The 10 most sickening movie scenes of all time
All art is supposed to provoke a reaction in the people who experience it, but sometimes cinema goes too far and deviates into genuinely sickening territory, although each offending movie approaches this in its own unique way.
While horror is the most obvious offender, and there are plenty of features that have pushed audiences towards breaking point, there are plenty of other genres capable of testing any viewer’s gag reflex to the limits.
Nobody goes into a film expecting or hoping – at least, hopefully not – to end up vomiting in the aisles or passing out and awakening to the sight of paramedics ensuring they’re still on the mortal plane, but it’s hard to predict when sickening cinema comes in so many forms.
Admittedly, there are a couple of horror flicks to be found lurking in the following ten, but there are also Oscar-winning literary adaptations, awards-laden dramas, thrillers, and even a character piece for good measure. The common thread, though, is that they’re all a test for the stomach.
The 10 most sickening movie scenes:
10. House of Wax (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2005)
One of the biggest marketing tactics deployed by Jaume Collet-Serra’s remake of the classic 1953 horror was ‘See Paris Die’, a questionable method that used the gruesome death of Paris Hilton as a means to try and entice an audience, which speaks volumes to the quality of the end product.
However, despite how terrible it may be in almost every other respect, House of Wax has one truly sickening scene that’s been one of humanity’s greatest fears since Ancient Greek times. It’s one of the worst injuries anyone can ever sustain, with the Achilles tendon a key sinew holding the body’s posture together.
Naturally, then, it’s entirely OK to look away when Jared Padelecki’s Wade Felton ends up having his snipped clean through with a pair of scissors. It’s grisly, stomach-churning stuff and about the only part of the movie that lingers in the memory for longer than five seconds.
9. Misery (Rob Reiner, 1990)
One of the most iconic scenes in horror history, Kathy Bates deservedly won the Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’ after making the life of James Caan a complete and utter… well, misery.
Thanks to a combination of Bates’ maniacal facial expressions, Caan’s agonised reactions, some literally bone-crunching sound design, and the misshapen appendages that serve as the end result, the Stephen King adaptation shocked viewers to the core.
Nobody wants to break a leg, nobody wants to break them both, and sure as hell, nobody wants to be strapped down and have them broken by the obsessed devotee currently holding them captive.
8. Cabin Fever (Eli Roth, 2002)
At best, a shaving cut can be a minor inconvenience, but on the worse end of the scale, it can cause a little gusher that refuses to stop bleeding. For Eli Roth, though, he decided to take things to harrowing extremes.
It would be perfectly acceptable for anyone who saw Cabin Fever to avoid shaving for as long as they deemed necessary in the aftermath because the sound of skin being peeled clean off by a razor is the sort of thing that stays seared into the memory.
Did Cabin Fever lead to a genuine drop in razor sales and a rise in beards? Maybe, maybe not, but it would be perfectly understandable and wholly acceptable if it had.
7. P2 (Franck Khalfoun, 2007)
Much like the aforementioned Achilles tendon, there are some parts of the body that should be off-limits for all forms of scary cinema, and there isn’t a soul out there who wouldn’t agree that fingernails need to be one of them.
Unfortunately, Franck Khalfoun had other ideas when he made his feature-length directorial debut in the psychological horror thriller P2. Wes Bentley’s security guard knocks out and kidnaps Rachel Nichols, leaving her with an increasingly desperate desire to escape her predicament.
Fingernails being loosened, pulled off, and forcibly attached sends a shiver straight down the spine to the point where it doesn’t even bear thinking about, which by default makes P2 a truly despicable piece of work for keeping it in the final cut.
6. Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)
Danny Boyle blazed a trail through independent British cinema with Trainspotting, and while there are plenty of off-putting moments contained within, Ewen Bremner’s Spud is forced to witness what’s got to be one of the worst things that could ever happen to a person.
Not to state the obvious, but nobody wants to be engulfed by the smell of shite. Nobody even wants to step in a dog turd, so it’s a formality that nobody in their right mind would get a kick out of being slathered in an industrial quantity of excrement.
Sure, there’s a hefty dose of black comedy in the scene, but the prospect of being coated head-to-toe in somebody else’s faeces is the type of thing that could easily turn the toughest of stomachs.
5. Pink Flamingos (John Waters, 1972)
Sticking with the theme of shit – for the last time, honest – John Waters has at least embraced his many nicknames that include the ‘Duke of Dirt’, ‘Prince of Puke’, and ‘Pope of Trash’.
There’s avant-garde cinema, and then there’s Divine wolfing up a freshly laid slab of dog toffee. The star has admitted to following the canine around and intently gazing at its arsehole, waiting for the moment of opportunity, which neatly encapsulates how off-putting it is.
Of course, it ended up becoming one of the most famous moments in Waters’ entire filmography, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sick.
4. Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972)
There are few moments in cinema as genuinely unnerving as a grown man imitating a pig, with Deliverance comfortably capable of making the skin crawl more than 50 years on from its release.
With Jon Voight’s Ed left tied up and helpless, Ned Beatty’s Bobby is instructed to strip down ahead of a traumatising assault at the hands of the hillbillies that didn’t take too kindly to the out-of-town interlopers.
The atmosphere is so uncomfortably thick that there isn’t a knife big or sharp enough to cut it, and that lurching sense of dread is undercut by the realisation there’s only one way this sorry situation is going to end. Burt Reynolds’ Lewis does make the save eventually, but the sickening damage has already been done.
3. The Joy Luck Club (Wayne Wang, 1993)
A landmark moment for Asian representation in mainstream American cinema, The Joy Luck Club remains as beloved as ever more than 30 years on from its release, so much so that a sequel was officially announced to be in development in 2022.
On the surface, it’s an intimate and moving character-driven drama about four immigrant Chinese families who start the titular club as a way to connect, play mah-jong, and share stories about their lives, but there’s one shocking scene that stands out for the way it punched audiences right in the gut.
Ying-Ying St. Clair struggles with depression, which is only exacerbated by her unfaithful and abusive husband Lin-Xiao. During a moment of dissociation, she drowns her infant son in the bath in a truly haunting moment, which impacts her for years to come. Not quite sickening in the conventional sense, but enough to cause a visceral emotional reaction on a cellular level.
2. Gerald’s Game (Mike Flanagan, 2017)
Long touted as being unfilmable, Mike Flanagan found an inspired way of bringing Stephen King‘s story Gerald’s Game to the screen, even if it arguably would have been preferable for the tome to remain in development hell looking at what transpired.
Everyone to have seen the Netflix original knows exactly what sequence this entry is referring to, and for anyone who hasn’t gotten around to seeing it yet, what a fortunate position to be in. Quite simply, it’s one of the most sickening things ever put to film, with degloving a nightmare made flesh. Or lack thereof.
It’s enough to make the teeth water, with Carla Gugino’s phenomenal performance selling the inner turmoil of realising that some things – no matter how horrendous they may be – must be done in order to ensure survival.
1. American History X (Tony Kaye, 1998)
In microcosm, the scene is Edward Norton playing a despicable person doing a despicable thing, but it’s the sound design that elevates American History X‘s most notorious scene into the halls of cinematic infamy.
The actor’s Academy Award-nominated performance as Danny Vinyard is a ferocious tour-de-force, but once the sound of an innocent man’s teeth scraping across the pavement have been heard, never again do they leave the memory.
It’s admittedly a masterclass in balancing imagery with the soundscape to create maximum impact and effect, but it’s also the stuff of nightmares. It’s one of those scenes that can barely be watched, and that sound alone is enough to cause a shudder even if American History X never gets a rewatch.
