Mindfuck Movies

[SecondTalon]

I think I am getting trolled by American Psycho. I've watched it about 5 times, once sober, the rest stoned, and I just can't figure out what the fuck is going on. It might not be a "mindfuck" movie, but holy shit is it fucking with my mind. My girlfriend and I have a basic theory that part of it is about how corporations are treated in 80's America, that Bale is consistently and blatantly committing horrific crimes and no one gives a shit, but that's not all of it.

I just don't understand!

Most, if not all of it, is in Bale's head. It's not real.

[pollywog]

I thought so. Maybe I'm reading waaaaay too much into it.

[the_bandersnatch]

Bear in mind it's a black comedy, a lot of people seem to miss that and think it's meant to be taken straight. It's also a horror movie, a statement about the shallowness of 80s materialistic culture (and society in general), on narcissism, on chauvinism, an examination of mental illness and the human power of denial. Great film.

On another note, I watched Dead Man's Shoes recently, I think that qualifies as a mind-fuck film. It's also brutal and pretty damn good. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419677/

[Igidich]

Naked Lunch: A two hour long version of the 'Drugs will turn your brain to jelly' PSA, with imagery that makes The Scanner Darkly look like a children's movie. The trailer for John Dies at the End is about the only thing close to it.

That's just the one I was going to mention. This scene in particular is one of my favourite movie moments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kod4LNzu0fc It consistently raises my hairs with the force of its fuckery.

I think some of the most compellingly confusing films I've watched (outside of David Lynch) are from the Polish director Wojciech Has--The Hourglass Sanatorium, and The Saragossa Manuscript. The first is just an ingenious drifting, cryptic, dream-logic narrative; the second is an exercise in stories-within-stories, reaching at one point I think six levels of nesting. Both simply amazing.

[Odilo]

Momento and Donnie Darko are both really awesome movies.

[TamH70]

No love for "The Usual Suspects"? I remember walking out of the cinema after seeing that and still having my brain frozen.

[Dason]

Oh I love The Usual Suspects. But it's only really the end that has any mindfuckery right? I guess I wouldn't have classified it as a mindfuck movie when there are so many other movies that really fuck with your mind.

[TamH70]

Well, when you watch the end of the film,

Spoiler:

everything you have seen in the last hour and a half is made complete bullshit. Except, perhaps, the deaths of Edie Finneran, Fred Fenster (whose body can no doubt be dug up from his shallow grave) and all those caught up in the various jewel heists New York's Finest Taxi Service that Michael McManus killed.

[CorruptUser]

I think I am getting trolled by American Psycho. I've watched it about 5 times, once sober, the rest stoned, and I just can't figure out what the fuck is going on. It might not be a "mindfuck" movie, but holy shit is it fucking with my mind. My girlfriend and I have a basic theory that part of it is about how corporations are treated in 80's America, that Bale is consistently and blatantly committing horrific crimes and no one gives a shit, but that's not all of it.

I just don't understand!

It's about how superficial the 80's were. Everyone was caring more about appearances than anything that actually mattered. Bateman is supposed to be a VP, appears to be successful and everything, but he spends all his work time making crude drawings and daydreaming about how he would murder everyone around him. If anyone in power actually spent a few minutes to figure him out instead of just looking at appearances, he'd be fired and/or institutionalized, but the only person who discovers how useless/terrible he is is the person beneath him who is powerless to fire him.

Also, a minor Take That to Reagan, and how he could do horrible things but it didn't matter because he appeared good.

[TommyRiordan]

The worst movies which I have seen are Butterfly effect 1,2,3 .Ashton Kutcher's acting is superb but I really hate the concept.

[IcedT]

I had never seen an Aronofsky film before, so I was totally not prepared for the mindfuckery in Black Swan. I caught it on HBO late one night and was like "Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman? I'm in." And then the portraits started screaming ._.

[Izawwlgood]

I'm a big fan of going to films not knowing much about them. This hit me really hard with Pans Labyrinth, where I went with some buddies expecting yay magical fairies and came out nearly shell shocked. It's really annoying when a trailer or such actually ruins a big vibe of the film.

[firechicago]

I had never seen an Aronofsky film before, so I was totally not prepared for the mindfuckery in Black Swan. I caught it on HBO late one night and was like "Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman? I'm in." And then the portraits started screaming ._.

The killer thing? Black Swan is pretty normal and chill compared to his earlier stuff. Go watch Requiem for a Dream or Pi sometime your brain's been naughty and you want to punish it.

[WarDaft]

I wouldn't put Pi in this category. Of course that could just be because the part of my mind that understands the concepts was screaming "THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS" so loud that I missed anything that was supposed to mess with the rest of my mind.

