10 "Gory" Movie Moments (That Didn't Show As Much As You Think)
4. Nurse Decapitation (The Exorcist III - 1990)
Returning to phantom beheadings, the third Exorcist film contains one of the best jump scares in any horror film when a nurse is snuck up on by a figure brandishing a huge pair of metal shears.
The tension builds in an unbroken extreme long shot for over a minute, as a nurse paces from room to room, framed by the architecture of the hospital corridor. There is then a sudden crash zoom in as a figure appears behind the nurse, shears wide open at neck height. We then cut immediately to a headless statue in a church.
It’s very simple but very effective. A priest is found decapitated earlier in the film so we know this poor nurse’s fate. Once again, our brains do any and all gory work here.