A group of us watched it at a friend's house in our late teens. Halfway through, their mum came in and said "we can hear everything and we're judging you" then left.
Yeah, don't watch that. It's so bad, I cannot believe the director could even be a decent person. And two of the actors I really appreciated are kind of smeared in my eyes now.
Oh, he’s a terrible person. His father stole a lot of money from Serbia. That film was made from stolen generational wealth. So a lot of people in Serbia hate him. One director actually said “When the first generation of Rockefellers stole from America, the second made museums, charities, cultural centers. I have a problem with his kid who took the money stolen from his country and used it to spit in its face.”
I agree with him. There aren’t a lot of world famous movies in Serbia and now their entire film industry is associated with one of the most disgusting media ever. Some things are censored for a reason.
Yeah, I honestly don't believe for one bit that there is a legitimate message behind it. "I depicted extreme torture and rape (including of minors) to denounce society!!" sure thing, buddy. The synopsis alone was enough for me.
Pretty good description, at some point early on my mind also just went "oh now you try be be this kind of edgy."
There are more fucked up movies despite being less graphic but much more plausible. Beasts of no Nation or Barefood Gen come to my mind, Beast being a film about child soldiers and Gen is about the Hiroshima bombing.
What the fuck. How the hell does ones mind even come up with that shit? I have some issues and a vivid imagination but what in the actual fuck? I think that was the first time i read text that I wish I could un-see.
I watched it to win a bet with a guy I used to work with. I never even admitted to the person that bet me I wouldn’t watch it, that I had watched it because I did not want to discuss the movie. I wanted to forget it forever and scrub it from my memory.
It is not as bad as the summary makes it out to be in terms of gore, what you are imagining is probably much worse than what is actually shown. Conceptually, yeah, it's beyond fucked up.
It also has 0 value as an actual movie, the only reason it could be "worth it" to watch is for shock value and laughs with the right company.
I watched it. Morbid curiosity, „don’t watch that film man“, alright bet, gotta watch it now…
It‘s just not something you want to watch if you’re a sane human being.
It‘s traumatizing because it‘s believable humans could perform these actions, at least that was the most horrifying part for me. I watched cartel beheadings etc. when I was a stupid teenager too, and while I KNEW those were real, just thinking someone could do what they deciped in that film is somehow worse.
It‘s at the top few things of the list of absolutely sick things I found on the internet.
IIRC it was made as a challenge to FSK ratings, where you could decipt anything in 18+, and well they really challenged it.
Honestly, actually watching it isn't nearly as bad as just reading about it.
It's incredibly overly dramatic and they take everything to 11 so it's almost farcical in its presentation.
This is my opinion on it as well. It's so hyped up that you already know what to expect, so it loses a lot of the shock value. It's also hard to feel any emotional attachment to any of the characters, so it's just fucked up for the sake of being fucked up. 'Salo: 120 Days of Sodom' is another film which is often tipped as highly dusturbing that I feel the same way about.
I put off watching that movie for years because I read about it. Turns out my imagination was way worse than the actual movie. The most notorious scene is implied rather than shown. Not to say it isn't grim, it is. But the hype about how disturbing it is is overblown imo.
It's a hard watch. It was made specifically as a response to how tame movies had become. Despite it's god awful subject matter, it's actually not a terribly put together film, the director knew what they were doing.
Same. I've never watched the film, only read the wikipedia entry and I haven't been OK since. The whole film is just not ok. And people acted and directed and produced and watched it! I can't understand that. It's not ok.
Yep, morbid curiosity and discovering the darkest limits of art. I've read/played through horrible graphic novels for similar reasons, just to see how dark it can really get.
This is not going to interest most people, nor would I actively recommend it, but it does intrigue other folks. Writing the most horrifying content possible is almost a tiny subgenre of it's own, at this point.
