10 Movies That Got Real Dark, Real Fast
When movies take a very dark path out of nowhere.
Transcript
00:00 For a movie to find success of any kind, it has to evoke some sort of emotion from the
00:04 audience.
00:05 Whether it's joy, excitement, intrigue, or nostalgia, those watching a story have
00:10 to feel connected to it.
00:11 It's no easy task, but there are plenty of ways it can be done.
00:15 Certainly, positive emotions aren't the only path.
00:18 Movies can make you feel sad, angry, or scared as an effective method to commit you to the
00:22 story.
00:23 Usually, there are certain types of movies in which an audience would expect this kind
00:27 of darkness, but that is not always the case.
00:30 Such darkness, particularly coming so abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere, can be quite
00:34 jarring for an audience, and it can often then change the complexion of the entire film.
00:40 On the other hand, it could potentially add that touch of genuine emotion, even if that
00:44 emotion is depression, to make a memorable and often iconic moment.
00:48 And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with What Culture, here with 10 Movies That Got
00:52 Real Dark, Real Fast.
00:54 10.
00:55 Zombieland This is the first of two zombie movies on
00:58 this list, but it's very different from most others in the genre.
01:02 Zombieland, even with the living dead and the gory deaths, was still first and foremost
01:06 a comedy.
01:07 The movie was goofy, weirdly heartwarming, and outright hilarious at times, but there
01:11 was one moment of pain and darkness just waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting audience.
01:16 This revolved around Woody Harrelson's character, affectionately known as Tallahassee, by his
01:21 new friends.
01:22 The whole point of using destinations as their names was to avoid getting too close or attached
01:26 to each other, but still, Tallahassee found himself discussing his dog, Buck.
01:30 He loved the dogs so much, they were best friends, but he was taken away from him by
01:34 the damn zombies.
01:36 It's not until he's playing a game of Monopoly with Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock that
01:40 the realisation hits.
01:42 Buck wasn't Tallahassee's dog, he was his son, his young boy that was killed by the
01:47 zombies and that he would never see again.
01:49 Woody Harrelson wasn't the only one crying at this point.
01:52 9.
01:53 The Dark Knight
01:54 Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was far darker than the Joel Schumacher and
01:58 Tim Burton efforts that came before it.
02:00 In fairness, this wouldn't have been particularly difficult, but this was definitely a newer
02:05 tone to the Caped Crusader on the big screen.
02:07 The broodier Bruce Wayne found himself up against a far creepier version of the Joker
02:12 in The Dark Knight, but even so, the movie took an unexpectedly harrowing turn.
02:17 When the clown prince of crime called out Batman on TV, the Joker was broadcast interrogating
02:22 and torturing a man who dressed up like the Batman in what was a genuinely disturbing
02:27 video.
02:28 Off screen, he took the man's life, but how he announced this to the world was arguably
02:31 even darker.
02:32 Mayor Garcia looked out of his office window across Gotham.
02:36 Before seeing this Batman impersonator, with the Joker's smile painted on his lips and
02:40 a noose around his neck, crash into the glass.
02:43 The shock of the moment, of seeing a man hanged by the neck, slamming into the window out
02:47 of nowhere, followed by the subsequent murder tape, was darker and tougher to watch than
02:52 anything else in the movie.
02:54 Even more so than using a man's head to make a pencil disappear.
02:57 8.
02:58 Mulan
02:59 One of the trademarks of Disney animation is the impossibly catchy music.
03:02 Let it go, you're welcome, and most recently We Don't Talk About Bruno have taken the
03:06 world by storm, and songs like these often distract from how dark the stories can actually
03:11 be.
03:12 Take Mulan, for instance.
03:13 The main story is about the titular character going undercover as a man in the Chinese army
03:17 in place of her father, trying to prove herself not only to Shang, but to her own family.
03:22 In the background of this, however, is why she has to join the army in the first place.
03:26 The setting for the movie is the invasion of China by the Huns, but with songs like
03:30 "Reflection" and "Honor to Us All", this could easily be forgotten.
