10 "Gory" Movie Moments (That Didn't Show As Much As You Think)
8. William Wallace’s Execution (Braveheart - 1995)
Mel Gibson (whatever you think of his personal views…) knows how to tell a rollicking story, whether it be about William Wallace, the Mayans, or Jesus Christ Himself. And flowing through all of Gibson’s stories is plenty of blood.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that a man of such strong faith is prone to imbuing his films with Old Testament levels of bloodshed. Braveheart is a very gory film. It’s a hack ‘n’ slash medieval epic full of bloody battles and brutal eye-for-an-eye vengeance.
So when William Wallace is sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered by the English, you expect that Gibson has been saving the real gore for the finale. Not so. Believe it or not, during Wallace’s evisceration and decapitation not a drop of blood is spilt.
Maybe Gibson didn’t think that showing the hero (played by himself, no less) enduring gratuitous, bloody torture would be what an audience would want to see. He certainly changed his tune for The Passion of the Christ.