# Scariest Sin in movie "Se7en"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 5, 2001, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030 "2001-08-05T21:11:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/1 "2001-08-05T21:11:05Z")
What do you think is the creepiest one? I personally would have to vote for- Sloth. The idea of having that done to you and no one knowing about it. For up to a year. One of the things that has shaken me up the most in a movie. But since I think a lot of you might say that one, I’ll include my second choice, lust. The idea of having to have sex with someone to kill them. And what a way to go. It’s one of those situations where you’d like to say that you would do the noble thing and not kill the person and die yourself, but you know you probably wouldn’t. Conversely, do you have a vote for most tolerable? I didn’t think pride was too bad- in comparision with the other ones. After all, she could have survived. Yes her nose was cut off (and that probably hurt a lot), but she wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t overdosed. ---
**Author:** ![Mythos45](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/848f3c/32.png) [@Mythos45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mythos45)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/2 "2001-08-05T21:20:10Z")
Yea, definetely Sloth. That scene messed with me like few in any films have. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/3 "2001-08-05T21:59:06Z")
I don’t know, I’d say greed was pretty bad. Having to cut off a pound of your own flesh, no bone, no cartelidge. Eeekk…:::shudder::: I haven’t seen that movie in years, anyone know when it’s coming up on DirecTV? I have all the movie channels, so if anyone knows, I’d appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/4 "2001-08-05T22:07:08Z")
What exactly happened with Lust-rape with a knife, or something like that? I’d go with Sloth, because the figure was so scary looking it gave me nightmares, especially when it MOVED… ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/5 "2001-08-05T22:25:38Z")
Wrath. I know it’s corny but that messed me up. Getting your wife’s head in a box before you even know she’s dead, or pregnant? I have tried and tried but I can’t find any way to justify Se7en. From Morgan Freeman on “one last case”, to the gigantic sets (you do NOT have to hunt down the Divine Comedy in a magnificent, timeless New York library - any corner bookstore has it, and that’s where they’d go because these guys are COPS and they should be BUSY) to the murderer’s final victory, leaving us impotent, our hunger to see justice done left suddenly, agonisingly starved. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to explore the flipside of Dante’s coin? To have Pitt on a journey upward toward the rose, as Spacey trudges down the circles? What was the point? To make me ill? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/6 "2001-08-05T23:36:00Z")
Lust was, I _believe_, where a guy was having sex with a prostitue, and John Doe/Kevin Spacey came in. He put a gun to the guy’s head, made him put this really scary looking contraption on his penis (very very sharp), and then have sex with her. If he refused, Kevin Spacey’s character would have shot him. She ended up dying, and the guy who (unwillingly) killed her was in masses of guilt. Ross, I think that one with the wife’s head was really more envy. Because he was envious of their great life, that’s why he killed her. Wrath was when Brad Pitt’s character killed Spacey. ---
**Author:** ![Wicked\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/2acd7d/32.png) [@Wicked\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wicked_Blue)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/7 "2001-08-05T23:51:01Z")
Gluttony was pretty bad…being forced to eat until your stomach explodes… Gah. Rose ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/8 "2001-08-06T00:11:17Z")
I always found the notion of being the _victim_ of Sloth to be creepy. Imagine feeling your body dissolve over the course of a year… ::shudder:: However, I have to say that the notion of being the _perpetrator_ of envy is something that I just can’t fathom. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/9 "2001-08-06T00:44:04Z")
When I watched it with a friend and a friend’s mom, we were almost positive it would be a dead fetus in the box, not the wife’s head. ---
**Author:** ![Myrnalene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Myrnalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrnalene)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/10 "2001-08-06T02:31:03Z")
Sloth made the guy I was with scream like a wee lassie when we saw it in the theater. He was typically a very unemotional person. So that scene always simultaneously repulses and amuses me when I see it now. ---
**Author:** ![Myrnalene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Myrnalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrnalene)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/11 "2001-08-06T02:41:34Z")
This is only somewhat related to the OP, but it is amusing, at least to me. This movie came out when I was in high school and one Friday night a group of us went over to my friend’s house to watch the video. Right after it was over we were all sitting there with a pretty strong case of bone-shivers. My friend hit the rewind button and the regular TV came on, and by some stroke of Providence, there was Kevin Spacey, grinning maniacally with his Golden Globe in hand. He had just won for the Usual Suspects and was on David Letterman doing the Top Ten list (or something). We stared in silence for a few seconds and then erupted into screams. Ahh, to be 17 again… ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/12 "2001-08-06T02:57:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*What exactly happened with Lust-rape with a knife, or something like that? > \*\* In the book (which was much more graphic than the movie), the man is wearing a leather dildo with some kind of blade sewn into it. The book wasn’t very clear about why the man was wearing it, but I’m assuming he was forced to use it by John Doe. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/13 "2001-08-06T03:02:46Z")
