For some, The Lord of the Rings was Star Wars for a new generation: a three-film epic complete with sweeping cinescapes, a magnificent story, memorable characters, and a score for the ages. So there were high hopes for the prequel, The Hobbit, a standalone J.R.R. Tolkien novel which director Peter Jackson and his cohorts also turned into a trilogy. The second film, The Desolation of Smaug, opens today.
Reviews for the first film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, were not all kind. With just a few hundred pages of source material to pull from, the movie was considered by some to be bloated and overwrought, with scenes and material that should have been cut. However, we have no doubt that people will welcome any padding this time around, because the greedy dragon Smaug is played by Benedict Cumberbatch doing full motion-capture, and that's just cool.
Creative issues aside, however, it was the new 48-frames-per-second format that turned off some critics. Traditionally, films have been shot and projected in 24 frames per second. With The Hobbit films, Jackson moved to 48 frames per second, which apparently looks more like the digital video shot for ESPN and daytime television than what we're used to seeing in a feature film. A byproduct of the digital age, indeed. (If you're not afraid to check out The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in 48fps 3D, check out the list of theaters capable of projecting it.)
Besides the aesthetics, the new format caused some viewers to experience vertigo and disorientation—a phenomenon called "movie hurl"—which, to be fair, some directors would love to inspire. Horror filmmakers in particular have been moving from the terror of what the audience doesn't see to literally terrorizing viewers with the most graphic and nauseating imagery imaginable.
The fact is, plenty of movies have caused actual physical distress beyond squeamishness. Some have been simply due to photosensitive epilepsy, which can trigger seizures from bright, strobing, or cyclic light in those afflicted. Other movies, however, have provoked such profound reactions that they have been blamed for the deaths of viewers. What are these horrible films? Click on to find out.
Editor's Note: This story was first published on Dec. 14, 2012
Prometheus
In the future, surgery won't require a surgeon, just a fancy bed that will cut you open itself. Maybe that'll be great, but in Ridley Scott's pseudo-prequel to Alien, Noomi Rapace has to use the surgery med-pod for an emergency c-section to remove an extraterrestrial parasite. More than one person has personally blogged about passing out during the scene.
The Passion of the Christ
And you thought Avatar was bad. The horrific scenes of torture depicted in Mel Gibson’s biblical epic freaked out viewers enough that at least two people reportedly died from heart attacks at screenings: a Brazilian pastor and a woman from Kansas.
The Exorcist
No less an august body than the New York Times reported that 40 years ago this month, upon the opening of William Friedkin's The Exorcist, people not only lined up for several blocks but also vomited (or fainted, or just left the theater) en masse at some of the goings-on when little Regan became possessed by the devil.
Avatar
How many films can claim that a viewer actually, if allegedly, died as a result of seeing it? Avatar can. A Taiwanese man, identified only by his surname Kuo, started to feel unwell during a screening in the northern city of Hsinchu, China, and was taken to a hospital. Mr Kuo, who suffered from hypertension, was unconscious when he arrived and later died. Doctors claimed that Kuo’s brain began hemorrhaging as a result of the excitement caused from watching the film.
Pokemon
OK, so it’s not a movie. But in 1997, the flashes of light that accompanied the Pokemon TV episode "Electric Soldier Porygon" sent hundreds of Japanese kids to the hospital for epileptic seizures. The episode was never shown again.
Breaking Dawn (Part One)
The birth scene in the sparkly vampire flick reportedly caused at least nine people to begin convulsing, according to CBS. No, the convulsions weren’t caused by the acting, but by the intense flashes of red and white light projected on screen.
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
One of the most famous early American films, this 12-minute long short used a variety of novel film techniques that inspired filmmakers. The most famous shot, however, was the final one, when the outlaw leader "shoots" directly at the camera. The first projected motion picture ever shown in the U.S. took place in 1896, just seven years earlier; to many, the outlaw was shooting directly at them. Panic ensued, with bouts of fainting and other afflictions reported.
Psycho
You'd think in the 1960s, when the world was a touch more innocent, Alfred Hitchcock's classic tale of a boy and his mom would have made people sick left and right. And it did in a way: it caused a huge rash of ablutophobia, the fear of bathing, or more specifically, showering. In fact, Janet Leigh, star of that very famous shower scene, feared exactly that right up to her death. (No word on if Anne Heche prefers tubbies.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Some early reviewers of the first LOTR prequel complained that the 48 frames per second made viewers physically ill. The complaints pretty much died down after the film finally was released, though. It's just as likely that the 3D—and 3D ticket prices—were to blame for some nausea.
127 Hours
It's no secret that the premise of this film, directed by Danny "Slumdog Millionaire" Boyle and starring James "every other movie" Franco, is the true story about a man who was trapped after a fall and survived by cutting his arm off with a pair of pliers. Paramedics were called to the actual film premieres in the United Kingdom and the United States, and there's a timeline online of all the faintings and worse at showings of the flick.