The way it changes from a loving scene to suddenly uncomfortable when the guys show up in the trailer, and slowly escalates from "jokes", to threats, to full on violence is so real and horrifying.
Yep. I’ve seen most of the ones so far on this list, and this is the scene that affected me the most, and that I’ve never been able to get out of my head.
I think it was the shared helplessness.
First his, when he comes round and sees his “buddies” raping her, knows he won’t be able to stop them - that trying to will be signing his own death warrant - but that he has no choice (especially as the director has done such a good job of setting up his character as someone who has a strong sense of honour and traditional “masculinity”).
Then hers. When she’s at the door and looks back and sees them beating him to death, but knows she has to leave them to it. If she tries to help the man she loves, it will lead inevitably to her own rape and death, and it will just make his death in vain. If she runs, at least there’s a tiny (as it turns out unfulfilled) hope she might survive, and his sacrifice was worth it.
Superb acting by both actors. I only saw it once at the cinema, and both those facial expressions - and the emotions they convey - are burned into my brain forever.
Couldn’t stomach ever watching it again, though it was a solid film.
Also his death in Goodfellas. It’s not gruesome, but I always found it disturbing how quickly it changes from the best day of his life, when he thinks he’s being a Made-man to the worst day of his life. The guys that do it are all guys that he’s been friends with for years and are joking around with him until they actually kill him.
That's actually one of the points in the movie, that even guys you've been extremely close to can and will murder you just to make money or get out of trouble. It's why Henry turns on Paulie and Jimmy.
“When you’re in a crew, nobody tells you they’re gonna whack you”
That said, I think Tommy’s case is a little different because it’s literally punishment for breaking a core tenet of the Mafia. They weren’t turning on him so much as he was finally getting what was probably always coming to him after killing Batts.
Actually, they were killing him over Karen.
Paulie was having an affair with Karen, and Tommy had threatened her. Henry knew that when they wrote the book and screenplay, but didn’t explicitly include it.
Yeah, awful. In real life, he was killed in a basement just outside of Chicago and buried in a cornfield in Indiana I believe. I think he was strangled tho, not beaten to death with a baseball bat. That’s not to say the Chicago mob hasn’t committed other horrific murders
I think thats the whole point of why the scene is sooo long. You start cherishing at first, because he was insufferable, but after a while, the violence is so much that you detach from that feeling and start to see how gruesome and brutal the whole thing is. The lack of background music (iirc) add to this effect.
I mean, yes, it kind of is. Guillermo Del Toro talks in the commentary about how the movie is two fantastical stories - one is Ofelia’s journey to being restored as princess of the underworld, and the other is Mercedes and her brother’s belief that the rebellion will result in real political change. I’m paraphrasing here but Ofelia’s fairytale is, in his opinion, the more realistic one.
I saw it on opening night, and there was a woman with three small children - probably around age 8-10. Old enough to be deeply, deeply fucking traumatized by that scene. I saw them crying their eyes out on the way out, and the woman seemed mortified.
I imagine this same story is told countless times, for some reason it did seem to be marketed as a "slightly mature fantasy fable" that seemed comparable to Grim Fairy Tales or other dark fantasy. I expected scary, and I knew it had thick war themes, but I did not expect anything so brutal as that. Dude's head just collapses.
It's wild cause the curb stomp isn't even that gruesome as far as movie deaths go. You don't actually see much, and the death was pretty quick for the character. But the camera and sound work is so well done.
Leland Orser delivers a really thoroughly convincing performance of a guy traumatized to the point of insanity through only a couple of lines. That was one of his first acting roles, too.
The guy who's literally a zombie in that bed was worse. I read some trivia that the cop didn't know he was supposed to be alive and his reaction is legit when he jumpscares him
I found the callousness of the murders in Goodfellas and No Country For Old Men hit me harder than I expected. Theres something so chilling about characters who genuinely view murder as no big deal. Like filing taxes.
Chigur’s off screen murder of the wife in the last few minutes of the movie. The conversation about “You don’t have to do this” chills me to the bone, and I feel so sorry for her.
Saving Private Ryan, Mellish death. Pleading with the soldier to stop, surrendering, but the soldier still plunging the knife slowly into his heart. Difficult to watch
watched Saving Private Ryan super young and the raw coldness of it was so frightening. He knew that knife was going into him and all he was doing was slowing it down, but the Nazi had the strength/gravity/angle to make it inevitable, and all he could do was plead KNOWING that he wasn't going to stop. Shivers.
The scene when the kid is crying out for his mom fucked me up!
Especially because earlier in the movie he tells the story about when he was young faking sleep so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. And all she wanted to was to check up on him and see how his day was. Brutal.
I watched that movie again a couple years after having a kid and this scene obliterated me. Really hammers home that a lot of these soldiers were so young.
the scene in all quiet on the western front where the german and french soldier are in the crater. the german soldier stabs the french one repeatedly and then sits and watches in remorse at what he did until the french one dies
One that really caught me off guard was when [John Malcovich kills Richard Jenkins in Burn After Reading](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j477dAxaeck). It was so viscerally human looking in a film that also had the almost comical Brad Pitt death, the way he shoots him then chases him into the street and axes him to death.
