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The American
The Nasty: Context is all. Ingrid has just enjoyed a romp in a log cabin, only to find in quick succession that a) somebody's trying to kill her boyf, b) he's a dab hand at killing them and c) he can't compromise his cover by leaving witnesses, even if she's hot.
Article continues belowAnd we're still only three minutes into the film.
Kick-Ass
The Victim: Gangland gofer Cody (Dexter Fletcher).
The Despatch: Trapped in a car that in the process of going through a junkyard crusher.
The Nasty: An obvious nod to Goldfinger , but here the subversion is total as father-and-daughter vigilantes Big Daddy (Nic Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) stand and watch as he's squashed until he pops. They're the heroes, by the way.
Tamara Drewe
The Victim: Pompous author Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam).
The Despatch: Trampled to death by cows while trying to assault his wife's lover Glen McCreavy (Bill Camp).
The Nasty: Arguably the oddest death of the year, for the simple reason that this kind of thing doesn't usually happen in a larky countryside Britcom.
Four Lions
The Victim: Jihadist suicide bomber Faisal (Adeel Akhtar).
The Despatch: Trying to scarper with carrier bags full of explosives, he accidentally blows himself up in a field full of sleep.
The Nasty: It's not so much nasty as embarrassing, as his body parts gets mixed up with his ovine victims.
Could've been worse, though. Faisal had been training crows to fly bombs; a mishap with one of those fellas would've looked really stupid.
Mother
The Victim: A scrap-collecting hobo.
The Despatch: Beaten to death with a wrench by an over-protective mother (Hye-ja Kim).
The Nasty: With her son banged up for murder, mom has tracked down a potential suspect to prove her boy's innocence... only for him to confirm the police had the right killer all along. Uh-oh.
So she does what every good mother would do. After all, blood is thicker than water.
The Expendables
The Victim: An anonymous guard, although he's representative of dozens of others. The Expendables' expendables, if you will.
The Despatch: A knife to the back of the neck.
The Nasty: The difference between a 15 and an 18 certificate? Two seconds: a shot of the knife being twisted in the neck being deemed sadistic enough by the BBFC to warrant cutting in order to achieve the more commercial certificate.
It's been reinstated for the 18-cert DVD. Enjoy.
Shutter Island
The Victims: Lots of Nazis at the Dachau concentration camp.
The Despatch: Executed by victorious American G.I.s, including Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio).
The Nasty: The sheer scale warrants inclusion, with Martin Scorsese's camera zooming off on a lengthy tracking shot as dozens of prisoners get diced in machine gun fire.
Meanwhile, Teddy takes his precious time putting the commandment (half of whose face is missing in a botched suicide attempt) out of his misery. Then again, these are Nazis we're talking about.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Victim: Serial killer Martin Vanger (Peter Haber)
The Despatch: Having barely escaped from a golf club beating by Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), Martin crashes his car... which then bursts into flame, frying him alive while Lisbeth looks impassively on.
The Nasty: Can't say he didn't deserve this, even the aftershocks of his grisly trade. Even so, it's hard not to feel a smidgeon of sympathy when up against the full force of Lisbeth - he didn't stand a chance.
Dream Home
The Victim: Pregnant woman (plus her unborn child, the first of several babies on this list).
The Despatch: Slammed to the floor until she miscarries, then vacuum packed in a plastic bag.
The Nasty: It's all the work of crazy Cheng Li-sheung (Josie Ho), who is getting proactive in her efforts to climb the property ladder by making sure she gets the fantasy flat of the title.
Cheng's other kills might be gorier, but this one wins on taboo-busting shock value alone.
Machete
The Victim: Random goon during a hospital fight sequence.
The Despatch: Machete (Danny Trejo) slices open the poor fella's stomach with a skull scraper, pulls out his lower intestine and jumps out of the window, using the innards as a rope to swing to safety.
The Nasty: Actually, on-screen, this one's pretty funny. But in real life? Ouch!
