I just watched a Dr. House episode about a patient with Locked-In Syndrome. The intro shows it from his perspective, we hear his thoughts, while the doctors speak around him, almost preparing him for surgery to take out his organs for organ donation... Basically the whole episode is done in this fashion.
Now just this 1 minute intro gave me the chills, how are there no movies about this? It could be a found footage style movie where we only see the room from the characters perspective, everyone keeps talking around him, maybe some freaky shit is happening. Room changes when they move him, view changes when they move his head etc etc.
At least to me it sounds like a very interesting concept, thats inherently terrifying, and could be made with low budget, as you don't really have to show that much stuff on camera.
Johnny Got His Gun is similar, just not specifically 'locked in,' and it's not billed as horror but might as well be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)
Also featured in Metallica's video for One back in the day
Apparently Metallica even bought the rights to the movie and were the ones who released it on DVD: http://www.rebeatmag.com/fantasia-obscura-how-the-real-life-trumbo-influenced-metallica/
After reading the description for the movie, I realize that I saw that music video once a long time ago, and I had wondered where the movie footage came from.
My favorite Metallica Song.
DARKNESS IMPRISONING ME
ALL THAT I SEE
ABSOLUTE HORROR
I CANNOT LIVE
I CANNOT DIE
TRAPPED IN MYSELF
BODY MY HOLDING CELL
LANDMINE HAS TAKEN MY SIGHT
TAKEN MY SPEECH
TAKEN MY HEARING
TAKEN MY ARMS
TAKEN MY LEGS
TAKEN MY SOUL
LEFT ME WITH LIFE IN HELLLLLLLL
God, that film is so upsetting. :shiver:
Will check it out, thank you!
It’s ultimately very uplifting.
A real head-nodder.
Honestly maybe the scariest film I've ever seen. Just imagining being in that character's shoes is nightmare fuel.
I was just going to say Johnny Got His Gun is exactly this although more anti-war. Coma was kind of a similar theme at the end. After Life with Liam Neeson a variation on the theme. Heck even the Michelle Pffeifer in the bathtub in What Lies Beneath. They must be lots more including things like that Gerard Butler movie where he tortures his family killers while drugged. Even the Vanishing is similar helplessness stuff and Theory of Everything too. I mean even Body Double plays into the theme of helplessness. Fantastic Voyage is the same thing from the inside perspective.
One of the very few films I have noped out on, I just found it too distressing. It's probably a good movie I have no idea 😂
This^
I have never heard anyone else mention this book! I spontaneously found it on a library shelf in high school, but to this day its influence on me remains. It's neat to see it influenced others too!
It's been done.
The Tales from the Crypt episode titled Abra Cadaver is exactly this, and is often regarded as the scariest episode (sure stuck in my mind for 30 years or so).
Also, Stephen King wrote a short story called Autopsy Room Four, which is about a man experiencing his own autopsy, told in the first-person. It's, uh... tense.
Autopsy room 4 was also adapted for tv in the ‘Nightmares and Dreamscapes’ series from 2006
Good call! I missed that.
It was adapted in Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. Episode 7.
The Stephen King short story was great. With a great twist.
If it’s told in the Feist person would that be Autopsy in Room 1-2-3-4?
Raymond Feistperson?
I was thinking of that one!
Are u sure it was locked in? I mean I remember one where the dead person can still feel pain but I interpreted that as like the soul hadn't left the body yet so he still felt it.
It definitely left me thinking I don't want to be autopsied.
Isn’t there a Poe tale where Vincent Price has his wife in a tomb for years too.
Also an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, guest-starrong Joseph Cotton! I don't remember the name of the episode but it freaked me out like hell as a college student.
The episode Mournin' mess scared me when I was a kid. But I digress.
Hmm, didn't they do something similar with Awake? (edit: Except it was while the procedure was being done. Not really horror though. 🤔)
My first thought was Awake! It’s definitely more of a thriller, but being unable to move, while completely aware of what’s going on while you’re having surgery performed on you… it’s frightening!
Certain brain surgeries are conducted with the patient being awake. Local anesthesia is given for the cutting of the skull, but the brain doesn't have any pain receptors on it. The patient stays awake so that they can perform a variety of tasks while surgeons work on the brain, to ensure they don't interfere with sections of the brain that would prevent those tasks for the patient in the future. You may have seen images of people playing an instrument while undergoing surgery like this.
Oh, I know. It’s still nerve-racking! We watched a video on this very thing in high school. In the video, they were performing a brain operation on some young guy, and were asking him to count upwards. Everything was fine as they poked and prodded, and I distinctly recall him going, “Seven, Eight, poke Ni-uh-IIIIINEEEEE.”
Yeah but in Awake he is one of the people who stay awake and unmoving during surgery! It happens to people! They feel the pain! Awake us a great movie.
Chicago Hope also did an episode of that phenomenon. It was a shocking episode.
Yes! Exactly! Like the entire idea of it was terrifying even if it wasn't a horror movie.
Also immediately thought of Awake.
Oh and Awakenings too.
Oooh that sounds interesting, thanks!
Also where my brain went. And it's not horror? Damn that's one of the few movies I had to turn off it made me so uncomfortable. So it counts for me lol
I also came here to say Awake
Yes, but Awake just got too ridiculous with the other plot threads. Kinda felt like a redditor wrote it.