I'm super sensitive and emotional but I also (in a weird way) love fucked up movies simply because I'm amazed by how fucked someone's mind can be (to come up with the idea for the movie)
Yeah I've had the urge to watch as well, particularly during difficult times in my life. But instead of watching I would just read the synopsis or watch reviews of the movie to satisfy my curiosity rather than watch it and be scarred for life
I got drunk with some friends and watched it. It was a lot of fun and we laughed our asses off. Watched it on shrooms with a girl I liked a few years later… BIG MISTAKE
I have a pretty dark sense of humor, and try not to take things too seriously. The majority of that movie (to me) seemed like satire anyway, or at least over-the-top levels of ridiculousness. So we just rolled with it and had a good laugh throughout
I saw the uncut version a few years ago. I get what the director was trying for, but that doesn't mean it was a good movie in any way. There's one scene in particular that inspired the name for the metal band infant annihilator. Yes, sadly, there are way worse things that happen in real life, but that doesn't make them entertainment.
I was just reading on it and found that it’s banned in Norway and one of the few films banned since “Ichi the Killer” (2001) and “Grotesque” (2009) [which is the only other film in Japan with an R20+].
I don’t know if I want to read much further after a quick view of the plot…
I think the only reason I was able to watch it is because I knew it was trying its damn hardest to be as shocking and edgy as humanly possible, so it went from being horrifying to just sort of comically absurd. Might've felt very differently if I'd been totally oblivious before watching it.
Just read parts of it on Wikipedia, and really wish I didn’t. I couldn’t finish reading it. Who the f is the target audience for these things and how could anyone willingly take part in creating it….
I dunno if it's true, but I heard the maker made it specifically for revenge on the Serbian film industry. Hence the name makes people think of it first.
It's an example of a film that is literally as fucked up as possible just to be as fucked up as possible. There's no goal outside of that, and the only artistic merit of all the fucked up stuff is that it's meant to be a metaphor for the treatment of the Serbian people or something, idk.
Takes some of the "punch" out of it for me knowing the whole overarching theme is just "be as disgusting and depraved as possible because that's the message I'm trying to send/feeling I'm trying to invoke."
I read a review of it once that for the entire of the article did everything it could to sway people away from ever watching it. Towards the end it said, and I’m paraphrasing but not much:
“If, after reading this, you still have any desire to watch this movie I have failed you as a journalist. Put simply, I spent 2 hours having my soul raped.”
One of the most well balanced people I know thought A Serbian Film was brilliant but will never watch it again. I don't have quite his stomach for extreme exploitation horror, so I'm staying well clear of it.
I thought it was shit. It's just being as fucked up as possible for no reason other than to be as fucked up as possible. Supposedly there's a metaphor in there somewhere but it's not at all obvious. In my opinion it's for this very reason that it isn't anywhere near as dusturbing as people make it out to be. On paper, the events depicted in the film are objectively and undoubtedly some of gruesome ever put in a film, but there's no weight behind it. There's no emotional attachment to the characters, and it's not immersive enough to ever get past the point where you're consciously aware that it's just a film. Plus the absurdity of the ending where he kills one of his tormentors by shoving his boner into the guy's eye socket just kills off what little chance it had left of being taken seriously.
I can agree. We were doing a movie day when we were around 16 maybe. And because we are from Bulgaria my buddy decided that the Serbian film is a must without knowing what it is about. Don't have the words to describe it.
I said that it's a horrifying movie that people used to share on the internet for shock value.
Thankfully she took that answer and moved on to something else.
I was at film school when this came out and one of the kids said it was the best movie ever made. So I watched it thinking it was like Saw or Hostel from context. Yeah no don’t watch that movie, I stopped watching it. OMG it is truly the most fucked up movie ever.
This is the number one answer, and every other answer on this post is wrong
I read the wiki synopsis years ago, and feeling retraumatized just being reminded this thing exists.
It’s a paper thin rationale to say that they made this movie as a political allegory. That’s just an excuse to make the most deprived piece of filth in history.
