Top 10 Grossest Horror Movies

Get into the Halloween mood with these gross horror films!

There’s something about gory movies that people are just drawn to; otherwise, how else would one explain the content of the films on this list? From independent to mainstream, these 10 films encapsulate some of the most disgusting and repugnant things ever shown on film.

Warning: gore alert! The following movies are not for the faint of heart! (Most movies are rated R.)

10. Saw (2004)

Infamous for its strong usage of gore and violence, the first Saw film opens with a scene of two strangers waking up in chains on opposite sides of a large bathroom, the two latest victims of the Jigsaw Killer. Jigsaw tests his victims in games designed to teach them to value their lives. As the two strangers attempt to escape from the bathroom, they begin to realize that nothing around them is what it appears, especially not each other.

Grossest Scene: When the two strangers find a saw in the bathroom, they attempt to use it to cut through the chains around their feet. Upon discovering that the steel chains are too thick to cut, one of the characters realizes that Jigsaw doesn’t want them to cut through the chains - he wants them to cut through their feet!

9. Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Twenty years after creating the cult masterpiece, The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi returned to the horror genre with this gross-out horror comedy. This gory classic features Christine, a loan officer who gets cursed after refusing to give a loan extension to an old gypsy. As strange events begin happening to Christine, she realizes that she will be dragged to hell by the end of the week. Christine races against time with the help of her boyfriend as she seeks to make amends with the gypsy and stop the curse at all costs.

Grossest Scene: Christine arrives at the gypsy's home in an attempt to reconcile, but is too late as the old woman has passed away. Pushing her way into the funeral, Christine attempts to seek help from the dead lady’s relatives. As Christine stumbles around the gypsy’s casket, she trips over it and ends up with the dead lady on top of her, staring her right in the eyes. Christine is subsequently drenched with a fountain of embalming fluid pouring out of the gypsy’s mouth.

8. Videodrome (1983)

James Woods plays Max Renn, the owner of a cable TV station that specializes in sleazy programming. When his station intercepts the broadcast of a torture show known only as Videodrome, Renn attempts to get the show on his network. As he goes deeper into the underworld of the horrifying media, Renn uncovers a conspiracy involving a doctor using Videodrome to brainwash its viewers to perform assassinations. Renn begins to lose his bearing on reality from the exposure to the program, which not only distorts his mind, but his body as well.

Grossest Scene: Videodrome begins to consume Renn’s mind and body, allowing for the conspirators to program Renn to commit an assassination. The programming is done by inserting a pulsating VHS tape made of human flesh containing the instructions for the assassinations into an opening in his chest, which is just as disgusting as it sounds.

7. Hostel (2005)

A group of friends travelling across Europe ends up staying at a hostel recommended to them by a friend they meet in Amsterdam. One member of the group goes missing and the remaining friends go looking for him. The group discovers an underground torture dungeon, which allows rich clients to pay large sums of money to fulfill their darkest fantasies. Receiving no help from the local authorities, the tourists take matters into their own hands and attempt to rescue their friends while witnessing the darkest deeds of humanity.

Grossest Scene: As Paxton, one of the group members, attempts to escape the dungeon, he encounters one of his friends being tortured by a man with a flamethrower. After Paxton murders the torturer he frees his friend, but she’s unfortunately already blind due to the flamethrower that was previously aimed at her face - and the fact that her eye is hanging several inches out of its socket.

6. Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

This film follows a hobo (played by Rutger Hauer) as he jumps off a train into the city of Hope Town, attempting to start a lawn-mowing business. Making his way through town, he witnesses the horrible acts committed upon the population by the local crime boss, The Drake, and his two sons, Slick and Ivan. Finding no help from the corrupt cops, the hobo becomes a vigilante armed with nothing but a 12-gauge shotgun.

Grossest Scene: The grossest scene comes when Slick and Ivan attempt to scare Hope Town into turning against the homeless population in hopes of stopping the homeless vigilante. Armed with a flamethrower, the two maniacs board a school bus full of first-graders. What happens next is rather obvious.