It definitely over complicated itself. But the concept was neat!
I mean I wouldnt say its horror, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is kinda like this.
This is what I was scrolling the comments to see if it was posted. Amazing film!
This movie was extremely disturbing and unsettling. Also came to my mind even though it’s not a horror film.
Literally my biggest fear. Even though It’s not horror, one of the scariest films I have seen
Awesome movie
I read the book decades ago and the phrase "locked in my carcass" still lives rent free in my head. Terrifying.
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" had Breakdown which was about a paralyzed person. I believe there is a horror version of it from Tales from the Crypt.
The horror version was the one with Humphrey Bogart, right? It wasn't locked in, he was dead. He just was able to see and hear shit.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS6E15YouMurderer
I was about to say this, such a good episode!
The Breakdown episode was directed by Hitchcock himself.
I mean it kinda ruins the twist, but Ghost Stories (2017)
I came here to shout Ghost Stories into the void! Love that film so much. I even went to the show.
It's okay to ruin that twist. In fact it's best to just stop watching before that point.
Apparently it worked really well in the stage show where they would do things like waft a bleach smell at the audience.
Yeah that movie is a great example of its pieces really don’t add up to a better whole. I enjoyed segments and it was ALMOST there being a good film but fell apart
I liked it.
Normally I have no issue with the"It was a dream all along!" twist, because hey, I'm along for the ride and as long as I had fun it's all good. But in this movie in particular, I spent the whole film thinking this was a big elaborate puzzle that I'd be rewarded for figuring out, so I was looking for clues and piecing together details between the stories. But it was all a dream , so no, there wasn't a puzzle to figure out and it was all just nonsense in the end. I was loving the movie right up until that reveal, and then I kind of hated it.
I wrote a more in-depth review about it a while back if you want more of my thoughts. There were more issues than just that twist but that was the big one.
I disagree that it was nonsense, that’s all.
While not a movie, the Tales from the Crypt episode Abra Cadaver is something like what you're looking for.
Stephen King wrote a short story about this. I forget what book its in. I want to say Everything's Eventual, but could be wrong.
I can't do spoiler tags, so I'll just say there's a horror film about an autopsy that fits too.
It’s in Nightmares & Dreamscapes. The name of the story is Autopsy Room Four
The name of the story is correct but it's the first story in Everything's Evenutal. I have that and Nightmares and Dreamscapes and just double checked.
The confusion comes from them making it an episode on the Stephen King anthology show titled Nightmares and Dreamscapes, they had more episodes than stories from the book.
I like Creepshow on Shudder too.
That's right! I believe there was a short lived TV series of the same name that featured the story too.
Yeah they made a short film out of all the stories in the collection. I used to have the DVD collection some of them were really weird, even by Stephen King standards
As a horror lit nerd, I got to correct a few things. "Autopsy Room 4" was in the collection EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL, not NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES.
In regards to N&D, absolutely not every story was adapted into a short film. You're getting confused with the TV show of the same name which adapted stories from King's entire career (including AR4): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmares_%26_Dreamscapes:_From_the_Stories_of_Stephen_King
This concludes by nerd moment.
I have only watched a couple episodes. 20-some years ago. Even longer since I've read the books from King's Golden Age.
I'm in my early 40's. Memory is foggy, lol. I recently read Fairy Tale and absolutely loved it. Actually read the entire thing out loud, because I thought it was appropriate for the story.
I read it in Everything's eventual.
Ozploitation gem “Patrick” (1978) has a really subtle take on this theme: trailer
I was going to mention this! There is also an Italian version Patrick Still Lives (1980). Same concept, more nudity
Not horror, per se, but Johnny Got His Gun (1971) is about a soldier who gets horribly maimed by a bomb and wakes up in a hospital where he can no longer see, hear, speak or move, and is trapped in his body trying to figure out a way to communicate with the outside world while slowly losing his mind.
It’s horrific enough to be at least horror-adjacent.
It's also where the footage from Metallica's 'One' music video comes from.
I will definitely check it out! Thanks
I would say it’s pretty horrifying
I remember a horror movie around 2010 about a guy who has a hospital procedure and starts hallucinating ghosts or something afterward, and it turbs out he's been locked in the whole time; I'm blanking the name and can't seem to find it. The lead actor was a guy I've seen in other stuff but can't remember his name either- he looked a lot like Zach Braff but the only celebrity lookalike I can find on Google is Dax Shepard (but it wasn't him).
Sublime. Pretty cool movie too!
Thank you so much, I've been wracking my brain! I might need to go re-watch it now.
came on this thread hoping to find the name of this movie-it was GOOD. been trying to remember the name for YEARS.
Definitely came here to see if anyone was talking about Sublime. It is sort of terrible but I've also watched it several times?
it's def not well done but there's something about it
That's funny you say he looks like Zach Braff, that actor has a reoccurring role as his brother in Scrubs.
Afterlife, medically induced, Christina Richie, Liam Neeson. Kind of.
Awake with Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba. Good movie.
“Skeleton key” kinda has a character who can’t talk or move .. even though we don’t see his perspective we can only imagine what he is going through
When you find out at the end…. That movie wasnt good by any means but i think about it often to this day (i saw it when it first hit theaters)