History Main / MalevolentMutilation

* The Blood Pact opposing ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade are so named because they ritually cut their hands against the jagged edges of their patron's PoweredArmor to seal their loyalty to him and their solidarity as [[BloodBrothers fraternal warriors]]. They also tend to engage in further scarification, cutting chaotic glyphs into their faces and scalps in order to demonstrate their dedication to the Ruinous Powers. Even those tend to be covered up by [[FacelessGoons the iron masks they wear]] which are shaped into [[RageHelm grotesque and monstrous faces]].

* [[TheDragon Darth Maul]] in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' has his entire face covered in black and red ink to present an imposing appearance.

* A {{downplayed|Trope}} example, Kazundo Gouda in ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex: Second Gig'', a villain who has a horribly mangled face and strangely-shaped head due to an accident. Although the damage was not voluntary, it's explicitly pointed out that he could repair his face using the world's futuristic technology and his wealth, but makes the choice not to. He claims it helps make him more memorable.
* The Six Paths of Pain in ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'' are covered in so many body and facial piercings it's not even funny.

** Black Mask in ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'' intentionally carved up his already deformed face to resemble [[SkullForAHead a human skull]]. His Blackened face, though was already there, since he accidentally got his face burnt in a housefire. Most adaptations cut this out and give him the skull look from the very beginning.

** Victor Szasz leaves no survivors but what he does leave is a carved line on his own flesh for each life claimed.

* The Cenobites from ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}'' franchise are an iconic example, being an order of extra-dimentional {{Sense Freak}}s who seek to share their "pleasures" with those who can solve the [[SummoningArtifact Lament Configuration]] puzzle box.
* [[TheDragon Darth Maul]] in ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/ThePhantomMenace'', who has his entire face covered in black and red ink to present an imposing appearance.
* Karl Ruprecht Kroenen from ''Film/{{Hellboy|2004}}'', so very much.
-->'''Professor Bruttenholm''': Suffered from a masochistic compulsion commonly known as surgical addiction. Both eyelids surgically removed, along with his upper and lower lip. The blood in his veins dried up decades ago. Only dust remains. What horrible will could keep such a creature as this alive?
* Milton Dammers the obsessed FBI Agent in ''Film/TheFrighteners'' opens his shirt at one point to show that his chest is covered in scarification, presumably from his time spent undercover with various cults.
* This trope is utilized frequently by the [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Deadites]] in ''Film/EvilDead2013''. All three female characters who [[DemonicPossession become possessed]] mutilate themselves in horrific ways: Mia splits open [[TongueTrauma her tongue]] with a box-cutter; Olivia cuts open [[FacialHorror her cheek]], exposing her jaw; Natalie shoots several nails into her face with a [[NailEm nail gun]] before turning it on her friends.

* ''Film/{{Freaks}}'' concludes with another rare example of the good guys doing it, this time [[PayEvilUntoEvil inflicting it on a villain]] as a KarmicTransformation to add said villain to TheFreakshow.

** John Doe seems to delight in invoking this with his murders.

** John Doe's [[{{Fingore}} removal of fingerprints]] by shaving the skin off his fingertips. He shows up at the police station near the end of the film with his hands covered in his own blood.
** Just imagine John Doe [[spoiler:fingerprinting "HELP ME" with Victor's severed hand.]]

* The ''Literature/NewJediOrder'' trilogy from the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' presents the Yuuzhan Vong, an extra-galactic species who revere pain as a way of life. Many of their religious ceremonies involve cutting, piercing, and scarring, that they might better experience the pain they believed their gods suffered to create the universe. Promotion ceremonies involve having their limbs and organs removed and replaced with [[BioAugmentation artificially grown versions]].
* Just about every vampire in the ''Literature/{{Necroscope}}'' series, especially in the "Vampire World" books. The Vamps there deliberately twist and torture their own flesh to make them as horrific as possible, it is something of competition amongst male vamps to see who can have the worst.

