When movies take a very dark path out of nowhere.
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00:00For a movie to find success of any kind, it has to evoke some sort of emotion from the
00:04audience.
00:05Whether it's joy, excitement, intrigue, or nostalgia, those watching a story have
00:10to feel connected to it.
00:11It's no easy task, but there are plenty of ways it can be done.
00:15Certainly, positive emotions aren't the only path.
00:18Movies can make you feel sad, angry, or scared as an effective method to commit you to the
00:23story.
00:24Usually, there are certain types of movies in which an audience would expect this kind
00:27of darkness, but that is not always the case.
00:30Such darkness, particularly coming so abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere, can be quite
00:34jarring for an audience, and it can often then change the complexion of the entire film.
00:40On the other hand, it could potentially add that touch of genuine emotion, even if that
00:44emotion is depression, to make a memorable and often iconic moment.
00:48And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with What Culture, here with 10 Movies That Got
00:52Real Dark, Real Fast.
00:5510.
00:56Zombieland This is the first of two zombie movies on
00:58this list, but it's very different from most others in the genre.
01:02Zombieland, even with the living dead and the gory deaths, was still first and foremost
01:06a comedy.
01:07The movie was goofy, weirdly heartwarming, and outright hilarious at times, but there
01:11was one moment of pain and darkness just waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting audience.
01:16This revolved around Woody Harrelson's character, affectionately known as Tallahassee, by his
01:21new friends.
01:22The whole point of using destinations as their names was to avoid getting too close or attached
01:26to each other, but still, Tallahassee found himself discussing his dog, Buck.
01:30He loved the dogs so much that they were best friends, but he was taken away from him by
01:34the damn zombies.
01:36It's not until he's playing a game of Monopoly with Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock that
01:40the realisation hits.
01:42Buck wasn't Tallahassee's dog, he was his son, his young boy that was killed by the
01:47zombies and that he would never see again.
01:49Woody Harrelson wasn't the only one crying at this point.
01:529.
01:53The Dark Knight Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was
01:56far darker than the Joel Schumacher and Tim Burton efforts that came before it.
02:00In fairness, this wouldn't have been particularly difficult, but this was definitely a newer
02:05tone to the Caped Crusader on the big screen.
02:08The broodier Bruce Wayne found himself up against a far creepier version of the Joker
02:12in The Dark Knight, but even so, the movie took an unexpectedly harrowing turn.
02:17When the clown prince of crime called out Batman on TV, the Joker was broadcast interrogating
02:22and torturing a man who dressed up like the Batman in what was a genuinely disturbing
02:27video.
02:28Off screen, he took the man's life, but how he announced this to the world was arguably
02:31even darker.
02:32Mayor Garcia looked out of his office window across Gotham.
02:36Before seeing this Batman impersonator, with the Joker's smile painted on his lips and
02:40a noose around his neck, crash into the glass.
02:43The shock of the moment, of seeing a man hanged by the neck, slamming into the window
02:47out of nowhere, followed by the subsequent murder tape, was darker and tougher to watch
02:52than anything else in the movie, even more so than using a man's head to make a pencil
02:56disappear.
02:578.
02:58Mulan
02:59One of the trademarks of Disney animation is the impossibly catchy music.
03:03Let It Go, You're Welcome, and most recently We Don't Talk About Bruno have taken the
03:06world by storm, and songs like these often distract from how dark the stories can actually
03:11be.
03:12Take Mulan, for instance.
03:13The main story is about the titular character going undercover as a man in the Chinese army
03:17in place of her father, trying to prove herself not only to Shang, but to her own family.
03:22In the background of this, however, is why she has to join the army in the first place.
03:26The setting for the movie is the invasion of China by the Huns, but with songs like
03:30Reflection and Honor to Us All, this could easily be forgotten.
03:34Instead, the troops in Shang's command were having a laugh, becoming friends, and enjoying
03:38their time together.
03:39This stopped abruptly, however, after a song about finding the right girl for them.
03:43A girl worth fighting for actually stopped mid-sentence as the troops stumbled across
03:47a village that had been ruthlessly put to the torch.
03:50Nothing brings you back to reality like the brutal deaths of an untold number of innocent
03:54people, particularly in a Disney movie.
03:577.
03:58Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
03:59The Star Wars prequel trilogy told the story of Anakin Skywalker and his seduction by Darth
04:04Sidious and the Dark Side.
04:06The once great Jedi, who were supposed to bring balance to the force, played a great
04:10role in bringing down almost the entire Order save for Yoda and Obi-Wan.
04:14Everyone watching was already aware of the ultimate fate of Anakin.
04:17It was no secret that he would eventually become Darth Vader, and the movies fell flat.
04:21One of the biggest criticisms across the board was the goofiness and silliness, which wasn't
04:26just brought to the table by Jar Jar Binks alone.
04:28Arguably the defining moment of the entire trilogy, however, was the execution of Order
04:3266.
04:33The Palpatine ordered the new Darth Vader and the entire clone army to kill every Jedi,
04:38and a harrowing montage showing the murder of the galaxy's peacekeepers followed.
04:42But nothing compared to the deaths of the younglings.
04:46At the Jedi Temple, Anakin came across the defenceless younglings, who looked to their
04:50elder for help.
04:51Anakin instead looked into those innocent eyes and drew his lightsaber.
04:55The deaths of these children weren't initially shown on screen, though footage was later
04:59seen on a security hologram, as were their little bodies afterwards.
05:046.
05:05Up
05:06When you go in to watch a Pixar movie, it's to be expected that there's going to be
05:09a great deal of emotion, and usually more than a little heartbreak.
05:13If the studio can make an audience genuinely care about toys and robots, just imagine what
05:17can happen with actual humans.
