Movies

Have you every seen a movie that disturbed you on such a deep, visceral level that you can hardly think about it without getting queasy, breaking out into a cold sweat, trying to banish the images from your mind?

For me, that movie is "The Hills Have Eyes". It's a mediocre movie on many levels, but for some reason, it has wormed its way into my subconcious and dwells there, waiting for something to remind me. See, it had a lot of things I like in a horror movie. But it also had a lot of things - A LOT of things - that make me shudder no matter the context. There's the whole "something jumping out at you unexpectedly" thing, which I just can't deal with. Ask drunken_hawkeye. Every time she comes up behind me, I jump out of my skin. And that's someone I know, and who, like, lives here and isn't (to my knowledge) actively trying to kill me.

Then there's the whole... juxtaposition of music and action. Now, I like a little oddness when pairing music and action. It can be interesting. However, splicing photos of A-bomb tests and resulting birth defects together under a twangy bluegrass toe-tapper rattles my nerves in a way I can't explain.

Then there's the immolation scene. I can hardly watch the end of RotS because of the immolation scene - and not just because poor Anakin's losing all his important bits. It's because fire scares the ever-loving crap out of me, and no matter how many times I say DIAF, I would never wish it on anyone, ever, no matter how much they pissed me off. Also, DingIAF is top on my list of "ways I don't want to bite it." Not only that, but this guy is very much alive (and not, for the record, a Dark Side minion whom we know for a fact is going to live for another good twenty-some years), for a good bit of it, and it is a LOT more brutal (sorry, Ani) than Vader's fry-up.

So here's the scoop. I was looking for music, and happened upon the Hills Have Eyes soundtrack. Since there is some pretty good music in the movie, I figured it wouldn't hurt to listen to a couple sample tracks to see if I wanted to buy it.

Mistake. I clicked the first link, the first few notes played, and my stomach dropped. The music is so intrinsicly linked with the movie that hearing it brings all of the images to the front of my brain. I've never had such a bad reaction to a movie before, and I've seen a lot of twisted stuff. (Caligula comes to mind).

So am I the only one who's had this reaction to a movie? Or am I just a freak?