The 10 Greatest Gross-Out Moments Of The '80s
Ten horrible bits from the decade style forgot...
10. Airplane (1980)
Only the immature brains of Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers would take the phrase “when the shit hits the fan” and push it to its literal extreme.
So it’s a combination of cackling and nausea as Robert Stack utters the dreaded phrase and a curly arse-sausage flies through the air, splatting into a whirring fan with a hefty thud.[page-break]
9. Withnail & I (1987)
It’s down to a humble egg to supply Withnail with its most revolting moment. As Paul McGann sits in a dismal London cafe, the camera pans around the greasy spoon’s hopeless proles and closes in on a hoary old warthog slobbering over a fried egg sandwich.
Even the most concrete stomach would crumble at the resulting yolk spunking ’twixt bread, as London’s ugliest lady applies her mushy lips to the job of eating.[page-break]
8. RoboCop (1987)
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Career criminal Emil is having a bad day. He’s just had a 50-gallon drum of toxic waste dumped over him. And as all fans of schlocky horror films know, toxic waste is good for only one thing: melting people.
Staggering about with the grace of an Action-Man tap-dancing in front of a fire, his drip-fried reactions fail to get him out of the way of his partner-in-crime’s speeding car. Result? A manshaped, 150lb pink custard pie.[page-break]
7. Meet The Feebles (1989)
In Peter Jackson’s scat-happy parody of The Muppet Show, one bilious scene catches a sneering bluebottle squatting in an unflushed lavatory and chowing down on some fresh bum-mud.
The repugnant insect shovels the stinking turdish delight into its mouth, smearing the lumpy paste across its fly face and ooohing and aaahing at the colonic casserole.[page-break]
6. Day Of The Dead (1985)
It’s the end of the world, and a final pocket of humanity is being snuffed out by a thousand drooling zombies. As the undead gorge, base commander Rhodes’ escape is hindered when the coffin-dodgers tear his legs off and chew on his exposed tubes. “Choke on ’em!” he curses, as his legs are dragged off stage left. [page-break]
5. Videodrome (1983)
James Woods is hallucinating thanks to the evil vibes from his TV, fusing the mechanical with the visceral in a subconscious desire to merge his finite subjective reality into the world behind the screen (it’s a David Cronenberg film).
Blankly scratching a tummy itch with a handgun, Woods’ hungry belly suddenly gapes open and gobbles up the gun,causing Woods to leap up and blunder about with a “Where’s my pistol?” scowl.[page-break]
4. Indiana Jones (1984)
Settling down for some din-dins at Pancock Palace, Indy and guests chew their sleeves as a gut-bubbling menu of gastric abominations are dumped on the dinner table: sicked-in beetle shells, slitopen snakes, potage a la slushy goat’s eyes.
But Spielberg really pulls the sicktrigger when the main course arrives – savoury chimp brains, ready to slurp from the monkey’s just-murdered head.[page-break]
3. Scanners (1981)
Having volunteered himself for a demonstration in telepathic powers, Michael Ironside upstages his mentor by clenching his teeth and grimacing like he’s about to shit out a set of screwdrivers.
Eyes rolling and lips twitching, Ironside invades the head of the luckless professor, flinging some brainwaves into the egghead’s skull and causing it to explode like a watermelon in a shooting gallery.[page-break]
2. Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (1983)
As the floor of the opulent French restaurant rumbles with his arrival, greasy, gargantuan slob-monster Mr Creosote plops himself down, calls for a bucket and showers the floor with a torrent of chunk-chucking.
He finally explodes altogether with the consumption of a “waffer-theen mint”, redecorating the restaurant with a lumpy artex of Creosote body bits.[page-break]
1. Society (1989)
The revolting finale to Brian Yuzna’s horror sees hero Billy Warlock’s suspicions – that his family are mutated masons – confirmed beyond his deepest fears when he walks in on an orgy of orifi cemashing and jammy arses.
The most sickening moments come when the mayor blurts, “Let’s get to the bottom of this,” to one of Billy’s classmates, and promptly punches him a new arsehole and pokes his fingers through his eye sockets. The charmer.
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Sam Ashurst is a London-based film maker, journalist, and podcast host. He's the director of Frankenstein's Creature, A Little More Flesh + A Little More Flesh 2, and co-hosts the Arrow Podcast. His words have appeared on HuffPost, MSN, The Independent, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, and many more, as well as of course for us here at 12DOVE.