The Top 10 Bloodiest Movies to Ever Grace the Screen
Gore in movies is an interesting thing. Sometimes it’s funny, other times gross. Sometimes it’s shocking, and occasionally it’s reprehensible. The following list contains ten films which, for a variety of reasons, are noteworthy for their depiction of blood-letting. In a loose sense, they could be regarded as ten of the bloodiest films ever made, although other films could certainly be substituted. In any case, this list is intended to be fun and interesting, so sit back, read on, and enjoy!
10. Tenebrae (1982)
In the 1970s and early 80s, Italian auteur Dario Argento was a cinematic force to be reckoned with. After helping to pioneer the short-lived “giallo” genre (a series of European mystery-thrillers in the 60s and 70s, noted for their stylized depictions of violence and avant-garde sensibilities; see, for example, Deep Red), he went on to direct the undisputed and hyper-violent horror classic, Suspiria. Though for all of Argento’s filmic bona fides, it’s one of his lesser-remembered works—Tenebrae—that deserves a spot on this list.
Tenebrae’s plot is nothing special: While abroad in Rome, an American murder-mystery author becomes ensnared in a string of killings somehow connected to his latest book. What is special about Tenebrae is its engrossing visual and directorial style, terrific soundtrack (provided by 70s synth-rockers and frequent Argento collaborators, Goblin) and, above all, its daringly abundant use of The Red Stuff. For anyone interested in gore, genre cinema, or both, Tenebrae is an absolute must-see.
Choice scene: Kitchen dismemberment
WARNING: This clip is decidedly not safe for viewing at work (“NSFW”); it also contains significant plotline spoilers (“SPOILERS”). Use discretion when viewing.
9. Battle Royale (2000)
“Could you kill your best friend?”
So reads the tagline of Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku’s pop-exploitation romp about a class of ninth graders who, when selected by a tyrannical Japanese government to be made an example of, are forced to kill one another in a three-day, well, battle royale. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Battle Royale has been the target of much criticism over the years, chided not only for its graphic depictions of violence, but also for the fact that said violence is inflicted upon and perpetrated by teenagers. In the spring of 2007, for example, the film (as well as a proposed American remake) was the subject of resurgent controversy following the fatal shootings at Virginia Tech.
Still, such objections haven’t stopped Battle Royale from commanding considerable esteem among cult film devotees. Even cinephile-cum-auteur Quentin Tarantino counts himself among the BR-faithful, having last year cited it among his favorite films of the past decade. “If there’s any movie that’s been made since I’ve been making movies that I wish I made,” Tarantino said, “it’s [Battle Royale].”
High praise, indeed, from the man responsible for such venerated genre films as Kill Bill and Deathproof.
Choice scene: Lighthouse massacre (NSFW/SPOILERS)
8. Day of the Dead (1985)
I first saw Day of the Dead, George A. Romero’s follow-up to Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, when I was about 13. At the time, I couldn’t conceive of a grittier or more grotesque film. While the same may not be true today, Day of the Dead deserves serious credit for holding up visually as well as it has over the years. Regarded as something of a milestone in practical-effects work, the film features a delightfully campy surfeit of grade-A gore.
Without question, credit for this fact is due to special-effects guru and horror legend Tom Savini, whose make-up work on Day of the Dead is par excellence. From zombie disembowelment to human dismemberment, Savini handles it all with technical brilliance and tongue-in-cheek fun. And, best of all, it’s 100% CGI-free. Ah, the good old days….
Choice scene: Climactic dismemberment (NSFW/SPOILERS)
7. Martyrs (2008)
In May 2008, French director Pascal Laugier became an overnight sensation in horror filmdom when his sophomore feature, Marytrs, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. Garnering praise from some, revilement from others and complacence from none, Martyrs instantly catapulted Laugier to a position of in-industry notoriety. Hollywood wanted him; there was talk of fast-tracking an American remake of his film (20th Century Fox ended up with the rights; Twilight’s Kristen Stewart is rumored to be starring); and trade publications were calling Martyrs “one of the most extreme pictures ever made [and] one of the finest horror movies of the past decade.” Indeed, the internet was abuzz. Most intriguingly, though, horror fans the world over looked at each other and with a collective sigh of befuddlement, asked, “What the hell is Martyrs and how can I see it?”
Well, here’s what the hell Martyrs is: 99 minutes of some of the most visually and emotionally perturbing material ever committed to film. While not a proper guts-and-gore sort of horror movie (its aspirations are decidedly greater, regardless of whether or not it satisfies them), Martyrs deserves a spot on this list for its absolute relentlessness in depicting physical and emotional violence. Its capacity to repel some viewers while moving others is astounding. As such, Martyrs ought not to be regarded the way one would regard, say, Day of the Dead, which aims to titillate. Quite the opposite, Martyrs abandons gaudy aesthetics for visual and tonal austerity; it is not concerned with entertainment.