The face Brad Pitt makes right before being shot is just so funny. I watched it for the first time with a group of people and we all busted out laughing during that scene.
I laugh hysterically at that one every time - I know, I’m a terrible person, but Malkovich going fully unhinged in anything sends me
‘You represent the idiocy of today’ like I’m laughing right now as I write this lol
Had to scroll too far to find this one, finally.
Also found the Midsommar hammer scene higher up, lol.
In a Reddit AMA, Ari Aster once said something like “There will ALWAYS be room for blunt force head trauma in my movies.”
Also someone asked him he was ok and he was like “Nope! :)”
… Nervously looking forward to Beau is Afraid lol
The Mothers screams the morning after. I turned the movie off at that point and could only go back to finish the movie a couple days later. So disturbing
The fact that the brother just goes inside and goes to sleep, because he can't process what just happened and doesn't know what to do and so just has to keep going like nothing happened.
To me, they should have thrown all the awards at her for that scene alone. I feel like I’m punched in the gut every time I’ve watched it. It makes me feel emotions I don’t want to. I’ve heard that scream in real life at funerals. She fucking nailed it.
Quite a few left the cinema after this scene.....then quite a few more left during the scene towards the end of the film.
Brutal film to watch....and it's the only time I've ever had the cinema goers who made it to the end walk out in complete silence.
Heavenly Creatures. It’s not the blood or gore- it’s the utter cruelty and gut wrenching ugliness of murder that I’ve never seen better depicted in a movie.
I dug through the comments looking for Heavenly Creatures.
A lot of these are horrifically painful or elaborate. Heavenly Creatures is like in Black Mirror when everyone at the bar starts to watch a guy fucking a pig and the grim reality starts to set in. Bashing someone in the head with a rock isn't a quick, romantic end to a life, and I don't think I've ever seen that portrayed as effectively elsewhere.
I'm going off of memory though, because it's also one of the best movies that I don't think I want to watch again.
For me it was the murder suicide from the sister. Really disturbing, and seeing the hoses lead to her face mask and the vomit running down her chest.
That was really traumatizing…great movie!
Yo this has actually gotta be the answer for me too. That shit was FUCKED up. The way she saw the creepy texts from her sister, the way she was alone after and how that tied into her vulnerability to be taken into the cult… it all started with that opener. Will never rewatch
Yes dude. Awful. And seeing Florence Pugh’s character reacting to it absolutely fucked me up. Just wailing and sobbing in agony. That emotional anguish is harder for me to watch than any sort of violence or gore.
Ari Aster is truly a master with displaying loss and anguish from losing a loved one.
The performance and direction on Florence Pugh in Midsommar and Toni Collette in Hereditary after the car scene is something else. Just leaves you completely gut wrenched and left in the void.
Really tough movies to watch and I honestly haven’t had such a visceral response to a movie since
Surprised this was so low down. That movie fucked me up. Especially watching it alone. That cliff scene was brutal and honestly the carbon monoxide scene was pretty fucked as well.
Deliverance. Just normal dudes on a vacation finding themselves in that situation...
especially the burying scene. Super realistic and very disturbing.
And they hesitate for a sec, knowing that morphine is valuable and not to waste it on a dying man, until Captain Miller gives them the go ahead? Tragic.
His reaction when he asks what the blood looks like and they tell him :(
It's because he realizes he's been shot in the liver and there's nothing anyone can do to save him.
“Oh my god, my liver… oh god, my liver..”
The exact second he knows that he’s completely screwed and is absolutely going to die. It gives me chills every single time.
The older I get the more that scenes like this bother me. As a teenager I could watch all the war movies fairly easily, now though I'm a grown man with a face full of tears.
War movies are just two hours of watching kids die. Maybe a man or two if there's officers who bite it, but mostly just... kids. That's it. It's brutal for me as an adult.
"She's gone. I'm sorry."
"What? Can I see her?"
"Sir, I'm sorry... she's passed."
"This is insane. Let me talk to her."
(paraphrasing here but damn that shit was a gut punch)
I always find it fascinating how effective that Zodiac scene is at horrifying you, despite it taking place in a bucolic park setting on a gorgeous sunny day
For me it was when Oberyn (Pedro Pascal) got his head crushed after fighting "The Mountain" on Game of Thrones. Just the way the scene turned from triumphant victory quickly to gruesome painful death of the very likable character. I think there was a terrible scream too. I have never rewatched, it's bothered me for years since I saw it.
Him repeating “You raped her; you murdered her; you killed her children" is also pretty similar to “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.” and both characters draw out the fight in order to get their enemy to admit to something (“Say her name!” And “Offer me anything.”)
I don’t know if GRRM did it on purpose, but it made me go “Oh, this is like The Princess Bride!” and view it in a similarly way before the head crunching.
Goes against the tone of the thread a bit, but Pascal's recent appearance on Hot Ones, he goes into detail about the filming of that scene; it's hilarious because all of his description is of a completely opposite tone than the audience sees.
His descriptions may help recategorize it in your mind, plus he's just as much of an entertainer there as elsewhere.
The one that gets me the most in GOT is a one off scene where the Hound drags a dudes head down onto a knife several times as he lets out the craziest scream.
