Mindbending Movie Scenes

http://www.totalfilm.com/features/30-mindbending-movie-scenes/

I've taken this article from totalfilm.com about mind-bending movie scenes that i've either seen or i've picked out in particular because i want to see them. I purposely picked out a variety of movies from different periods of time from as early as the 1940's  with Hitchcocks Spellbound. Vfx has come a long way in the last few years, and even more so over the last 70 years, but the aim to effect an audience in an uncomfortable mannor has the same principles.

Knocked Up (2007)

The Scene: Cirque du Soleil on mushrooms… sounded like a good idea at the time, didn’t it chaps? Oh dear…

The Crazy: Grotesque French clowns, made all the more grotesque thanks to Judd Apatow’s fish-eye lens. No wonder the boys head straight back to the hotel afterwards!

Natural Born Killers (1994)

The Scene: The diner sequence, in which Mickey and Mallory lay waste to a posse of rednecks in supremely grisly style.

The Crazy: As the camera lurches woozily around the diner, rapidly flipping between colour and black and white, you can tell that a storm is brewing. And when it finally arrives, its quite the head-rush!

Requiem For A Dream (2000)

The Scene: Sara hallucinates that she’s watching herself compete on her favourite game show, while her fridge steadily makes its way from the kitchen towards her armchair.

The Crazy: Things get increasingly upsetting as Sara’s fragile grasp on reality steadily begins to ebb away, and her fantasy life comes ramming into her consciousness with extreme prejudice.

Spun (2002)

The Scene: Brittany Murphy and Jason Schwartzman get their tweak on as they cruise round LA whilst completely out of their heads.

The Crazy: It's jump-cuts ahoy as the audience gets a look inside the minds of a pair of meth users. Not advisable for sufferers of the jitters…

The Shining (1980)

The Scene: As poor old Wendy Torrance tries to make her escape, she stumbles upon a man in a bear suit giving a spot of oral relief to a fellow partygoer. Whuh?

The Crazy: It’s a moment of purest surrealism that totally throws the audience for a loop in the middle of an already hugely tense sequence!

Spellbound (1945)

The Scene: Gregory Peck recounts the bizarre dreams he's been having, in which a sinister masked man stalks him at every turn.

The Crazy: Dream sequences often give a director license to go a little "out there", and Hitchcock doesn't waste the opportunity, hiring Salvador Dali to construct his dreamscapes.

Zoolander (2001)

The Scene: A gloriously silly bit of head-scrambling, as Mugatu brainwashes Zoolander in supremely daft fashion. Just look at that dog…

The Crazy: It might be played for laughs, but this is still a pleasingly surreal affair, even if it largely revolves around Will Ferrell shouting!

Trainspotting (1996)

The Scene: Renton feels the full force of heroin withdrawal as his parents lock him in his bedroom and force him to go cold turkey…

The Crazy: The horrifying, bloated baby crawling across the ceiling is enough to put you off drugs for life. Stay n school, kids!

Across The Universe (2007)

The Scene: A brain-scrambling circus scene in which Ringmaster Mr. Kite presides over a bizarre menagerie indeed. Come back Zippo, all is forgiven…

The Crazy: Clowns are a bit scary at the best of times, but these take it to the next level. Yikes!

Enter The Void (2010)

The Scene: The entire movie probably qualifies, but we'll opt for the sequence set within a woman's birth canal. which will buzz around your brain long after the credits have rolled.

The Crazy: Watching a sex scene from inside a woman's  body as the camera follows the semen's journey to the ovum, is quite an experience...

Dumbo (1941)

The Scene: Pink elephants on parade. What exactly were those animators smoking, we wonder?

The Crazy: The discordant music is pretty disorientating on its own, but pared with the grotesquely distorted elephants, its doubly effective.

Easy Rider (1969)

The Scene: Our freewheeling heroes decide to drop some acid in New Orleans. It's quite fun to begin with, and then you get the feeling they'd probably quite like it to stop.

The Crazy: Quick-fire editing, strange imagery and a sprinkling of nudity is the perfect way to recreate the mania of a heavy dose of acid.

Vertigo (1958)

The Scene: Scotty's famously trippy nightmare, in which our hero finds his sleep disturbed by some very lurid imagery, as designed by expressionist artist John Ferren.

The Crazy: The close-up on the locket, complete with flashing colours and Carlotta's disconcerting stare, is disturbing in the extreme.

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)

The Scene: The boys attempt to check into a Vegas hotel  while tripping their nuts off. Needless to say, it doesn't run entirely smoothly, particularly since the receptionist appears to be transforming into a dragon!

The Crazy: "There is no way of explaining the terror I felt," says Depp's character. And who can blame him?

Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)

The Scene: Wonka takes his party of visitors on a nightmarish boat trip through a psychedelic tunnel of horrors. Do not adjust your sets…

The Crazy: The whole sequence feels as if it's been lifted from an avant-garde horror movie rather than a slice of wholesome family entertainment.