Midnight Movie House

Today's horror pales in comparison to sickest movies scenes of all time

Okay, I'll admit, anything gross and I turn away. I like horror movies like The Changeling and not like Friday The 13th: Part Whatever Number They're At Now. Despite that, I thought some of you might be interested in this article that first appeared around Halloween 2003 in the U-San Bernardino County Sun.

Gross points
Today's horror pales in comparison to sickest movies scenes of all time

By Glenn Whipp
Film Writer

Thursday, October 30, 2003 - The recent spate of horror movies - "Cabin Fever," "House of the Dead," "Underworld," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" - have been doing their darndest to try to scare us or, at the very least, gross us out. They've failed miserably - not that teenagers seem to care. But you'd think among the lot of them they could have produced one true moment of revulsion, but the best any of them could do was ape the greats of the past.

Fortunately for true believers, a new print of Ridley Scott's "Alien" arrived Wednesday, a potent reminder of how much fun a great horror film can be. And while the movie has a myriad of superlative scenes, the one that sticks in everyone's mind occurs just as everyone is sitting down to dinner and an unwanted guest makes a surprise appearance.

Which got me to thinking: What are the other great stomach-churning movie
moments, scenes that make you want to turn away and head for the exit? (To
clarify, I'm defining "stomach-churning" in the more gruesome sense, not, say, having to sit through a recent John Travolta movie.)

So, in the spirit of Halloween, I came up with a list of 20 - obviously a subjective one - scenes that make me want to chew a roll of antacids. Needless to say, if you're reading this while eating, you might want to finish your meal first.

The Andalusian Dog (1928) Put Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali together and you know you're in for a freak show, and this plotless series of surrealistic images doesn't disappoint. The movie contains the earliest - and probably most horrifying - stomach churner: a man slicing a woman's eye with a razor. A willful (and cheerful) exercise in alienation, it remains one of the most shocking images in film history - a real eye opener.

The Birds (1963) As a child, I thought birds were my friends. You know, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and all that. Then I saw that farmer with his eyes pecked out in this Hitchcock flick of nature gone wild, and the next morning I was asking my dad to chop down the trees in the back yard.

Rosemary's Baby (1968) A child is born ... and it's the spawn of Satan. Still, what's a mother to do but nurse the little darling, as Mia Farrow did in this Roman Polanski chiller.

Deliverance (1972) Ned Beatty, playing a city businessman, squeals like a pig as he's abused by vengeful Appalachian mountain men, and I can still hear that godawful cry sometimes. You know what gets it out of my head? "Dueling Banjos." (But how do I get !ital!that!off! out of my head?)

Pink Flamingos (1972) There's all sorts of "fun" here - castration, bestiality, cannibalism - much of it really happening, but the scene everyone remembers comes when transvestite Divine eats dog waste. Billed as the "most disgusting picture of all time," and, for once, the truth matched the hype.

The Exorcist (1973) The head on the girl goes round and round, round and round, round and round. The head on the girl goes round and round and pea
soup gushes forth! (And, for the intellectually curious, that really is pea soup. How that Andersen's place in Buellton stayed in business after this, I'll never know.)

Jaws (1975) Sure, there's the skinny dipper's severed hand and Ben Gardner's head floating out of his boat, but the real stomach-churner is watching Capt. Quint (Robert Shaw) being bitten in half and that shark's eyes, those "lifeless eyes, black eyes" rolling over white and you hear his terrible high-pitched screaming and the ocean turns red.

Eraserhead (1976) Remember the "Seinfeld" episode? "You've got to see the
ba-by! When are you coming to see the ba-by?" And Seinfeld comes over, looks in the crib and ... my God! Well, that kid has nothing on David Lynch's newborn in "Eraserhead." Hope they registered for a lifetime of therapy.

Marathon Man (1976) An obvious choice, not so much for what we see, but for
what we hear, that horrible whirring drill as it grinds against Dustin Hoffman's teeth as Laurence Olivier's Szell - a Nazi war criminal on the lam - keeps asking if it's "safe." Legend has it that director John Schlesinger shortened the scene after test audiences started streaming to the exits.

1900 (1976) While some may choose the Marlon Brando sex scenes in "Last
Tango in Paris," Bernardo Bertolucci's greatest stomach-churning achievement came when peasants revolt and pelt an evil fascist (played bravely by Donald Sutherland) with horse manure. What tips the scales is the shot (and, readers, really, I've got to warn you here) of the angry man prodding his horse to produce a fresh batch, which is then shoved with gusto in Sutherland's face.

Scanners (1981) It's hard to pick just one moment from a David Cronenberg
movie for a list like this. Let's face it: We could fill all 20 slots here from the Cronenberg oeuvre, from Jeremy Irons' gynecological exploits in "Dead Ringers" to Rosanna Arquette's leg- brace-fetish sex scene in "Crash." But we'll go with the, um, most mind-blowing Cronenberg moment when a bad psychic makes a lesser's head go ka-blooey in "Scanners," which was very cool if you were, like, 16, at the time.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) Clearing attempting to wrest the title of "most disgusting picture of all time" away from John Waters, the Python troupe goes for broke here with "live" organ transplants and a song about sperm. The topper, of course, comes courtesy of the portly Mr. Creosote, who, while consuming a four-course meal, eats and vomits, eats and vomits (you get the idea) until he explodes when eating the after-dinner mint. I know people who watch this right before beginning a diet.

Blue Velvet (1986) David Lynch movies always punch us in the gut. Here it's the scene where Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth comes home, inhales narcotic gas and sexually abuses Isabella Rossellini while Kyle MacLachlan watches in the closet. Even for the Lynch mob, this one's tough to stomach.

Misery (1990) Kathy Bates does what any No. 1 fan would do to an unappreciative dirty-bird writer - she picks up a sledgehammer, takes a Reggie Jackson swing and shatters James Caan's ankle into a thousand little pieces.

Silence of the Lambs (1991) The two sequels have certainly dulled the impact of Hannibal Lecter's debut, but the scene of Lecter's escape - he impersonates a guard by killing him, skinning his face and using it as a mask - remains undiluted. Gruesome.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) Again, time and kitsch have somewhat lessened the grisly horror of Quentin Tarantino's jaunty little torture scene, which is made completely surreal through the use of the Stealers Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle With You." Nobody who saw the movie has listened to Gerry Rafferty the same way since.

Dead Alive (1993) Before he made the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Peter Jackson was something of a cult figure in horror circles. In this breakneck splatter flick, the film's hero defeats a room full of zombies by grabbing a lawn mower and slicing and dicing the undead, coating the walls with red and green zombie blood in a collage that Jackson Pollack would have envied.

Se7en (1995) David Fincher's relentlessly assaultive movie in which a serial killer dispatches his victims in a grotesque version of their particular "deadly sin" is a veritable stomach-turning smorgasbord. Since we've already covered gluttony with "The Meaning of Life," we'll take the sloth scene for, if no other reason, its sick shock value.

Trainspotting (1995) For those searching for a lesson in a movie that doesn't offer one, perhaps it's this: Never leave something valuable in the "filthiest toilet in Scotland." It can only lead to desperate measures.

Pay It Forward (2000) Haley Joel Osment dies in slow motion from every conceivable angle. We're supposed to weep, but Mimi Leder's movie is so crassly manipulative that we run to the bathroom (even the filthiest toilet in Scotland will do) instead.

Posted by Vampira at February 11, 2004 08:11 PM