Us horror fans are known for being a strong-stomached group of people, but there are some things that are still able to get under our skin. Most people just think about the gory moments in horror movies, but a horror film can still shock and disturb you without being gory. This list is filled with moments like that. Whether it’s pus, eye-gougings, teeth-pullings, castrations, clitorectomies or any other number of bodily mutilations, everyone has at least one thing that makes them turn away from the screen. Which one makes you cringe the most?
***SPOILERS and NSFW imagery for many films below***
Pus
I’ve talked about my issues with pus before and specifically mentioned two of the three scenes listed below. Give me all the blood and gore you want, but the second pus gets involved I’m done. Gross!
Hostel
Few things are worse than losing an eye, but what about losing an eye and then having pus spew out of your eye socket? That’s what happens when Paxton (Jay Hernandez) snips off Kana’s (Jennifer Lim) eye in Eli Roth’s Hostel.
Dead Alive
Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive is lauded for its excessive amounts of gore, but it’s all so silly that it’s never really that disturbing. The same cannot be said about the scene in which Lionel’s (Timothy Balme) decomposing mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody) attempts to eat a bowl of custard during a dinner party. A boil on Vera’s cheek bursts and squirts pus into a guest’s custard bowl and he eats it. It sets the standard for gross-out moments in horror films.
Demons
Poor Rosemary (Geretta Giancarlo) never stood a chance. After getting her face nicked by an evil demon mask, the wound slowly becomes infected. When it becomes too much to handle, Rosemary runs to the bathroom to give it a closer look. I’m sure you can guess what happens next. PUS EVERYWHERE. Then a demonic transformation for good measure.
Nails
Imprint
Takashi Miike’s (Audition) entry into Showtime’s Masters of Horror was pulled from the first season due to concerns about the film’s graphic nature. Yes, Imprint was too graphic for Showtime(!), and no scene is more indicative to why as much as the infamous fingernail scene. A young prostitute (Michié) is tortured after being accused of stealing a jade ring from her Madam. She is burned and has needles driven into her gums, but nothing is as difficult to watch as seeing more needles driven under her fingernails. It is one of the most disturbing moments in horror history.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Marcus Nispel’s remake of Tobe Hooper’s classic tells you in the first scene that something is going to happen to someone’s fingernail, but you’re still not prepared for it when Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) carries Andy (Mike Vogel) down into the basement. Desperate, Andy claws at the wall to stop Leatherface, losing a fingernail or two in the process.
P2
First, P2 is underrated. Second, it features a really grotesque sequence in which protagonist Angela (Rachel Nichols) detaches a fingernail and is forced to pull it off of her finger. Trapped in the garage of the office building she works at, Angela manages to escape her captor Thomas (Wes Bentley) and make it to the exit g ate. After squeezing her hand through the gate with her cell phone in an attempt to get a signal, she drops the phone. Just out of reach, she claws at the ground to try to grab it and loses a fingernail. Watching her pull it off is simply cringeworthy.
Black Swan
There are a lot of disturbing body horror moments in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, but non quite as shocking as Nina (Natalie Portman) pulling her cuticle back, only to lose even more skin off of her finger. It hurts just thinking about it!
Eyes
A Serbian Film
One could argue that everything about A Serbian Film makes you want to turn away from the film. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say that they “enjoyed” it. It’s more of a movie you endure. Still, it does feature one shocking moment (of many) in which Miloš (Srđan Todorović) literally fucks a man’s eye-socket to death.
Zombie
This one is a little cliché if only because it always pops up whenever someone talks about disturbing eye scenes in film, but it pops up so often for a reason! Paola (Olga Karlatos) manages to escape a zombie’s grasp and slams the door on its fingers, only for the zombie to break through the door and pull Paola eye-first into a large wooden splinter.
Mouth
Oldboy
Chan-Wook Park’s masterpiece of revenge features one graphic scene in which Oh Dae-Su severs his tongue in a last-ditch effort to appease his enemy. It doesn’t work, but the moment the scissors touch the tongue you can’t help but look away. Shockingly, Park doesn’t even show the tongue cutting, but the mental image and very real sound effects make it difficult to stomach.
Bug
Bug is one of the rare films to receive an F CinemaScore from audiences. This is probably due to the fact that it was marketed as a killer big movie. It’s not a killer bug movie. Rather, it’s a tale of a paranoid schizophrenic (Michael Shannon) who believes that microscopic bugs were planted inside his body by the government. In one memorable scene he pulls his tooth out when he thinks a colony of bugs is living inside it.
Genitals
Antichrist
Also known as the movie where Charlotte Gainsbourg cuts off her clitoris with a pair of scissors and Willem Dafoe ejaculates blood. Need I say more?
Hostel: Part II
Alright, so this one may not really be a head turner, but it sure is funny. For most of Hostel: Part II, we are led to believe that Todd (Richard Burgi) is the psychotic one and his pal Stuart (Roger Bart) is the shy, reserved one. Turns out that is not the case and Stuart is a raging psychotic. This makes it even more cathartic when Beth (Lauren German) cuts off his penis and feeds it to a dog.
