I was going to when I spotted this thread, I was just reading through it first.
Actually I thought the very first post was talking about it, when it was mentioned 2 men enter a house, kill the boy, then the father..but then a lake scene murder was mentioned and I realised it was a different film.
Yeah, "Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer" is the only film I have watched where my whole body was literally affected. I tensed up, my legs went numb, and it felt sort of "wrong" to be watching it...if you know what I mean.
The scene in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", where they tried to get that rotting, decrepit old man to bash the woman's brains in with a bucket underneath her head, was also disturbing. I think it was the surreal nature to it, and the fact that it was dragged out with no ending in sight, that made it so shocking.
I read the above post about the post-nuclear attack story set in America, and I too thought of "ThreaRAB" which was set in Sheffield, Britain.
On the same theme, I'm not sure that this was shocking, but very powerful certainly. There was an animation dealing with this subject, also made in the 80's.
A British animator, made an animation about an old couple who reacted to a nuclear attack following a government guideline information pamphlet. Doing the usual stuff by "being vigilant" etc. Sticking a door against a wall and using it as a shelter to live in. LOL.
It is a classic cartoon (Might have been made by Bob Godfrey).
It was just so casual, and blase about it all, and had humorous little touches and funny dialogue and characterization you could relate to someone you knew. and the relationship of the old couple who were still very much in love with each other was so british, and incredibly sad and powerful.
Despite their futile, naive optimism, and trust in government advice, needlessly to say, they inevitably died.
Not shocking in a horror kind of way, but shocking in a powerful, poignant, sad political way.
Classic animation, one of my top favourites.
