Even the most ardent of horror enthusiasts sometimes have to draw the line.
In an age in which advancing effects technology has made it possible to depict incredibly
realistic gross-outs, there's still a limit to the amount of guts and gore audiences will
watch before they throw in the popcorn and give up.
Here are some horror movies that audiences walked out of.
The Devil's Rejects
Rob Zombie's sophomore fright feature, a sequel to 2003's The House of 1000 Corpses, relied
on the same dark imagery and violence that made its predecessor so utterly disturbing.
By turning the notch down just a touch on the slash-and-shock factor in favor of some
more emotionally upsetting moments with The Devil's Rejects, Zombie earned praise from
a greater number of critics—but still had some moviegoers hitting the door long before
the credits rolled.
"I'm gonna have to be taking your car today.
See I have some top secret clown business that supersedes any plans that you might have
for this here vehicle."
Evil Dead
The 1981 version of The Evil Dead was troubling enough, but the 2013 remake of the creepy
cult favorite showed off some true next-level savagery, including a moment of possessed
self-mutilation of a girl's face and a lot of vomit spewing, among other debauchery.
"Never underestimate the power of puke."
Early viewers at the year's South-by-Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas got an unexpected
live soundtrack addition: the sounds of many feet carrying their owners away from the ultra-graphic
brutality.
According to Bruce Campbell, who starred in the original series and served as producer
on the remake, all the walkouts were considered a win for the team.
He told Hollywood.com: "That's the sign of a good horror movie."
"Groovy."
The Witch
Critics might have been crazy about this slow-building period pic about a 17th Century family tormented
by evil, but some audiences didn't quite appreciate the drawn-out nature of the narrative, which
depended less on jump scares than creepy atmosphere and a more traditional—and, for some, flat-out
dull—slow-building story.
Instead of being sent running by the gore, this time it was the bore factor that drove
audiences to the exits.
"So what you're telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again but
this time for the rest of my life."
The Witch’s greatest magic trick?
The incredible disappearing audience.
Raw
Some Cannes filmgoers got much more than their eyes — or stomachs — could handle in 2016,
when Julia Ducournau's Raw presented them with the story of a young vegetarian woman
who was hazed into eating raw meat during school—an act of bullying that awakened
a dormant flesh fetish that was sickening enough to send audiences rushing for the exit
signs.
Whether Raw fits within the usual buffet of slashers or not, it certainly left a taste
in everyone's mouth afterward.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
When the world first met Leatherface in Tobe Hooper's 1974 slaughterfest, the brazen butchery
was too gruesome for some audience members to take.
The film, in which the power tool-wielding weirdo trapped and decimated an entire group
of young friends in ghastly ways, was even banned in several countries and was originally
rated X for its grisly violence.
One of the scenes that got to audiences most frequently was the moment when a girl named
Pam was strung up on a meathook and made to watch as her friend was sliced and diced by
Leatherface's trusty title weapon.
You’ll never look at meat the same way again.
"Mmm… this is a tasty burger!"
Ôdishon (Audition)
When this 1999 Japanese torture thriller debuted at the Rotterdam Film Festival, it won director
Takashi Miike some of the festival's most prestigious prizes and impressed and inspired
fellow horror auteurs like Eli Roth, John Landis, and Rob Zombie.
The movie's hyper-realistic violence was too difficult to endure for some audience members,
though, and one woman was even quoted to scream at the director, "You're evil!"
during the screening.
It wasn't just the eye-gouging and piano wire foot amputations that made the pic such a
squirmy event—it was also the fact that the tone took such a drastic turn for the
worse in its third act, after the main character discovered that the woman he auditioned—hence,
the title—to be his new wife had a twisted history of inflicting pain on people, up to
and including making a prisoner eat her own barf.
Thanks, Japan!
"No god!
No god please no!
Please no!"
The Human Centipede
There was enough of an audience interest in the sick experimentation on display in Tom
Six's The Human Centipede to justify two sequels, an episode of South Park, and a Key and Peele
sketch, in which former members of a human centipede all run into each other at a restaurant.
"Hey!
Back-man, back-man!"
"Don't call me that!"
But some who braved the theaters to witness what happens when a surgeon stitches together
three living humans' digestive systems together couldn't bear to stick around and see what
came out at the end.
The so-called "First Sequence" was largely inspired by the notoriously diabolical work
of Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, but the director
also said he came up with his sinister plot after watching the news.
"It was a really nasty-looking child molester.
And suddenly I made this joke.
I said they should stitch his mouth to the ass of a very fat truck driver as a punishment.
And everybody says, 'aww that's such a horrible idea.'"
No offense, Tom, but next time listen to your friends...
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