Martyrs is an example of hard-edged, experimental filmmaking—one that straddles the line between art-house and exploitation. Popcorn fare, though, it is not.
Choice scene: Home invasion (NSFW/SPOILERS)
6. High Tension, aka Haute Tension, aka Switchblade Romance (2003)
Before directing such big-budget Hollywood remakes as The Hills Have Eyes, Mirrors, and the forthcoming Piranha 3-D, French filmmaker Alex Aja was shocking indie-film audiences with his 2003 breakout, High Tension. Single-handedly kick-starting what is now referred to as the “French new wave of horror,” High Tension features a genre-defying narrative, gritty presentation, and hyper-realistic depictions of violence.
The film quickly gained international recognition for its fresh take the then-tired slasher genre, abandoning many of the stylistic, tonal, and even sexual conventions that led to that genre’s stagnation in the 1990s and early 2000s. It gained attention, too, for its audaciously graphic violence, which initially earned the film the ultra-rare NC-17 classification in America. With heavy editing, the film eventually earned an R-rating and saw a brief theatrical run. Once released on DVD in its original form, though, it was quickly championed by horror fans who hailed both it and Aja as the saviors of horror. Considering the French horror renaissance that’s followed, perhaps they were right.
Choice scene: Head + Banister + Dresser scene
5. Inside, aka À l'intérieur (2007)
Following High Tension, the first film to truly continue the trend of the so-called “French horror new wave” was 2007’s Inside. A home-invasion flick, Inside features a young, newly-widowed female who is relentlessly pursued by a crazed, scissor-wielding madwoman. And, oh yeah—the young, female protagonist is pregnant. Like, really, really pregnant. And I don’t need to tell you that the film is violent. Like, really, really violent.
By the time the third reel rolls around, Inside is truly harrowing, worthy in some ways of Hitchcock or Carpenter. Unfortunately, it largely falls apart in the final act as it attempts to continue upping the gore ante. Unlike higher-minded fare, though—like Martyrs, or arguably High Tension—Inside is a exploitative shock-fest through and through. Its sole ambition is to titillate with an onslaught of nail-biting, eye-covering gross-outs and “gotcha!” gags.
But make no mistake: Inside packs quite the hematic punch, so much so that a staggering eight minutes of footage were cut from it before winning an American R-rating. And trust me when I say, for all the film’s gore-filled goodness, it’s the final moments that contain the biggest money-shots. Ladies and gentlemen (but mostly ladies), you’ve been warned!
Choice scene: The final few moments, which I dare not describe here
4. Guinea Pig Series (1980s and early 90s)
Okay, before delving into these movies (or home-videos, more accurately), it should be said that the Guinea Pig films are lowest common denominator trash. They are poorly made, misogynistic, transgressive, faux snuff films. They are an affront to cinema, an art form to which they bear no resemblance. The series’ earlier entries are especially worthless. Later entries, while hardly laudable, at least abandon the pretense that they are anything but pornography. Clearly, I do not recommend watching the Guinea Pig films, having myself seen only small segments of each (they’re viewable on YouTube—yay).
With that being said, the series’ reputation for over-the-top gore is famous. Whether this reputation is in spite of or because of their tastelessness, I do not know. In the early 90s, though, actor Charlie Sheen famously mistook Flower of Flesh and Blood, the second entry in the series, for a genuine snuff film. He notified the MPAA, who in turn contacted the FBI. To my continuing chagrin, no one was arrested.
This is all that is worth saying about the Guinea Pig movies.
Choice scene: Who cares?
3. Dead Alive, aka Braindead (1992)
Before there was Peter Jackson’s Academy Award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, there was Peter Jackson’s cult-adored splatter pic, Dead Alive. And while it may technically be the bloodiest film ever made (many allege it to be so), much of the gore in Dead Alive evokes an explicitly comedic response—hence the film’s placement at #3 on this list, rather than #1.
Borrowing tonally from the tongue-in-cheek Evil Dead series (three films also by a now-mega-famous director: Spiderman-helmer Sam Raimi), Dead Alive centers on a man, Lionel, whose authoritative mother is bitten by a “Sumatran rat-monkey” and turned into—what else?—a zombie. Morphing from mild-mannered milquetoast to ass-kicker extraordinaire as he then does, Lionel must take on the rest of his neighborhood, who, of course, have also become zombies.
Suffice it to say, heads (and arms and legs) roll. If modern-day horror-comedies like Shaun of the Dead are your cup of tea, though, Jackson’s ultra-campy romp through suburban New Zealand may well be your blood-soaked idea of heaven.
