14. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)
Beautifully filmed by British art house director - Peter Greenaway, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is nevertheless a highly repellant film that will nauseate you to the core. The obnoxious and boorish Albert Spica has taken over a French restaurant which he overruns every night with his vile retinue of henchmen. His poor beleaguered wife Georgina, who is every inch a lady, is forced to join him. She develops an attraction to a man called Michael who is a bookshop owner and the two begin an affair. Whenever Albert finds out, Michael is killed by being forced to eat pages from a book. Georgina is inconsolable and wreaks a repulsive revenge on Albert. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover features much dodgy shenanigans. There is poop eating, a young boy being brutally tortured, Michael and Georgina forced to take shelter in a van full of animal carcasses. But the crowning moment of repulsiveness is whenever Georgina pleads with the French chef to "cook Michael for me" and then serves up his roasted body to Albert to eat. The film is typical art house fare that can get away with repellant happenings because presumably a better crowd of people are going to watch it than the rabble. The film's gross nature is as thoroughly nasty as a Video Nasty's but it is beautifully rendered by Greenaway.