Good god, there was a BOOK? I never even knew! Who is it by? Maybe I should read it. ---
**Author:** ![Montfort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/14 "2001-08-06T03:04:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jeep’s Phoenix \* > \*\*In the book (which was much more graphic than the movie), the man is wearing a leather dildo with some kind of blade sewn into it. The book wasn’t very clear about why the man was wearing it, but I’m assuming he was forced to use it by John Doe. \*\* Just a quick point of order. The “book” version of _Se7en_ was a novelisation based on Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenplay. It was not an original novel, and, quite frankly, the screenplay is very readable and [available](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0571200982/qid=997066982/sr=2-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/103-4374368-1267040). (Just ignore the script for the atrocious _8mm_ and you’ll be fine.) – Montfort, on behalf of all screenwriters who think that novelisations are **evil**. ---
**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, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/15 "2001-08-06T03:06:01Z")
I haven’t even _seen_ this movie, and this thread is still freaking me out… So I guess I shouldn’t post [this link](http://www.emode.com/emode/tests/seven_deadly_sins.jsp). ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/16 "2001-08-06T06:08:20Z")
“Lust” was a strap-on dildo with a long, sharp, curved knife on the end that John Doe forced the john to wear while he screwed the prostitute. The john was the “victim” in the “lust” punishment; he was the one being punished for his lust. The prostitute was merely a convenient way of providing the punishment. John Doe was “Envy”–he envied the life that Pitt had, specifically he covetted Pitt’s wife–and Pitt was “Wrath”, exacting vengence on Doe for killing Mrs. Pitt. Ross: Det. Somerset looks up a lot of stuff related to the seven deadly sins at the library; the Inferno is just one of them. Of course he’s busy, which is why he does it in the middle of the night. Personally, I thing a library is a _good_ place to do research. As for a more interesting ending. The DVD discusses alternate endings that were discussed and one that was storyboarded. In that ending, Somerset kills John Doe before Pitt has a chance. The idea being that it wouldn’t matter if Somerset ended his career, because he was retiring anyway, and this way Pitt gets his vengence, but doesn’t ruin his life in the process. It was decided that the ending as originally shot worked better. Gene Siskel had the same kind of moral objection to this movie as you seem to have. He referred to it as murder as entertainment, because it focused so closely on the grisliness of the murders themselves. I disagree, but I can understand that point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/17 "2001-08-06T06:33:17Z")
I concur with the others about Sloth. The scene with the victim representing the sin of Sloth creeped me out in ways few other movie scenes ever have. It’s rare for me to be genuinely disturbed by a movie, but this one joins other films like **The Exoricst** and **Misery** for having scenes that genuinely _freaked…me…out_. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/18 "2001-08-06T12:46:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Number Six \* > **"Lust" was a strap-on dildo with a long, sharp, curved knife on the end that John Doe forced the john to wear while he screwed the prostitute. The john was the “victim” in the “lust” punishment; he was the one being punished for his lust. The prostitute was merely a convenient way of providing the punishment.** I think an argument can be made for either of them as the victim. After all, when Mills tells Doe, “I thought all you did was kill innocent people,” one of the people Doe mentions in reply is “the filthy, disease-spreading whore.” It would be as easy to say that he punished the prostitute for inciting lust as that he punished the john for giving in to it. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/19 "2001-08-06T13:25:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Number Six \* > > **"Lust" was a strap-on dildo with a long, sharp, curved knife on the end that John Doe forced the john to wear while he screwed the prostitute. The john was the “victim” in the “lust” punishment; he was the one being punished for his lust. The prostitute was merely a convenient way of providing the punishment.** > > I think an argument can be made for either of them as the victim. After all, when Mills tells Doe, “I thought all you did was kill innocent people,” one of the people Doe mentions in reply is “the filthy, disease-spreading whore.” It would be as easy to say that he punished the prostitute for inciting lust as that he punished the john for giving in to it. \*\* Good point. I would maintain that the john was the primary target, as each of the other targets was actually guilty of the sin itself, and a prostitute is seldom guilty of lust. Much in the way that killing Mrs. Mills wasn’t done to punish her, but to punish Det. Mills; she was a tool to get at him. I see the prostitute as a tool to get at the real target, which was the john. But clearly both the john and the prostitute were victims, and John Doe cared nothing about her for the reason that you stated. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030/20 "2001-08-06T20:23:04Z")
What about Greed? I don’t really see how cutting off a pound of your own flesh has anything to do with that sin…didn’t he end up cutting off around his lovehandles? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-sin-in-movie-se7en/75030.md?page=2)