15 Most Disturbing Horror Movies Ever

Artier than most of the entries on this list, Begotten is no less disturbing for its more ambitious presentation. Written by a twenty year old film student, the movie is a dark and unsettling—and possibly blasphemous—black and white depiction of an ersatz creation myth. That doesn’t sound too disturbing, so maybe a more in-depth summation is necessary: a man identified as God commits suicide onscreen, only for a woman dubbed Mother Earth to have sex with his corpse, producing an oversized son who joins her for a murderous jaunt across the desert, eventually witnessing her own prolonged murder and disembowelling.

Then the same gruesome fate befalls him. The end.

The experimental flick was banned in numerous countries for obscenity and blasphemy and remain tough to watch, with its arthouse style making the uncomfortable content even more unsettling.

Bizarely, the director would go on to relative mainstream fame thanks to his recurring gig as Marilyn Manson’s music video helmer, making the acclaimed Shadow of the Vampire in 2000 and 2004’s widely derided psychological thriller Suspect Zero.