03:34 Instead the troops in Shang's command were having a laugh, becoming friends, and enjoying
03:38 their time together.
03:39 This stopped abruptly, however, after a song about finding the right girl for them.
03:43 A girl worth fighting for actually stopped mid-sentence as the troops stumbled across
03:47 a village that had been ruthlessly put to the torch.
03:50 Nothing brings you back to reality like the brutal deaths of an untold number of innocent
03:54 people, particularly in a Disney movie.
03:57 7.
03:58 Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
03:59 The Star Wars prequel trilogy told the story of Anakin Skywalker and his seduction by Darth
04:04 Sidious and the Dark Side.
04:06 The once great Jedi, who were supposed to bring balance to the force, played a great
04:10 role in bringing down almost the entire Order save for Yoda and Obi-Wan.
04:14 Everyone watching was already aware of the ultimate fate of Anakin.
04:17 It was no secret that he would eventually become Darth Vader, and the movies fell flat.
04:21 One of the biggest criticisms across the board was the goofiness and silliness, which wasn't
04:25 just brought to the table by Jar Jar Binks alone.
04:28 Arguably the defining moment of the entire trilogy, however, was the execution of Order
04:32 66.
04:33 As a result, Palpatine ordered the new Darth Vader and the entire clone army to kill every
04:37 Jedi, and a harrowing montage showing the murder of the galaxy's peacekeepers followed.
04:42 But nothing compared to the deaths of the younglings.
04:46 At the Jedi Temple, Anakin came across the defenceless younglings, who looked to their
04:49 elder for help.
04:50 Anakin instead looked into those innocent eyes and drew his lightsaber.
04:55 The deaths of these children weren't initially shown on screen, though footage was later
04:59 seen on a security hologram, as were their little bodies afterwards.
05:03 6.
05:04 Up When you go in to watch a Pixar movie, it's
05:08 to be expected that there's going to be a great deal of emotion, and usually more
05:11 than a little heartbreak.
05:12 If the studio can make an audience genuinely care about toys and robots, just imagine what
05:17 can happen with actual humans.
05:19 On the face of it, Up looked like it would be a nice, uplifting movie about the relationship
05:23 between an old man and a young boy.
05:25 This was very much true, but no one expected the opening ten minutes to be as devastating
05:30 and distressing as they were.
05:32 Even for Pixar, the opening scenes of Up were tough to take.
05:35 Carl and Ellie's relationship was truly special, but in the montage that showed their
05:39 time together, there were two gut punches that should have at least come with a warning
05:43 beforehand.
05:44 The first was Ellie's trip to the doctor that confirmed she had either suffered a miscarriage
05:48 or was unable to have children at all, followed by her death.
05:51 Naturally, this tore Carl apart, and audiences along with him.
05:55 5.
05:56 In Bruges Before Martin McDonagh's award nominated
05:59 The Banshees of Innocherent, the acclaimed director worked with both Colin Farrell and
06:03 Brendan Gleeson on In Bruges.
06:05 The movie was a dark comedy that followed Ray and Ken, two hitmen who had been sent
06:09 to Bruges after a job gone wrong.
06:11 Early on, audiences knew that these two friends were contract killers, but the tone of the
06:15 movie didn't exactly reflect that.
06:17 There was plenty of goofy humour and a grown man sarcastically pouting about having to
06:22 be in Bruges.
06:23 But then, exactly what happened during the previous job was shown.
06:26 In Ray's first job for Harry, he killed a priest, firing at the target first through
06:30 the wall of a confessional booth, before shooting him in the back.
06:33 The problem was that the killer didn't see who was on the other side of the priest.
06:37 The shot of the unmoving little boy killed by a bullet of Ray's that went straight
06:41 through the priest is haunting.
06:43 This took the movie down a very dark path, and opened the door to some very suicidal
06:47 thoughts of Ray after what he had done.
06:49 There was still a surprising amount of humour in the movie, but it was never quite the same
06:53 tone after this scene.
06:55 4.
06:56 The Lion King There are countless iconic moments in Disney
06:59 animation, with more than a few coming in the original Lion King.
