10 Most Brutal Movie Beatings

3. The Killer Inside Me

What makes the violence in Michael Winterbottom's 2010 adaptation so unflinchingly upsetting is the fact that, for the most part, it is directed at women; or rather, one woman - a prostitute called Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba). Although she displays a sadomasochistic streak, Joyce is forever at the mercy of Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck); a vile, snivelling sociopath. She lives in fear of Lou's temper, and attempts to assuage him with a plan to extort $10, 000 from a man with whom she is having an affair. Rather than consider this the perfect vengeance for his previous crime, he instead places his hands, shrouded in black leather gloves, on her face and playfully tweaks her nose. If only he had stopped there. The following scene is, without doubt, one of the most controversial and discomforting in recent years- a sight that should make anyone shudder. But what makes it truly the stuff of nightmares is the sight of Joyce's bruised lips and black eyes juxtaposed with Lou's false apologies and empty ''I love you''s. A year later, this scene makes an unwelcome return, of sorts, in Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur; in which Olivia Colman played victim to her abusive husband (Eddie Marsan). Both filmmakers have taken an incredibly difficult subject matter (a topic still considered taboo) and produced some of the most devastating scenes of movie violence. Devastating because, rather than play it for cheap, tasteless tricks, they've simply shown it for the horror it is.