I don’t know about emotionally overwhelming but we stopped watching the walking dead when they introduced Neegan because the shit he did was so fucking over the top brutal. I didn’t want to have that shit in my head
Show: Love, Death and Robots. It’s fantastic but some of the episodes just hit too hard. I’ll eventually get back to it, I just need some time
Game: Cyberpunk. I was looking something up and found out what happens to Evelyn. I kinda look like her a bit, and have also dealt with (much milder) issues in the same category. Too brutal
Movie: I actually watched it all the way, but the first time I watched American Beauty is just fucked me up for like, a week
Specifically that song, it was my favourite song of theirs. I tuned in late to their last concert when it aired on CBC, I thought I must have missed them singing it because I was so late but it came on next. I was happy I didn’t miss it but I cried as they sang it.
I have heard parts of it in the years since then, I have probably heard the whole song a few times but it hurts to hear it.
I had a golden retriever growing up, and he was the best friend I could have asked for. Seeing the dog in peril (I don’t really remember the movie now) was too much, and I lost it.
The Walking Dead TV series- Great show, but it was legit giving me nightmares, and I couldn’t handle the storyline once they killed Glenn off. I’m reading the comics now years later and it’s much more enjoyable
The Handmaid’s Tale TV series-- I think I got like 4 episodes in, and then they hung that one woman’s wife in front of her and sewed her vagina shut and I just couldn’t handle the graphics. I did read the book later on, though. My own imagination is just so tame compared to what they show on TV, I think
Revenge of the Sith - I was deployed to Iraq when I saw it, and was in a really bad headspace, and that scene where Anakin gets burned up and then you see them putting the Vader mask on him just really fucked me up at the time. Absolutely will never watch that one again.
I also stopped there. I may be misremembering because of trauma but when he said ‘Maggie I’ll find you’ it destroyed me. In his last moments all he could think about was his wife, I felt that on a deep personal level.
I also remember crying when Beth died. That scene where Daryl carries her out was just too much. And then I remember they had the actress on that show they always had right after called Talking Dead and she ended up crying because her character was dead and then like everyone on that stage was crying.
It’s not just you, it’s much safer to read disturbing content than watch it on TV, it has something to do with how your mind forms memories. I think while reading your mind will on some level make up pictures to go with it, but only has access to the libraries of what you can already imagine. So if you have nightmares about it later or whatever it can still be challenging, but it’s hard to get as traumatised as you can by seeing images on TV/film or irl. My source for this is something my wife read while we were researching ways to help our little girl, who gets freaked out by certain things on TV very easily. It seems to hold true for her at least.
It’s a webfic set in a universe where people get superpowers by going through psychological trauma. It’s a fucked up world and the protagonist is a fucked up person as a result
Grave of the Fireflies. I figured out what was in the tin and immediately turned it off, I was not willing to put myself through that and I’m still not. It makes me well up just thinking about it, and I haven’t even watched it. Brutal.
How deep you got into TWD? My unsocial ass liked the first couple of episodes, this cop riding on a horse like in Hot Fuzz, but with all that interpersonal drama I got sick of it. It felt so weird these people are the last men on Earth and they still have something to fight each other over.
Jericho felt better in that aspect. Some suspect it was closed because it was too good and educative. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s 90’s cinema slow, so you can become bored really quick.
The show is about interpersonal drama more than it is about zombies and that’s not me being reductive. The creator himself has said as much. It’s a drama set in a post apocalyptic zombie world, not a zombie drama set in a post apocalyptic world.
That’s why it’s not my piece of cake maybe. Too much of that IRL to enjoy the same on the silver screen. Pressing a play button, I want these fantasy persons to work together like Legolas and Gimli, not fighting each other over small things.
Yea same. I want some dope zombie fighting. That’s why early on they established that everyone was infected and there’s pretty much no way to cure it currently. Season 1 or 2 iirc.
Notice: Some moderate spoilers for the two media sources listed below:
Book: Misery, by Stephen King.
This is a horror story about a bestselling author whose car gets buried in a snowstorm. He’s rescued by a huge fan of his, but it turns out the fan is the crazy stalker type, and she keeps the author trapped in her farm house, demanding he write her perfect version of a sequel to his novel series.
I was reading it during class in high school one day and I got to the part about the “hobbling.” Anyone who saw the movie version remembers this part as where the crazy lady takes a sledge hammer to the captive author’s foot and breaks it at the ankle, effectively hobbling him so he can’t run away anymore.
But the book was worse. It was so much worse.
In the book, she takes an axe and cuts his foot off. But because it’s a dull rusty axe, it takes her several swings to effectively hack it off, all the while the author is screaming bloody murder, unable to stop this woman from painfully hacking away at his foot. The way Stephen King described the way the axe embedded deep in the author’s leg and squeaked on his bones as she dislodged it for another swing… /shudders
I had to set the book down for a moment. My teacher asked me if I was okay, because he said I was suddenly as white as a sheet of paper. When I couldn’t find the words to explain what was wrong with me, he told me to go to the nurse. He sent someone to help me walk there, as I was light-headed and wobbly, and having trouble standing on my own. Never in my life have I ever had a book affect me so physically and emotionally in my life, and I’m a huge fan of gory and grotesque horror.
TV show: Season 4 finale of Dexter.
I really enjoyed Dexter, a show about a serial killer who lived by a code and tried to only murder bad people. And my all-time favorite character on the show was his girlfriend, Rita.
When the series began, she was a broken shell of a human being. Which Dexter preferred, because the relationship was simple. She didn’t need much affection or attention and was the perfect cover to make him appear to have normal relationships without having to fully commit to someone emotionally.
But as the series went on, Rita became stronger, more capable, and more confident and outspoken. Through a relatively healthy relationship with Dexter, she was learning how to heal and grow as a person. She was even changing Dexter for the better; he found himself feeling attached to her and daydreaming about giving up the serial killer life to settle down and be a good father and husband.
Throughout season 4, Dexter met his match in another serial killer, Arthur Mitchell, who also had a family of his own, except he kept them under his control by fear and intimidation. It was an incredible acting performance by John Lithgow, who up until this point, I had only known as the funny man on 3rd Rock from the Sun. He was absolutely terrifying as a serial killer!
In the season 4 finale, Dexter finally gets his hands on Arthur and dispatches him, as he’s done with many other bad people. But the finale twist was that Arthur had gotten his hands on Rita shortly beforehand, and Dexter returns home to find her in the bathtub, murdered.
I was so enraged that they killed off my favorite character that I shut off the TV and never watched another episode of Dexter again. Which was apparently a wise decision, as the show apparently took a nosedive after that season and never recovered. To this day, most fans agree that Dexter ended at season 4.