Since this movie is often regarded as both the darkest and the most violent of the Die Hard films, it's to be expected that it would contain its share of disturbing moments:
- The poor mook who gets his head crushed in the beginning of the film.
- The Annex Skywalk scene starts with O'Reilly pulling a Boom, Headshot! on the approaching SWAT officer. It ends with five SWAT officers dead. Watching Lorenzo's "best men" ambushed and slaughtered so easily is chilling, as well as the fact that Colonel Stuart has no qualms about murdering innocent police officers. But this only a prelude to something much worse......
- Colonel Stuart is able to gain control over the Dulles Airport control tower and crash a plane just to show the amount of control he has. And McClane is practically unable to prevent it. And because of this, Colonel Stuart, to this day, holds the highest body count of all the Die Hard villains. Combined.
- Despite John's efforts to signal the incoming plane, it slams into the pavement, its passengers and pilots screaming as their plane erupts into a hellish inferno. (If you listen closely enough, one of the pilots over the radio appears to scream "We're gonna die!") Colonel Stuart's cold, emotionless demeanor through the entire thing reinforces the kind of monster John is dealing with.
- To say that, the fireball and very United Airlines Flight 232-way in which the plane hits the runway (the landing gear collapses, fuel spills, a spark ignites a fireball, and the fuselage breaks into pieces as it careens down the tarmac) will make you cringe when you learn that 230 people are getting roasted and burned. Furthermore, there appear to be no intact human remains at the crash scene.
- McClane's reaction to the crash. This isn't one of his "Ugh I just need to get to my wife" reactions or even one of his "Oh no, that didn't go so well" ones. He was horrified by the fact that he failed to save the aircraft, and openly wept in guilt and grief for the victims, taking the blame for their deaths to heart.
- The workprint release has a scene that elaborates further on the fate of the victims on the plane.
After the plane crashes and catches fire, it cuts to the pilots and passengers being roasted alive, with their own horrible screams that can send tingles down your spine.
- The Bait the Dog of Major Grant.
- To sum up: Major Grant and company get sent in to stop Stuart and his men, and also was on McClane's side all the way. But what McClane and the others don't know was that Grant and Stuart are old buddies. The horror comes when Grant slashes Telford's throat.
- Not helping is that the poor young soldier is gasping for air and gagging as blood pours from his neck. Nobody else expresses anything more than, at most, half-hearted regret.
- Bear in mind that this is a military unit, so he and his platoon-mates are supposed to have each other's back at all times, period. And in a brutal display of All of the Other Reindeer, he gets murdered outright for no other reason than that he was the unit's New Meat and thus wasn't part of the in-crowd.
- And what makes it that little bit extra disturbing is that that there is no way he could have seen this coming. He's part of a team where every other man in it is planning to murder him for reasons he can't understand. His CO (who he looks up to) kills him out of nowhere and everyone just stares.
- Colonel Stuart jamming a knife right into McClane's shoulder in their wing fight. John's scream as it happens is somewhat unsettling.
- Then McClane bites Stuart's hand and spits out a piece of flesh.
- As pictured, McClane defeats the mook Baker by stabbing an icicle through his eye. Baker lets out a scream of outright terror, which is cut out by his death.
- McClane overpowers Grant and then knocks him off the wing of Stuart's plane, right into the engine turbine. McClane is visibly disturbed when he sees Grant's bloody remains shoot out the back.
- Stuart and Esperanza's death; the terrorists believe they have finally won and make their escape on the jet, only for McClane to light a trail of fuel leaking from the plane, causing the aircraft to erupt into a massive fireball in mid-air. And all the while we see a hellish white light flood the plane as the terrorists all scream as they vainly shield themselves from the flames. In all fairness though, their fate was completely deserved.
- General Esperanza acting chummy with the young soldier guarding him in the cargo bay. The next scene shows he somehow managed to gain the advantage over the guard and is slowly and brutally crushing his throat with his chains. Violence Is Disturbing, kids.
