15 Deeply Tasteless Films That Will Offend Everyone

They give tastelessness a bad name.

By Robin Baxter /

When it comes to bad taste in films, it's a double-edged sword. Sometimes shocking and offensive content is absolutely great. For example, films such as Natural Born Killers and A Clockwork Orange use their repellent violence to make some deeply thought-provoking statements about society. Similarly, comedies such as Airplane!, The Big Lebowski and the South Park film use tasteless comedy to hilarious effect.

Advertisement

Films like these show bad taste can work... but sometimes it really, really doesn't.

These following movies got it horribly, fatally wrong and, thanks to their tastelessness, mean-spirited tones and morally reprehensible content, they'll likely send you into an all-caps rage. Whether it's down to a lack of warmth to counter-balance the darkness, a lack of meaning behind the bad taste or, in the case of comedies, the material just not being remotely funny, tasteless content has derailed many a movie.

These following films very much fall into these traps and, as well as being mostly terrible in terms of quality, they're also genuinely repugnant thanks to their lack of even the slightest moral decency. If you're unlucky enough to see one of these movies, be careful not to punch the screen...

15. I Spit On Your Grave

I Spit on Your Grave, a rape-revenge film, is an extremely controversial movie that remains widely banned and continues to polarize. Some see it as a misunderstood exploitation classic while others, such as the late, great Roger Ebert see it as pure trash. Ebert and co are right in this case.

Advertisement

ISOYG is sickening garbage that represents the worst kind of exploitation cinema: it's a film which subjects its audience to nasty, misanthropic violent content for absolutely no reason. It contains a gang-rape sequence which literally goes on for half an hour, followed by a bunch of disturbing and problematic revenge scenes. It's a film which tells us absolutely nothing except that sexual violence is awful, which we already knew.

Another offensive thing about the film is the deeply unpleasant treatment of a mentally impaired man, who is shown being abused and eventually murdered by both the gang of rapists and protagonist Jennifer later on. In fairness to the film it isn't a misogynistic work like some say it is, since the audience is positioned with Jennifer and against the rapists, but since it's an endless display of horrifying violence with no likability, plot or purpose, it will make you sick.

Advertisement