Horror movies that made audiences sick

Some horror movies are just a little too scary and a little too gruesome for the audience to take. Throughout movie history, there have been horror movies for people who like to get a little scared at the theater. But some movies take scaring the audience very seriously, and the result is people passing out or getting sick in their seats.

Terrifier 3 is the latest in a long line of horror movies that push the boundaries of gore and taste, aiming specifically to get the audience squirming. Even going so far as to advertise with footage of audience reactions to the violence.

In honor of Terrifier 3, we’re looking back through film history at some of the horror movies that had people walking out, fainting, vomiting, or worse.

1 The Exorcist (1973)

The granddaddy of terrifying, grossout horror

Few films in cinema history are as famously scary as The Exorcist. William Friedkin’s iconic possession movie was a massive box office success and became the first horror movie ever nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, all thanks to its extreme horror. In fact, marketing for the movie highlighted the movie as a torturous experience for the audience. News crews interviewed audience members who had fainted, got sick, or had to leave their screenings due to terrifying demonic possession sequences.

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2 Raw (2016)

Some audience members just can’t stomach cannibalism

When French director Julia Ducournau premiered her film Raw at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016, it was a lot for some audience members to take. The film is about a young woman, a vegetarian, who goes off to veterinary school and finds herself developing a taste for flesh. It starts with animal meat, but eventually graduates to cannibalistic cravings. With lots of footage of the lead character eating raw meat of all kinds, it was a bit much for some people attending the premiere.

It was reported at the time that paramedics were called to the screening when some audience members fainted. Ducournau would follow up Raw with the similarly intense body horror film Titane, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and also inspired strong physical reactions from audiences.

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3 Saw III (2006)

The torture porn craze goes mainstream

The first Saw movie was one of the most intense, gruesome horror movies of its day, but the sequels only took things further. In particular, Saw III, released in 2006, took the series definitely in the direction of torture porn, focusing less on the suspense, twists, and atmosphere than the outright disgusting contraptions built to mutilate and murder the movie’s characters. It was so extreme, that the BBC reported at the time on paramedics being called to screenings in order to attend to fainting audience members.

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4 The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The line between fiction and reality gets blurry

It was the movie that kicked off the found footage craze. When The Blair Witch Project opened in 1999, it was a sensation, in part because its clever marketing had many in the audience believing it was completely real, heightening the fright. Many were convinced that the movie was, in fact, an actual piece of found footage left behind by people who had gone out in search of the mythical Blair Witch and never came back. Though as it turns out, it wasn’t the terror of the movie that had people running to the bathroom to throw up, but rather, according to the Washington Post, the movie’s often dizzying handheld camerawork.

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5 The Last House on the Left (1972)

One of the most shocking movies ever made

Wes Craven is best known as the mastermind behind the Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream movies, but his career was launched with a much grimier, more scandalous thriller. The Last House on the Left is a rape-revenge movie from the early ’70s that remains one of the most scandalous, unpleasant movies ever made. Audiences at the time agreed, with many fainting or walking out due to the intense subject matter.

A theater in Massachusets even published an open letter in the newspaper to justify their continued screening of the film. Capitalizing on the frenzy surrounding the movie, its marketing team even cooked up the memorable tagline, “To avoid fainting, keep repeating ‘It’s only a movie’ …”

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6 In a Violent Nature (2024)

The slasher movie gets a sickening twist

One of the surprise horror hits of the year was the Canadian micro-budget slash In a Violent Nature, which twisted the genre in a big way by having the audience primarily follow the killer, rather than the victims. Stylistically, much of the film is quite serene, with the camera following the killer as he slowly trudges through woodlands searching out his prey. But when it comes to the murder sequences themselves, things get extremely gory, with some incredibly creative and gruesome practical effects and a whole lot of blood and guts.

It was all gross enough that according to some reports, audience members were vomiting at their screenings of the film. No doubt, word about the intense violence only helped the film’s success.

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7 V/H/S (2012)

One very intense midnight movie

Sometimes the way to make a horror movie extra terrifying is to actually make it six horror movies in one. When the anthology movie V/H/S, which has spawned a series of sequels, premiered at Sundance in 2012, it was a bit too much for some audience members. It was reported at the time that the film, comprised of shorts directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and Radio Silence, prompted fainting among audience members. Paramedics had to be called to the scene.

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8 Terrifier 2 (2022)

One of the most gruesome movies ever made

Horror hardly gets more extreme than Terrifier 2, which took a franchise that had gained an audience on streaming and turned it into a bona fide theatrical sensation. That’s thanks in part to coming up with a truly memorable, scary villain in Art the Clown. But what audiences were mostly there to witness was the intense and extreme murder sequences.

There were reports from numerous screenings of Terrifier 2 of audience members passing out due to the violence. One can only assume director Damien Leone is hoping to recapture that grossout magic with Terrifier 3.

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