Editorials
Is This One of Cinema’s Most Horrifying Sequences?
We as horror fans have been subjected to some of the most terrifying, horrifying, and sickening scenes in film history. After all, that’s kinda the purpose of a horror film, right? It’s meant to shock viewers, to scare them and make them feel unsafe. The problem is that after seeing tons of horror movies, it’s really hard to make me feel not only uncomfortable but actually genuinely horrified much these days.
As it turns out, a recent film offered me that experience and it’s stuck with me ever since. In fact, it’s a scene that actually makes me cringe and squirm every time it comes up in discussion because the very thought of it is so horrifying. That film is 2012’s Looper and the scene I’m referring to is Seth’s death.
Let’s watch the scene and then below the video I’ll explain why this is such a horrifying scene for me.
Okay, made it through? Let me explain what’s happening before I get into specifics.
The universe of Looper allows for time travel. I mean, that’s a given, considering the nature of the film but it helps to have a foundation here.
Old Seth is sent back in time to be killed by Young Seth, who hesitates and ends up letting him go. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) turns Seth in so that he doesn’t lose his cut of the money but makes it clear that Seth is not to be killed. Instead, what happens is far, far worse.
In order to retrieve Old Seth, Young Seth is tortured and mutilated, his limbs and extremities removed one piece at a time. As a result, Old Seth begins losing the same pieces of his body, only they happen immediately and without warning. One moment he has all four fingers, the next he has two. Then his nose is gone. And so on. Desperate to stop this horrifying sequence of events, he travels to the address that has been carved into his arm and accepts his fate.
Many people wondered why Young Seth simply wasn’t killed. After all, wouldn’t that make Old Seth disappear? The answer is yes but they were unsure what Seth would do with his life in between the years of Young Seth and Old Seth. Killing him off might drastically alter the future in ways that they couldn’t even begin to expect. That’s why they had to keep him alive, even if in a state such as the one he is now forced to live in.
And that’s what is so horrifying. Not only does Old Seth live in absolute terror while his body literally falls apart on him, Young Seth is now going to live his life minus all the extremities that were surgically removed. No tongue, no nose, no arms or legs… This was his punishment for wanting his own self to live. And that’s why Old Seth was so desperate to make it back. He knows that for every piece he loses, his younger self will be forced to endure a lifetime of even greater hardship. His cries of “Wait!” aren’t for him as an old man. They’re for the rest of his younger self’s life.
What do you think? Is this a horrifying scene or am I just being too sensitive? If you’ve got a better sequence, share it in the comments below!
Despite what the higher-ups at Marvel would have you believe, Stan Lee’s original vision for Spider-Man was very different from the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler that fans ultimately got.
It was comics maestro Steve Ditko that turned him into the lovable web-head that we all know and love, though even that first draft of the character wasn’t exactly meant to be a child-friendly mascot. Ditko envisioned an uncanny arachnid-human hybrid whose freakish poses and dark costume would strike terror into the hearts of criminals, with the inclusion of web-shooters possibly having been a suggestion by Ditko’s roommate at the time, renowned fetish artist and bondage enthusiast Eric Stanton.
These more adult-oriented origins may have changed over the years, but one could argue that Spidey never completely lost his darker side. In fact, we’d eventually see several grim storylines that explored the horrific consequences of Spider-Man’s radioactive blood. While having his irradiated body fluids give Mary Jane cancer is likely the most terrifying of these yarns (track down Spider-Man: Reign if you’re up for a depressing read that was at one point set to be adapted to film by Michael Jackson), one of the most memorable horror-adjacent moments in these comics has to be the acceleration of Peter Parker’s mutation and the eventual introduction of Man-Spider – a storyline that appears to have been one of the main inspirations behind the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
I sincerely doubt that Marvel Studios is really going to give their toy-selling juggernaut a Cronenbergian rebrand, but the most recent trailer for Brand New Day suggests that the creative team is pulling from some surprisingly spooky source material in this latest superhero sequel. Specifically, the trailer makes it seem like the film is set to be a loose adaptation of the Neogenic Nightmare arc from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, commonly known as the best exploration of Spidey’s radioactive dark side that also features the most iconic version of Man-Spider.
