10 Insanely Intense Scenes In PG-13 Movies
1. The Dark Knight (2007) - Joker’s Home Movie
The Caped Crusader returns to this list and sits right at the top. The second instalment in Christopher Nolan’s Bat-trilogy is the darkest and most violent Batman film to date. How this film got away with being rated PG-13 in the US and ‘12A’ in the UK is most likely explained away by producers with a lot of money asking very, very nicely.
Before we get into the long list of scenes that could have qualified for the title of ‘Most Insanely Intense’, it’s worth acknowledging that The Dark Knight feels far more adult than most other superhero movies. It was very much Nolan’s intention with his trilogy to make them feel as realistic as possible to distance them from the fantastical and campy Burton/Schumacher iterations, both in its plot content and overall look. What this gritty tone does however is make the violence and threat feel very real.
Instead of exploding playing cards or poison-gas-squirting flowers, the Joker (Heath Ledger) rams pencils into eye sockets. Harvey Dent’s (Aaron Eckhart) disfigured face is truly horrifying in its detail. The Joker shows genuine sadism when recounting his affinity towards using knives, and there’s certainly not much to laugh about when he explains how he got his scars.
But the really intense scene is the one with the Joker’s hostage video with its deliberate ‘snuff-movie’ vibe. Shot by the Joker himself, the shaky cam footage centres on a figure dressed as Batman tied to a chair. We know this isn’t the real Batman, but for a child to see this uncanny faux-Batman so hopeless and vulnerable shatters the usual safe conventions of superhero movies. The Joker is totally sadistic throughout, cackling away as he taunts and slaps his hostage. When the Joker turns the camera on himself, his grotesque face fills the entire frame in a truly nightmarish shot, and when the footage abruptly ends we are left only to imagine the awful fate of his captive.
But hey, The Dark Knight grossed over $1billion dollars. No R-rated movie can compete with that.