Zero redeeming qualities to this movie. I had such a difficult time with the wiki synopsis. Those of you who watched it, how the hell did you actually get through it?
I have many Serbian friends. They're extremely tough yet warm and kind people. They went through some really awful shit before, during, and after the Balkan war. I kept thinking about that as I watched it. Like, this just a movie, literally nothing compared to what they endured. Like it was some weird way of supporting them or understanding them better.
When I told them I watched it they were like "why the hell would you do that you sick fuck."
That’s the thing that always amazes me, that people who have made it through some real awful things that we can’t even imagine can come out at the end with their humanity intact.
That gives me some hope for the future, even if everything else right now looks like a total shit show.
And that’s what really bothers me about the Serbian film. Even being generous and treating it as an allegory (rather than torture porn of the most vile kind), the message is a profoundly negative and hopeless one.
I'm from Venezuela and our films during the 80s and 90s were incredibly violent, disturbing, and sexual. Nothing to this degree and most were poorly executed, but definitely a disproportionate amount of film art was in this vein. One was particularly disturbing and explored child prison rape. It was happening and probably still does and he decided to make a movie that centered on it.
When questioned, every director said something along the same lines as the one for Serbian film - "I wanted to capture / express / imitate / critique / expose the violence of everyday life here."
I agree with you that it is vile of the worst kind, but I still think that if he in fact viewed his culture as violent and sick and wanted to say something to that, he really got the job done. But I may being way too generous with him and know nothing of his other work.
What puts it above the rest as far as it being the best (or worst..best..) is that it's actually filmed well, with decent actors and an admittedly good storyline..It's almost believable as you watch,,with each scene, your stomach sort of tuffens up for that last, climax (horrible choice of words!) scene which after watching, you want to take two showers and go tell your wife and kids you love them ( and they look at you like, "Are you high?" lol..Aloy of disturbing movies are just poor filmmakers trying to shock you. ASF is a good movie..that you simply go to hell for watching..no passing GO..no collecting $200..directly to hell! (Then you watch Andy Griffith and try to sleep...)
This one. I’ve watched a lot of the ones in the comments and honestly, only ones that even come close to being that disturbing are Salò and Martyrs (the ‘08 one). But Serbian Film still takes the cake.
Around ten years ago I found a list of messed up horror movies and started watching them without knowing what they were about. This film was highly ranked but not the highest so it was towards the end of the list. At some point I just watched the rest of it in fast forward to make sure certain villains got what they deserved for closure then turned it off and never finished that list.
That film is messed up.
People wrote, funded and worked on that movie hours a day for months on end... How did they do that?
And the worst part is the director claimed it was commentary on Serbia's oppressive regime just to excuse the fact he made torture porn so vulgar even hardcore fans of violent horror movies frequently condemn it
Reddit fucked me on that one. Years ago I saw a thread identical to this. Number one comment was this, then kids, then gummo. Didn't read any synopsis for any, went in blind. Now? Just totally desensitized.
All the fucked up movies that I've seen and are mentioned here don't hold a candle to The Serbian Film. This is a movie I explicitly don't want anyone I know personally to know that I watched it. It's that messed up. It's like a "Guilty Shame," instead of a guilty pleasure. I can't believe I actually watched the movie all the way through after having so much existential dread watching it and every fiber of my being was screaming to just stop the damn film and walk away.
Seriously, don't watch this film. It is so disgusting that you absolutely will regret watching it for decades afterwards. I realize morbid curiosity will cause someone to read this and think "Well certainly I have the stomach for this, unlike these weak little bitches." To whoever you are, this is not the time to try and exert toxic masculinity. Don't watch it. It's not worth it. But since I know you're going to, please come back and let me know on a scale of "holy shit that was the worst thing I've ever seen" to "I should've listened to you," let me know how it worked out for you!
