“Back home, they would have put me in jail for what I’m doing. But out here? They’re giving me awards” – Robert De Niro’s Sam Rothstein, Casino.
Martin Scorsese reminds me a lot of the late Wes Craven. Both of them with such kind demeanors that are in paradox to the horrors of the art they create. Now, in no way am I so naïve as to think people who make horror films are anything like their creations. I’m not one of those Church Moms on the local news suggesting Satan is entering our homes via Hocus Pocus on Disney Plus. Still yet, these are the last two men I’d ever pick out of a line up as the creators of their own work.
The two are seen oppositely based on the genres they work in but Scorsese is a horror director in his own right. He may only have a couple of films that circle the genre with Cape Fear and Shutter Island but his stories are often about the horrors of the world just the same. Raging Bull deals with the horrors inflicted by a man who assumes no responsibility for his own actions. The Irishman ends with a man in a hell of his own making, unable to wash the blood off his hands as his children look on in disappointment. Bringing Out the Dead may not feature the undead as the name suggests but rather a man who has become zombie-like as the reality of his own helplessness sets in.
On the contrary, Craven’s horror films were of course so much more than just mindless splatter. Scream speaks about victimhood and our relationship with not only violence in film but the way the news covers it in reality. The People Under The Stairs doesn’t just touch on classism and gentrification but also about pretending the horrors of the world don’t exist.
Violence is where they meet in the middle.
Both legendary horror directors like Wes Craven and sweeping epic directors like Martin Scorsese use violence as an effective conduit for storytelling. Even if the esteemed awards associations of Hollywood look upon them differently. Where am I going with all of this? It feels necessary to shine a light on how the violence in horror films is about so much more than sheer brutality for entertainment’s sake.
So, with that being said, here are six of the most brutal scenes in Scorsese’s filmography based solely on violence and gore.
Nicky of the Corn – Casino, 1995
This may be the most gruesome moment of Scorsese’s career and the character did as much to earn it as anyone. In any movie. Ever. After watching Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro parade through Vegas in Casino for nearly three hours terrorizing enemies and friends alike, we’re invited a front row seat to his demise. In a cornfield.
As Nicky exits the car completely unaware that the group of buddies he’s been treating like shit over the years are about to murder the ever-loving Christmas out of him, he’s struck in the small of his back with an aluminum bat. From there, they hold him down and make him watch as they beat his brother to death with even more aluminum bats.
What we don’t see, we hear. And we still see a lot.
From there, Nicky knows he’s next and the small window of time that passes between him not having an aluminum bat swung into his face and him having an aluminum bat swung into his face feels like an eternity. Even as we loathe this character for who he’s shown us he is, we beg for mercy by the time they are done absolutely squishing his head like it was a goddamn trademark Joe Pesci brand piñata. Then they strip them of all their clothes and roll them into a shockingly dry dirt pit, burying them while they are still breathing.
Mohawk Murder Party – Taxi Driver, 1976
In one of those scenes where you can feel the coldness of the night through the screen without almost any visual cues, Travis (De Niro) gleefully walks up to a pimp (Harvey Keitel) and asks him how his twelve-year-old prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) is doing. Unbothered, the pimp brushes him off. Travis then creepily asks him if he “has a gun” before pulling out one himself and ho-hum putting it to his stomach and pulling the trigger. The nonchalant effort of such a damaging event is pretty haunting in the moment.
Next, Travis moves inside a building where he encounters a mafia member and fires a gun with a Joker prank gun sized barrel at him, blowing all but his thumb off of his hand. As the blood squirts across the face of Travis, the pimp returns and shoots him directly through the side of his neck. The mafia member however has the stamina of Raging Bull himself and follows him up the steps like a zombie repeating “I’ll kill you” maniacally over and over again. Another party shows up and shoots Travis up close and directly through his side shoulder blade so that the bullet, were it to travel far enough, could have lodged somewhere in the center of his body. It’s a very clean, gore free shot that still manages to give you the willies simply because of the placement.
Travis then uses his gun concoction (also very Joker like) under his sleeve to fire multiple bullet holes into the man as the blood spurts (NOBODY did blood spurts like Scorsese did blood spurts) all over the place. At this point, “I’ll kill you” guy is still poking the bear and Travis stabs him through his good hand and holds the gun in yet another awkward position (I’m beginning to think this is done to make us squirm) against the man’s lower cheek, pointed up towards the back of his head, and blows his brains out all over the wall. He tries to commit suicide himself but there are no bullets left for him so he takes a seat on the couch and just bleeds. It’s one of those scenes where you begrudgingly feel like you are in the building with them as it all transpires. It’s both realistic and surreal. Which coincidentally was Scorsese’s exact plan for Taxi Driver as he wanted to give audiences the sensation of being in and out of sleep throughout.
