Buried
The Victim: Iraq-based contractor Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds).
The Despatch: Clue's in the title. He's buried alive in a sand-filled coffin.
The Nasty: The darkest twist of the year, in that Reynolds spends the entire film waiting to be freed...only for his rescuers to unearth the wrong coffin. You're practically gagging on the sand just thinking about it, aren't you?
Frozen
The Victim: Skiing holidaymaker Dan (Kevin Zegers).
The Despatch: Eaten alive by a pack of wolves after breaking his legs from a ski lift fall.
The Nasty: It's the helplessness that makes this one so...er...raw, with Dan's friend Joe (Shawn Ashmore) and girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell) stuck 50 ft in the air above the feral chow-time.
Saw 3D
The Victim: Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), ex-wife of John Kramer aka our friendly neighbourhood moralising sicko Jigsaw (Tobin Bell).
The Despatch: Strapped into Jigsaw's defining trap, the Reverse Beartrap, by fellow Jigsaw apprentice Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor).
The Nasty: The Reverse Beartrap became the defining image of the Saw franchise despite never actually killing a victim on-screen. When it finally happens here, it's as grim as you'd expect. And in 3D, too.
A Prophet
The Victim: Prisoner Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), a thorn in the side of criminal kingpin Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup).
The Despatch: Throat slashed by new recruit Malik (Tahar Rahim), who has concealed a razor blade in his mouth.
The Nasty: It's hard enough watching Malik smuggle the weapon behind his teeth, never mind the slow, grisly death rattle itself.
But what seals things is that Reyeb refuses to take it lying down, his ghost coming back to haunt Malik throughout the film. Hell of a guilt trip, huh?
City of Life and Death
The Victim: A Chinese baby.
The Despatch: Casually thrown out of a window by Japanese soldier Ida (Ryu Kohata), during the Rape of Nanking.
The Nasty: Two films this year (the other being City of War: The John Rabe Story ) have detailed the shocking events of Nanking 1937, when Japanese invaders slaughtered thousands of civilians. But amidst endless rapes and executions, though, this is the moment that chills the most.
Black Death
The Victim: Medieval knight Ulric (Sean Bean).
The Despatch: Witch Langiva (Caprice von Houten) ties him to four horses, and then sends the equine killers in opposite directions.
The Nasty: The golden oldies are the best. Christopher Smith's desire for muddy realism (albeit via the filter of modern FX) sees a classic making a comeback ... and, like all the best tunes, this one sticks in your head for sheer yuck value.
Piranha 3D
The Victims: Two beach babes (played by porn stars Ashlynn Brooke and Gianna Michaels).
The Despatch: Brooke is cut in half by a flying cable, Michaels has her face pulled off after her hair gets caught in an outboard motor.
The Nasty: Amidst plenty of razor-sharp flesh-shredding teeth action, it's ironic that the most gruesome deaths don't involve the piranha directly.
Actually, Eli Roth gets his head pulped in the same scene, but that's almost a given. It's the tongue-in-cheek combo of sex and violence that pushes these girls out in front.
The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
The Victim: Tourist Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie).
The Despatch: Blood poisoning.
The Nasty: Blood poisoning? Doesn't sound so bad... until you consider it's as a result of having to digest the poo of fellow centipedians Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) and Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams).
Almost certainly a cinematic first...but not the last, if sequel-threatening director Tom Six gets his way.
The Killer Inside Me
The Victim: Prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba)
The Despatch: Punched repeatedly in the face, until it caves in, by psycho lover, Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck).
The Nasty: Already notorious, Michael Winterbottom's movie is unflinching in its refusal to look away during the remorseless pummelling. The fact that Ford remains impassive, even tender, during the ordeal makes it all the more shocking.
Worse, then he goes and does much the same thing to Kate Hudson.
A Serbian Film
The Victim: Sadly, yet another baby.
The Despatch: The euphemism given to what happens - "newborn porn" - should tell you everything you need to know.
The Nasty: The year's nastiest scene is one the BBFC doesn't want you to see, but be warned... even with four minutes cut, the released version isn't exactly sweetness and light.
Other unmentionable horrors include mid-coitus machete decapitation, suffocation by penis and an eyeball rape, any of which would easily have claimed the dubious honour of #1 if it weren't for that scene.
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