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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 audience.
00:05Whether it's joy, excitement, intrigue, or nostalgia, those watching a story have to feel
00:10connected to it. It's no easy task, but there are plenty of ways it can be done. Certainly,
00:15positive emotions aren't the only path. Movies can make you feel sad, angry, or scared as an
00:21effective method to commit you to the story. Usually, there are certain types of movies in
00:25which an audience would expect this kind of darkness, but that is not always the case.
00:30Such darkness, particularly coming so abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere, can be quite jarring
00:35for an audience, and it can often then change the complexion of the entire film. On the other hand,
00:40it could potentially add that touch of genuine emotion, even if that emotion is depression,
00:45to make a memorable and often iconic moment. And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:51here with 10 movies that got real dark, real fast.
00:5410. Zombieland
00:56This is the first of two zombie movies on this list, but it's very different from most others
01:01in the genre. Zombieland, even with The Living Dead and The Gory Deaths, was still first and
01:06foremost a comedy. The movie was goofy, weirdly heartwarming, and outright hilarious at times,
01:11but there was one moment of pain and darkness just waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting audience.
01:16This revolved around Woody Harlson's character, affectionately known as Tallahassee,
01:21by his new friends. The whole point of using destinations as their names was to
01:24avoid getting too close or attached to each other. But still, Tallahassee found himself
01:28discussing his dog, Buck. He loved the dogs so much that they were best friends, but he was taken
01:34away from him by the damn zombies. It's not until he's playing a game of Monopoly with Columbus,
01:39Wichita, and Little Rock that the realisation hits. Buck wasn't Tallahassee's dog, he was his son,
01:45his young boy that was killed by the zombies and that he would never see again. Woody Harlson wasn't the
01:50only one crying at this point. 9. The Dark Knight
01:53Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was far darker than the Joel Schumacher and Tim Burton
01:59efforts that came before it. In fairness, this wouldn't have been particularly difficult,
02:03but this was definitely a newer tone to the caped crusader on the big screen.
02:07The broodier Bruce Wayne found himself up against a far creepier version of the Joker in The Dark Knight,
02:13but even so, the movie took an unexpectedly harrowing turn when the clown prince of crime called out
02:19Batman on TV. The Joker was broadcast interrogating and torturing a man who dressed up like the
02:24Batman in what was a genuinely disturbing video. Offscreen, he took the man's life, but how he
02:30announced this to the world was arguably even darker. Mayor Garcia looked out of his office window
02:35across Gotham before seeing this Batman impersonator, with the Joker's smile painted
02:39on his lips and a noose around his neck, crash into the glass. The shock of the moment of seeing
02:44a man
02:45hanged by the neck slamming into the window out of nowhere, followed by the subsequent murder tape,
02:50was darker and tougher to watch than anything else in the movie. Even more so than using a man's head
02:55to make a pencil disappear. Number 8, Mulan
02:58One of the trademarks of Disney animation is the impossibly catchy music. Let It Go, You're Welcome,
03:04and most recently We Don't Talk About Bruno have taken the world by storm, and songs like these often
03:09distract from how dark the stories can actually be. Take Mulan, for instance. The main story is about the
03:14titular character going undercover as a man in the Chinese army in place of her father, trying to
03:19prove herself not only to Shang, but to her own family. In the background of this, however, is why
03:24she has to join the army in the first place. The setting for the movie is The Invasion of China
03:29by
03:29the Huns, but with songs like Reflection and Honour to Us All, this could easily be forgotten.
03:34Instead, the troops in Shang's command were having a laugh, becoming friends, and enjoying their time
03:38together. This stopped abruptly, however, after a song about finding the right girl for them. A girl worth
03:44fighting for actually stopped mid-sentence as the troops stumbled across a village that had been
03:48ruthlessly put to the torch. Nothing brings you back to reality like the brutal deaths of an untold
03:53number of innocent people, particularly in a Disney movie. 7. Star Wars Revenge of the Sith
03:59The Star Wars prequel trilogy told the story of Anakin Skywalker and his seduction by Darth Sidious and
04:05the dark side. The once great Jedi, who were supposed to bring balance to the force, played a great role
04:10in bringing down almost the entire Order save for Yoda and Obi-Wan. Everyone watching was already
04:15aware of the ultimate fate of Anakin. It was no secret that he would eventually become Darth Vader,
04:20and the movies fell flat. One of the biggest criticisms across the board was the goofiness
04:24and silliness, which wasn't just brought to the table by Jar Jar Binks alone. Arguably, the defining
04:29moment of the entire trilogy, however, was the execution of Order 66. Palpatine ordered the new Darth Vader
04:35and the entire clone army to kill every Jedi, and a harrowing montage showing the murder of the
04:40galaxy's peacekeepers followed. But nothing compared to the deaths of the younglings. At the Jedi
04:46temple, Anakin came across the defenseless younglings who looked to their elder for help. Anakin instead
04:51looked into those innocent eyes and drew his lightsaber. The deaths of these children weren't
04:56initially shown on screen, though footage was later seen on a security hologram, as were their little
05:02bodies afterwards. Grim stuff. 6. Up
05:05When you go in to watch a Pixar movie, it's to be expected that there's going to be a great
05:10deal of
05:10emotion, and usually more than a little heartbreak. If the studio can make an audience genuinely care
05:15about toys and robots, just imagine what can happen with actual humans. On the face of it, Up looked like
05:21it would be a nice, uplifting movie about the relationship between an old man and a young boy. This was
05:26very
05:26much true, but no one expected the opening 10 minutes to be as devastating and distressing as they were. Even
05:32for
05:33Pixar, the opening scenes of Up were tough to take. Carl and Ellie's relationship was truly special, but in the
05:38montage that showed their time together, there were two gut punches that should have at least come with a warning
05:43beforehand. The first was Ellie's trip to the doctor that confirmed she had either suffered a miscarriage or was unable
05:48to have
05:49children at all, followed by her death. Naturally, this tore Carl apart and audiences along with him.