07:03 The opening scene, the Hakuna Matata montage, and more are favourites among Disney fans,
07:07 but the movie isn't all sunshine and singing.
07:10 In fact, The Lion King is arguably the most traumatic Disney movie ever, and that takes
07:14 some doing.
07:15 The phrase "Long live the King" will forever be associated with the moment Scar throws
07:19 his brother into the stampede to his death.
07:22 Through the fun songs and playful nature between Simba and his father, and even with the obvious
07:27 evil of Scar and his hyenas, this was jarring.
07:30 But it was about to get so much worse.
07:32 Poor little Simba finds the corpse of his father and tries desperately to wake him up,
07:36 as only an innocent child could.
07:38 How can a movie so beloved be so difficult to watch?
07:41 3.
07:42 A Quiet Place From the beginning of his feature directorial
07:45 debut, John Krasinski proved himself to be a master of suspense.
07:49 The opening minutes of A Quiet Place are as close to silent as possible, setting the eerie
07:53 tone for the story and the situation itself.
07:56 Things first escalate when the young boy of the family picks up some batteries for a rocket
08:00 toy that just so happens to make a loud noise.
08:03 When he turns it on, to the horror of the rest of his family, they are a good few hundred
08:07 yards away, so the father sprints towards him immediately.
08:10 Even in spite of the movie's tense opening, nobody expected those hideous aliens to beat
08:15 Krasinski to his son.
08:17 Usually the movie wouldn't open with such a brutal death after what was a relatively
08:20 calm if eerie first few minutes.
08:23 Turns out that, yes, yes it would.
08:24 That innocent kid was killed just a fraction of a second before his dad was able to save
08:28 him.
08:29 This fractured the family beyond repair, and gave the entire movie a whole new tone for
08:33 the rest of its runtime.
08:34 2.
08:35 Jojo Rabbit For a movie based around World War 2, Jojo
08:38 Rabbit was a light-hearted joy of a movie, for the most part.
08:42 Such is the impact of Taika Waititi when he gets things right, and doesn't go too far
08:46 Love and Thunder style.
08:47 For all its comedy, however, there was a deep emotional thread throughout, based around
08:52 Jojo's mother, Rosie.
08:54 While her son was a member of the Hitler Youth, she herself risked her life to hide a young
08:58 Jewish girl from the Nazis.
08:59 There's a scene in the movie where Rosie is standing at a higher level than Jojo, so
09:03 her shoes are directly in his eye line.
09:05 The audience thinks nothing of it at the time, it's just a mother playing with her son,
09:09 but it comes back in a haunting, devastating way later in the movie.
09:13 As Jojo is following a butterfly through the town square, he once again comes upon those
09:17 same shoes at his eye line, only this time, there is nothing underneath.
09:21 She's been hanged.
09:22 Jojo Rabbit had plenty of laughs, and things never got too dark, which made this hugely
09:27 impactful moment all the more heartbreaking.
09:29 1.
09:30 I Am Legend This list has largely been comprised of the
09:33 deaths of numerous characters, whether it was characters largely unknown, someone's
09:38 parents, or even the death of a child.
09:39 You could argue that none of them compare to the death of an animal on the big screen,
09:44 however.
09:45 Audiences typically go into certain genres of films expecting to see death, and though
09:48 these can be devastating, the death of a dog, particularly one as good as Robert Neville's
09:53 in I Am Legend, just hits different.
09:55 This took a relatively dark movie to a whole new level instantly.
09:59 The horror of the fight sequence before it, the realisation that the dog Sam had been
10:03 hurt and would soon turn against her best friend, and the action of Robert killing her
10:08 himself was just too much to take.
10:10 The act itself happens off screen in a way, where Will Smith is visible but Sam isn't.
10:15 You could argue this as some small solace, but that didn't make it any less traumatic.
10:19 The death of a dog is one of the worst things you can see on the big screen, particularly
10:23 when the owner is forced to put it down himself.
10:25 And that concludes our list.
10:26 If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below, and while you're
10:30 there don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
10:33 Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
10:37 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
10:39 I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real