[Velexia]

In no particular order... and a personal mind fuck rating (1-5 scale).

Cashback (2)
Requiem for a Dream (5)
Paprika (2)
Solaris (Original) (?)
The Wall (Pink Floyd) (4-5)
Aeon Flux (Original Series)(4-5)
Trainspotting (4-5)
A Scanner Darkly (3)
Apocalypse Now (3)
The Cell (3)
Inception (3)
Moon (3-4)

[Yubtzock]

I don't want to sound rude, but here is some friendly advice.

I don't know how can you compare mindfuckery on a one dimensional scale. (alright - there is something to it. Clearly one movie might be meant to screw someone's mind, while the other only mildly puts our heads to spin, but I'm still appalled at the try) The point is - you might actually be thinking about how hard a movie is to understand instead of... well... whatever definition of mindfuck you want to take.

And if you really must use a scale, describe it.
1-5 what.
"1" could be "1st class mindfuck", making 5 a lot worse (less fuck-inflicting) experience. Of course from the list I could make out you are going the other way around it. (1-5 being an increasing amount of mindfuck)
This applies to any made up scale.

To the list alone -
Cashback?! Even 1 would be too much for me (yay using the scale badly already). I mean - it's a good movie. Very good considering it was a début for significant part of its makers, but it didn't put on my braincells much work, let alone any form of intellectual intercourse.

Moon? 3-4 (again if the scale goes towards more mindbending experience) This film is not much of a mindfuck as it is a twist. And the reveal isn't that much of an impact either - for a Sci-fi story it isn't. Not if you've read enough good sci-fi books.
Try the novel: "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" - I can guarantee you it will widen your scale for sci-fi genre alone quite a bit. (free online, but heed my trigger warnings traveller, for it features violence and very mature content).

Apocalypse now - sorry, but "Jacob's Ladder" holds the mindfuck title over all others in this genre for me.


Again - just a commentary. I didn't mean to discourage you from anything. You might have just hit a few of my pet peeves in rapid succession and I had to blow some steam off in the general direction of your part of the Internets.

PS - I don't think I've ever written "fuck" so many times in a post. Not even when I used it as a comma I didn't.

[Velexia]

I figured by putting Requiem for a Dream on the 5 end, it would be clear... if not, sorry...
5 is lots of Mindfuck (or just Fuuuuuuuuck...)
1 is No Mind fuck
2 is Minimal Mind fuckery
3 is Decent Mind fucking
4 is Satiating
5 is well, 5.

Definitely not scaling this on how hard a movie is to understand. In that case I would have a totally different list of movies.

Also, just going off of movies I have actually seen... and if we're going with books... crikey, I think maybe only Solaris and Requiem still deserve to be on the list. (Well, okay the Wall and Aeon Flux can stay too)

[shieldforyoureyes]

Tetsuo
Pinocchio 964
Forbidden Zone
Id
anything by Jodorowsky or Corkidi
The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz
Begotten
Wax: The Discovery of Television Among The bees
Stereo
Visitor To A Museum
Ga Ga: Glory To The Heroes

And my favorite movie:

On The Silver Globe

Fan trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5A1sEbf7M

[Jorpho]

I just learned about Tony Conrad's "Flicker".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJbqnztjkbs

The exciting stuff starts about three minutes in.

[Joe O]

...
anything by Jodorowsky..

Yeah! Holy Mountain, and El Topo...

No mention of the Greek film Dogtooth?

[eviloatmeal]

Being John Malkovich.

Synecdoche, New York gave me a similar vibe, but it's also less in the mindfuck category and more in the mind chewing gum category.

I also quite like the Richard Linklater ones, A Scanner Darkly as mentioned earlier, and also Waking Life. I'd describe these as more trippy rather than mindfuck. Colorful theme park rides for your brain, per se.

Same goes for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I doubt it will leave your mind filled with much fuck, but it's a cute movie and an interesting watch.

[cephalopod9]

Videodrome

It's got some well down visual effects and body-horror, and a pretty trippy concept. While I didn't think it got very far as making a real point, it's also mind screwy for how relevant it seems for a movie about VHS tapes.

Trying to find eXistenZ now.

Also trying to find Brave New World from '99, because it fucks with my mind that that movie exists.

[Jorpho]

I didn't much care for A Scanner Darkly at all. Just plain boring is what it is.

There has been enough anime mentioned now that I think I shall throw out Mind Game, which definitely has a few really nifty bits.