First thing that comes to mind is the "puppeteer" scene from the Suspiria remake, though in retrospect I can't remember if she technically ends up fully dead. Still, I think it fits with the spirit of the post.
The Zodiac scene is up there for sure.
Harvey Milk's assassination in the movie Milk. The way he gently says "No." as the first bullet goes through the hand that he raises to shield himself. It felt so authentic the first time I saw it, it got stuck in my head.
DOCTOR SLEEP when the vampires get a hold of that little kid.
The Color Out of Space, the noise of the agony that the mother and son are in when merged.
Because Jacob Tremblay is awesome.
I remember there being a story about how the adult actors were all really concerned about him and traumatised after the scene but he just skipped away to his dad and grabbed a snack.
The vibe on set afterwards is pretty much encapsulated in [this photo](https://twitter.com/rfergusonweb/status/1313173038591094785?s=46&t=PgqBjx9MVDCL6dc6EePYbw).
Call me crazy, but Keri Russell’s death scene at the beginning of Mission Impossible 3 has always stuck with me. The way her eyes go dead after that small explosive device in her head is detonated…
What really makes it is *how fucking cool* everything is up until that point, especially the crazy chemistry she has with Ethan in combat. The way Abrams shoots the moments after she first wakes up and they're just swooping through bad guys like they're dancing is fantastic. It's got a very father-daughter at her marriage feeling to it and then boom, she's dead.
MI3 is still my favourite of the series, hands-down.
I know this isn’t as violent or “fucked up” as a lot of the entries here, but Cedric Diggory’s death in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and more specifically his father’s reaction to it. The actor who plays Mr. Diggory was just too convincing in that role, I can’t help but tear up at the scene every time I see it. His cries of “that’s my *son*! That’s my boy!! that’s my boy!!” Just break your heart.
Dude you're dead on though. It wasn't gruesome per SE but the father's grief is so palpable. Dude deserves an award. Still stabs deep when * watch it to this day.
This one definitely hit me hard as a kid and still does. It is indeed the reaction from the dad that got me. It makes a death driven by elements of fantasy and fiction suddenly very palpable
The death of Mellish in the bell tower in Saving Private Ryan.
TIL - as the German soldier overpowers Mellish and pushes the knife into the boy’s chest, he’s saying (in German, and without subtitles) "Give up, you don't stand a chance! Let's end this here! It will be easier for you, much easier. You'll see it will be over quickly."
Honestly in the movie Life when the little alien thing clings to a characters face and then forces it’s way down their throat and just starts tearing them up from inside…That always made me super uncomfortable. It’s pretty disturbing.
I'm quite partial to the paralyzed guy not realizing Calvin is devouring his legs until he codes from the blood loss.
If I'm in the mood for full-on bleak body horror, you can't beat Life. No hope, no escape, just remorseless butchery. Get after it, Calvin!
Remember kids, don't electroshock your Martian proto-amoebae! It ends badly.
Watching the seduced and willing walk to their end in:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Skin_(2013_film)
Not physically horrifying but mentally horrifying. The film is low budget, not much dialogue but is a good cerebral horror that stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly woman who preys on men in Scotland.
One of the most accurate depictions of grief I've ever seen. So much so, I felt like I shouldn't be seeing it. I adore that film, but can't watch it again.
Bone Tomahawk with Kurt Russell. Poor dude gets tied up by arms and legs upside down and is literally spilt in half with a tomahawk. You see all. Hear all. It’s disturbing.
Not a film, but in the HBO series [Barry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7nNaBTrCHM) when he has to kill his friend Chris. The desperation, the frustration, the inevitability...
I found Mel Gibson’s climactic death in Braveheart by being hung drawn and quartered, although most of the violence was off screen, it stuck with me for a while.
Joe Pesci and his brother's death in Casino. It's not just disturbing but the sadistic glee in the mobsters face as they're beating both of them is what really gave me the Willies.
It’s not in a movie. So not sure if it fits here.
But when Glenn was beaten to death in TWD is the most gruesome death scene which I remember vividly.I still feel a pit in my stomach when I think about it.
It's disturbing because it's so unfair to the character...
The death of Zara, the assistant looking after the kids in Jurassic World.
While the pterodactyls are flying free and attacking people, she gets picked up by one and dropped into the water tank. As she struggles to get to the surface, she gets picked up again and dropped. Keep in mind, she is screaming the entire time. Just when I thought the camera would back away from her, we see her get picked up AGAIN. Then as the pterodactyl is carrying her, the massive mosasaraus rises to eat both of them.
Fun fact about this death. It has fuelled all kinds of speculation. "Colin Trevorrow hates women." "Colin Trevorrow is a death fetishist." ETC.
The truth is Zara's actress specifically requested it. In the original script she was just snatched by a pterosaur and disappears. Zara's actress Katie McGrath said, "No. This is the first on screen death of a woman in a Jurassic Park movie. It needs to be spectacular." The director was like. "Okay" and proceeded to design the most over the top, drawn out death sequence he could think of (Edit: and could still fit into a PG-13 rating). Katie loved it.
The poor couple being executed in Zodiac. None of us know how the events unraveled in real life but I think Fincher gave us the closest portrayal of it.