Choice scene: “The lawnmower scene” (NSFW)
2. Aftermath (1994)
If there’s a film canon for extreme horror, Nacho Cerda’s “Aftermath” belongs in it. Clocking in at just thirty minutes, Aftermath is the second entry in a trilogy of short films exploring death in its multifarious aspects. Often regarded for its amazingly realistic, no-frills practical-effects work (not to mention its depraved subject matter), the film centers on a Spanish morgue during a graveyard shift. In it, an aberrant pathologist has his sadistic, necrophilic way with a subject of, shall we say, would-be nubility.
Believe it or not, though, Aftermath deserves credit for its artistry. For one, it never takes refuge in the piss-poor “found footage” conceit, nor does it falsely aver to be “genuine,” as do the reprehensible Guinea Pig films. Rather, Cerda’s talent for filmmaking takes a front-and-center role in Aftermath, despite the putridity of the film’s on-screen content. Each shot is meticulously composed; the lighting, carefully calculated. Even the quality of the musical score—Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor—seems misplaced given its caliber. The first and third films in Cerda’s trilogy—entitled The Awakening and Genesis, respectively—only further compound Aftermath’s seeming incongruity: neither one is even remotely controversial in what it depicts.
So, in Aftermath we see a fascinating instance of counter-intuition: The film is at once thematically and visually vile, while also technically and artistically praiseworthy. It was film critic Roger Ebert who once said, though, that artistry can redeem any subject matter. I suppose that if his philosophy can be applied to any film, it’s Aftermath.
Choice scene: No comment
1. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Okay, here we go. Numero uno. The Big One.
Cannibal Holocaust tells the story of an American anthropologist (“Dr. Monroe”) who leads a rescue party deep into the Amazon to locate a missing documentary film crew. What he instead finds is the crew’s mutilated remains, along with footage they captured while interacting with local cannibal tribes. Upon returning to New York, Monroe screens the footage for an eager group of TV executives. What unfolds is a series of atrocities committed by the encroaching film crew, and eventually, justifiably, by the abused natives. The film ultimately foists itself off as some sort of morality tale—“Who are the real savages—the cannibals, or us!”—but let’s be honest: no one looking for a lesson in morality is going to pick up a movie called “Cannibal Holocaust.”
While the setup is admittedly well-conceived, the film itself is an exercise in audience endurance. Consider that Cannibal Holocaust is currently, or was once, banned in the following countries: Singapore, Norway, Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Ireland, Iceland, England, Scotland, Wales and Italy.
Yikes.
The film isn’t just violent; it’s convincingly violent. So much so that following its premier in Milan, director Ruggero Deodato was arrested on charges of obscenity. He was then subsequently charged—no joke—with the murder of his cast, whom Italian authorities actually believed to be dead. It wasn’t until Deodato produced the actors in court that he was acquitted of the charges. And it gets worse: Rather than for its realistic portrayal of violence against humans, the film is most noted for its actual infliction of violence upon animals. Disgustingly and truthfully, Cannibal Holocaust features the on-screen stabbing death of a large rodent, the shooting death of a pig, the dismemberment and disembowelment of a giant fresh-water tortoise and the beheadings of two monkeys (only the second of which was used in the film, the first being the casualty of a failed take), among others. Needless to say, it’s some awful, awful stuff.
Cannibal Holocaust’s shock-and-awe, faux-documentary style was largely the result of a confluence of generic trends popular in the 1970s. Most evidently, it drew from the European “mondo” shock-documentaries of the 60s and 70s, films which related bizarre curiosa from around the world for Western audiences. It drew, too, from the extreme horror films popular in America and Europe during and after the Vietnam War—films exemplified by the likes of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left.
The result was indeed ugly, if not unintentional.
For those who can countenance the ghastly violence and moral privation contained within Cannibal Holocaust, though, it may be worth noting that the film’s special-effects work and overall presentation is really something to behold. Its musical score by two-time Academy Award-nominee Riz Ortolani is appropriately stirring, providing an apropos contrast to the film’s base imagery. Its virtual invention of the cinema verite “found footage” conceit, recently made popular by films like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, is noteworthy too.
For these reasons, as well as for its academic worth as a piece of genre-cinema, the film may merit a viewing by some. For those morally objected to its depiction of violence against animals (hopefully everyone), it may also be worth noting that a special-edition DVD—only recently released in America—is full of interviews with a contrite cast and crew, expressing remorse for the killings which they largely chalk up to youthful indiscretion. It’s hard to recommend a film like Cannibal Holocaust, though; its appeals are so esoteric, and so few.
As for the film’s aforementioned conclusion, it consists of nothing more than a grandiloquent exhortation on the nature of exploitation. The irony, of course, is that Cannibal Holocaust is itself incredibly exploitative. As such, the message comes off as trite at best and offensive at worst. However, for a gore-laden, hyper-controversial exploitation romp, it’s hard to do better than Cannibal Holocaust. So, I guess that’s kind of, sort of a recommendation. Sort of.
Choice scene: The famous “impalement scene”
Article written by Josh Hubanks