05:555. In Bruges
05:56Before Martin McDonagh's award nominated The Banshees of Inner Sharon, the acclaimed director worked with both
06:02Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson on In Bruges. The movie was a dark comedy that followed Ray and Ken,
06:08two hitmen who had been sent to Bruges after a job gone wrong. Early on, audiences knew that these two
06:13friends were contract killers, but the tone of the movie didn't exactly reflect that. There was plenty of
06:19goofy humour and a grown man sarcastically pouting about having to be in Bruges. But then, exactly
06:24what happened during the previous job was shown. In Ray's first job for Harry, he killed a priest,
06:29firing at the target first through the wall of a confessional booth before shooting him in the
06:33back. The 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 through the
06:42priest is haunting. This took the movie down a very dark path and opened the door to some very
06:47suicidal thoughts of Ray after what he had done. There was still a surprising amount of humour in
06:51the movie, but it was never quite the same tone after this scene.
06:554. The Lion King
06:57There are countless iconic moments in Disney animation, with more than a few coming in the
07:01original Lion King. The opening scene, the Hakuna Matata montage and more are favourites among Disney
07:07fans, but the movie isn't all sunshine and singing. In fact, The Lion King is arguably the most traumatic
07:13Disney movie ever, and that takes some doing. The phrase, long live the King, will forever be
07:17associated with the moment Scar throws his brother into the stampede to his death. After the fun songs
07:23and playful nature between Simba and his father, and even with the obvious evil of Scar and his
07:28hyenas, this was jarring. But it was about to get so much worse. Poor little Simba finds the corpse of
07:34his father and tries desperately to wake him up, as only an innocent child could. How can a movie so
07:39beloved be so difficult to watch? 3. A Quiet Place
07:43From the beginning of his feature directorial debut, John Krasinski proved himself to be a
07:48master of suspense. The opening minutes of A Quiet Place are as close to silent as possible,
07:53setting the eerie tone for the story and the situation itself. Things first escalate when the
07:58young boy of the family picks up some batteries for a rocket toy that just so happens to make a
08:02loud
08:02noise. When he turns it on to the horror of the rest of his family, they are a good few
08:06hundred yards
08:07away, so the father sprints towards him immediately. Even in spite of the movie's tense opening, nobody
08:13expected those hideous aliens to beat Krasinski to his son. Surely the movie wouldn't open with such a
08:18brutal death after what was a relatively calm, if eerie, first few minutes. Turns 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 him. This
08:29fractured
08:30the family beyond repair, and gave the entire movie a whole new tone for the rest of its runtime.
08:34Number 2. Jojo Rabbit For a movie based around World War II,
08:38Jojo Rabbit was a light-hearted joy of a movie, for the most part. Such is the impact of Taika
08:44Waititi when he gets things right, and doesn't go too far Love and Thunder style. For all its comedy,
08:49however, there was a deep emotional thread throughout, based around Jojo's mother, Rosie.
08:54While her son was a member of the Hitler Youth, she herself risked her life to hide a young Jewish
08:58girl from the Nazis. There's a scene in the movie where Rosie is standing at a higher level than
09:03Jojo, so her shoes are directly in his eyeline. The audience thinks nothing of it at the time,
09:07it's just a mother playing with her son, but it comes back in a haunting, devastating way later
09:12in the movie. As Jojo is following a butterfly through the town square, he once again comes upon
09:17those same shoes at his eyeline. Only this time, there is nothing underneath. She's been hanged.
09:22Jojo Rabbit had plenty of laughs, and things never got too dark, which made this hugely impactful
09:27moment all the more heartbreaking. Number one, I Am Legend. This list has largely been comprised of
09:34the deaths of numerous characters, whether it was characters largely unknown, someone's parents,
09:38or even the death of a child. You could argue that none of them compare to the death of an
09:42animal
09:43on the big screen, however. Audiences typically go into certain genres of films expecting to see
09:47death, and though these can be devastating, the death of a dog, particularly one as good as Robert
09:52Neville's in I Am Legend, just hits different. This took a relatively dark movie to a whole new level
09:58instantly. The horror of the fight sequence before it, the realisation that the dog, Sam,
10:03had been hurt and would soon turn against her best friend, and the action of Robert killing her
10:08himself was just too much to take. The act itself happens off-screen in a way, where Will Smith is
10:13visible but Sam isn't. You could argue this as some small solace, but that didn't make it any less
10:18traumatic. The 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. And that concludes our list. If you think we missed
10:27any, then do let us know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and
10:31subscribe and tap that notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be
10:36found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with
10:40WhatCulture. I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.
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