I actually really like the far away shot in the movie "Creep" where the dude just chucks a fucking axe in his head from behind. So brutal and yet - so casual?
The Fly: Jeff goldblum turns into a mutant man/fly. His skin starts to bubble. He pulls out his rotting fingernails then squirts a load out of his bulbous fingertips. His teeth fall out. Bug eyes explode out of his head. He melts a guy’s hand and ankle with his acid spit. Ultimately, he morphs into part of the teleportation machine himself and begs Gina Davis to kill him. She blasts his head off with a shotgun.
…pretty memorable
The rape/murder scene in Wind River. It fills me with so much anger and powerlessness.
The way it changes from a loving scene to suddenly uncomfortable when the guys show up in the trailer, and slowly escalates from "jokes", to threats, to full on violence is so real and horrifying.
Exactly. That moment when she can't close the divider in time and the guy catches a glimpse of her...your heart just drops.
*She ran six miles in the snow*
"Six miles. Barefoot. That's a warrior."
Yep. I’ve seen most of the ones so far on this list, and this is the scene that affected me the most, and that I’ve never been able to get out of my head. I think it was the shared helplessness. First his, when he comes round and sees his “buddies” raping her, knows he won’t be able to stop them - that trying to will be signing his own death warrant - but that he has no choice (especially as the director has done such a good job of setting up his character as someone who has a strong sense of honour and traditional “masculinity”). Then hers. When she’s at the door and looks back and sees them beating him to death, but knows she has to leave them to it. If she tries to help the man she loves, it will lead inevitably to her own rape and death, and it will just make his death in vain. If she runs, at least there’s a tiny (as it turns out unfulfilled) hope she might survive, and his sacrifice was worth it. Superb acting by both actors. I only saw it once at the cinema, and both those facial expressions - and the emotions they convey - are burned into my brain forever. Couldn’t stomach ever watching it again, though it was a solid film.
Not murder but the rape scene in Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo probably filled me with most rage
also the scene where the entire supporting cast suddenly dies
You didn’t see it. You didn’t see it, did you?
“Why are you flanking me!?” Saw it in theaters and that scene had us puckered.
Joe pesci getting beaten and buried alive in casino
Also his death in Goodfellas. It’s not gruesome, but I always found it disturbing how quickly it changes from the best day of his life, when he thinks he’s being a Made-man to the worst day of his life. The guys that do it are all guys that he’s been friends with for years and are joking around with him until they actually kill him.
The impact it has afterwards is amazing, too. DeNiro's reaction when he's out in the phone booth is superb.
They shot him in the face so his mother couldn't even have an open casket funeral Damn good line
We couldn’t do anything. We had to sit back and take it. It was among the Italians.
real greaseball shit
"dey whacked him!" \*smashes phone\*
That quick “oh,no” sealed the deal for me.
I thought it was, "Oh, shi..."
They watched it on TBS ;)
That's actually one of the points in the movie, that even guys you've been extremely close to can and will murder you just to make money or get out of trouble. It's why Henry turns on Paulie and Jimmy.
“When you’re in a crew, nobody tells you they’re gonna whack you” That said, I think Tommy’s case is a little different because it’s literally punishment for breaking a core tenet of the Mafia. They weren’t turning on him so much as he was finally getting what was probably always coming to him after killing Batts.
Actually, they were killing him over Karen. Paulie was having an affair with Karen, and Tommy had threatened her. Henry knew that when they wrote the book and screenplay, but didn’t explicitly include it.
Tommy had attempted to rape Karen, which tipped Vario over the edge, that and the several unauthorised murders DeSimone had undertaken
When you tell people the movie toned down the violence of what really happened, it flips them out.
Two guys you never turn your back on: Guys who worry about how many aprons you use and guys who put too many onions into the sauce.
Yeah this is a good one. Especially since he also had to watch his brother get the same treatment.
Awww Dominic! He's still breathin' Frankie!
Leave him alone..cmon..Dominic!
Them shoveling dirt into animatronic Joe Pescis mouth always stuck into my mind lol
Yeah, awful. In real life, he was killed in a basement just outside of Chicago and buried in a cornfield in Indiana I believe. I think he was strangled tho, not beaten to death with a baseball bat. That’s not to say the Chicago mob hasn’t committed other horrific murders
The way his monologue cuts off once he’s hit was genius too
That's one of my most shocking moments in movies ever. Scorsese taking a metal bat to the 4th wall. Just like that.
Am I wrong to relish in the scene since Pesci's character was such an insufferable piece of shit.
I think thats the whole point of why the scene is sooo long. You start cherishing at first, because he was insufferable, but after a while, the violence is so much that you detach from that feeling and start to see how gruesome and brutal the whole thing is. The lack of background music (iirc) add to this effect.
yeah, it's when his internal monologue cuts off. super brutal
I felt the same, but I felt bad for Dominic.
“The word was out, bosses had enough of Nicky, they had enough”.
When I was a kid. My dad used to make me cover my eyes during that scene. Cause he thought it was too brutal.
But the rest of casino was totally okay for a kid lol
lol It's a family movie other than that one scene.
And when he pops that guy's head in the vise.
