10 Most Intense Scenes In War Films

Much like the death of Jago in the Nightingale, the intensity of Kurtz’s death scene doesn't necessarily come from us wondering about its end. The film is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and, therefore, Kurtz's death has been pretty much set in stone for a century.

Instead, the intensity comes from the overwhelming sense of chaos on screen. We see the protagonist, Captain Willard, emerging from a pool as the Vietnamese people Kurtz has subjugated begin sacrificing a water buffalo. The scene rises in intensity from there as Willard gets closer and closer to his prey. The Doors' The End, plays in the background, becoming more intense, seeming to spiral outward into incoherence, much like Willard himself seems to be.

Willard approaches Kurtz, and, with a machete, delivers savage blows, mostly covered by darkness, intercut with shots of the water buffalo being sacrificed, underlining the brutal effects of the man-on-man violence that is otherwise shadowed in darkness. Kurtz finally lays dying, uttering his final line: "The horror... the horror", a line lifted directly from Heart of Darkness that seems to promise some terrifying glimpse of what Kurtz might have seen beyond the bounds of ordinary, socialized human perception.

The whole scene is a disorienting experience of physical and metaphysical intensity, bringing us both into the frenzied, antisocial perspective of both Kurtz and the man who is killing him.