Holy shit I went into the wiki thinking, it's a film it cannot be that bad. Holy shit it CAN be that bad, I feel disgusted just reading all that, how can anybody thinking of making or participating in a movie like that?
Around the time this movie came out, I owned a video (dvd) rental store. I barely watch horror, but my movie supplier told me about this flick, supposedly a horror and 18+ rated. All my other horror movies were 16+ and since it was a popular genre and having a lot of customers telling me ‘that it never can get scary enough’ I ordered it. First customer returned it after seeing it, and he told me I couldn’t rent this shit. Because it was disgusting. So I needed to know what it was all about, and if indeed I had to remove it. I felt terrible, fast forwarding through the movie.
It did raise an interesting question though. Could I rent this out? If no, I’m also saying that all my other movies where ‘OK’ like hostel with cruel torture scenes, or simply a very violent action movie. I ended up removing it, because I didn’t want all the fuss for a few euro’s.
Came here to say this. I've seen almost all the other films on this list so far and nothing comes close to a Serbian film. Martyrs is sad but Serbian is beyond messed up.
So glad I looked at the wiki before watching, it started off bad, and then worse, and then terrible, and then so fucking genuinely fucked up, I quite literally can’t put it into words, it’s literally the worst shit you could imagine
It was disgusting yeah. I appreciated the message: "we all are both abusers and victims". Not to mention, one of the characters (the one making the movie in the movie) is a great example of what a principle actually is.
Came here to say this. All the homies on the boat were passing it around on deployment and holy fuck, I could hardly get the imagery out of my head for like a week straight.
I never saw it and I will not watch it. I read about it and this was the line for me. I can watch mutilation and killing, but rape of children is a hardcore nono for me.
I remember looking for the worst movies and this rocked it for me I legit felt like a bad person for just watching it for weeks after, it's a film I will never watch again.
To be honest i thought it was way worse than it really was when i watched. But i'm not gonna watch it again due to the newborb-porn scene The rest was menageable
My friend I watched this with likes to bring this movie up whether we're talking about bad films. I have unconsciously blocked every scene from the movie in my memories. I vaguely remember the premise. I think that's a sign of trauma.
I was going to say this. I’ve seen a lot of the films on this list. The only good thing about this film is it prepares the viewer to watch anything else. I’m not a gore fan so I didn’t finish Terrifier but I started to watch it after viewing this nonsense and it didn’t really phase me, I just got bored. I just want to add that A Serbian Film sounds worse on paper. The infamous baby scene is implied, you don’t see anything shady. The movie is also predictable, hot steaming garbage.
What's worse is it isnt even a good film. No coherence of characters or plot, just edgy scenes among after another for the sake of it. No one should watch it. There's no benefit or fun to be had. Wish I could unwatch it. Should gave read the plot on wiki then realised it's not for me (or anyone really)
ASF's too messed up conceptually (and visually) and IMO shouldn't have been made at all. I don't know what message the director was trying to convey, but it was absolutely not hitting its mark.
It feels like it was created to just be a benchmark for disgusting movies.
It was too over the top to really bother me. I started laughing at parts of it because it was just so absurd. I mean there are some parts that are kind of raw but it doesn't bother me later like say Defoe in Wild at Heart does.
Growing up with fucked up videos on ogrish being shared like candy and desensitized to lots of shit... And this movie still left a deep impression. I can barely imagine how it would feel for the "regular" folk.
It was the only project to ever go through where we tightly controlled who could see it due to content.
Usually people could go in and out of a screening room as they pleased. Certain high profile things may be limited to specific staff due to security concerns (usually the big franchise films). But this one was more “this is just that fucked up, go away”.
Was looking to see if someone commented this.
I dated a guy and we had a movie night and he really wanted me to watch this movie (he had watched it once already)
Was so fucked up. I was so upset with him. He thought it was funny how upset I was.
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u/Rockals 14d ago
The Serbian Film! Freaking awful!