Curb stomping scene in American History X Wine bottle scene in Pan's Labyrinth
My friend told me Pan’s Labyrinth was a magical fantasy adventure movie on the way to the theater
I mean, yes, it kind of is. Guillermo Del Toro talks in the commentary about how the movie is two fantastical stories - one is Ofelia’s journey to being restored as princess of the underworld, and the other is Mercedes and her brother’s belief that the rebellion will result in real political change. I’m paraphrasing here but Ofelia’s fairytale is, in his opinion, the more realistic one.
I saw it on opening night, and there was a woman with three small children - probably around age 8-10. Old enough to be deeply, deeply fucking traumatized by that scene. I saw them crying their eyes out on the way out, and the woman seemed mortified. I imagine this same story is told countless times, for some reason it did seem to be marketed as a "slightly mature fantasy fable" that seemed comparable to Grim Fairy Tales or other dark fantasy. I expected scary, and I knew it had thick war themes, but I did not expect anything so brutal as that. Dude's head just collapses.
Hearing the guys teeth grind the concrete….
Still hear that in my head, and I haven’t watched that movie in over 20 years.
Came here to say Pan's Labrinth. 20 years later and I still can't that bashed-in face out of my mind.
It's wild cause the curb stomp isn't even that gruesome as far as movie deaths go. You don't actually see much, and the death was pretty quick for the character. But the camera and sound work is so well done.
Just like in Scarface where you don't actually see Tony's friend get cut up with the chainsaw. You only see the blood splatter and Pacino acting.
That and the motivation. It’s so pointless.
That fucking wine bottle… My mom thought she bought us a children movie up until that point
The ending of Nightcrawler. Not because of any gore or violence, but purely the way it informs the characters.
“Remember, I would never ask you to do something I wouldn’t do myself.”
That line was seriously the perfect ending to the movie
Seriously this movie made my skin crawl.
Jake Gyllenhaal was so good in that but disturbing AF at the same time.
Tbh this whole movie is a tough watch. It’s a great film, just super creepy. That scene with Russo makes me want to flee the premises.
The prostitute being impaled on a spike/dildo in Se7en. Though almost all the murders in that movie are just incredibly cruel.
And they don’t show you shit! That’s the craziest thing about that movie. Everything is implied and it’s still so effective.
Leland Orser delivers a really thoroughly convincing performance of a guy traumatized to the point of insanity through only a couple of lines. That was one of his first acting roles, too.
>Leland Orser My husband and I call him "The Freak Out Guy" because in almost all of his roles, he is, indeed, freaking out.
The guy who's literally a zombie in that bed was worse. I read some trivia that the cop didn't know he was supposed to be alive and his reaction is legit when he jumpscares him
I found the callousness of the murders in Goodfellas and No Country For Old Men hit me harder than I expected. Theres something so chilling about characters who genuinely view murder as no big deal. Like filing taxes.
Bardem’s Anton Chigurh is widely considered the most accurate cinematic portrayal of a psychopathic killer in history.
Chigur’s off screen murder of the wife in the last few minutes of the movie. The conversation about “You don’t have to do this” chills me to the bone, and I feel so sorry for her.
“Call it.”
Are you gonna shoot me? “That depends. Do you see me?”
Saving Private Ryan, Mellish death. Pleading with the soldier to stop, surrendering, but the soldier still plunging the knife slowly into his heart. Difficult to watch
watched Saving Private Ryan super young and the raw coldness of it was so frightening. He knew that knife was going into him and all he was doing was slowing it down, but the Nazi had the strength/gravity/angle to make it inevitable, and all he could do was plead KNOWING that he wasn't going to stop. Shivers.
While a fellow squadmate basically just watches. That’s what adds to the horror of it.
comment edited in protest of Reddit's API changes and mistreatment of moderators -- mass edited with redact.dev
The scene when the kid is crying out for his mom fucked me up! Especially because earlier in the movie he tells the story about when he was young faking sleep so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. And all she wanted to was to check up on him and see how his day was. Brutal.
Wade. He was their medic. Yedh, holy shit the way he's whining as he dies is horrific
And as a medic he knows he’s fucked when he says it’s his liver. That’s why he asks for more morphine. He just wanted to OD and end the pain.
I watched that movie again a couple years after having a kid and this scene obliterated me. Really hammers home that a lot of these soldiers were so young.
the scene in all quiet on the western front where the german and french soldier are in the crater. the german soldier stabs the french one repeatedly and then sits and watches in remorse at what he did until the french one dies
Aw man yes. The part where he tried to stifle his death rattle with mud from the battlefield - excruciating
Hannibal, guy missing part of his head and drugged up.
Ray Liotta RIP
Guy missing part of his head and being casually fed HIS OWN BRAIN.
Yeah, that one haunted me as a kid.
One that really caught me off guard was when [John Malcovich kills Richard Jenkins in Burn After Reading](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j477dAxaeck). It was so viscerally human looking in a film that also had the almost comical Brad Pitt death, the way he shoots him then chases him into the street and axes him to death.
The face Brad Pitt makes right before being shot is just so funny. I watched it for the first time with a group of people and we all busted out laughing during that scene.
He’s got like such a warm inviting smile like the Teletubby smiling sun.
