Entertainment For Lively Minds
Shocking movie moments
With the TV Mingle almost upon us, I am reminded of a brief conversation we had during our inaugural meet.
Question is, what is the most shocking thing you ever saw in a movie? Sure it could be exploding heads or entrails splattered across the screen but I'd wager for a lot of people it is something more innocuous and relative to the time of watching.
Mine is the credits rolling on The Empire Strikes Back. Luke has had his hand chopped off; Leia has professed love for Han Solo who has been frozen and is on his way to who knows what fate with Jabba the Hut; Luke has discovered that Darth Vader is his father; and then the credits roll.
I was 12, this is pre-internet so I had absolutely no spoilers going in. All of my limited movie life had been spent watching movies with resolution. The bad guys did bad things and got their comeuppance. The good guy got the girl, the forest animals lived happily ever after and suddenly, the world goes to hell, the good guys lose and the film ends with nothing resolved.
I was traumatised for days. No amount of Exorcists or slasher movies ever came close to that feeling of shock when the music kicked in and the lights went up at the end of Empire.
How about you?
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The denouement
of Kids. Sad, shocking and has stayed with me all these years.
Never been 'shocked' by horror unfortunately.
Proper downbeat
I saw it as a student and walked out of the cinema proclaiming that I thought the film was funny.
Probably the most bellendish comment I've ever made.
Madonna's sex scene in...
Body of Evidence. All the erotic allure of a tapeworm and twice as ghastly.
The Empre Strikes Back
Is the one Star Wars film I hadn't seen. All those years, and THIS is how I find out?
Oh yeah Spoiler Warning
.
Correction
It's spelled 'Spiolers'. At least that's how it tends to appear on most internet message boards.
Leonard Cohen's Bird on a Wire movie....
....recently reissued and purchased by me. Very good, love the music but there was no warning, neither on the DVD case nor on the initial magazine reviews (The Word included,) to let me know that during the performance of Story of Issac there would be footage of the vietnam war and a soldier shooting a civilian at point black range in the head and the resultant blood spurting from the wound shot, closely followed by footage of a small child on fire.
Really horrific images and i'm as squeamish as hell. Not pleasant. Very shocked. Just would've preferred a warning to let me know in advance.
It;s no defence of the images you refer to
and I haven't seen them, but if they are the images I think they are, they have been part of the history of the Vietnam War for many years, and have been in the public domain ever since they were filmed. It's probably that the producers of the DVD never even thought that their inclusion was anything other than highlighting an element of the song, and never thought to put an advisory on the DVD case. Still, if you weren't expecting to see anything like them, I can sympathise with your upset, they are quite explicit.
The Telephone Box - La Cabina
Spanish short where a father drops his kid at school and then gets stuck in a telephone box. Some guys turn up in a truck stick him on the back of said truck (still inside the telephone box) and drive off. There is no dialogue. In the final scene they drive into a mountain-side tunnel with Omen type music blazing by this point. The denouement is his box being lowered into a huge warehouse containing what looks like hundreds, if not thousands, of telephone boxes - all containing a corpse. No explanation. The End. That final scene boiled my head and for a few years after I stuck my foot in the door when making public calls.
I'm just glad that...
... I didn't imagine it. I remember that being on the telly too.
I saw it in a drunken stupor in my late teens
And have never forgotten it.
Thank You.
I've been telling people for year's about this. Always met with blank stare's and shake's of the head, used to think I was going mad and imagined it. I actually thought the Colin Farrell movie was a remake, doh!
Same here
I thought I was the only person on the planet who'd seen that. Freaked me out completely.
An added layer: the casting
The actor in La cabina, José Luis López Vázquez, who died recently, was best known for his character parts, especially in comedies. So when the original audience saw that a well-known face from the decidedly non-dark area of the thesp spectrum - think a Spanish equivalent of George Cole, maybe - was in it, they were primed to expect something quite different from what they got.
Come and See
by Ekim Klimov ( 1985 ) Russian war movie about a young boy´s descent into the hoorors of war has one truly shocking moment. The barn-burning scene is forever etched in my memory and I´ve only seen the movie once.
Jaws
The severed Head coming out of the sunken boat moment,still shocking
this was...
the last straw for me, and i insisted that my older sister take me out of the Butlin's cinema at once. I was 8. (Sob).
Seeing Jaws was my 8th birthday treat
It was the first film that I ever saw in a cinema and I loved it. I have to say that my mother was less taken with the whole experience.
Not strictly a movie but...
when it's revealed that Big Pussy Bompensera is a rat and the subsequent trail of events where Pussy goes slightly mad, believing he really is a Fed, right up to the point of his watery execution, I was pretty shocked.
The opening beach scene of Saving Private Ryan is still horrifically shocking in displaying the futility of war without too much gore. Just the confusion of noise and jarring camera work left me open mouthed.
Thanks.
I'm on episode 2 of Season 2.
*sad face*
Sorry Bob....Spoiler alert!
Mind you - big clue when Paulie tried to pat him down in the Turkish bath....