If you’re wondering what these influences could mean for the upcoming film, I’d like to invite you to join me as we look back on some of the animated series’ most horror-tinged episodes.
A fourteen-episode story arc that made up the show’s second season, Neogenic Nightmare began airing in September of 1995. At this point, the series had already earned a reputation as the definitive version of Spider-Man despite dealing with absurd levels of censorship and executive meddling. It’s widely known at this point that this incarnation of Spidey was prohibited from ever punching his villains, and the studio even insisted that realistic guns should be replaced with futuristic laser weapons in order to avoid enraging concerned parents.
And that’s not even mentioning bizarre demands like setting up Hobgoblin as the original Goblin villain simply because the folks responsible for the toy-line had already prepared the character’s merchandise before scripts were even written.
At the end of the day. the show’s success mostly came down to John Semper’s excellent writing, with the (mostly) faithful recreation of the Spider-Man’s core principals and a handful of iconic storylines (coupled with an excellent cast behind the scenes) elevating a what was intended to be a kid’s show promoting ToyBiz products.
Naturally, the rampant cartoon censorship of the 90s couldn’t keep Semper from wanting to explore darker themes from his own favorite Spider-Man comics, and that’s how his team came up with a season-long re-imagining of iconic arcs like the Six-Arm Saga, The Mutant Agenda and even the first appearance of the Sinister Six. These stories would be enhanced with additional “dark” characters like Blade, The Punisher and even Morbius (though the latter had to exchange his vampiric blood-drinking for bizarre plasma-absorbing powers in order to conform to network guidelines).
If you haven’t yet seen it, the complete Neogenic Nightmare arc follows Spider-Man as he discovers that his mutation is progressing beyond his initial superpowers and threatening to turn him into a more monstrous hybrid. After developing extra arms, Spidey goes so far as to request help from both the X-Men and several other super-heroes as he becomes embroiled in a criminal conspiracy involving a team-up between some of his most iconic villains. The arc eventually introduces us to the show’s version of Man-Spider, which is depicted here as the monstrous final stage of the process which began when Peter was first bitten by that radioactive spider.
Personally, I think this werewolf-like addition to Spidey’s genetic curse is the best incarnation of Man-Spider that we’ve ever seen. This is because the six-armed body horror of it all adds even more weight to Peter’s decision to keep helping others regardless of what his powers may cost him, with the creature’s final rampage even giving the supporting cast a chance to help Spider-Man for a change. While I don’t hate the Morbius movie as much as some other comic fans, it’s a shame that Sony relegated that story to a solo film instead of later incorporating it into the Man-Spider saga like Neogenic Nightmare did.
Season two of the animated series ended up being an even bigger hit than the first, with fans loving the show’s take on an expanded Marvel Universe (which even included the ’90s X-Men cast) as well as the darker take on a more monstrous Spider-Man. That’s why it makes sense that the MCU’s return to street-level comic adventures would harken back to this particular storyline – especially since it appears that the Disney wishes to use the upcoming film as an opportunity to shine a light on other Marvel characters just like Semper did back in the day.
From what we can see in the trailer, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appears to be going through his own additional transformations, including creepy fully black eyes and organic web-shooter, as well as the cocoon-building behavior previously seen in Marvel’s The Other arc in the comics. As I mentioned before, I doubt that the MCU will allow this particular cash cow to fully transform into a nightmarish spider freak that can scare away children, but there’s always a chance that the studio could surprise us with more horror elements. I’d also love to see the story explore Spidey’s mutation and use that as an excuse to formally introduce X-Men’s mutants into the MCU, especially since Sadie Sink is rumored to be playing Jean Grey in the flick.
However, even if Brand New Day doesn’t adapt as much of the Neogenic Nightmare as the promotional material has suggested, I’d argue that this particular season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series is still worth revisiting simply because it’s a great example of artists being able to work past network limitations in order to tell complex stories that approach full-on body-horror.
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