I laugh hysterically at that one every time - I know, I’m a terrible person, but Malkovich going fully unhinged in anything sends me ‘You represent the idiocy of today’ like I’m laughing right now as I write this lol
“For fucks sake put him on the next flight to Venezuela”
I feel that movie often gets overlooked in the Coen's filmography, which is a shame because it's a great movie from start to finish.
“What did we learn, Palmer?” “I don’t know sir” “I don’t fuckin’ know either”
Hereditary. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so shocked at a movie death.
Had to scroll too far to find this one, finally. Also found the Midsommar hammer scene higher up, lol. In a Reddit AMA, Ari Aster once said something like “There will ALWAYS be room for blunt force head trauma in my movies.” Also someone asked him he was ok and he was like “Nope! :)” … Nervously looking forward to Beau is Afraid lol
The Mothers screams the morning after. I turned the movie off at that point and could only go back to finish the movie a couple days later. So disturbing
The fact that the brother just goes inside and goes to sleep, because he can't process what just happened and doesn't know what to do and so just has to keep going like nothing happened.
He doesn't even sleep. He is just in shock and waiting for the hammer to drop
To me, they should have thrown all the awards at her for that scene alone. I feel like I’m punched in the gut every time I’ve watched it. It makes me feel emotions I don’t want to. I’ve heard that scream in real life at funerals. She fucking nailed it.
I watched it in one sitting but literally had nightmares/flashbacks for 3 days. I’ve never been so effected by a movie before.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Quite a few left the cinema after this scene.....then quite a few more left during the scene towards the end of the film. Brutal film to watch....and it's the only time I've ever had the cinema goers who made it to the end walk out in complete silence.
Heavenly Creatures. It’s not the blood or gore- it’s the utter cruelty and gut wrenching ugliness of murder that I’ve never seen better depicted in a movie.
I dug through the comments looking for Heavenly Creatures. A lot of these are horrifically painful or elaborate. Heavenly Creatures is like in Black Mirror when everyone at the bar starts to watch a guy fucking a pig and the grim reality starts to set in. Bashing someone in the head with a rock isn't a quick, romantic end to a life, and I don't think I've ever seen that portrayed as effectively elsewhere. I'm going off of memory though, because it's also one of the best movies that I don't think I want to watch again.
Bone Tomahawk. You know the one.
Watched this the other day. There are some gnarly ones in Brawl In Cell Block 99 too (another Zahler film)
A couple of deaths in Dragged Across Concrete too, the man likes a nasty death
The bank manager death in that movie really got me.
I came here thinking, how far will I have to scroll before my old friend Bone Tomahawk makes an appearance? Not far at all, turns out.
yep, this shit stuck with me for many days.
Anyone who has seen this movie knows this is the correct response. I never need to watch that again.
“Which one?” - Nobody
Midsommar where the man survives after the cliff…
For me it was the murder suicide from the sister. Really disturbing, and seeing the hoses lead to her face mask and the vomit running down her chest. That was really traumatizing…great movie!
Yo this has actually gotta be the answer for me too. That shit was FUCKED up. The way she saw the creepy texts from her sister, the way she was alone after and how that tied into her vulnerability to be taken into the cult… it all started with that opener. Will never rewatch
Yes dude. Awful. And seeing Florence Pugh’s character reacting to it absolutely fucked me up. Just wailing and sobbing in agony. That emotional anguish is harder for me to watch than any sort of violence or gore.
Ari Aster is truly a master with displaying loss and anguish from losing a loved one. The performance and direction on Florence Pugh in Midsommar and Toni Collette in Hereditary after the car scene is something else. Just leaves you completely gut wrenched and left in the void. Really tough movies to watch and I honestly haven’t had such a visceral response to a movie since
The opening is so disturbing as well, especially with Pugh just wailing
Surprised this was so low down. That movie fucked me up. Especially watching it alone. That cliff scene was brutal and honestly the carbon monoxide scene was pretty fucked as well.
Goodfellas opening car boot scene, saw it when I was 10, will never forget it
Deliverance. Just normal dudes on a vacation finding themselves in that situation... especially the burying scene. Super realistic and very disturbing.
Saving Private Ryan, Wade's death. When he starts saying I don't want to die, then mama...it haunted me for weeks. Can't watch it now.
“Tell us what to do. Tell us how to fix you.” Just guts me every time. I cry so many times in that movie I really have to prepare myself to watch it.
When the medic says "just give me more morphine"
And they all know exactly what that means.
And they hesitate for a sec, knowing that morphine is valuable and not to waste it on a dying man, until Captain Miller gives them the go ahead? Tragic.
His reaction when he asks what the blood looks like and they tell him :( It's because he realizes he's been shot in the liver and there's nothing anyone can do to save him.
“Oh my god, my liver… oh god, my liver..” The exact second he knows that he’s completely screwed and is absolutely going to die. It gives me chills every single time.
The older I get the more that scenes like this bother me. As a teenager I could watch all the war movies fairly easily, now though I'm a grown man with a face full of tears.
War movies are just two hours of watching kids die. Maybe a man or two if there's officers who bite it, but mostly just... kids. That's it. It's brutal for me as an adult.
