I haven’t seen a lot of these. I generally try to avoid violent movies (Misery, The Silence of the Lambs, Seven). No, thank you! Other movies, such as Jaws and Schindler’s List don’t bother me, maybe because I know what to expect.
The most disturbing death scene in a movie I’ve seen recently would have to be in The Blair Witch Project. And you don’t even see anything - just that horrible sound. That stuck with me for hours afterward.
I vaguely recall a scene from 2 Days in the Valley where the Charlize Theron character is hit by a car, and her boyfriend James Spader brings her inside and calmly tells her that he can’t call an ambulance for her, because then the authorities would catch up with him and well, that’s not going to happen. (I could be a little wobbly on the details, there.) Just seeing this stunning woman as she realizes she is going to die and no one is going to help her - wow.
The strangulation scene in Frenzy was, I agree, very upsetting.
In another direction entirely: A Bug’s Life, when Hopper meets his end. So perfectly natural, yet so horrifying.
When I was a kid in the '70s my dad took me and another child to see some Grizzly Adams movie. I remember almost nothing about it, but there were two very dumb bad guys who were threatening Adams or the wilderness in some way. They plot to start a forest fire, but goof up and are surrounded and engulfed by the flames. My dad noted in his journal how I laughed and applauded their end. So there’s a death scene that didn’t bother me, but apparently bothered my dad.
I can’t think of the name of the movie, but that one where the kid forsees that the plane he is on is going to blow up. And it ends up that like 6 people temporarily cheat Death. So Death decides to settle the score, and takes every single one of them out in gruesome and painful ways, rather than just quietly in their sleep. I could barely stand to watch it, because most of the death scenes had this long buildup and I just sat there and squirmed.
It doesn’t have to involve humans, does it? There was a movie with Bette Davis that I watched as a kid. She basically goes nuts and hacks some bunnies to death.
Dear gawd, that was a horrific image for a kid to see.
Bringing me to another point: DON’T bring your kids to the drive-in expecting them to be asleep by the time the main feature comes on. They may LOOK like they’re asleep, but they’re just pretending!
In Grave of the Firefles, it started with the hero, a ten-year old boy, saying “September 8, 1945…That’s the day I died.” We see his body laying in a railway station with several others, as the workers treated him as if he was a bum. That was just the beginning. An even more disturbing death scene occured when her sister was so wrought with malnutrition, she thought that dirt rocks were candy.
It’s rare that someone agrees with me on that interpretation, actually. Usually when I mention that people say I’m wrong, he was freaking out for real.
The movie you’re thinking of is Final Destination. I think it’s the only teen slasher flick of recent years to have genuinely disturbing death scenes. The one that sticks with me most is the kid who is strangled to death by a clothesline in a bathtub, SO close to safety. Also, the part with the bus. Dayam.
All of the carnage scenes in Welcome to Sarajevo really stuck with me. Of course the fact that most of that footage was actual people who were hurt or killed during the war made these scenes even more indelible.
The other thing that haunts me about that movie is the beginning - when they show Sarajevo as a normal bustling metropolis in 1976 (I think) when the Olympics were held there. It’s scary to think that a city like that could be reduced to rubble so quickly.
Scanners - Exploding head
**Dead and Buried **– Syringe through the eyeball. The Untouchables – Guy’s head is smashed in with a baseball bat wielded by Al Capone. Hannibal – Death by Pig.
**Creepshow **– Death by cockroach. South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut - Kenny’s heart is replaced with a baked potato.
I finally got around to seeing this the night before last. I’m thinking of two death scenes, the one where Norton curbs the Crip who was trying to jack his car and the one where Furlong gets shot in the bathroom. I didn’t find either scene particularly disturbing (although they were both exceptionally well done IMHO), but was curious as to which one you were referring to.
The scene at the end of Heavenly Creatures. It’s disturbing because you know it’s going to happen, but it keeps getting delayed. When it finally does, it plays out with very little “Hollywood” pretense (overacting, heart-tugging music, etc.), which makes it seem all the more real, and therefore, disturbing. Worst of all, it’s based on a true story.
Lord of Illusions: A magic trick with swords that didn’t go quite right
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Marionette/sleepwalking scene
Candyman: The death of Candyman
Alien: “What’s the matter man, the food ain’t THAT bad?!”
Here’s a fun one for free:
In Friday the 13th part 7, Jason impales a promiscuous girl on a stuffed moose head, honoring Horror Movie Law #3: You Flash 'Em, We Slash 'Em.
“Unfogiven” - Clint and co. are on top of the canyon wall, trying to decide who is going to shoot the cowboy below with a rifle. It’s decided and it’s done, and you come away with a strong impression of how base and unglamorous taking a human life is.
The hanging scene at the beginning of “The Dirty Dozen.”
I saw it around the age of ten, and I wish my parents had monitored my viewing habits a bit more dilligently. I was shocked for days.
I haven’t seen it in over 20 years, nor do I want to. The cold impassion used by stonefaced officers to dispatch a terrified kid just stunned me. Clinical and gruesome at the same time.
I knew it was only a movie, but it still freaked me.
At the beginning of the film, a party of hunters on safari in Africa is captured by some locals. Cornel Wilde is given a chance to escape but the others are killed.
One unlucky fellow is covered in clay by some African ladies. He is then mounted on a spit and roasted on an open fire. Alive. The viewer doesn’t see everything but the imagination does the rest. Very disturbing.
