# Most disturbing death scene **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [August 6, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061 "2001-08-06T02:35:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![headshok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@headshok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/headshok)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/21 "2001-08-06T14:47:14Z")
_ **Full Metal Jacket** _ **SPOILER** _ **Saving Private Ryan** _ **SPOILER** Death scenes in war movies have always disturbed me. The scene in _ **FMJ** _ where Private Pyle blows the back of his head out with his rifle is one of the worst. Not particularly gory as movie deaths go, but the sheer pathos of the scene is enough to turn my stomach. I’ll also nominate another scene from _ **SPR** _; it’s the one where an American soldier tries to attach a ‘sticky-bomb’ to a German tank, and it explodes before he can get away. Alive one second, bits of flesh the next. ::shudder:: ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/22 "2001-08-06T14:54:37Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by minlokwat \* > **Saving Private Ryan**** SPOILERS**_ > > Anyway, the German soldier is on top and he slowly inserts his knife into the American all the while saying “shhh…” and almost beckoning the soldier to accept his fate. Yep, that’s my one aswell. It’s also very well observed. The way the Yank says “No, hold on” or something like that, as if he is trying to think of anything to say to stop the knife going in. Freaking me out in the process. ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/23 "2001-08-06T15:02:24Z")
All of the above are good (err, make that bad. I mean good replys to the question). I’ll add the scene in “Amistad” when they are lightening the load by attaching the chained slaves to an anchor and then throwing it over. Meanwhile the slaves have to stand there and wait to be yanked in one by one. Yuck. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/24 "2001-08-06T15:11:09Z")
Nobody has mentioned “Seven”? ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/25 "2001-08-06T16:40:40Z")
Let me also throw in the swimming platform scene in “Catch 22”… (spoiler space) …where the guy is cut in half at the waist by the propellor of an airplane. His legs continue to stand there and there is no sign of his upper body. ---
**Author:** ![hardygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@hardygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardygrrl)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/26 "2001-08-06T16:57:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jarbabyj \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by uglybeech \* > > This is so easy- **American History X**. If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about. > > I second this emphatically. And I couldn’t even describe it to you because I’d throw up in the middle of it. You’ll just have to take our word for it > > jarbaby \*\* I did get sick during that scene-we’re talking about the one in the beginning of the movie,right? ---
**Author:** ![Why\_A\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/27 "2001-08-06T17:07:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TV time \* > \*\* > Let me also throw in the swimming platform scene in “Catch 22”… \*\* That gets me every time. I think it’s the pause that does it. If we can include almost-death scenes, then the scene between Gabriel Byrne and John Turturro at Miller’s Crossing (“Look in your heart”) is way disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/28 "2001-08-06T17:16:17Z")
There’s a movie with Rutger Hauer and (I think) Jennifer Jason Leigh (although maybe I’m getting the pairing mixed up with Flesh + Blood) called “The Hitchhiker” or something like that. He chains her between his truck cab and some immoveable object and starts rolling forward… They don’t show it all, but just thinking about it is enough. Braveheart gave me the creeps, too. Oh my. ---
**Author:** ![Why\_A\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/29 "2001-08-06T17:18:19Z")
That would be “The Hitcher” and watch out for the french fries… ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/30 "2001-08-06T17:34:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TV time \* > \*\* > Nobody has mentioned “Seven”? \*\* Ah, Seven has its own thread. Oh, another one from _Saving Private Ryan_ that got to me was the guy at the beginning who gets hit in the helmet, removes his helmet to inspect it, and promptly gets shot in the head. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/31 "2001-08-06T18:02:29Z")
I once posted this one as the subject of a thread, since I never knew what film it was (it looked like some made-for-TV thriller with added nastiness). A young guy is lying, prone but awake, while the villain (more scary because he looked like a fairly normal, if vacant, chap) ties the guy’s right arm and left ankle with chains. The other end of the chains is attached to his 4x4. Only … there’s a tree between this guy and the vehicle. Villain guns engine as horrified girlfried watches, chains tighten and guy is pulled around tree – before his leg and arm detach in a pretty horrific set of special effects. ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_D\_oh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/839c29/32.png) [@Jane\_D\_oh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_D_oh)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/32 "2001-08-06T19:25:13Z")
There are two that I think of right off the bat: “Body Double” where the woman gets it with the ice auger and you see the ceiling of the downstairs apartment start to turn red from the blood. Just creepy. The water tank from “The Cell” also bothered me a lot. The mental anguish that went along with that, YIKES! Just thinking about it unnerves me. ---