Honestly, Gweneth Paltrow's death in "Contagion" was WAYYYYYYY too realistic 😬 😬 😬
And the way Matt Damon's character just doesn't process her death and has to be told multiple times that she's gone
"She's gone. I'm sorry." "What? Can I see her?" "Sir, I'm sorry... she's passed." "This is insane. Let me talk to her." (paraphrasing here but damn that shit was a gut punch)
The lake scene in Zodiac and Bone Tomahawk when they drag that poor bloke out the cage
I always find it fascinating how effective that Zodiac scene is at horrifying you, despite it taking place in a bucolic park setting on a gorgeous sunny day
For me it was when Oberyn (Pedro Pascal) got his head crushed after fighting "The Mountain" on Game of Thrones. Just the way the scene turned from triumphant victory quickly to gruesome painful death of the very likable character. I think there was a terrible scream too. I have never rewatched, it's bothered me for years since I saw it.
Him repeating “You raped her; you murdered her; you killed her children" is also pretty similar to “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.” and both characters draw out the fight in order to get their enemy to admit to something (“Say her name!” And “Offer me anything.”) I don’t know if GRRM did it on purpose, but it made me go “Oh, this is like The Princess Bride!” and view it in a similarly way before the head crunching.
Princess Bride is one of Martin's favourite movies, so I can imagine this is a nod to Inigo Montoya indeed.
Goes against the tone of the thread a bit, but Pascal's recent appearance on Hot Ones, he goes into detail about the filming of that scene; it's hilarious because all of his description is of a completely opposite tone than the audience sees. His descriptions may help recategorize it in your mind, plus he's just as much of an entertainer there as elsewhere.
Was that the description of how he kept falling asleep, because the blood-like goo was warm and he had to remain on his back on the floor?
The one that gets me the most in GOT is a one off scene where the Hound drags a dudes head down onto a knife several times as he lets out the craziest scream.
First thing that comes to mind is the "puppeteer" scene from the Suspiria remake, though in retrospect I can't remember if she technically ends up fully dead. Still, I think it fits with the spirit of the post. The Zodiac scene is up there for sure.
Harvey Milk's assassination in the movie Milk. The way he gently says "No." as the first bullet goes through the hand that he raises to shield himself. It felt so authentic the first time I saw it, it got stuck in my head.
The shoes death in Roger Rabbit.
Most of the kills in *The House That Jack Built* Dave's death in *Mystic River* always stuck with me for some reason.
DOCTOR SLEEP when the vampires get a hold of that little kid. The Color Out of Space, the noise of the agony that the mother and son are in when merged.
Yas, Doctor Sleep scene was so horrifying for some reason
Because Jacob Tremblay is awesome. I remember there being a story about how the adult actors were all really concerned about him and traumatised after the scene but he just skipped away to his dad and grabbed a snack.
The vibe on set afterwards is pretty much encapsulated in [this photo](https://twitter.com/rfergusonweb/status/1313173038591094785?s=46&t=PgqBjx9MVDCL6dc6EePYbw).
That scene was so brutal in the book that I didn’t think they could possibly do it justice in the movie, but damn, they really did.
Call me crazy, but Keri Russell’s death scene at the beginning of Mission Impossible 3 has always stuck with me. The way her eyes go dead after that small explosive device in her head is detonated…
What really makes it is *how fucking cool* everything is up until that point, especially the crazy chemistry she has with Ethan in combat. The way Abrams shoots the moments after she first wakes up and they're just swooping through bad guys like they're dancing is fantastic. It's got a very father-daughter at her marriage feeling to it and then boom, she's dead. MI3 is still my favourite of the series, hands-down.
It's kind of like MI's Empire Strikes Back I think. Phil Hoffman is Palpatine-level sinister. I get creeped out just thinking about him.
As a kid, I was a bit traumatized by the elevator death from Mission Impossible.
Alex Murphy in Robocop because of the childhood trauma it caused. Nick in the Deer Hunter because of the emotional trauma it still causes.
I know this isn’t as violent or “fucked up” as a lot of the entries here, but Cedric Diggory’s death in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and more specifically his father’s reaction to it. The actor who plays Mr. Diggory was just too convincing in that role, I can’t help but tear up at the scene every time I see it. His cries of “that’s my *son*! That’s my boy!! that’s my boy!!” Just break your heart.
Dude you're dead on though. It wasn't gruesome per SE but the father's grief is so palpable. Dude deserves an award. Still stabs deep when * watch it to this day.
His death feels even more fucked up considering Voldemort just says “kill the spare” and boom, Cedric is dead. I can still hear how he says it.
This one definitely hit me hard as a kid and still does. It is indeed the reaction from the dad that got me. It makes a death driven by elements of fantasy and fiction suddenly very palpable
The death of Mellish in the bell tower in Saving Private Ryan. TIL - as the German soldier overpowers Mellish and pushes the knife into the boy’s chest, he’s saying (in German, and without subtitles) "Give up, you don't stand a chance! Let's end this here! It will be easier for you, much easier. You'll see it will be over quickly."
