Horror films are supposed to get your adrenaline pumping.
But for some, these thrills are just too much to handle.
It may sound like a clever bit of marketing, but physical reactions to these movies have
indeed required medical professionals to treat moviegoers at the hospital, or the scene of
the scare.
Here are a few films with fictional frights intense enough to cause real-life physical
trauma.
The Exorcist
Let's start with a classic: If you've never seen The Exorcist, then you've probably never
known true cinematic horror.
Still shocking by even today's sensibilities, the film had quite an effect on people who
first saw it in 1973.
Local news reports from the time mention people crying, throwing up, and even fainting …
"We have a lot of people throwing up and a lot of people shuddering, but the thing that
really surprises me is people faint.
I mean, I've never in my life known a movie where people would faint."
The Exorcist may have been the first, but it certainly wasn't the last.
For example ...
Goodnight Mommy
An Austrian film about 10-year-old twin boys whose mother has just had facial reconstructive
surgery doesn't sound all that scary.
But once Mommy comes home, all bandaged up, she seems to be a wholly different person,
and exudes a cold, severe aura.
While 2015's Goodnight Mommy is mostly a psychological horror, the latter half of the film is full
of violence — and some people can't handle it.
In an interview with IndieWire, the director says early screenings proved the filmmakers
were onto something, saying, quote, "Two people fainted.
That's the best compliment we've had so far."
Bite
Have you ever heard the one about the woman who turned into an insect after getting bit
by one?
Well, that's the premise of the 2015 body-horror movie Bite, and the impact it had on movie-goers
is no joke.
At the Fantasia International Film Festival premiere, audience members were given barf
bags as a gag — but some people reportedly had to make use of them.
That's not all: First to Know reports a few people even passed out in the theater, and
at least one ambulance was called to the scene.
Saw III
By the time we got around to the third Saw in 2006, you'd have thought fans would have
built up a tolerance to all of the gross, violent images from the first two films.
Obviously this was not the case, as the BBC reported that moviegoers in a few UK theaters
fainted and emergency services were called out three times in one night because of the
film.
A woman in her 20s even needed to be hospitalized after apparently fainting with fright, while
others were treated at the scene.
Raw
The 2016 film Raw premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and wasted
no time in making filmgoers faint and vomit.
The Guardian reported that paramedics had to be called in because the realistic biting
and chewing of human flesh, plus all the gory lacerations and wounds, were all too much
for some audience members, who fainted in their seats.
So ... not a good choice for "dinner and a movie."
The Green Inferno
Another gross movie capable of getting folks to faint is Eli Roth's The Green Inferno,
which features a group of activists who crash land in a jungle and have to survive captivity
at the hands of a hungry tribe.
Par for the course for an Eli Roth movie, The Green Inferno is full of graphic images,
gratuitous gore, and body mutilation.
Oh, and of course all the people-eating.
Can't forget about the people-eating!
An article on New Zealand's Newshub said a woman fainted during a screening in France,
and Roth shared the news on Instagram, clearly thrilled by the glowing review.
The Human Centipede 2
Movieline's Jen Yamato wrote about her experience at the premiere of The Human Centipede 2 at
Fantastic Fest in 2011 and how festival founder Tim League joked about there being EMTs on
hand in case people got sick.
Like the barf bag gag at the Bite premiere, this joke ended up being less funny when it
came true: the person sitting next to Yamato filled two barf bags and eventually fainted,
and two ambulances were called to the scene to tend to audience members.
V/H/S
An anthology of scary stories that debuted at Sundance, 2012's V/H/S certainly had an
effect on viewers at the festival.
The first night, a woman left the theater in tears because she reportedly couldn't stand
the tension and suspense.
And according to co-writer Simon Barrett, paramedics had to treat two audience members
at a midnight screening who suffered seizures and started vomiting.
That sounds awful, but the good news is that these two troopers decided to go back and
finish the film anyway, which is just about the best review a horror flick can get.
"If you're watching this, don't come here!"
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