05:20On the face of it, Up looked like it would be a nice, uplifting movie about the relationship
05:24between an old man and a young boy.
05:26This was very much true, but no one expected the opening ten minutes to be as devastating
05:30and distressing as they were.
05:32Even for Pixar, the opening scenes of Up were tough to take.
05:35Karl and Ellie's relationship was truly special, but in the montage that showed their
05:39time together, there were two gut punches that should have at least come with a warning
05:43beforehand.
05:44The first was Ellie's trip to the doctor that confirmed she had either suffered a miscarriage
05:48or was unable to have children at all, followed by her death.
05:51Naturally, this tore Karl apart, and audiences along with him.
05:555.
05:56In Bruges
05:57Before Martin McDonagh's award nominated The Banshees of Innocherent, the acclaimed
06:01director worked with both Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson on In Bruges.
06:05The movie was a dark comedy that followed Ray and Ken, two hitmen who had been sent
06:09to Bruges after a job gone wrong.
06:11Early on, audiences knew that these two friends were contract killers, but the tone of the
06:15movie didn't exactly reflect that.
06:18There was plenty of goofy humour and a grown man sarcastically pouting about having to
06:22be in Bruges, but then exactly what happened during the previous job was shown.
06:27In Ray's first job for Harry, he killed a priest, firing at the target first through
06:30the wall of a confessional booth, before shooting him in the back.
06:34The problem was that the killer didn't see who was on the other side of the priest.
06:37The shot of the unmoving little boy killed by a bullet of Ray's that went straight
06:41through the priest is haunting.
06:43This took the movie down a very dark path, and opened the door to some very suicidal
06:48thoughts of Ray after what he had done.
06:50There was still a surprising amount of humour in the movie, but it was never quite the same
06:53tone after this scene.
06:554.
06:56The Lion King
06:57There are countless iconic moments in Disney animation, with more than a few coming in
07:01the original Lion King.
07:03The opening scene, the Hakuna Matata montage, and more are favourites among Disney fans,
07:08but the movie isn't all sunshine and singing.
07:10In fact, The Lion King is arguably the most traumatic Disney movie ever, and that takes
07:15some doing.
07:16The phrase, Long live the King, will forever be associated with the moment Scar throws
07:20his brother into the stampede to his death.
07:22After the fun songs and playful nature between Simba and his father, and even with the obvious
07:27evil of Scar and his hyenas, this was jarring.
07:30But it was about to get so much worse.
07:32Poor little Simba finds the corpse of his father and tries desperately to wake him up,
07:36as only an innocent child could.
07:38How can a movie so beloved be so difficult to watch?
07:423.
07:43A Quiet Place
07:44From the beginning of his feature directorial debut, John Krasinski proved himself to be
07:48a master of suspense.
07:49The opening minutes of A Quiet Place are as close to silent as possible, setting the eerie
07:54tone for the story and the situation itself.
07:57Things first escalate when the young boy of the family picks up some batteries for a rocket
08:00toy that just so happens to make a loud noise.
08:03When he turns it on, to the horror of the rest of his family, they are a good few hundred
08:07yards away, so the father sprints towards him immediately.
08:11Even in spite of the movie's tense opening, nobody expected those hideous aliens to beat
08:15Krasinski to his son.
08:17Surely the movie wouldn't open with such a brutal death after what was a relatively
08:20calm if eerie first few minutes.
08:23Turns out that yes, yes it would.
08:25That innocent kid was killed just a fraction of a second before his dad was able to save
08:29him.
08:30This fractured the family beyond repair, and gave the entire movie a whole new tone for
08:33the rest of its runtime.
08:352.
08:36Jojo Rabbit
08:37For a movie based around World War II, Jojo Rabbit was a light-hearted joy of a movie,
08:41for the most part.
08:42Such is the impact of Taika Waititi when he gets things right, and doesn't go too far
08:47Love and Thunder style.
08:48For all its comedy, however, there was a deep emotional thread throughout, based around
08:52Jojo's mother, Rosie.
08:54While her son was a member of the Hitler Youth, she herself risked her life to hide a young
08:58Jewish girl from the Nazis.
08:59There's a scene in the movie where Rosie is standing at a higher level than Jojo, so
09:03her shoes are directly in his eyeline.
09:05The audience thinks nothing of it at the time, it's just a mother playing with her son,
09:09but it comes back in a haunting, devastating way later in the movie.
09:13As Jojo is following a butterfly through the town square, he once again comes upon those
09:17same shoes at his eyeline, only this time there is nothing underneath.
09:21She's been hanged.
09:22Jojo Rabbit had plenty of laughs and things never got too dark, which made this hugely
09:27impactful moment all the more heartbreaking.
09:301.
09:31I Am Legend
09:32This list has largely been comprised of the deaths of numerous characters, whether it
09:36was characters largely unknown, someone's parents, or even the death of a child.
09:40You could argue that none of them compare to the death of an animal on the big screen,
09:44however.
09:45Audiences typically go into certain genres of films expecting to see death, and though
09:48these can be devastating, the death of a dog, particularly one as good as Robert Neville's
09:53in I Am Legend, just hits different.
09:55This took a relatively dark movie to a whole new level instantly.
09:59The horror of the fight sequence before it, the realisation that the dog Sam had been
10:04hurt and would soon turn against her best friend, and the action of Robert killing her
10:08himself was just too much to take.
10:10The act itself happens off screen in a way, where Will Smith is visible but Sam isn't.
10:15You could argue this as some small solace, but that didn't make it any less traumatic.
10:19The death of a dog is one of the worst things you can see on the big screen, particularly
10:23when the owner is forced to put it down himself.
10:25And that concludes our list.
10:27If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below.
10:30And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification
10:33bell.
10:34Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
10:37just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
10:39I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you
10:43real soon.