some movies bowl you over with their sheer brilliance, but gut-punch you at the same time, hitting the viewer with depressing, shocking and downright galling twists and turns along the way, not to mention nightmarish imagery.
Films of this nature stick in your mind for the wrong reasons as much as the right, and the most effective ones leave mental scars, almost as if the events which befell the hapless characters on screen happened to the viewers themselves.
From terrifying horror to psychological thrillers that leave your mind battered and bruised, these are the harrowing films you'll never want to see more than once.
10. Grave Of The Fireflies
Don't let the Studio Ghibli branding fool you. Grave of the Fireflies is anything but another whimsical adventure in the vein of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, nor is it your typical World War II movie. It's told from the afterlife as the spirits of its two protagonists recount their final days in battle-scarred Japan.
The movie shuns the global ramifications of the war and Japan's Axis role, instead focusing on the personal tragedies that arise when a nation takes up arms.
The story follows two young siblings who lose the rest of their family in an air raid, and suffer one depressing hardship after another from that point. Things hit rock bottom for the brothers when the eldest of the two is forced to turn to a life of crime to prevent them from starving to death in their new home, an abandoned bomb shelter.
You won't find many bleaker films than Grave of the Fireflies, nor will you find too many with a more powerful message to ram home. Anyone who tries to argue that animation is just for kids won't know what hit 'em if you make them sit through this.