From Navarro’s chestburster inAlien: Romulusto Monstro Elisasue’s on-stage degradation inThe Substance,thehorror moviesof 2024were bursting at the seams with blood and gore. This has been a really terrific year for horror films.I Saw the TV Glowdealt with poignant social themes,A Quiet Place: Day Oneoffered a surprisingly character-driven perspectiveof the apocalypse, andTrapsaw M. Night Shyamalan at his Shyamalan-iest (for better or worse).
And2024 didn’t just deliver great horror movies; it delivered blood-drenched horror movies.Longlegshas a scenewhere the eponymous serial killer paints a police interrogation room with his own blood.Under Parishas a scene where a triathlon’s worth of swimmers are served up to a hungry shark. This year’s horror films offered some extremely gory sequences.
5The Triathlon Massacre
Under Paris
As the bloodthirsty shark Lilith makes her way into the River Seine inUnder Paris, the city’s corrupt mayor — in the tradition ofJaws’ Mayor Vaughn — refuses to cancel an upcoming triathlon, because she’d rather risk her citizens’ lives than lose any commerce or publicity.
This sequence plays out like a much bloodier and more gratuitous version ofJaws’ beach scene.
Unsurprisingly, this decision comes back to bite her when Lilith arrives on the scene during the swim. With a buffet of swimmers to enjoy, Lilith feasts away.The Seine turns red with bloodas Lilith chomps her way through dozens of swimmers.
Cast
Beneath the bustling streets of Paris lies a hidden world filled with ancient secrets and dark mysteries. A group of daring urban explorers sets out to uncover the truth buried within the city’s catacombs, only to find themselves facing a series of terrifying challenges. As they unravel the enigmatic past of Paris, they must confront their deepest fears to survive.
There’s one great overhead shot of Lilith bursting through the surface with an unsuspecting swimmer caught in her jaws. This sequence plays out like a much bloodier and more gratuitous version ofJaws’ beach scene.Jawsdidn’t have the money or CGI to kill off quite as many people.
4Aurora’s Death
In A Violent Nature
As the murderous Johnny goes on a teen-killing spree in a throwback to classic slashers, there are a bunch ofbrutal kills inIn a Violent Nature. Colt gets hacked to death with an axe. Ehren is pinned to a tree with a handheld saw.
10 Highest Grossing Horror Movies Of 2024
The box office big hitters from an excellent year for the horror genre, featuring the likes of Smile 2, A Quiet Place: Day One, and Alien: Romulus.
The Ranger gets his head chopped off with a wood splitter. Butthe goriest death in the movie is saved for Aurora. Aurora’s death could’ve been split up into a few different kills, but she’s unfortunate enough to get them all in a row.
In a Violent Nature
In a Violent Nature is a 2024 horror-slasher film written and directed by Chris Nash that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. A group of campers in the middle of the wilderness stumble across a fire watchtower and discover a locket buried beneath its charred ruins. However, by unearthing the locket, they’ve invited the wrath of its prior owner and now must survive the rampage of a supernatural killer looking to retrieve his possession.
Johnny corners Aurora on the edge of a cliff. As she tries to flee, he stabs her in the gut, then sinks his hook into her head and pulls the chain through her body, snapping her spine and yanking her head through her stomach. It’sone of the most creative kills in the entire slasher genre.
3Longlegs Smashes His Face Against A Table
Longlegs
For the most part, Osgood Perkins’Longlegsisn’t as gory as it is unsettling. It terrifies its audience by showing them the aftermath of horrific murders and the events surrounding them, not so much the murders themselves. It’s more of a chilling crime thriller likeThe Silence of the Lambsthan a blood-soaked slasher likeA Nightmare on Elm Street. But there is one shockingly bloody sequence about halfway through the movie.
Longlegs is a horror thriller film by writer-director Osgood Perkins. When FBI agent Lee Harker is assigned to a serial killer cold case, their investigation leads them down a rabbit hole riddled with disturbing discoveries and the occult at the center of it all. When the trail of evidence reveals a personal connection, it becomes a race against time to prevent another murder.
After the “Longlegs” killer, Dale Ferdinand Kobble, is captured, Lee joins him in an interrogation room to question him, but she doesn’t get much information out of him. Allhe tells her is that he serves Satan before smashing his own face against the table, gruesomely taking his own life. He paints the room with his own blood — talk about a shocking sequence.
2Navarro’s Chestburster
Alien: Romulus
The chestburster in the originalAlienmovie is one of the most iconic gore sequences in the history of horror cinema. It pushed the boundaries of on-screen bloodshed and really caught audiences off guard in 1979. 45 years later,Fede Álvarez managed to push the gore even furtherwithhis own disgusting chestburster sequence inAlien: Romulus. As soon as a facehugger latched onto Navarro, long-time franchise fans knew she was doomed.
Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new young group of characters who come face to face with the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is a stand-alone film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.
Within moments,a baby xenomorph is trying to force its way out of her chest. Thanks to a nifty scanning device, Navarro is able to watch her own silhouetted ribcage get destroyed by the tiny alien. Kay frantically tries to help her friend before a plume of blood bursts out all over her face. This scene was spoiled by the trailer, but it still hits extremely hard.
1Monstro Elisasue Goes On Stage
The Substance
Coralie Fargeat’s first feature,Revenge, ended with a bloodbath, so it was fitting for her second movie,The Substance, to end with another bloodbath. As Sue starts falling apart on the eve of her star-making live TV performance, she races home to try to fix it.
This blood-soaked finale is reminiscent of the prom scene in Brian De Palma’s Carrie; it’s sickeningly gruesome, but it’s also deeply tragic.
She ignores the Substance’s rules and takes the Activator serum a second time, only to reincarnate as “Monstro Elisasue,” a grotesque amalgamation of all the absurd male fantasies that have been mentioned by sleazy Hollywood suits throughout the film. The hideous spectacle of Monstro Elisasue isone of the greatest prosthetic effects in the history of body horror.
Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading celebrity, turns to a mysterious drug that promises to restore her youth by creating a younger, more beautiful version of herself. But splitting time between her original and new body leads to horrifying consequences as her alternate self, Sue, begins to unravel her life in a disturbing body-horror descent.
As she steps onto the stage in front of horrified onlookers,she starts to disintegrate and sprays the audience with gallons of blood. This blood-soaked finale isreminiscent of the prom scene in Brian De Palma’sCarrie; it’s sickeningly gruesome, but it’s also deeply tragic.