5. House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

In rock artist Rob Zombie’s directorial debut, a group of friends driving through the southwest United States on Halloween go looking for the laboratory of a legendary mad scientist known as Dr. Satan. They stop at the home of a family of psychotic hillbillies (including Bill Moseley and Shari Moon Zombie) in the hopes of finding out more about the mysterious mad doctor, but are horrifically kidnapped and terrorized by the insane family, leading to the survivors discovering that Dr. Satan isn’t just a myth.

Grossest Scene: After the group is kidnapped, one of the girls wakes up to find herself locked in a dirty bedroom. As she screams to be let out, Bill Moseley’s character comes in to show her what he’s done to her boyfriend. Pulling back a red curtain hanging from the wall, Moseley reveals his latest creation, the grotesque Fishboy, a mixture of half-fish, half-disemboweled boyfriend.

4. The Fly (1986)

David Cronenberg’s remake of the 1958 film of the same name follows Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), a scientist who has just completed production of a teleportation chamber. With the help of his girlfriend Veronica (Geena Davis), Brundle is able to complete his device and finally test it, using himself as the subject. As one would expect in any horror movie, something goes horribly wrong and a fly ends up in the teleportation chamber with Brundle, merging his DNA with that of a fly and slowly mutating him into a human and fly hybrid, Brundlefly.

Grossest Scene: Veronica discovers that she is pregnant with Brundle’s child, but isn’t sure whether she was impregnated by the human Brundle or the Brundlefly. Choosing to play it safe, she goes to get an abortion, horrifying the doctors as she gives birth to a giant maggot.

3. The Thing (1982)

This film features an alien that can assimilate and imitate the form of anything it chooses, terrorizing the scientists at an Antarctic research base headed by RJ Macready (played by Kurt Russell). The only way to tell the thing apart from an actual human is to harm it, at which point it mutates into a variety of horrific creatures. The crew becomes increasingly more paranoid and begins to turn hostile towards each other. Macready arms himself with a flamethrower and dynamite in order to destroy the base before the thing can reach the civilized world.

Grossest Scene: One of the scientists, Norris, passes out and dies and as one of the crew attempts to resuscitate him with a defibrillator, his chest suddenly splits open and becomes a set of teeth, biting off the man’s arms. A grotesque monster then erupts from Norris’ stomach and lashes out at Macready, who responds by torching it with his flamethrower. As the thing erupts in flames, Norris’ head detaches from his body and mutates into a spider-like creature in order to escape so Macready burns it to a crisp as well.

2. Slither (2006)

A parasitic alien traveling in a meteorite crash lands in the rural town of Woodsville and possesses the unsuspecting Grant (Michael Rooker), slowly transforming him into a giant alien creature. When Grant begins a rampage of murdering his neighbour’s pets and livestock it is up Grant’s wife, Starla (Elizabeth Banks), and the local sheriff, Bill (Nathan Fillion), to stop him.

Grossest Scene: The most visceral scene in the film comes when Nathan Fillion’s character closes in on Grant, stumbling upon a monstrously large woman impregnated with thousands of alien larvae. As Fillion and his fellow officers attempt to help the poor woman, the giant slugs begin to grow larger inside of her. Fillion realizes that his squad has entered a trap too late, and the slugs begin to hatch out of the woman, mutilating the officers as they make their way towards town.

1. Dead Alive (1992)

Before making Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson started his directing career making low-budget horror movies, including Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles. The grossest of his early movies, Dead Alive, holds the record for being the goriest film of all time. The movie follows Lionel, a fully matured mama’s boy, who falls in love with a beautiful young girl named Maria against his mother’s wishes. When he goes out with Maria, his mother secretly attempts to ruin the date, leading to her getting infected with a zombie bite from the Sumatran rat-monkey. As Lionel attempts to cover up his mother’s cannibalistic tendencies from his girlfriend and the guests of a party his uncle is throwing at their house, his mother breaks loose and begins to eat the party guests, leading to the bloodiest confrontation in film history.

Grossest Scene: Maria is outnumbered by hundreds of zombies swarming her from all directions, and Lionel is nowhere to be seen. As Maria is about to be consumed by the undead, Lionel kicks down the front door of the house, a lawn mower in his hands. Lionel mows through the zombies to rescue his girlfriend, this scene containing 500 litres of blood being pumped at five gallons per second.