The House Always Wins - The Deer Hunter (1978)
Nick's (Chris Walken) third Russian Roulette session carries a teeth-grinding air of inevitability, but൩ the balletic trajectory of the crimson geyser erupting from his skull still shocks.
Footie Club - Misery (1990)
Speaking with an illogically soothing demeanour (“Shh, darling, trust me…”), psycho-nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) introduces the concept of "hobbling" to imprisoned writer P🔜aul Sheldon (James Caan).
Lodging a block of wood between his ankles and picking up her 🌸sledgehammer, the full horror of what she's about to do dawns on 🎃Paul – and us.
Director Rob Reiner worried Stephen King’s original - where Annie chops off one foot with an axe and cauterises the stumpඣ - was overly harsh. But his brain-persecuting twist is even more tw🍰isted. Kind of like Paul's ankles once it's over.
Strike Three! - Casino (1996)
Firebrand mob-midget Nicky (Joe Pesci) has pusheღd the bosses too far. So they dupe him and his brother into a deserted cornfield meet and systematically smash them up with baseball bats.
Not at the same time, mind. Bro' goes first༒ as sideshow for the restrained Nicky. Then he gets the clunk-and-crunch treatment...
"I'm just depicting that way of life," said Scorsese. "That's the way it really ends - your closest frie♏nd smashing you in the head with a baseball bat. Not even a gun. Not cutting your throat. You're still going to be breathing when they p🌃ut the dirt on you. If you want to live that lifestyle, that's where you're going to go."
Sap, Actually - Notting Hill (1999)
Still scarred from Andie MacDow🍎ell’s “Is it raining?” discharge, we wait with dread for Richard Curtis’ next love-gush moment...
But nothing🏅 can prepare for the full, gooey horror of Julia Roberts’ dimpled superstar quivering to Hugh Grant’s floppy stooge, “I’m൩ just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her..."?
"Get the kid!" - Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (1986)
Henry (Michael Rooker) and Otis (Tom Towles) crash into a family home and fatally attack the occupants. The powerlessness of the family against two deranged sociopaths is chilling, as is the sexual undercurrent and the 𝓡grainy camcorder viewpoint.
But a giddy pull-back-and-reveal is the clincher - we learn that the killers are actually playing the footage back at homꦐe – and we were watching w♊ith them.
Snuffed Out - Irreversible (2002)
Revenge is far from sweet in the first/last scene from Gaspar Noe's back-to-front oꦚrdeal-thriller.
After his mate Marcus (Vincent Cas♎sel) has his arm snapped in a nightclub fight, Pierre (Albert Dupontel) pins down the attacker and clunks a fire extinguisher into his pancaking skull. Over and over and over a✃gain. (Noe used subtle CGI to crank the scene's appalling realism.)
See also 💦- the bit with the bottle from Pan's ꦏLabyrinth.
Tobey Mugs - Spider-Man 3 (2007)
In which a sexy, uncostumed Spidey (To💎bey Maguire) with his sexy, emo, bad-Spidey floppy fringe does a sexy jazz-dance which involves whipping off his jacket in a sexy way and chucking chairs about, sexily.
Roughly ไabout as sexy as a saucer-full of used teabags.
Me In Your Eyes - Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
John Woo swoons over “the romantic feel of the film” on the DVD talk-track. Shame it’s Tom Cruise romancing himself. In bed, TC clo🙈cks his taut Tommy-tummy. Mmmmm, laydeez🍸...
Then he remembers Thandie Newton’s there. “Damn, you’reꦫ beautiful,” he smarms. Penny drops! He’s clocking his reflection in her eyes▨. Ugh.
Head Banger - Lost Highway (1997)
What is it with David Lynch and head wounds? If it🍬 isn’t women stumbling from car crashes with leaky scalps, it’s sleazebags in dressing gowns flying⛎ through the air and scrunching into coffee-table corners.
Lynch lingers on Andy’s (Michael Massee) furniture-themed impalement-by-forehead, too. Is he ꦐenjoying this?
Lip It Up And Start Again - Lost In Translation (2003)
As Bob Harris (Bill Murray) channel-hops, a subtle film about frienไdship and connection channel-plummets ๊into a crass farce of national stereotypes.
“Rip my stocking,” says his visiting 'premium fantasy' woman. "LIP them?”, Bob queries. Those crazy foreigners! And this sceneꦇ benefits the film how?
