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Have you ever walked out of a movie and why?

A film buff, I admire movie director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick directed the 1968 widely acclaimed film, "2001- A Space Odyssey."

At eighteen, I joined college friends to see "A Clockwork Orange" Stanley Kubrick. Malcolm McDowell plays Alex, a charismatic, antisocial delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), committing rape, theft and what is termed "ultra-violence."

Horrified the gleeful and graphic depictions of violence, I walked out.

Back story

My grandparents had a lovely house in Franklin, Michigan. Their next-door-neighbor was a kindly psychiatrist and his wife. He helped me climb in their apple trees. One afternoon while my family was visiting, the psychiatrist's wife ran screaming into my grandparent's backyard, covered in blood.

At five before my horrified eyes, she sobbed out this story. In his office during the lunch hour, her husband had been stabbed to death a female patient. A terrific struggle ensued. Blood was all over the office. Meeting her husband for lunch, she walked in and found her husband dead.

Recurring nightmare

Afterward, I had the same nightmare into my teens. An insane man with a knife is chasing me. He ignores my pleas to spare me. I desperately try to escape, running, hiding and climbing a tree. When his hand closes over my foot, I jerked awake.

I I refuse to watch horror and violent movies.

LiterateHiker 9 Mar 24
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18 comments

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1

Don't blame you a bit. I do not care for horror/violent films either.

2

Yes i have,got anxiety ,just could not take it ,but when i was much younger and not as open minded as I am now,Now more careful what i choose

2

Sure wished I'd walked out of "The Blair Witch Project" It was horrendous.

I went with a small group of folks when it opened. At the end when the theater was still silent, I wanted to jump out of my seat and scream "I don't get it!". Afterwards folks huddled and talked about how brilliant it was and I stood back wondering if we actually watched the same movie.

@TreeSpirit It was just IGNORANT! I didn't like The Big Chill for the same reason.

1

Never walked out but fell asleep through many....

If certain genres are an issue, just avoid them.
For me, that’s anything with Sandra Bullock, Kevin Costner, and Adam Sandler....

3

Actually I RAN out of a movie when I was 6...1958 "It...The TERROR from beyond space"...scared the CRAP out of me...first glimpse of the Creature and I LOST IT...spooked me in the 70's when I finally watched the.whole movie 😂😂😂

2

i have only watched a little of A clockwork Orange, I could tell it was a movie that I would not enjoy very quickly. There have been others that I had no problem walking out on, always due to graphic violence. One that I wished I had walked out on was Black Sunday a gothic horror film from 1960 that I had to sit through in about 63.

Clockwork Orange is a great flic

@Canndue To each his own, it is not something I will ever watch due to the things I saw.

2

Way back when I had a boyfriend who complained that I didn't want to go to movies he wanted to see. So I went to one with him. I ended up pulling my hood over my face and plugging my ears, but I sat through all of the movie. It was very violent. After that I never went to another movie that I thought would be violent. Boyfriend did ask if I wanted to leave, and I refused. to his credit he didn't seem to enjoy the movie either mostly because I was obviously unhappy. I have wished I walked out of the LOTR movies because I didn't enjoy them, but I was there with my kids and they were fans. I don't watch much violence or absolutely no horror. I did watch Saving Private Ryan, I was active duty for several years, as was the father of my children/ex husband. I did not sleep the night following the movie, I think it didn't help that we saw the movie very late in the evening. I don't think ex fared much better. I haven't been to a theater in years, and at home I don't have cable. When I watch movies they are the "feel good" type. I don't need violence or horror in my life, real life is enough of that.

2

I don't watch horror movies and find gratuitous violence in movies to be disgusting. I do wonder whether the violence in our entertainment contributes to real life violence.

Brooklyn, NY, many years ago I walked out of a Superman movie, it was crap.

MizJ Level 8 Mar 25, 2021
2

I like horror and I liked Clockwork, I find it easy to detach from fiction. "Silence of the Lambs" was one of the scariest movies because the evil of the characters seemed real. I couldn't watch the George Floyd video, it was real, I couldn't buffer it with disbelief and the horror was inescapable(right now the memory is causing my chest to feel crushed). Fiction has a rush like riding a rollercoaster, I enjoy it because there isn't actual danger. The movies I've walked out were boring.

