Which Horror Film At Monster Fest Is The Most Disturbing? A Ranking

Monster Fest is Australia’s premiere genre film festival. It’s back to freak out Melbourne this week with a killer lineup of horror, fantasy, science fiction, action, crime, noir, dark drama, gothic western, black comedy, animation, and erotica.

A lot of the films playing Monster Fest won’t see the light of day in Australia with a wide release, because distributors are too chicken to give them a shot — and looking through the schedule there’s lots of messed up films on offer. Here are a few selections from the lineup ranked in order of how disturbing they are.

Warning: each trailer is NSFW.

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11. Free Fire

Filmmaker Ben Wheatley is the king of WTF with films like Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England and High-Rise. Wheatley’s new film is about an arms deal gone wrong that disintegrates into a full-on shootout. The madness of gun violence is at play here and based on Wheatley’s track record; it’s going to get wild.

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10. Beyond the Gates

VHS board games were popular in the ’90s, a disturbing thought on its own and the focus of Beyond the Gates. Two brothers reunite at their missing father’s video store to clean out his belongings to prepare it for sale. They find a VHS board game called ‘Beyond the Gates’ and decide to play it. Big mistake! It’s a spookier version of Jumanji oozing with VHS nostalgia.

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9. Always Shine

A girl’s weekend away goes bad, very bad. Two friends, both actresses, go on a trip and come undone by their rivalry. It has been compared to Single White Female and stars Mackenzie Davis who you’ll recognise from the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror.

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8. The Autopsy of Jane Doe

 After the police discover a corpse in a shallow grave, they take it to father-and-son coroners (Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch) to investigate. The film’s mysteries are unlocked with each scalpel cut and there are enough scares to satisfy the location-bound premise. Beware of this one if you’re squeamish at the sight of medical procedures but it could be perfect for a little immersion therapy to conquer the fear.

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7. A Dark Song

 Movies make dabbling in the occult too easy. Chant a spell or buy a Ouija board and you’re summoning demons and opening portals to Hell like a pro. A Dark Song turns up the difficulty setting by showing the arduous path of the dark arts. A lady hires an occultist to help her perform a black magic ritual that will grant whatever her heart desires. The ritual takes six months and requires physical and mental suffering; it’s a chilling endurance test.

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6. Hands Dig Deep

A documentary about musician, Edwin Borsheim, the frontman of the metal band Kettle Cadaver. Borsheim is infamous for his combination of talent, bizarre stage antics and brutal self-mutilation. Years after the bands demise, Borsheim has fallen in to complete seclusion on his acre of land in which he is a captive of the many of the horrible things he has created.

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5. The Greasy Strangler

 A father and son compete for the affections of a lady while a maniac is covering their body with thick grease and stalking the streets at night and strangling innocent people. Eyeballs pop out of heads, there are face-imploding punches and there are a lot of swinging dicks. Take a first date gamble on this film if you dare.

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4. Antibirth

 If you need your pregnancy body horror fix, this is one of two films working from that playbook this year. A stoner, Lou (Natasha Lyonne), gets pregnant but claims she hasn’t had sex in over a year. As conspiracies and stories of bizarre kidnappings around town begin to spread, Lou’s visions and grip on reality become more distorted. Antibirth gets icky, you might need a shower after.

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3. Prevenge

 Here’s the other pregnancy nightmare on offer. An expectant mother is ordered by her unborn child to kill people. Yep, you read it right, and she decides to follow its orders. With a dark approach to issues of post and antenatal depression, it’s a slasher with a twist, offering a gruelling take on pregnancy.

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 2. Playground

 A trigger warning for the themes of the subject matter of this film that dramatise the true story of a murder of three-year-old at the hands of two 10-year-old boys in Liverpool in 1993. It’s polarising and savage. One of the most confronting cinema experiences of the year that might have you walking out of the cinema or emotionally decimated as the credits roll.

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1. Raw

 A vegetarian student studying veterinary science participates in a student initiation ritual that turns he into a cannibal. Raw is the film that had people fainting mid-screening at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, so the challenge has been set to see if you can last longer. Plan you meal before to avoid any accidents.

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Monster Fest is on from November 24 to 27 2016. Tickets are on sale now.