Top 11 Most Disturbing Movie Scenes

By CJ Tiernan

Normally, I try to create lists to spread positivity in the world. "So shines a good deed in a weary world," if you will. I'm gonna level with you. You probably shouldn't read this list. If you haven't seen these movies, then there are spoilers ahead but, much more pressingly, these are moments in movies that live rent-free in my head. I have essentially compiled a list of things you shouldn't watch if you haven't already seen them. They are gross, graphic, and in almost every instance, involve serious bodily harm or death. There is even a death by suicide. In the immortal words of Andy Bernard (a.k.a. The Nard Dog) "steer clear, Big Tuna. Head for open waters." These scenes shook me to my core and, in many instances, appear so real I can't believe it was fake. The fact that they're all scenes in movies in which no animals were harmed is the thin saving grace to which I cling. Without further ado (and, again, RUN!) here is my list of the Top 11 Most Disturbing Scenes I've ever seen in a movie.

WikiNerd97, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

1. Midsommar (2019) - Cliff Jump

Midsommar is the most disturbing movie I've ever seen. My top 2 most disturbing scenes transpire during the same 2 and a half-ish hour movie. The movie itself was fine. It falls somewhere in the middle of my all-time movie list. There are definitely entertaining elements. After watching it, I texted my friend who told me I had to watch it and simply told him "I hate you. What did you make me do." The first scene here is an old dude that, according to the culture of this weird Scandinavian cult, has to die because he's old. He walks to the top of a cliff and simply walks off the edge. The movie shows him landing in a disturbing pile of human parts. You waltz into a movie that is described as a "horror movie that takes place during daylight hours" and you don't know exactly what to expect. Hand up, I didn't expect this.

2. Midsommar (2019) - Asphyxiation

As if the previous entry wasn't a big enough deal-breaker, we have a murder/suicide. A girl kills her parents and herself using some hoses, some duct tape, and the exhaust from a car. I can't begin to describe to you how difficult this is to watch. It is graphic and hits you in like the opening credits. You get a whiff of what's happening as soon as you see a fireman turning off a car in a garage, but the horror of following the hoses and actually seeing it, man there is just no preparation for that. Woof.

3. Saw 2 (2005) - Needle Pit

There are currently 10 movies in the Saw franchise. That is a lot of body horror. I've only ever seen the first two (I actually saw the second Saw in theaters before I got around to watching the first one, which was better). A scene in the movie involves a character falling into a pit of hypodermic needles. While my number one fear is death, I almost feel this specific version of death is worse. I'm not a fan of needles. I do the whole flu shot thing for the good of the colony but I don't like it and I always look the other way and try to think happy thoughts. If the image of this movie ever pops into my head while I'm dropping in on the doctor, whelp, I'm probably just running away screaming and never coming back.

4. Ghost Ship (2002) - Mass Beheading

It's been a long time since I saw Ghost Ship. I don't know if the CGI holds up. I do know that the movie starts with a party atop a cruise ship of some kind and something happens that leads to one of the wires snapping and whipping in such a way that it cuts through a mass of humanity. It beheads people left and right. The worst part (worse than dying?) is that there is one person left on the boat, a little girl, that was too short to get beheaded so she is left to mingle among the beheaded dead instead. [insert an involuntary shiver up the spine here]

5. Green Room (2015) - Broken Arm

I've broken a bone before (I know, I know, I need to get this whole bragging thing under control) and I happen to know that it can be crazy painful and yet from the outside look like nothing is wrong. When I went to the hospital to get the X-ray to track down the broken bone(s) in my leg, they couldn't find it. They tortured me by moving my foot around instead of the X-ray thing and then went full Yukon Cornelius and said "nothing." They then whisked me away to get a CT Scan where they said something like "oh, yeah, it's super broken." In the movie Green Room, no need for an X-ray. The bone pops right on out of the skin like the chestburster from Alien and screams hello. You get a real nice gander at all the inner workings there. To quote Brian Regan "it seems like everything on my inside wants to be on my outside." Yuck!

