50 Goriest Movie Moments

Blood Feast 2 (2002)

The Moment: Fuad Ramses III (J.P. Delahoussaye) peels a young girl’s skin (and hair) from her skull, leaving her little more than a bloody, open-mouthed mess.

Look Away When: Ramses finishes his carving and starts peeling the hair off his young victim’s head…

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

The Moment: At the film’s close, Jack (Perry Pirkanen) is killed and mutilated by the cannibalistic Yanomamö.

Look Away When: One of the Yanomamö takes a blade to Jack’s privates…

Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead (2006)

The Moment: Workers at a New Jersey fast food joint are variously butchered by the giant zombie chickens, who subject them to all manner of splatty torture.

Look Away When: A girl’s face is sliced up using a slicing machine, while another guy has his head and spine removed and popped on the grill.

Scanners (1981)

The Moment: That infamous head-exploding scene, in which Michael Ironside causes a ConSec suit’s cranium to erupt in a claret soup.

Look Away When: No, don’t look away, this is Cronenberg at a gory high.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999)

The Moment: Djinn (Andrew Divoff) winds up in prison where he goads an inmate into making a wish that has a very gooey outcome…

Look Away When: “I wanna walk right though the bars, man,” says the inmate.

Good luck.

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

The Moment: “Who’s laughing now?!”

We could fill this list with moments from the Evil Dead movies (including the awesome remake, out Friday) but our favourite has got to be when Ash (Bruce Campbell) is beaten up by his own possessed hand and decides to take matters into, well, you know.

Look Away When: Ash grabs the chainsaw…

Maniac (1980)

The Moment: Effects guru Tom Savini plays a young victim of Frank Zito (Joe Spinell).

Zito jumps onto the hood of Savini’s car, aims a shotgun at him through the windscreen and…

Look Away When: …Savini’s head explodes in a shower of red.

Ninja Assassin (2009)

The Moment: Bad guys get taken out in supremely gory fashion in this blood-splattered scene.

Watch it here .

Look Away When: The arrival of our titular assassin is heralded by an unlucky bad guy having his head sliced in half.

Ichi The Killer (2001)

The Moment: Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) slices off the end of his own tongue as an offering to the boss of Suzuki (Susumu Terajima).

Look Away When: Kakihara slowly begins to push the blade through his tongue…

Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)

The Moment: After opening the Ark, Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey) suffers the worst fate imaginable – his entire face melts into a puddle of goo.

Look Away When: Toht starts screaming.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.