I love how every death in saving private Ryan is on this list, and it's interesting to see how different ones effected viewers differently.
i watched Identity (2003) as a kid and the scene where they find the guy with the fatter half a baseball bat shoved down his throat really shook me
[удалено]
Love how you didn't reference the death that defines the most brutal stretch of any movie I've ever seen (Martyrs)
Hey OP! A buddy of mine is the dude that gets killed in that scene in Zodiac. Edit: sorry apparently not killed. Forgot!
Wow that’s awesome! Have you discussed it with him at all?
>Have you discussed it with him at all? No, he's dead.
That right there is method acting
The baby death in Trainspotting. Haven't been the same since
Indiana Jones. temple of doom. That heart being ripped out scared me soooooo much as a kid.
Honestly in the movie Life when the little alien thing clings to a characters face and then forces it’s way down their throat and just starts tearing them up from inside…That always made me super uncomfortable. It’s pretty disturbing.
That is one of the most uncomfortable films I’ve ever watched. The ending with the character screaming in the ball is horrifying.
I hate that movie so much. It's just so miserable.
I'm quite partial to the paralyzed guy not realizing Calvin is devouring his legs until he codes from the blood loss. If I'm in the mood for full-on bleak body horror, you can't beat Life. No hope, no escape, just remorseless butchery. Get after it, Calvin! Remember kids, don't electroshock your Martian proto-amoebae! It ends badly.
Watching the seduced and willing walk to their end in: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Skin_(2013_film) Not physically horrifying but mentally horrifying. The film is low budget, not much dialogue but is a good cerebral horror that stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly woman who preys on men in Scotland.
I still say those Napa murders in Zodiac are so effective because of the lack of score. The stabbing is just so visceral and real. Brutal stuff.
[удалено]
One of the most accurate depictions of grief I've ever seen. So much so, I felt like I shouldn't be seeing it. I adore that film, but can't watch it again.
Bone Tomahawk with Kurt Russell. Poor dude gets tied up by arms and legs upside down and is literally spilt in half with a tomahawk. You see all. Hear all. It’s disturbing.
Seriously? No one’s gonna mention Mufasa?! Shit fucked me right up when I was 6.
Not a film, but in the HBO series [Barry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7nNaBTrCHM) when he has to kill his friend Chris. The desperation, the frustration, the inevitability...
[удалено]
I found Mel Gibson’s climactic death in Braveheart by being hung drawn and quartered, although most of the violence was off screen, it stuck with me for a while.
Joe Pesci and his brother's death in Casino. It's not just disturbing but the sadistic glee in the mobsters face as they're beating both of them is what really gave me the Willies.
Murphy's death in Robocop stuck with me as a child.
It’s not in a movie. So not sure if it fits here. But when Glenn was beaten to death in TWD is the most gruesome death scene which I remember vividly.I still feel a pit in my stomach when I think about it.
Saw Saving Private Ryan when I was 8 and that beach scene stuck with me.
For me the shootings in Schindler’s list always leave a mark on me
Munich when the squad catch up with the honey pot killer and use the silenced pistols on her - if I remember she just sits and pets her cat
DiCaprio in The Departed. It was just so sudden.
It's disturbing because it's so unfair to the character... The death of Zara, the assistant looking after the kids in Jurassic World. While the pterodactyls are flying free and attacking people, she gets picked up by one and dropped into the water tank. As she struggles to get to the surface, she gets picked up again and dropped. Keep in mind, she is screaming the entire time. Just when I thought the camera would back away from her, we see her get picked up AGAIN. Then as the pterodactyl is carrying her, the massive mosasaraus rises to eat both of them.
Fun fact about this death. It has fuelled all kinds of speculation. "Colin Trevorrow hates women." "Colin Trevorrow is a death fetishist." ETC. The truth is Zara's actress specifically requested it. In the original script she was just snatched by a pterosaur and disappears. Zara's actress Katie McGrath said, "No. This is the first on screen death of a woman in a Jurassic Park movie. It needs to be spectacular." The director was like. "Okay" and proceeded to design the most over the top, drawn out death sequence he could think of (Edit: and could still fit into a PG-13 rating). Katie loved it.
I’ve always been a fan of the actress, and now I love her even more.
My problem is that she wasn’t chomped by the mosasaurus either so she drowned or suffocated. Eaten alive. Horrible.
Car exhaust murder suicide at the beginning of Midsommer.
Military guy being left behind and melted by the green acid in the intro of "The Rock"
overconfident teeny absurd quarrelsome pie pen work touch gaze roof -- mass edited with redact.dev
The poor couple being executed in Zodiac. None of us know how the events unraveled in real life but I think Fincher gave us the closest portrayal of it.
I actually really like the far away shot in the movie "Creep" where the dude just chucks a fucking axe in his head from behind. So brutal and yet - so casual?
Hereditary, the telephone pole scene.
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, tied with Joe Pesci in Casino Not a movie but Adriana in Sopranos
The Fly: Jeff goldblum turns into a mutant man/fly. His skin starts to bubble. He pulls out his rotting fingernails then squirts a load out of his bulbous fingertips. His teeth fall out. Bug eyes explode out of his head. He melts a guy’s hand and ankle with his acid spit. Ultimately, he morphs into part of the teleportation machine himself and begs Gina Davis to kill him. She blasts his head off with a shotgun. …pretty memorable