2

I don't watch any movies any more, but when I did, no horror movies. I want to be entertained, preferably with laughter. I don't get a rush from being scared.

4

" The Bodyguard". Most boring film I've ever laid eyes on. BTW I love "A Clockwork Orange".

1

I don't blame you for walking out of that movie.. I did too.

2

Actually , this is the movie I got up and left . I hated the female form used as the tables , in the beginning , then later hated the eminse guy throwing up continuously , and decided it wasn't worth viewing , so left .

1

Just reading Clockwork was numbing, I can't think of seeing it. The level of violence was at first appalling and then left me numb and just wanting to get to the end of it, which I think was part of the message intended- the numbing effect of exposure to (and committing) violence, which I see at my work relentlessly now I think about it, staff and prisoners alike. It isn't true for all but it is for enough that we should be mindful. That's a message that can't always come across just by writing editorials or studies, sometimes art is needed to convey it. But I understand your reaction. I only finished the book because I was determined to slog through it once I'd started, like Moby-Dick which I waded through to get to the last 3 chapters.

I walked out of one theater in my life. I can't recall the title, but it starred (loosely speaking) the Unknown Comic- yes, the guy with the paper bag on his head- who, during the daytime, secretly pursued his dream of becoming a police officer in a wacky precinct. It was every bit as bad as it sounds. After the first 4 vagina jokes in about 15 minutes, I was outta there. There was a reason for the paper bag, believe me.

2

I know that was a traumatic experience.

That movie is pretty brutal.

@BudFrank

Thank you. I appreciate your support.

2

That's a terrible thing to witness. Especially for a five year old child. It's no wonder you were deeply affected. Had I been in your place I would most likely have reacted the same way.

@dumasarok

Thank you. I appreciate your support.

1

Well certainly not Clockwork Orange did I walk out. In 1973 I saw it and thought I hope I would never live in such a morally corrupt world. I saw it again 30 + years later and thought, oh now I live in morally bankrupt world, like Clockwork Orange, thank you capitalism. You were offended? Perhaps you missed the point. Most movies carry us through a predetermined moral compass; good guy, bad guys, the hero wins. Just like the real world is not. Kubrick shows us a society and says, if you think Alex is a monster who got away with rape and murder, then you decide that. If you think Alex is a product of a morally and ethically dead and corrupt society, then you make that decision. I'm not going to spin you a moral compass like most directors, he basically conveys. That it what offended people back then: they weren't told what to believe, which they always want. Had Alex died after the scene when he jumps out the window then people would have been happy. Bad guy, just desserts. But genius director Kubrick doesn't allow you that cop out. So the ending is morally ambivalent. And weren't people upset. Sex and violence, they protested. Rubbish. He pressed against their phoney sense of right and wrong peddled by Hollywood and many couldn't handle it.

A movie I wanted to walk out of? Yes, Tarrantino's shit movie about Hollywood and Sharon Tate 2 years ago. Garbage. But I downloaded it without paying for it, so walking out didn't make any sense. Now that's a movie that truly offended me. Hollywood garbage.

@floWteiuQ a fairytale that peddled thinly disguised anti Asian attitudes in the scene with Bruce Lee ( anti Asian sentiments, well that's certainly not relevant in contemporary America, right?) and presented Sharon Tate like an airhead and bimbo, which she most definitely was not. So, I think I'll stay offended, actually.

I was only thinking the other day that Clockwork Orange is a movie I have never seen and perhaps I should. After reading your analysis I'll pass and stick to the Sound of Music......well maybe not THAT as I can't stand musicals.

@MsDemeanour Sound of Music -- the worst movie ever made, even the late Christopher Plummer thought so. Anyway, to each his own.

@floWteiuQ well I'm not sure i would call Tarrantino consciously racist, but thoughtless and heavy handed, certainly. In time that film will be thought of very much as a Trump era film, IMHO.

@David1955 I simply chose Sound of Music because it was as far removed from Clockwork Orange as I could imagine. I can't abide musicals. AS for CO, maybe Ill read teh book.

3

I walked out of "Apocalypse Now".
I've never even tried to watch it again.

I won't watch horror movies either.
Saw "Night of the Living Dead " on TV when I was a kid. It ruined me for life.

@floWteiuQ Didn't stay long enough to see that part.
After hearing your synopsis, I'm glad I missed it.

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