Movies offer a window into the human condition, show us far-off lands that only exist in our mind's eye, or give us a voyeuristic glimpse of the intimate drama between two people. They can also gross us the hell out, as filmmakers use their twisted imaginations to get under our skin and shock us in new, increasingly more disturbing ways - ways that would have caused the members of the Production Code Administration to reach for the nearest crucifix.
Directors like David Lynch, Gaspar Noe, Lars von Trier, and many more have used cinema to explore societal conventions and taboos, often brushing against - or confidently striding past - the boundaries of good taste to tell their bizarre, stomach-churning tales. Alfred Hitchcock once said, "Always make the audience suffer as much as possible." These films took that advice a bit too literally.