* In the ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries'' novel ''Chasm City'', Orcagna has a large square hole cut through his abdomen.
* The Blood Pact opposing ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade are so named because they ritually cut their hands against the jagged edges of their patron's PowerArmor to seal their loyalty to him and their solidarity as [[BloodBrothers fraternal warriors]]. They also tend to engage in further scarification, cutting chaotic glyphs into their faces and scalps in order to demonstrate their dedication to the Ruinous Powers. Even those tend to be covered up by [[FacelessGoons the iron masks they wear]] which are shaped into [[RageHelm grotesque and monsterous faces]].
* In ''[[Literature/EddieLaCrosse The Sword-Edged Blonde]]'', Andrew Reese was disfigured, broken, and deformed, being physically twisted into a new shape which left him in [[WoundThatWillNotHeal permanent pain]] but [[WhoWantsToLiveForever unable to die]]. It was a punishment after he [[spoiler:drunkenly tried to rape someone who was actually a goddess in human form and was then dumb enough to take his anger out on an animal she cared for]].
* ''Literature/LilithsBrood'': When a human village acquires two young [[HalfHumanHybrid half-Oankali]] girls, Neci is very persistent in wanting to cut off the small sensory tentacles that indicate their non-human ancestry -- and that help them breathe, see, hear, and taste. She's prevented from doing so, but it's presented as a sign that she's even more [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman prejudiced against Oankali]] than the others, and dim-witted and vicious besides.
* In the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'', the {{cult}}ists of [[TownWithADarkSecret Dras-Leona]] ritualistically amputate their own body parts (in addition to sacrificing unwilling slaves). Their leader is missing ''[[EvilCripple all four limbs]]'', along with [[TongueTrauma a chunk of tongue]] for good measure.
* Fleshcrafters in the ''Literature/BasLagCycle'' are capable of magically distorting flesh, reshaping it, blending it with mechanical parts, etc. to create horrible creatures which may be all-flesh or {{Magitek}} cyborgs, for heavy work, military, or other purposes such as when someone wants what would amount to superpowers for whatever reason. However, when given prisoners to work with, they have an annoying habit of Remaking them as surrealist artworks, sometimes with their crimes in mind (''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'' has a [[{{Foreshadowing}} woman who killed her baby]] get the baby's arms grafted to her head), but otherwise they seem to toss them together at random in whatever shape they think is funny, like an Exquisite Corpse game.

* The Reavers from ''Series/{{Firefly}}''. The way they scar themselves and jam random bits of metal into their flesh is the ''least'' horrible thing about them.
* An episode in [[Series/AmericanHorrorStory American Horror Story's]] "Carnival" season sees a character's abusive father react ''very'' badly to his daughter hanging out with the freaks from the show. He drugs her, and while she's out has an acquaintance tattoo her face all over with scales and fork her tongue so that she can "be with her kind".
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' season 13, episode 22 is a VerySpecialEpisode about body modification, from tattoos and piercings, which Benson describes as a [[DrugsAreBad "gateway drug"]], to ear points and amputation -- the villain is a [[PsychoPsychologist psychiatrist]] who developed a sexual fetish after his mother, and then later on a 14-year-old patient, each had their legs amputated. He goes around amputating womens' legs.

* Members of Clan Tzimisce in ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' that make heavy use of their clan Discipline, Vicissitude to modify their bodies are prime examples of these.

* One of the many, ''many'' horrific things the [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Dark Eldar]] do to the unfortunate people they capture.

* Soulblighter, TheDragon and DragonAscendant from Creator/{{Bungie}}'s ''VideoGame/{{Myth}}: The Fallen Lords'' and ''Myth II: Soulblighter'', respectively. He walks about [[WalkingShirtlessScene stripped to the waist]] to display a long snaking scar on his torso where his heart was removed in a magical ritual that made him NighInvulnerable. More obviously than that, his nose and lips were cut away from his face, leaving him with a permanent [[FacialHorror rictus grin]].
* The monsters in ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent''. They were all [[WasOnceAMan once men]], subjected to a PainfulTransformation and subsequent modification, such as the [[FacialHorror removal of their jawbones]] and hooks and other jagged pieces of metal being shoved through their flesh to use as weapons.
** Its sequel, ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs'', does this as well with its [[PigMan Pig Men]]. They are made to drink an elixir which subjects them to an initial PainfulTransformation as their body burns with fever, voiding bowels and blood, followed by horrible vivisection to turn them into something more than a pig, [[WasOnceAMan but less than a man]], all pliant to the will of [[MechanicalAbomination the Machine]].
* ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' featured the villain Darth Sion, a Sith Lord who learned to better draw on TheDarkSide through his own pain. Medical scans indicate that every bone in his body has been shattered and re-knit together, and his skin is grey and leathery, with many cracks running across it as though calcified and broken. Ultimately, it is the strength in the Force he gained by doing this that is all which holds him together anymore.