“Now Go Get Your Fuckin’ Shinebox” – Goodfellas, 1990
When Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) decides to insult a complete and total psychopath in Tommy (Joe Pesci) by telling him to “Go home and get your fuckin’ shinebox,” even being a made man can’t save him. The three amigos of fucking folks up (Pesci as Tommy, De Niro as Jimmy and Ray Liotta as Henry) team up to get him on the floor and stomp his face with their fancy shoes until there isn’t a breath left in his body (or so we think). This is a single scene that tells you all you need to know about each character and their levels of comfort with brutal violence. Jimmy’s face as he repeatedly kicks Billy in the face as if his he was fighting off a goddamn alligator is weirdly hilarious and the way Tommy sincerely apologizes for “getting blood on your floor” after effectively ruining all of their lives is absolute anarchy in the best of ways.
When they realize Billy is still alive in the trunk, Tommy takes a Michael Myers sized butcher knife and viciously stabs him multiple times and they pop off a few more rounds, finally putting Billy Batts to bed for good. There’s an essence in this scene so brutally cold and disrespectful to human life that it made a perfect opener and tone setter for not only this film but for the genre works that came after it.
“You Never Got Me Down, Ray” – Raging Bull, 1980
While Sugar Ray Robinson (Johnny Barnes) stands in front of Jake La Motta (De Niro) and everything turns into slow motion, you know what’s about to happen. La Motta is at the end of his rope. Both in the fight and in life. He’s painted himself into a literal and physical corner where his only choice is to stand there and take it. Robinson is happy to oblige and reigns down a million punches into La Motta’s face as the cinematography paints him like an enraged monster descending from the sky surrounded by smoke and strobe lights (not literally, it just looks that fucking cool). Jake’s face opens up with some of those patented Scorsese blood spurts on overdrive, shooting blood, sweat and a mixture of both all over the place. There was more blood in the arena that night than there was piss in Quentin Tarantino’s bar joke from Desperado. Blood spraying on La Motta’s legs, on the canvas, across the eyeballs of spectators and commentators.
It may have been just two fists covered in boxing gloves but for all intents and purposes it may as well have been the aluminum baseball bats pummeling Nicky and his brother in Casino.
“What He Did To Me Hurt A Lot Worse Than This” – Cape Fear, 1991
In what I would personally call Scorsese’s most underrated film of his career, Max Cady (De Niro) continues his methodical destruction of Sam Bowden’s (Nick Nolte) life by targeting someone close to him. Cady picks up Lori (Illeana Douglas) in a bar and takes her home for sex. She has no idea who he is or what his intentions are and she drunkenly laughs as he puts handcuffs on her. This makes the scene all the more dreadful because Cady is a rapist and a murderer and we all know what’s to come. What we didn’t expect however was for him to snap her shoulder back, presumably out of the socket and lean over and bite out a section of her cheek.
As he did in Taxi Driver, Scorsese again uses an awkward point of attack to provoke even more discomfort from his audience. Cady digs in her cheek for a moment before pulling back, as we hear his teeth rip out a hole in the center of her cheek. He then spits out the skin across the room before the camera mercifully cuts away and leaves the rest to imagination. This scene is brutal on its own but even more so because of the innocence of the victim and the nature of the crimes sure to follow.
Head in a Vise Grip – Casino, 1995
One more for the road? In a quick scene that successfully portrays the care free nature of mafia violence to a point of hilarity, Nicky (Pesci) concludes the torture of a tough guy. He explains in that one-of-a-kind Scorsese narration that they’ve already beat the shit out of the guy for two days and two nights. Even sticking “ice picks in his balls.” Pesci shows off his brilliant ability to go from comedy to violent outbursts on a dime, joking around and busting the guy’s balls while literally putting his head in a Saw trap.
When the tough guy refuses to rat, Nicky loses his temper and screams in his face as he turns the vice grip tighter and tighter, eventually squishing his eyeball out of his head. When he finally gives up a name, Nicky is so annoyed by the whole ordeal he gives the vice grip one more little turn just to be a dick as he storms off. He tells Franky to “do him a fuckin’ favor” by slitting his throat and putting him out of his misery. Thanks, Jigsaw Joe!
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