What’s the most important ingredient to any successful horror flick? Gore – and lots of it. Be it sloppy homespun effects or stunning prosthetic craftsmanship, audiences want the blood by the liter.
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Have a peek at the following clips that don’t hold back on the butchery. They’re some of the best gory horror movie scenes around and do more for the imagination than any cheeseball CGI sequence. This is old school splatter at its best, horror fiends. You’ll never look at a plate of spaghetti the same way again.
Warning: The following clips are without question NSFW.
5. Tenebrae: The Axe Scene
After a couple of supernatural thrillers, master of horror Dario Argento returns to the Giallo genre for a mystery thriller about an American writer stalked by a serial killer through the streets of Rome. It has one of the goriest scenes ever filmed – so much so that it was deleted from most American prints. Allow us to set the scene: Jane (terrified due to an earlier stabbing event) sits at a table with a gun, nervously waiting for a friend. But a madman soon crashes the party, armed with an axe and ready to hack off some limbs. White walls, severed arteries, you get the picture.
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4. The Fly: The Arm Wrestling Scene
Some of wildest special effects to ever grace the silver screen come from David Cronenberg. Example? The Fly. Nothing compares to the film’s acid vomit scene – and, really, just the thought of Jeff Goldblum transforming into a bug flips our stomachs. But rather than present an oozing, skinless man-sect regurgitating slime, we went with this clip that contains a little less squish and a lot more crunch. Wait for it, possibly with the sound off.
3. The Exorcist: The Final Exorcism Scene
Quick – What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of The Exorcist? Yes, that putrid puree spewing out of Linda Blair’s mouth and splashing all over Jason Miller. We spared you Cronenberg’s gustatory upchuck so as to bring you William Friedkin’s gloriously grotesque single-shot vomit scene from hell. The clip did for Anderson’s pea soup what Andy Warhol did for Campbell’s tomato. Apologies if you just ate lunch.
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2. Alien: The Xenomorph Chestburster Scene
Similar to Friedkin, Ridley Scott loved to surprise his actors and capture authentic emotions on camera. Apparently, the crew of Alien had seen the Xenomorph puppet and knew it was going to pop out, but had no idea the lil’ guy would burst through John Hurt’s sternum in an explosion of fake blood and bone. The scene most certainly caught the eye of horror maestro John Carpenter. His defibrillator scene in The Thing, which premiered a few years after Alien, bears quite the gory resemblance to Scott’s torso terror.
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1. The Evil Dead: The Book-Burning Scene
Sam Raimi does not hold back. His low-budget 1981 cult classic set the gold standard for DIY effects – Raimi’s actors even wielded real chainsaws and shotguns during the shoot. The film’s stomach-churning camera tricks, homespun monster makeup, and oozing fluids all add up to horror genre brilliance. In this scene, Ash sets the Necronomicon on fire, with very gory results.
Still from "The Fly" via Brooksfilms; Still from "The Exorcist" via Warner Bros; Still from "The Evil Dead" via Renaissance Pictures; Still from "Alien" via 20th Century Fox