**Author:** ![Mielikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Mielikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mielikki)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/33 "2001-08-06T19:48:07Z")
I have to second the slow-knife death in ‘Private Ryan’. The German was whispering something to him; I’ve always been morbidly curious to know what he was saying. Yikes. Also, in ‘Last of the Mohicans’. Magwa (not sure of spelling) who has some, shall we say, anger issues, tells someone earlier in the movie that he’s gonna cut out the heart of some bloated old English dude he dislikes. Then, later on in the movie, he does it. Pushes the guy off his horse, shoves him to the ground, holds him down and performs primitive cardio-ectomy. And the guy is feebly struggling the whole time, including after the deed is finsihed. The thought of looking up at someone who hates you holding your heart up, knowing you’re dead… not a happy thing. Jeez, this whole thread has given me the creeps. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/34 "2001-08-06T19:48:16Z")
Of all the gruesome death scens in Private Ryan, the only one that really sticks with me is the very first one: when the ramp on the landing boat goes down, and there’s this one guy in the front of the boat, just about to charge out, you hear a metallic “plink” and there’s this little hole in his helmet, like the size of pencil, and just like that the guy’s dead. Way, way more effecting then, well, almost everything else in the movie (except maybe the sticky bomb). When I was kid, I saw The Believers, which is the scariest movie I ever saw. Maybe it was just me, but so many scenes in that film still freak me out, fifteen years after the one and only time I ever watched it. That scene right in the beginning, when the mom is electrocuted by the Mr. Coffee, permanently scared me. To this day, I don’t drink coffee, and I blame this movie. Another good one: John Cusack in The Grifters. Comes right out of nowhere. And its his mom who does it! Creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/35 "2001-08-06T19:50:27Z")
"Of all the gruesome death scens in Private Ryan, the only one that really sticks with me is the very first one: when the ramp on the landing boat goes down, and there’s this one guy in the front of the boat, just about to charge out, you hear a metallic “plink” and there’s this little hole in his helmet, like the size of pencil, and just like that the guy’s dead. " Wow, lookit that run-on sentence. I’m really making that English degree work for me, aren’t I? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/36 "2001-08-06T20:36:50Z")
Aahh, run-on sentences never hurt Marcel Proust or James Joyce, so I wouldn’t sweat it. ---
**Author:** ![orion007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@orion007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orion007)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/37 "2001-08-06T20:38:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hardygrrl \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by jarbabyj \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > \*Originally posted by uglybeech \* > > > This is so easy- **American History X**. If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about. > > > > I second this emphatically. And I couldn’t even describe it to you because I’d throw up in the middle of it. You’ll just have to take our word for it > > > > jarbaby \*\* > > I did get sick during that scene-we’re talking about the one in the beginning of the movie,right? \*\* Yes, I’m assuming that’s the one they’re talking about. That was the first one I thought of when I saw the thread title. God, that was just _sick._ The one at the end is pretty bad too, but it doesn’t quite match the first one… It’s a very good movie, though. ---
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/38 "2001-08-06T22:17:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by orion007 \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by hardygrrl \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > \*Originally posted by jarbabyj \* > > > \*\* > > > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > > > \*Originally posted by uglybeech \* > > > > This is so easy- **American History X**. If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about. > > > > > > I second this emphatically. And I couldn’t even describe it to you because I’d throw up in the middle of it. You’ll just have to take our word for it > > > jarbaby \*\* > > > > I did get sick during that scene-we’re talking about the one in the beginning of the movie,right? \*\* > > Yes, I’m assuming that’s the one they’re talking about. That was the first one I thought of when I saw the thread title. God, that was just _sick._ The one at the end is pretty bad too, but it doesn’t quite match the first one… > > It’s a very good movie, though. \*\* OK, I have not, nor probably will I ever see **American History X** , so please could somebody at least outline what happens? I know I sound like somebody who watches the **Faces of Death** movies and rewinds it to the “good parts”, but too many people have mentioned **Am Hist X** and my curiosity is piqued. ---
**Author:** ![HalberMensch242](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@HalberMensch242](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HalberMensch242)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/39 "2001-08-06T22:31:07Z")
Well…this isn’t a movie per say, but the video for the Nine Inch Nails song **Happiness in Slavery** …is really…really…really disturbing. 1st time i saw it, i had cold sweat and couldn’t stop thinkin about it for a week. And as far as movie death scenes go, i’d have to nominate the last 20 minutes of **Burnt by the Sun**. ---
**Author:** ![Tretiak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@Tretiak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tretiak)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061/40 "2001-08-06T22:34:01Z")
Well, **American History X** was aslo the first one I thought of and I assume we are all thinking of the same thing. The fact is also that they don’t even show it. Basically, the main character is a white power nutjob who catches a black man trying to steal his truck. I don’t remember all the details, but he catches the guy, tell him to lay on his stomach on the street and then tells him to bite the curb. Then brings his boot down very hard (of screen) on the back of his head. I think there is some sound effects, but mostly you are left to imagine what may have happened. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-disturbing-death-scene/75061.md?page=3)