An eye for an eye.
Both films have quite a bit of nightmare fuel to them, given how Kill Bill is a revenge fantasy film filled with Gorn.As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
- The Bride's apparent death, as seen all in black and white, and when the fear of what's going to happen to her registers on her face...
- The animated credits show a brief but brutal scene where the Vipers are beating on the pregnant Bride, taking turns and knocking her around like a pinball.
- Buck, the orderly who regularly raped the Bride during her coma and had a side hustle pimping her out to his friends. When she finds his Cool Car, she concludes that there is only one way he could have afforded it. The absolutely disgusting jar of Vaseline Buck offers his last "customer" only makes the implication worse.
- In addition to the above (and as a heads-up, the following is not for the squeamish) — Buck assures the last guy, "You can cum in her all you want." My GOD. Buck has probably been telling all of his customers that, meaning possibly dozens of strange, grimy men have been ejaculating inside that poor woman, probably without protection. Let that sink in. Or don't. Nobody would blame you.
- O-Ren Ishii's past. Her parents are murdered by a gang in front of her when she is just nine years old, with both of them being impaled with the same katana, then their house is set on fire with the three of them still inside. Also, her killing of Matsumoto and his henchmen a few years later (getting close to him by using herself as a Honey Trap — because in addition to being a sadistic murderous crime boss, he was also a paedophile). They deserved it, but it doesn't make it any less horrifying, since a pre-teen girl becomes a hardened killer. Then, by her 20th birthday, she had become a Professional Killer who assassinated a Mexican official by essentially blowing his head off while he was riding in his limo.
- Her death. The fact that the top of her head is missing, exposing her brain and that she still manages to be alive for a few moments more is very disturbing.
- And back to the limo: almost any normal person on Earth would scream just as loudly as those women in the car as soon as they stared through the now-dead official's head.
- Gogo Yubari. She more than earned her place as O-Ren's bodyguard. A previous incident had her brutally stab a man in a bar because he wanted to have sex with her. Then there's that geyser of his blood that flows onto her schoolgirl shoes...
- The fight between her and the Bride. She engages in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of the latter, even after she told her that she didn't want to fight her because of her young age, which she responds to by laughing at her and telling her she'll make her beg better than that. After striking her repeatedly with her heavy metal ball (before and after she activates the spikes, at one point both she and us, the audience, are treated to a lovely shot of the spiked ball barreling towards the camera), she manages to wrap the chain around her neck and begin to strangle her. Even worse, you can hear the bones in the Bride's neck breaking. Also, the look in the Bride's face is absolutely terrified, and it's obvious how she really doesn't want to die or kill her, but Gogo refuses to relent, causing her to drive a spike with a nail through into her foot and her head, killing her and making her shed Bloody Tears.
- Vernita's death is quick, but no less gruesome. After she shoots at the Bride with a gun hidden in a cereal box and misses, the Bride throws a knife straight into her heart, killing her instantly. Worse, Vernita's four-year-old daughter saw all of it. Even with her having it coming, imagine what's going through Nikki's head: she arrives home, sees it in a state of disarray, a mysterious woman (who she already feels uneasy around) suddenly shows up, she hears yelling and a gunshot, and she witnesses her mother, a big part of her whole world, brutally murdered by the aforementioned woman who gives her the creeps.
- The fight scene between the Bride and the Crazy 88 Squad. Seen in black and white in the American theatrical cut, it has some of the most gruesome killings and injuries in the film. Then after the fight ends and she looks for O-Ren, there's one guy who got his foot chopped off attempting to "attach" the severed limb and walk on it again. It's even worse in the Director's Cut; after ripping out the eye of one man, which marks the transition to black and white in the studio version, the cut footage shows her throwing the eyeball down another man's throat, and he chokes to death on it.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
- The ending scene of the opening before the massacre begins: After the Bride gives Bill one last talk and walks in with her new life and doofy husband awaiting her in the chapel, the scene pans out slowly from the chapel, the outside...and then to the DiVAs (O-Ren, Elle, Vernita, and Budd) as they gather, stare at the chapel for a moment, then ready their weapons and walk inside the chapel, all in deathly silence as the camera pans up. All we hear is everyone panicking, the gun shots, and a lone bell ringing.
- This final part:The Bride's "Husband": What the hell?!
[screams all around]
The Bride: NOOOO, BILL!!
[gunshots are heard, then silence, and then a bell rings]
- This final part:
- Budd's death. Even if he was a bastard, the slow and agonizing way he went, bitten by a snake and left to die, is horrifying to watch. Even worse, as Elle later narrates, the snake bites him and injects venom into his face *multiple* times before he can get the presence of mind to get it away from him. Also, for anyone who has Ophidiophobia, or even just a general wariness of snakes, the scene is tough to sit through because it's so realistic. Then it's coupled with the knowledge that in the following fight between The Bride and Elle, that snake is still in the trailer, potentially waiting to strike, and The Bride is fighting barefoot. While it never shows up during the fight, we do get one final shot as The Bride is leaving at foot level, with the snake reared up and seemingly ready to strike. Thankfully, it doesn't.
- The Bride yanking out Elle's remaining eye, then squishing it flat underneath her foot like a grape. All in slow-mo.
- Elle shrieking bloody murder as she flails about in rage and confusion like a panicked animal.
- Even worse, the scene showcases just how sociopathic the Bride can be, as she has no other reason to crush Elle’s eye besides her own satisfaction.
- The sudden flashback to Elle getting her first eye ripped out by Pai Mei, where her screams are so loud and sudden that it's almost like a Jump Scare.
- The Bride getting buried alive. It's the most effective illustration of claustrophobia ever committed to celluloid.
- Pai Mei's death at the hands of Elle. This is a wise old teacher who manages to be able to evade or counter virtually any attack someone tries to deal him, including a foot to the groin. How does she kill him? By poisoning his food. Granted, he did rip out one of her eyes when he was training her because she disrespected him, but still...
- Esteban Vihaio, the Retired Monster Mexican pimp who mutilates the faces of the women who displease him. He even tells Beatrix that he would have slashed her face up if he were Bill. A man so amoral that he veers into Blue-and-Orange Morality and clearly one you never want to cross despite his advanced age.
- Bill's death. He receives the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique from Beatrix/the Bride, knows he's going to die, asks her how he looks, walks outside, and flops down dead. Adding onto that, when all the actors are credited and include an image or images of the character from the film, when David Carradine is credited, that is the only image used for Bill.
