Head Trauma: Top 10 Willy Inducing Moments

The Horror Digest did a list of the top 10 Willy Inducing moments, prompting Final Girl to follow suit. Since I would follow these two bloggers anywhere (yes even if they jumped off a cliff, Mom), here are mine … (THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD)

10. Suspiria – Leap into razorwire
When our poor non-final girl, Sarah, is chased by an oogely-boogely down the darkened hallways of the spooky dorm, we know she’s gonna get it. The only question is how and when? Suspiria answers both questions with cruel brilliance. Trapped in razor wire, she is helpless against a viscious stabbing.

9. Zombie – Eye meet splinter
Eye trauma is icky. You don’t really see it too much in horror movies. But in Zombie, not only do we have eye trauma … we have drawn out, oh-my-God-I-can’t-watch-it kind of eye trauma. Italians are crazy.


8. Night Train Murders – Knife to the hoo
The only thing worse than eye trauma is hoo trauma. And by hoo, I mean junk, gennies, nads, your means to the nasty. It’s also rare to see in horror. We Americans like our eyes and our hoos … but not those Italians!


7. Carrie – Mama attacks
Carrie White is shy, tender, a raw nerve. You want to take care of her, defend her against her evil Mother and dreadful peers. So when her mom stabs her with a knife, it’s both heartbreaking and willy inducing. “Why mama, why?”


6. Wolf Creek – Head on a Stick
Our resourceful, heroic, and chaste final girl Liz saves her friend Kristy, then goes back into the lion’s den looking for a car. But the sneaky (and unreasonably attractive) filmmaker Greg McLean pulls a fast one. Liz, the goodhearted and brave, gets stabbed in the back by maniacal Mick. He severs her spinal cord, SO SHE CAN FEEL PAIN, BUT CAN'T MOVE. (Wait! She’s NOT our final girl? She’s paralyzed and going to be tortured horribly? She’s now just a head on a stick?) What we don’t see is unimaginable.


5. Audition – That f-in bag
If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. As spoilery as this post has been, I can’t spoil this.


4. Hellraiser – "Jesus Wept"
When skinless masochist asshole Frank Cotton gets caught by the cenobites, we cringe as hooks and chains pull his skin every which way. After a losing battle against his demons, Frank is locked in a metal spider web crucifixion. Knowing he is doomed, he delivers a most chilling line: “Jesus Wept,” then gets pulled apart. Willies!


3. Angel Heart – "Who was the Boy?"
Though the special effects on this movie are dated, it is so frigging creepy and Mickey Rourke and Robert DeNiro are so fucking good that it doesn't matter. By the time the mystery of the voodoo-loving crooner Johnny Favorite is revealed (“WHO WAS THE BOY?!”) and Robert DeNiro reveals himself as Lucifer (with glowing yellow eyes no less) ... and that creepy baby, the willies are crawling all over me.


2. Tie: Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave – THAT scene
Last House on the Left (the original) is in many ways a terrible movie. It is super low budget and has lots of awkward dumb moments. However, the rape and murder scene is so grisly and the aftermath so believable, that it can't help but linger with you. To me, it felt like I witnessed something horrible and did nothing to stop it. I felt implicated in the crime.


I Spit on Your Grave is a better movie in many ways. It is shot better. The acting is better. And the rape scene is even more horrific. The contrast of the suffering of the victim with the good-old-boy tomfoolery of the attackers is devastating. It goes on for WAY too long. Even when you think it should stop. It makes you suffer the way she suffers. Many reviewers had a problem with that. I came away being even more horrified by the brutality of rape.


1. Texas Chainsaw Masacre – Sally’s run
Texas Chainsaw is relentless, weird and unsettling. It sits at the intersection of the Venn diagram between slasher and grindhouse. Leatherface - a hulking he/she, a not-so-hot tranny mess - is but ONE of a family of killers that our final girl Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) has to face. Though Leatherface has his signature chainsaw, his lesser-known brother (known simply as Hitchhiker) has a nasty-ass straight-razor. As Sally is fleeing, Hitchhiker mercilessly slashes at her over and over again, cutting her back as she flees. I just want to scream at the screen “Leave her alone! She’s suffered enough!” But this movie has no mercy and always leaves me exhausted by the time we get to this horrific willy inducing finale.