Celebrate Thanksgiving with the Top 11 Slices in Horror
Scott Hallam
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Psycho (1960) – Marion Crane
When it comes to horror cuts, you can start and end the argument for the greatest right here. The shower scene from Psycho is a thing of which legends are made. It’s not only one slice, but an entire three-minute scene of them with 50 cuts from 77 different camera angles. The murder of Marion Crane is perhaps the most influential in the history of film, and the slices (although none actually are shown puncturing Marion’s skin) are made that much more terrifying by the unforgettable soundtrack piece by Bernard Herrmann made up of screeching violins, violas and cellos entitled “The Murder.” The scene is filled with legends and rumors, but whether Janet Leigh was in the shower the entire time or there was a stand-in now and then or how much influence graphic designer Saul Bass had over the scene will never be known for sure. What we do know is that the shower scene in Psycho is one of the greatest slices of all time.
Dead Alive (1992) – Unfortunate Room Full of Baddies
It’s nearly impossible to do a list like this having to do with bloodshed and not include Dead Alive on it somewhere. There is just so much of the red, red kroovy being spilled that it manages to find itself being relevant to this day. We have to doubt that Peter Jackson had any inkling of the enormous future that awaited him while he was putting this little nightmare together, but as amazing as all his later works have been, we horror fans still love the fact that one of Hollywood’s darlings had the depravity within him to make something as twisted as Dead Alive. And if we’re talking about slicing, what could possibly do a better job than a lawnmower? The scene shown below is the legendary mower scene where our hero, Lionel Cosgrove, mows (literally) through an entire houseful of infected baddies. With all the films that have come out since the Dead Alive release over 20 years ago, we doubt that anything has surpassed it for sheer gross-out and bloodshed. It represents the benchmark for cartoonish brutality.
30 Days of Night (2007) – Deputy Billy Kitna
All right, perhaps more of a hack (or a series of hacks) than a slice, the decapitation scene in 30 Days of Night is one of the most brutal and realistic meetings of axe and neck you’ll ever find on film. When Deputy Billy Kitna finds himself wounded at the hands of a vampire and starting to change, Sheriff Eben Oleson (played by Josh Hartnett) did what any rational thinking law enforcement officer would do: He slams an axe into his neck until Billy’s head falls off. The scene is incredible. It’s loud, bloody as hell and looks fantastically realistic. It is the crowning moment of 30 Days of Night, a vampire film that shows the beast the way it should be shown, not sparkling or wearing big, puffy shirts, but damn near feral. Isn’t that how you like your vamps?
