Seven Movies That Made Audiences Sick






1. Avatar (2009)





Everyone knows that James Cameron's Avatar killed at the box office, but you may be surprised to find out that it did so in a very literal way:

A 42-tear-old Korean man fell ill while watching the 3-D epic and later died. His doctor's official verdict? "Over-excitement from watching the movie triggered his symptoms."

An unfortunate footnote for the biggest smash in Hollywood history.











2. The Passion of the Christ (2004)





Avatar isn't the only blockbuster that left a wake in its wake, however.

In 2004, The Passion of the Christ shocked audiences with its graphic depiction of the crucifixion, a sequence which was later attributed as the direct cause of at least two fatal heart attacks suffered by audience members.

Mel Gibson's follow-up, Apocalypto, tanked at the box office -- and had correspondingly fewer fatalities.











3. The Blair Witch Project (1999)





You might expect horror movies to headline a list like this, but the mass sickness caused by 1999's The Blair Witch Project was due less to the content than to the style:

The movie's use of handheld cameras and jerky editing led to motion sickness among audiences from coast-to-coast.

It got so bad that some theaters were forced to post motion sickness warning signs in order to help retain workers tired of cleaning up vomit after every showing.











4. The Exorcist (1973)






When Warner Bros. released The Exorcist in 1973, they got a little more than they bargained for:

A film that rewrote the entire concept of horror movies, a blockbuster box office smash that continues to earn them money to this day and, lastly, an unusual lawsuit from a moviegoer.


His claim? The Exorcist was so scary he fainted -- and broke his jaw when he fell onto the seat in front of him. The suit was settled out of court, but may help explain why theaters began showing the movie with preventative measures, including Exorcist barf bags, close at hand.











5. Yellow Submarine (1968)






You wouldn't immediately think that the psychedelic cartoon from The Beatles would cause mass sickness, but urban legend has it that crowds around the world were affected adversely by the ground-breaking combination of animation and music, causing dizziness, fainting and worse.


Of course, the key word here might be "psychedelic"; we're not saying that some of that illness might have been caused by bad trippin,' but, you know, some of that illness might have been caused by bad trippin.'

And you thought theater popcorn was iffy.











6. Psycho (1960)






Before The Exorcist, of course, there was Psycho, which shocked audiences in 1960 with the sudden and gruesome murder of star Janet Leigh less than halfway through the film.

Audiences around the globe were reported to have been afflicted with widespread fainting and vomiting spells, which only helped pique interest about the movie.



Director Alfred Hitchcock wisely played things up even further by instituting a policy that nobody was allowed to enter the theater after the movie began, ensuring that new groups of victims -- er, curious movie fans -- would line up to see what was causing all the sickness.











7. Freaks (1932)




One of the most infamous movies ever made, Freaks caused a firestorm when it was released in 1932; the story, about a normal girl who marries a sideshow freak and eventually tries to murder him, was so shocking that MGM edited out nearly a third of the movie -- including a graphic castration sequence -- before showing it in theaters.



The damage was already done, though; one viewer from the first, full-length test screening threatened to sue the studio claiming the movie had caused her to suffer a miscarriage.

The notoriety didn't help Freaks at the box office, though, and led to the derailment of director Tod Browning's career.



http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/11/04...udiences-sick/

This movie didn't have that effect on me, but Clover did.

None of the "shaky cam" movies have bothered me. But I do find it annoying when movies do shaky cam for fight scenes- seems like all they are doing is just trying to hide bad fight choreography.

Maybe the camera guy was just trying to make cheese popcorn.

*i loved Apocalypto

That's a very underrated film!

Truly!
i try to make everyone i know watch it....
but i don`t know too many people

Oh, yeah! I liked it very much too, but like all good fiction, it probably tells more truth, despite its inaccuracies, than a dozen scholarly tomes. I found the movie engrossing and, even more difficult, plausible and quite evocative. I share T's sentiments too on how underrated it was treated, which is I think, more of Gibson's reputation in the industry per se, more than anything else.

I was going to say, "you know us" but we've already seen it

Yep, any of those kinds of films I never expect them to be totally accurate. Ed Wood is one of my favorite films, but they took tons of liberties and made many changes to Ed Wood's real life.

Eh, Ed Wood, that's a given! It's a fantastic movie! The key to understanding it is a remark by one of the characters in it that says something like "Ed is the least critical person in Hollywood". When I heard this line it hit me - Ed (the character in this movie, not necessarily the real one) is a pure "new age" character. He is a non-judgmental saint that accepts everyone and everything as is. This is why he does not see the faults in his movies. This is why he tolerates every eccentric character and can make friends with anybody. This guy wears not only pink angora but also pink glasses.

In the movie they make it as if Bela Lugosi was alone when Wood met him, but in real life Lugosi was married.

Did you know that it was said that the reason why the film was in black and white was because no one could decide how Bela Lugosi should look filmed in color?

I didn't know that, but that's interesting.

YEEEES! At last, a movie trivia you didn't know! Woohoo!

great post!

when I was 14 and living here in Argentina, I went to see The Exorcist at the movies..this country is 95% Roman Catholic and I remember the theater stopping the movie half way through because a couple of women fainted and had to be taken out by ambulance, they never finished showing the movie and it was removed the next day...

I had to wait years later to watch the end on TV...

Im not sure which scared me more, the movie or the women screaming and fainting away...

Wow, pmarco41, I've never experienced anything like that at the theater. Both my sisters have had interesting stories about seeing horror movies in the theaters back in the 70's.

Pmarco, what an experience you had!

Bah. Nothing even remotely exciting happens to me when I watch in a theater.

Cherish that moment, Red, they're few and far between

As few were the instances that I knew something in the industry that you did not, it is all nicely recorded and catalogued for future gloating reference.