Saving Private Ryan
The scene mid way with the American Jewish soldier and the German trooper in a desperate knife fight in the ruined house.
I found it deeply upsetting and still do. It's the moment as the german finally gains the upper hand and slowly stabs the American lad in the heart. The whispered pleading of the American for the german to stop, along with the germans soothing words to stop fighting and accept death.
It's incredibly moving.
The Killer Inside Me
Extreme face breakage. Can't even bring myself to describe it further.
American History X
THAT kerbside execution. Sickening.
Oh, and - it's funny, but also shocking - the "Shit! I just shot Marvin in the face!" moment from Pulp Fiction.
Horrible
I think on realising what was about to happen, my reaction was something like "No no no no...."
The ending of Stephen King's Carrie
I have never seen an audience explode like that before or since. I literally jumped out of my seat. Screamed, too.
Big brothers, eh?
Mrs Umpire is still emotionally scarred by the time her big brother grabbed hold of her hand right at the end of her first viewing of Carrie. It was almost 30 years ago.
The end of the Blair Witch Project
when the girl behind the counter WOULDN'T refund my ticket money.
The best thing about 'The Blair Witch Project' is...
...that I haven't seen it.
A couple of moments.
The opening scene from Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid when they're shooting the heads off live chickens. Shot in close-up and slow motion. Utterly repulsive.
The other is the gang rape at the end of Last Exit To Brooklyn. Rape scenes in films never fail to make me very uncomfortable eg A Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs. They invariably go on much longer than can be justified for the purposes of the plot and the one in LETB is particularly drawn out and quite vile.
Bringing back memories of Scum.
Why on earth am I reading this thread?
Trainspotting
The bit when Renton is going through cold turkey and Allison's baby is crawling across the ceiling
Oh god.
I'd say more the cot death scene, actually. I was 17 when I saw that film. Went with my girlfriend. She cried for about an hour after that moment.
Really?
That baby doesn't look at all real. It could've been much more effective I've always thought.
Now, when Spud shits the bed however...
It's all for you Damien! It's all for you! *jumps*
Shudder.
Un Chien Andalou
Razor slices eyeball. And gives rise to the finest Pixies song. Double whammy.
Assault on Precinct 13
the gangland killer shooting the little girl in the chest for asking about her ice cream. I was quite young when I saw it on ITV circa 1980 and remember staring wide eyed at the telly. Of course, its tame by today's standards.
Still shocking
actually I still think this is a very upsetting scene. Killing children (complete with blond hair, pig tails and ice cream) in such a matter of fact way with added blood splatter is rare.
Memphis Belle
'they got the rookies'
Jungle Book
Shere Khan
3 words:
Se7en. 'Sloth'. Bed.
Near cardiac arrest for me, while the bloke next to me almost had to breathe into a paper bag.
The Ritual Execution of Old Yeller
Absolutely no contest. The rites of passage from childhood to adulthood were never made starker. At the age of eight or whatever, you got to find out that you had no choice but to graphically blow out the brains of your most noble and loved companion. Makes the revelation of Luke Skywalker's dubious parentage, or John Hurt's chest explosion in Alien, look a bit trivial.
I only saw that film once....
Dear God I was traumatised. As were mum, dad and sister.
Being an utter softy
I heard about how traumatising Old Yeller was and have studiously avoided it ever since. I'm guessing you are right and I have some kind of in-built defence mechanism.
Maybe I should man up and rent it.
The Star Wars shock
was less about the actual plot developments and more about the credits rolling. It was the first time I find out that movies didn't have to have a happy ending
In 1970s Bradford
My granny said the local cinema was doing fantastic business for Indian films, when other cinemas were declining. She told me that Indian films were required to have a happy ending. They were not permitted to leave threads unresolved, and gloomy outcomes.
Might as well be applied to Hollywood now. Particularly when watching a romantic comedy. You know it's all going to be tidied up eventually. A bit like the half-hearted hollering for "more" when seeing a band. You know they'll be back on in a minute.
The only time I wondered if it would be different is The Invention of Lying. I wondered if the ending would be ambiguous or unhappy. But no. Business as usual.
Oh Lordy
...that gave me flashbacks. To make it worse, we had a yellow lab at the time and for weeks I was terrified he'd go the same way.
Then we went to see some shoot 'em up John Wayne movie and cheered up at all the baddies being shot.
The Long Goodbye
Seminal 1970s Robert Altman has one extraordinary scene of almost unparalleled violence towards one of the female characters that comes out of nowhere in what is otherwise a very laid back film.
Yes
I was going to mention that. The Long Goodbye is otherwise one of my all time favourite films, but I've always had problems with that scene. A seriously bum note by Altman.
When Ben Affleck tried to really act in Pearl Harbor
Also the head that comes floating out of the little boat in Jaws.
Bambi's Mom
nuff said
2 for me...
disabled guy tipped out the window by the nazis in the pianist.
rape scene in Irreversible.
The original ending of Yogi Bear was a little bit of a curveball
(way to ruin it, Youtube guy)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
I knew nothing about the film other than it was a guy in a hat doing stunts and flying about in an old timey plane and stuff. The Angel of Death/melting nazis ending blew my tiny ten year old mind
The Proposition
Great film with a great score, but two bits of the film really shocked me.