Spoiler:

Nishi: We've gotta leave. It's that or drown.
Yan: But how?
Nishi: The boat, of course!
Myon: The cops'll be looking for us.
Nishi: So?
Myon: The Yakuzas'll come after us!
Nishi: So what! I wanna get out! 'Cos there's so much out there! So many different people, living different lives! Incredibly good guys, bad guys... Folks completely different from us! It's one huge melting pot! See, it's not about success, dying in the streets, who's better, who's not! I just want to be a part of it! I realized that even if I've no connections, no talent, even if I'm one big loser, I want to use my hands and feet to think and move, to shape my own life! We can just die here or we can try, see what we've got!

Trying to find eXistenZ now.

It's watchable, and it does some interesting things, but common criticism is that it is just a little bit too talky. What mindfuckery it has is drowned out by perfectly ordinary confusion.

Also trying to find Brave New World from '99, because it fucks with my mind that that movie exists.

Whoa, with Leonard Nimoy? That is indeed odd.

[SecondTalon]

....
No mention of the Greek film Dogtooth?

Apparently not. Why don't you go in to a bit more detail about it?

[Izawwlgood]

I remember a girlfriend insisting we do a Kroenberg movie marathon, and waking up the next day curled in the fetal position with my hands clenched tight. We spent the day outside, in the sun.

[rmsgrey]

Less outright mindfuck, and more playing with deep concepts, but: Stranger Than Fiction

[Biliboy]

Not sure how widespread this opinion is, but I like how The Book of Eli made you stop and reassess everything you had seen up to the end.

[Izawwlgood]

Not sure how widespread this opinion is, but I like how The Book of Eli made you stop and reassess everything you had seen up to the end.

I didn't even think his blindness was particularly pertinent to the mindfuckery of the film; I'm an atheist, and that movie had me nodding in appreciation of his faith.

[Nylonathatep]

Some recommendations:

12 monkeys

Battle Royale

The Human Centipede (as well as it's Sequence)

Pi

8mm

Men behind the Sun aka (Black Room 731)

Ringu (Japanese version counts?)

Dark City

The Machinist

The Wicker Man (Not the bees, Not the Bees Arughhhhh!!!)

[cephalopod9]

Trying to find eXistenZ now.

It's watchable, and it does some interesting things, but common criticism is that it is just a little bit too talky. What mindfuckery it has is drowned out by perfectly ordinary confusion.

It's on hulu, for the month of February.
Here's what's getting to me: Have I never seen a movie that engaged with the idea of video game logic?
Video games are an enormous culture feature, and I can't think of a single other movie that looks at the things video games are made of.

Also trying to find Brave New World from '98, because it fucks with my mind that that movie exists.

Whoa, with Leonard Nimoy? That is indeed odd.

It's even cheaper than I expected, it looks like they couldn't afford actual sets, and it misses most of the point of the book. Leonard Nimoy is pretty good though. If you could find just his lines and such from the movie, I would recommend watching that, but I don't know if it's worth watching the full film.
There's also this fun part, which is a repeating bit of the in universe propaganda bears a striking resemblance to the "Piracy is a Crime" (you wouldn't download a bear steal a car) campaign that came out some six years later.

[Rodion Raskolnikov]

I'm gonna throw the Polanski film 'Repulsion' in the ring for this. Witness a young woman's neuroses and mental breakdown from her point of view.

Inlcudes scenes with hands coming out of walls.

[Guu]

....
No mention of the Greek film Dogtooth?

Apparently not. Why don't you go in to a bit more detail about it?

It's a greek film released in 2009, telling the story of 3 teenagers/young adults, whom the parents have forbidden to ever leave their house. They are homeschooled and by this brainwashed - to avoid curiosity for the outside world. Still, the eldest daughter gets curious... The film is not so much a "I-want-to-break-free"-film, but it also focuses a great deal on the daily life & interactions of the family members.

As for other mindfuckery..
-Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon might count? Halfway through the film I was confused as to who is really who..
-Visitor Q by Takashi Miike is just .. WTF is happening??? They are okay with that??!
-Strange Circus by Shion Sono (didn't finish that one, just too fucked up for my taste Oo)
-Irreversible by Gaspar Noé has a similar concept like Memento, but imho a more intense atmosphere & plot

[ocean_soul]

Here are a few suggestions for OP: Primer, Catch-22, A Clockwork Orange, Picnic at Hanging Rock, most films by Cronenberg, Brazil, Spoorloos (in Dutch, English title is The Vanishing), some of Aronosky's movies, Donnie Darko, Old Boy,... I liked all of these; there are of course also 'Mindfuck Movies' that aren't so great.