Times Horror Movies Sent Someone To The Hospital

In Gaspar Noe's brutal revenge film Irreversible, we follow Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) as they wreak violence around Paris in search of the man who horrifically assaulted Alex (Monica Belucci), their girlfriend and ex-girlfriend respectively. The film takes place in reverse chronological order, which makes it surprisingly unsatisfying for a revenge narrative. The avenging takes place before we properly know what happened, so in some ways Irreversible ends up being a rather anticlimactic revenge film. That's a point that Roger Ebert counters, explaining that showing the revenge first gives the viewer an opportunity to consider the assault without a context, or the ability to blame the victim as so many would've. Well, for those who saw it all the way through, that is. 

Noe purposefully created the film's score using low-frequency sound waves to unsettle the viewer from the inside out. The brutal 10-minute single-camera and one-take rape and beating scene sent 250 people walking out of the cinema at the film's 2003 premiere at Cannes, 20 of them requiring oxygen and medical attention after collapsing. It is easily one of the most brutal and unflinching scenes of this type ever put on film, in particular because Alex fights her attacker the entire time. The scenes of Marcus and Pierre's revenge are also ultra-violent, befitting the original crime that inspired them.