1. The rape scene is as you would expect horrible, but even worse its committed by a character you wouldn't expect to do so which makes it even more chilling.
2. The 100 lashes part - there is a shot of Mikey covered in blood & then you realize that he is not even a tenth of the way through the 100!
The moment when
Sophie has to choose in Sophie's Choice
arggghhh no i thought i'd forgotten all about that
Utterly traumatising. One of those things that I wish I'd never heard about.
A lot of the scenes being mentioned seem to be....
....childhood “loss of innocence/passage to the big bad world” type stuff.
Films moments that really shook me up as a kid, because I realised the world wasn’t actually a fantastically nice and fair place, would include:
1. Captains Courageous – Spencer Tracey trapped in all the rigging
2. The Elephant Man – the Michael Elphick bit
3. Scum - scene alluded to above – What the hell was I doing, watching that film as a kid?!
And on a slightly less realistic note:
4. Salem’s Lot – Villain versus Priest scene. I had to sleep on the floor in my brother bedroom two weeks. As a little catholic altar boy with an unhealthy obsession with film monsters, I’d put a lot of faith in the power of those crucifixes to repel vampires.
The Thing
The scene where a human consumed by flames breaks through a wall of the research station into the freezing Antarctic wastes.
That shut me up.
Nah..the head spider scene
Love the way the dialogue matches exactly what you are thinking. In fact the whole scene is traumatising.
Irreversible
Monica Bellucci being brutually raped in a subway. Brilliantly filmed and acted but by cripes it's not easy on the eyes.
My Choice...
...as well, but I think the scene a few minutes into the film, where a head meets a fire extinguisher, is more of a "shock". Just when you think its about to cut away...it doesn't
Donald Sutherland...
stamping a child to death in Day Of The Locust.
Dougal & The Blue Cat
Not Dougal.
The Blue Cat.
Picked it up on VHS a few years ago and still didn't feel too comfortable about that blue bas***d.
Also the '33 and a Third Revolution per Monkee' TV special is simply 'too' freaky.
The basement scenes at the end of Arachnophobia!
I did suffer from arachnophobia myself, and avoided that movie until I turned on the telly one night a few years back and came in right before he went down to that basement. I didn't know what film it was so I sat there watching to find out what it was and to see if it was any good...
And then all of those spiders started to show up on screen - I was too traumatised to be able to reach for the remote control, I was too busy twitching, jumping and shaking violently.
They weren't exactly stingy on the effects, I've never seen so many spiders in my life (thank god). I was a wreck for a week after that.
Being completely unprepared by not realising what film I was watching probably didn't help.
Then never watch...
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Kingdom Of The Spiders
Frogs
Terror From The Sky.
3 Horrors!
Dead Of Night (1945)
Michael Redgrave's nightmare before the end. Hugo Fitch the vent doll walking across the cell. Didn't have a good night's sleep for months.
The Mummy (1999)
When Im-Ho-Tep is buried alive for eternity with all those scarabs crawling all over him. And this is a family film??
Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
The aerial shot of the zombie apocalypse. A recurring theme in my nightmares depicted exactly how I dream it.
I saw DON pre-teens.
The final cavalcade as the plot resumes into one bonkers finale, resolving into one Police cell falling through inky blackness, forever. Yikes.
"There's room for one more inside, sir"
And did you know?
Dead Of Night star, Googie Withers is still alive!
94, Gawd bless her.
Would that have been 1979-1980 it was shown?
I recall watching it whilst in the 6th form (1979-81 since you ask) and it being the talk of the common room the day after.Great stuff!
Not a movie but TV's "Blake's 7"
when Servalan and her henchmen ambushed and killed the goodies. That was an absolute, left-field, never saw it coming moment.
Amen!
A fantastic ending to a show that I really loved wobbly sets and all.
The screen goes black, Avon laughs and then there is a barrage of weaponry - absolutely spot on.
LA Confidential
Kevin Spacey is shot by James Cromwell - did not see that coming....
Bad Day a Black Rock
Spencer Tracey's one armed stranger is calmness and decency personified. Then he beats the shit out of Ernest Borgnine with his one hand. It's over so quick you wonder if it did happen. Great film.
Joe Pesci
at the end of Casino.
Grim.
Salvador
As a depiction of the war in El Salvador this was pretty brutal and left me in a terrible gloom for weeks afterwards.
It's a brilliant movie but I only needed to see it once.
Hidden (potential spoiler)
Knowing there is going to be a suicide may spoil it for some. However I won't mention the who, where or when.
Because the film has no incidental music, there is absolutely no inkling it's going to happem and when it does, it hits you over the head like a hammer.
I was also going to mention the American History X execution.
One shockingly funny moment occurs in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, when Butch kicks the challenging gang member in the balls. One shouldn't laugh, but I recall the cinema exploding with laughter whne it happened.
The Crying Game
'nuff said
The 6 year old me saw...
...cuddly bunny cartoon Watership Down. Counselling followed.