* ''Franchise/DeadSpace''
** The Regenerator necromorph (a recurring boss fought accross all three games that all share the same programming) are one of the few necro's who enjoy killing. Rather than going for a quick kill, they instead ''butcher Isaac alive'' when they kill him. While the [[spoiler: [[EldritchAbomination Bretheren]] [[TheNecromancer Moons]]]] prefer whole corpses to make necromorphs out of, they can use bits and peices if they must.
** In the ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'' "Awakened" DLC, an early enemy is Unitology cultists who have cut off their hands and affixed prosthetic blades to the stumps, in imitation of the basic Slasher enemy.

* Can and has happened in ''Webcomic/{{Runewriters}}''. From what has been shown so far, it appears that certain runewriters can change their own and/or other peoples' bodies in various ways, such as giving them tentacles for hands, or sealing someone's eyes or mouth shut by "healing" them. Adding to this is the fact that the spells can be miscast, creating unexpected results such as becoming permanent.
* In ''Webcomic/MaggotBoy'', one of the things that marks Owen Wright as an undead EnfantTerrible is the fact that he appears to have torn his own face off and stitched it back on piecemeal.

* The Website/SCPFoundation has quite a few of these, notably the [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-191 Cyborg Child]] and the [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-203 Tortured Iron Soul]]. And of course more than a few [=SCPs=] will do it to ''you.''

* In the 2003 ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|2003}}'' series, Baxter Stockman was punished by the Shredder by having parts of his body removed for every failure. Bit by bit he became more and more disabled until by his later appearances he was a BrainInAJar with ''one eye still attached that looks around.'' However, he built increasingly powerful robot bodies. Of course, he was more likely to use them against his BadBoss than against the Turtles (though whenever he seems to be winning, his ambition returns and he's perfectly willing to smash ''everyone'' to try and become top dog.) Far and away the darkest thing about the most DarkerAndEdgier TMNT series.

* Franchise/{{Batman}} villains

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation Female genital mutilation]] is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, and makes even the above seem like an unwanted tattoo by comparison. Often performed with no anesthesia and instruments such as scissors, with less effort taken toward keeping things sanitary than you'd want from the guy at Starbucks who pours your coffee. It's less a medical procedure and more someone who sorta knows a thing or two about medicine cutting you up with whatever stabby implement is on hand. Hellishly painful, done from days after birth to just before puberty. Death from the procedure itself and/or its complications (to avoid WallsOfText, let's just say there are a ''lot'' of potential complications, and every last one is horrific) is exceedingly common, and underreported. The idea is that the parts removed are 'male' and a girl is cleansed by their removal.

* [[BlackMagic Hemalurgy]] in the ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' books involves pounding metal spikes into your body. The [[SuperpoweredMooks Steel Inquisitors]], who use Hemalurgy the most, have railroad-sized spikes driven through everything but their noses, including two so far into their [[EyeScream eye sockets]] that the points come out the back of their heads -- and they're just as painful as they look, even years or [[LongLived centuries]] after they're installed.
* In ''Literature/ChasmCity'', Orcagna has a large square hole cut through his abdomen.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'' season 13, episode 22 is a VerySpecialEpisode about body modification, from tattoos and piercings, which Benson describes as a [[DrugsAreBad "gateway drug",]], to ear points and amputation - the VillainOfTheWeek is a [[PsychoPsychologist psychiatrist]] who developed a sexual fetish after his mother, and then later on a 14-year-old patient, each had their legs amputated. He goes around amputating womens' legs.
* In ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Humbug" they meet The Conundrum (played by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_%28performer%29 The Enigma]]) at a carny show. He has a jigsaw-puzzle themed tattoo covering his whole body. He's actually very nice, if quiet, fellow [[spoiler: and personally deals with the MonsterOfTheWeek]].