10 Intense Recent Movie Scenes You Couldn't Watch
6. A Mother Suffocates Her Son - Crimes Of The Future
Though David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future is actually relatively restrained for a new movie from the master of body horror, it certainly has its deeply offputting moments.
The film's Cannes Film Festival premiere saw audience walkouts within the first five minutes, and once you've seen the movie, you'll know why.
Crimes of the Future takes place in a dystopian future where human beings have evolved to develop a number of odd traits. Our first example comes by way of an eight-year-old boy, Brecken (ISozos Sotiris), who is able to eat and digest plastic.
Despite his mother Djuna (Lihi Kornowski) ordering him not to, he later eats a plastic bin, and when his mother catches him, she surmises that her son is an abomination and better off dead.
Once Brecken is asleep, Djuna grabs a pillow and smothers him to death, with Cronenberg lingering on the moment as the poor boy squirms and struggles for his life.
Djuna then calls Brecken's father, Lang (Scott Speedman), and informs him he can pick up the corpse of his "creature" son before leaving the house for good.
What it lacks in the abject disgust of Cronenberg's most infamous work, this scene more than compensates with its sheer overpowering sadness.
Child death is always going to be something that audiences find traumatic, and especially when the scene in question focuses on the child's suffering in their final moments.