A Brief History of Movies So Unsettling They Caused People to Faint, Vomit, or Even Die

Among the many differences between William Friedkin’s newest film and his most famous, one is considerably more visceral than the rest: “The Devil and Father Amorth” probably won’t make anybody faint and/or vomit.

The Academy Award–winning director has revisited “The Exorcist” 45 years later with a documentary about an actual priest who performs actual exorcisms, making a kind of companion piece to his horror classic.“The Exorcist” was ahead of its time in many ways, not all of which were confined to the screen.

Reports abounded — some confirmed, some not — of audience members having extreme physical reactions to the film.

Nearly half a century later, that tradition continues in fits and starts — someone might even make a documentary about it one day.The most recent of these is Julia Ducournau’s instantly infamous “Raw,” a cannibalistic horror offering that proved so unsettling to two attendees of the

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