10 Movies That Used Your Imagination Against You

David Fincher’s unremittingly bleak psycho thriller is one of the most iconic entries into the subgenre, depicting a dark and hopeless unnamed city wherein vice reigns and every extremity of human depravity is not only present, but commonplace.

The film refuses to shy away from gruesome depictions of the antagonist’s depravity, treating the audience to such unforgettable delights as the decaying and somehow still alive “Sloth” victim - and as for “Lust”, well, the less said about that one the better.

Despite this tone, Se7en is actually a masterclass in restraint. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker revealed Fincher's agenda was to never actually show John Doe's crimes, allowing the audience to play them out in their own heads with knowledge only of the aftermath.

And most famously, the director opted to pull an important punch late in the film, and it resulted in one of the movie’s most unforgettable moments. However, in this instance avoiding the disturbing sight only served to make the surrounding movie even more intensely dark.

When Brad Pitt’s unstable detective sees his wife’s severed head in a box left in a remote location, he’s enraged enough to shoot John Doe on the spot, thus fulfilling the killer’s twisted “plan”. We never do see the contents of the box, but Pitt’s phenomenal performance ensures no prosthetic could have hoped to render the film more disturbing.