Mr. Blonde cutting off the cop’s ear in Reservoir Dogs with “Stuck in the Middle with You” playing on the radio is probably not one of the most violent scenes of all time, and maybe not even in Tarantino’s top 5, but it is very effective.
The abuse heaped on the poor girl in The Girl Next Door (2007) was pretty horrific, though it wasn’t nearly as graphic as a lot of stuff these days.
I’ll second the deep fat fryer scene from Spooks/MI5.
The hobbling scene in Misery was also rather disturbing.
Where Murphy was gunned down by Broderick and crew in Robocop.
It’s kind of comical, but in Miller’s Crossing, the scene where Caspar hits Eddie Dane on the head with a fireplace tool, then explains to Tom how you always put one in the brain.
Some really good examples; I can’t believe I forgot the curbing scene from American History X! I was actually going to add the beatings the girl endures in Martyrs. There’s one scene in particular where a big guy is beating on her and knocks her out, and he pulls her up, slaps her face to wake her and then viciously punches her out again; it’s very realistic and made me cringe when I saw it.
I agree with the rape scene from the Cape Fear remake. When he bit her cheek, I winced.
I haven’t seen Deadwood yet (it’s on my to-do list).
For me, one pretty brutal TV scene was when Chris Partlow killed Bug’s father (at Michael’s request) in Season 4 of The Wire. He just hit him and hit him until his face was a smashed mess of blood and cartilage.
For movies, i agree that the curb-stomping scene from American History X is a good candidate. It was quick, but i can’t even think about it without reflexively opening and closing my jaw in sympathy. The scene from Misery, referenced by Waffle Decider, is similarly cringe-inducing.
I never really find myself affected very strongly by blood and gore; no matter how realistic it looks, it always seems somehow unreal or distant.
Most of the movies mentioned in thisthread.
This is the one I came in to nominate. We’ve all seen thousands of murders in movies and on TV, but this one has remained with me since I saw the movie the very first time. I still have trouble watching it.
Another one that I did not see mentioned was the scene from Casino Royale, where James Bond is sitting naked on a chair without the seat, and his adversary was swinging a rope with a weight on the end. He would swing the rope so the weight would travel under the chair and nail Bond in the man region with a sound and speed that makes me wince every time I see it. :eek:
How about the cornfield scene at the end of Casino?
Scarface.
Tony Montana and friends in the bathroom with the guy with the chainsaw.
The “Is this your pen” scene from Casino wasn’t long, but it lingers.
“You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him…”
The whole Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan.
Pulp Fiction when Vincent accidently shoots Marvin in the face, mostly because it was so random.
Silence of the Lambs when Lechtor beats the cop to death and steals his face.
Beginning of SVP, the curb stomping in AHX and pretty much all of Hostel
The fight scene between Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live. It’s not gory, it’s not shocking, it’s not edgy, there are no weapons, just two guys pounding on each other. What’s striking [snerk!] is that it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on some more, and the effect is fucking hilarious.
What is SVP?
Dang right. A certain incident in that scene made my jump out of my chair.
There’s a pretty violent scene in History Of Violence when a diner owner takes on two tough guys that come in to cause trouble.
Good movie.
Several very violent scenes as I recall.
Yeah, not surprising given the title I suppose.
Another Casino scene where Nicky beats the hell of some Irish guy for two days, and finally puts his head into a vice and you hear his cranium crack.