6. Resident Evil (2002) - Lasers

This is another one that I don't need to see again so I'm unclear if the CGI holds up. What I do know, is there is a scene where a group of people are trying to traverse a laser field. One guy doesn't duck and it gets him high. The next guy goes and the laser moves on him and gets him low. The third guy (I can't believe they cut this scene out of Goldilocks) is all kinds of ready to jump or duck. The ball is in the laser's court. Well, the laser, which apparently has advanced to Grandmaster-level Chess moves, spreads out in a grid pattern and buzzes through the guy, turning him into cubes. The man gets turned into cubes! I'm mean, no thanks. Hard pass. Not for me, dawg.

7. Hostel (2005) - Achilles Tendons

Over the past few years, the Achilles tear has become the new ACL tear in sports. It seems like all the cool kids are doing it. Basketball and Football players are dropping like flies out there. The first time I ever encountered an Achilles issue, was when I saw this movie. The movie itself is meh. It's fine. But there is a scene toward the end where someone is tied up and tortured. His Achilles are cut off-screen. We see the movement and hear it but we don't actually see the cut. Then the man sets the victim free and we see as he tries to flee, he can't run or move. He drops to the floor. We see the separation at the back of the leg. It's icky.

8. 127 Hours (2010) - Arm

Speaking of icky arms, I give you this movie. Now, you know what you're in for in this one when you sign up and sit down. Because it's based on a true story, we know what the ending is. But again, we see the inside of an arm. I'm not a surgeon. I don't need that in my life. I'll take your word for it. I'll believe you. I'm amenable.

9. Looper (2012) - Limbs Disappearing

Looper has one of the wildest dismemberment scenes in the history of cinema. Due to the logic employed with time travel in the world of the movie, actions play out in real time for past and present alike. This leads to a wild scene where a man is being tortured and dismembered in the past and he starts to feel it in the present as parts of his body are just disappearing. It is such a morbid moment. To watch him driving and then walking as parts of him just suddenly cease to exist is wild. Again, don't watch!

10. Frozen (2010) - Broken Legs

Extra warning here: if you go into this movie thinking you're watching the Disney animated one from 2013, you're gonna be very shocked. Both movies take place in the snow-covered mountains and that's where the similarity ends. In this movie, a group of three college kids go to a ski lodge on a weekend and convince the ski lift guy to let them go down the hill one more time. However, he leaves his post and tells the guy who takes over about the kids. Due to a mistaken identity, the kids are assumed to have come down the hill and the ski lift is stopped. It leaves the three kids stranded on the ski lift too high to drop down and the ski lodge wont open again until Friday (this is on a Sunday). It's a real problem. Well, one of the kids decides to drop as opposed to dying of hypothermia and breaks both legs on the landing. It's nasty and doesn't end well for him.

11. Minority Report (2002) - Moldy Sandwich

This is the only moment on my list that doesn't involve death or life-threatening injury. It is, however, a terrifying and abhorrent scene. Tom Cruise is on the run and just had his eyes surgically swapped so that he can avoid being detected by Big Brother. He has to operate blind while he waits for the eyes to heal. He needs sustenance (as do we all) and pops into the fridge for a sandwich. However, he ends up with the wrong one (again, he's blind) and bites into this green, nasty, moldy sandwich. It gives me the willy's just thinking about it. I'm the guy in the house who is always throwing away the old bags of bread as soon as I see a trace of green. Sometimes, I just have a clock go off in my head (like a quarterback in the pocket) and eject on the bread before mold is even visible. Mold: not even once.

Final Thoughts

If you made it this far, thank you and I'm sorry. This is a wild list. I don't know why I made it. It just kind of feels like I said, "here are some horrible things I've seen that I think about sometimes. Won't you be my neighbor." Yikes! What a terrible move. Anyway, if I missed any of the disturbing things in movies that keep you from getting 40 clean winks, please let me know in the comments section. We can be forever unclean together. Thanks!