Top 10 Horror Movies That Caused Hysteria
#10: “Terrifier 2” (2022)
After waiting six years to release the sequel to 2016’s “Terrifier,” director Damien Leone unleashed a gory fight fest that audiences could hardly stomach. The low-budget movie gained incredible traction, especially for one without mainstream advertising. Although it was supposed to have a one-week, limited theatrical run, “Terrifier 2” ended up in 1,550 theaters over four weeks. Its two-hour-and-eighteen-minute runtime left plenty of room for relentless gore, leading to people fainting, vomiting, and walking out. In one case, emergency medical services were called! Reports of illness in theaters became so common that executive producer Steve Barton released a warning on Twitter for the faint of heart.
#9: “Freaks” (1932)
Tod Browning made horror movie history for directing more than just “Dracula.” In 1932, he released “Freaks” with the intention of creating an even more extreme movie. By hiring carnival performers with real deformities instead of actors in prosthetics, Browning caused immense discomfort in less-than-accepting audiences. While “Freaks” might look like simple exploitation today, it was totally shocking in the ‘30s. In fact, one woman almost sued MGM, claiming the film caused her to miscarry. As a result, the studio mercilessly cut the footage down to sixty-four minutes, and the original cut is considered lost. Even at a little over an hour, “Freaks” was pulled from several theaters in the U.S. and banned in the U.K. for nearly thirty years.
#8: “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925)
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The 1920s version of “The Phantom of the Opera” has a troubled history, undergoing many changes in directors, scripts, edits, and endings. The most effective cuts of the film are from 1925 and 1929. The silent cut, from 1925, was the first to show the world Lon Chaney’s terrifying makeup as Erik, the Phantom. The effects, which Chaney created and applied himself, were kept secret until public premieres. When Christine pulled off Erik’s mask, the warped face was so shocking that people screamed and fainted. This film gave us Chaney’s most famous role and is credited with starting the Universal Monster franchise, even if Erik isn’t officially part of the series.
#7: “Raw” (2016)
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Cannibalism has a long history in the horror genre, but one recent on-screen representation really left its mark. 2016’s “Raw,” focusing on a vegetarian’s descent into meat-eating after a hazing ceremony for veterinary school, realistically and graphically shows many instances of eating raw animals and human flesh. As you might expect, there were plentiful faintings and walkouts in theaters. At the premier at the Toronto International Film Festival, emergency medical services needed to tend to audience members who couldn’t quite stomach the material. Writer-director Julia Ducournau may have impressed critics with the movie, but a lot of viewers were left uneasy with the content.
#6: “Ghostwatch” (1992)
In 1992, BBC1 thoroughly freaked out audiences by airing the TV-movie “Ghostwatch.” It posed as a live event hosted by real newscasters Michael Parkinson and Sarah Greene, showing supernatural occurrences in documentary-style. Viewers could even call and discuss their own experiences. Before they were connected, a prerecorded message told them the program was fictional. However, since so many people called, the line was often engaged, furthering the perception that the paranormal was reality. Perhaps most troubling is the case of Martin Denham, who tragically took his own life five days after it aired. His family blamed the BBC, eventually going to the Broadcasting Standards Commission, which ruled “Ghostwatch” as too upsetting to have broadcasted as it did.
#5: “Jaws” (1975)
1975 saw the birth of the summer blockbuster in the form of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” Based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name, the movie follows a series of shark attacks on the popular tourist destination Amity Island. The terror of swimming in the ocean with great white sharks soon spread around the world, as “Jaws” broke box office records in several countries, including the U.S., Japan, and Brazil. Real great white sharks, however, aren’t ruthless human-eaters. Actually, in all of 2022, there were only fifty-seven unprovoked shark attacks on humans worldwide. Nonetheless, panic about sharks in the 1970s and onwards led to a massive increase in hunting the animals, and more than 120 shark species are considered endangered in 2023.
#4: “A Serbian Film” (2010)
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To start with, several countries have banned “A Serbian Film” entirely, even after editing out the most brutal scenes. This controversial movie centers on a financially struggling adult film star who is willing to do anything to make money. Although we can’t go into detail about his descent into depravity, we can tell you that it is truly disgusting and morally bankrupt. For those willing to stomach a watch and look past the shock, the movie is supposedly a metaphor for colonialism and the current state-sponsored nature of the Serbian film industry. Even so, “A Serbian Film” has sparked many more debates about going too far on film than it has about social injustices.
#3: “Cannibal Holocaust” (1980)
While cannibalism was an incredibly popular subject for Italian movies in the 1970s and ‘80s, there is one that is still shocking enough to remain banned in several countries for over four decades. This movie is Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 grindhouse piece “Cannibal Holocaust.” As the first found footage film, it blurred the lines between fiction and reality, possibly too well. It caused such an uproar upon release that Deodato was arrested on charges of obscenity, violence, and murder. The rumor that the movie is a snuff film was later debunked, but it turned out that plenty of animals were really killed.
#2: “Psycho” (1960)
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It might seem tame by today’s standards, but “Psycho” was utterly obscene and terrifying when it came out in 1960. Aside from the famous stabbing in the shower, audiences saw unmarried lovers sharing a bed while scantily clothed and the first on-screen flushing of a toilet. No, we don’t actually see a knife slashing flesh or any nudity, but thanks to Hitchcock’s crafty cuts, we think we do. “Psycho” was such a different, new experience for cinematic history that one journalist, who had reviewed films for “The Observer” for thirty-two years, resigned from her post after having to watch it.
#1: “The Exorcist” (1973)
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Stories of demons possessing humans have scared people for centuries, but perhaps the most hysteria-inducing modern instance of this is William Friedkin’s 1973 film “The Exorcist.” It took the world by storm, with its massive popularity and wildly controversial content. Initial audience reactions included fainting, heart attacks, vomiting, a miscarried pregnancy, and emergency medical services being called to movie theaters. Even before release, several creepy situations occurred during filming. Family members of the cast passed away, two cast members died, and a massive fire broke out on the set, delaying filming for six weeks but sparing the bedroom where the exorcism takes place. A priest was even called to bless the production. Although some called the film evil, that did nothing to repel audiences.