Unnecessary RoughnessLists about the most shocking scenes and moments in film, TV, comics, and even children's cartoons — because in today's world, kids can see anything as long as it's not a bare breast.
Updated February 28, 2021 728 votes 203 voters 23.7k views
Voting Rules
Vote up the comedies that raise the bar for violence.
The most violent comedies in film history revolve around a key juxtaposition: movies that are ostensibly silly, frivolous, and/or lighthearted... but just happen to be punctuated with a ton of legitimate violence, bloodshed, and gore. Violent comedy movies' over-the-top carnage often plays into their comedic context without seeming overly dark. While they could be classified as black comedies, some of these present violence in such a matter-of-fact manner that it's downright shocking; some moments and scenes have you laughing one minute and holding back a shocked gasp the next. Think Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, talking about his "brown pants" before counting bullets and inevitable dismemberment.
Leaving aside comedies in the horror realm (where bloodshed is always to be expected), the following films took many of us by surprise with their hilarious disregard for human life. Vote up the comedies that are a truly bloody good time.
When top London cop Nicholas Angel is reassigned to the quiet town of Sandford, nothing is as it seems. The peacefulness of the English countryside and the cheery nature of its inhabitants mask a pending bloodbath.
Angel and his inquisitive partner Danny Butterman clash with the powers that be in a very Stepford Sanford; heads explode, forks are weaponized, bullets fly, and someone is impaled on a church spire (somehow managing to have a conversation afterward). The film's most graphic scenes play for laughs, making Hot Fuzz a perfect example of excessive gore elevating comedy.
Actors: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Timothy Dalton
After being tortured, cured of cancer (sort of), and granted regenerative abilities, Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, sets out to find the man responsible for his current disfigured state. Deadpool is framed by its antihero's wisecracks and meta-humor. Nothing is off-limits - a philosophy that's fully utilized in the film's action sequences, during which the Merc with a Mouth offs a boatload of people with his collection of guns and swords.
The violence is over the top in a comedic way - for instance, when Wilson gets stabbed in the head with a knife (cueing Chicago's "You're the Inspiration"), or breaks his bones punching Colossus, or (slowly) runs over a bleeding man with a Zamboni, or turns a minion into a kabob.
Actors: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano
In London's underground world of gangsters, crooks, boxers, and boxing promoters, Turkish (Jason Statham) has to settle a debt with the shamelessly villainous Brick Top or risk being fed to the latter's pigs.
In addition to the plot involving Turkish and bare-knuckle boxer Mickey (who serves up more than a few beatings/climatic executions), multiple crooks converge on a stolen diamond. People perish, or otherwise get seriously maimed - including a Russian who notoriously refuses to kick the bucket, prompting Bullet Tooth Tony to shoot him numerous times out of frustration. Like many of Guy Ritchie’s films, Snatch’s violence is almost always witty and well thought-out.
Actors: Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Brad Pitt, Vinnie Jones, Rade Serbedzija
Not much happens in Belgium's picturesque medieval city... that is, until hitmen Ray and Ken arrive after a job gone awry. The grizzled veteran Ken (Brenden Gleeson) loves the place, and thinks Ray will, too. (Ray doesn't.) The bulk of In Bruges isn’t too merciless (aside from a few fists thrown and a man getting blinded by a blank round) until the pair's boss (played by an amusingly profane Ralph Fiennes) comes to finish a job Ken cannot bring himself to pull off.
The last 30 minutes of the film contains shootouts, murder, and Ken's sacrificial (and grotesque) jump to save his friend. In Bruges' laughs are situational, a byproduct of the movie's fantastic writing and acting, and the same can be said about its bloodshed.
Actors: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ciarán Hinds, Clémence Poésy
Bringing an appropriate amount of Say Anything... energy to the proceedings, John Cusack plays professional assassin Martin Blank, who returns to his hometown for a 10-year high school reunion. While there, he runs into an old girlfriend - whom he stood up on prom night a decade earlier. Of course, he falls back in love with her. What could be better than a post-murder declaration of love?
Grosse Pointe Blank's mayhem is elevated by Dan Aykroyd's union-obsessed rival hitman, who is responsible for an entertaining number of shootouts and quirky one-liners.
Actors: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Arkin, Joan Cusack
Having Selma Blair and Nicolas Cage as your parents would be shocking enough without them suffering from a mass hysteria of unknown origins that causes them to turn homicidal against their own children.
Mom and Dad is chock-full of disturbing (but hilarious) scenes, from a mother taking a meat tenderizer to her child and a boy being stabbed in the back with car keys to a girl being strangled. Droves of children are slain by their parents in incredibly gory and ruthless ways.
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur, Olivia Crocicchia
