10 Documentaries More Terrifying Than Most Horror Films

In Oscar-nominated documentary The Act Of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer takes audiences on an uncompromising exploration of violence as he interviews those responsible for the mass killings of half a million people which occurred in Indonesia between 1965 and 1966 during a military coup.

Incredibly, the filmmaker convinced these men to recreate the ways in which the executed and tortured innocent civilians, and they do so eagerly. Notorious scenes of former kill-squad members, now aged men with grandchildren, gleefully walking through the process of how they garrotted or beat their victims to death is deeply unpleasant to watch. Some moments are so grisly that you won’t want to watch.

Just as disturbing as the actions themselves is the portrait Oppenheimer creates of the men responsible for it. The main subject (a mobster named Anwar) is only too happy for his grandchildren to watch the filmed scenes of his past acts of violence. To these people, their crimes are as nonchalant and even exciting as the B-Movie style films they’ve turned them into.

It’s only through confronting Anwar with his actions directly in this manner where he finally realises the weight of his actions.