This week, the remake of Faces of Death is premiering, and it’s already drawing the kind of attention that doesn’t fade fast. The original, from 1978, was built to blur the line between reality and performance—so naturally, people are once again bracing themselves.
The new film stars Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira, Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery and Charli XCX, and it’s now playing in theaters. Watch With Us wants to revisit the messier side of horror history—those movies that weren’t warmly received on release, whether due to bans in multiple countries, incited walkouts, backlash, censoring, or even, in some cases, vomiting. And, just to make the whole thing feel less like a list and more like a memory: at one screening years ago, someone’s popcorn went still for a minute—everyone just sat there, listening to the theater’s air system hum.
Ranking starts with Faces of Death (1978), which mixes staged sequences with archival documentary footage. The whole thing is narrated by a fictional pathologist named Francis B. Gröss (Michael Carr). After performing an autopsy, Gröss tells viewers he’s compiled footage showing the many “faces of death,” driven by interest in the transitional period between life and death, while he’s also desensitized to the macabre. While many of the movie’s most infamous sequences are re-enactments, the archival footage depicting all-too-real deaths in concentration camps and slaughterhouses caused the film to be banned in several countries, like Germany and the U.K., the latter of which dubbed it a “video nasty.” There was even a legal case in 1985 when a mathematics teacher showed it in class—brought against him for emotional distress caused by traumatizing two of his students. It’s one of those cases that still feels… heavy.
Next is Cannibal Holocaust (1980). A documentary crew disappears while filming local indigenous tribes rumored to be cannibals in the Amazon. Anthropologist Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) searches for them and recovers the lost footage, only to watch what fate actually befell the woefully underprepared film crew. Ten days after the movie screened in Milan in 1980, it was seized and director Ruggero Deodato and some of the crew were charged with obscenity. Later, Deodato would even be charged with murder due to rumors that actors were actually killed in the film—charges dropped when it was proven to be untrue. The film was banned in several countries over its depictions of violence, which did include real animal killings. Still, the visual realism style mattered a lot, too: it was highly influential on the found footage genre and helped pave the way for the success of The Blair Witch Project. That influence can feel weirdly separate from the controversy, but it’s there.
Then comes The Exorcist (1973), centered on Regan (Linda Blair) and her single mother, actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), living temporarily in Washington, D.C. Regan’s body becomes the host for a malevolent entity, turning her into a bile-spewing demon. Doctors and specialists turn up nothing, so Chris takes the spiritual route and enlists Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a priest in his own crisis of faith. William Friedkin’s film is widely regarded as one of the best horror movies ever made, but at the time its reception was mixed due to controversial material. Yet that notoriety helped it break ground as the first horror movie to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Reception still got rocky—from screenings with reports of vomiting and nausea to religious groups and ratings boards. It was banned in parts of the U.K. until the late ’90s, and even the trailer was banned in America due to strobe effects inducing seizures and vomiting in test audiences. It’s brutal, even when you’re just watching an ad.
By the time Possession (1981) and Martyrs (2008) land, the pattern is harder to ignore. In Possession, married couple Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna (Isabelle Adjani) spiral after Anna admits to an affair. Anna leaves Mark and their son (Michael Hogben); Mark becomes increasingly unhinged, and interactions between them get violent and surreal. He hires a private investigator (Carl Duering) to follow Anna and uncover dark secrets in an abandoned apartment nearby. Meanwhile, Mark grows fixated on the son’s schoolteacher—who bears a striking resemblance to Anna. It got positive reviews at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, but the United Kingdom labeled it a video nasty over extreme and disturbing content. In America, it didn’t get released until 1983, when a heavily edited 81-minute version (losing one-third of the film’s original runtime) was dismissed by critics. Still, a 4K restoration premiered in New York City in 2021, and it’s now regarded by many as one of the best horror films of all time. Funny how time can soften a verdict… or sharpen it.
At the top of the list is Martyrs (2008). Lucie Jurin (Mylène Jampanoï) escapes unimaginable abuse and torture as a young child and is placed in an orphanage, where she befriends Anna (Morjana Alaoui). Lucie develops extreme PTSD, while a demonic female figure attacks her again and again. Years later, Lucie is hellbent on revenge, believing her tormentors have taken the guise of a seemingly normal, nuclear family. After slaughtering all of them, Anna arrives to help clean up, unsure if Lucie found the right perpetrators—then Anna discovers a secret passageway in the home. The New French Extremity film caused many walkouts at its premiere at the Marché du Film festival in 2008 and allegedly induced vomiting at a screening in Toronto. It received a controversial 18+ rating in France, only the second film to receive such a designation since Saw III. But a successful appeal dropped the rating to 16+, chronicled in the documentary film Martyrs vs Censorship. The Weinstein Company acquired the film for release in North America, but Bob Weinstein was so disturbed he sent it straight to DVD, and Martyrs was never officially released in the United States. So yeah—controversy doesn’t just follow these films around. Sometimes it becomes the main plot point, and then you move on… maybe not entirely ready to.