10 Surprisingly Violent Deaths In Family Friendly Movies

Someone's heart getting ripped out? What a wholesome family adventure!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit Movie
Buena Vista Pictures

It's no secret that family movies contain a lot of death, from Bambi's mother being shot to Syndrome being shredded by a jet turbine. Usually though, the violence is concealed via the magic of filmmaking, or it's simply implied.

But sometimes, it's neither.

Because of the subjective nature of censorship, weirdly violent moments can often trickle into movies aimed at children, families, or general audiences, giving an otherwise harmless romp a

There's no shortage of them either, and whether they haunted your childhood or caused you to raise an eyebrow at the cinema screen, you probably noticed them.

Here are ten surprisingly violent deaths in movies that, due to their ratings, the whole family can watch...

10. Quirrell (Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone)

Harry Potter Quirrell
Warner Bros.

Current BBFC Rating: PG (same in cinemas).

Cause of Death: Burnt and turned into rock.

It's a Harry Potter tradition for the Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher to last only a single year, and across the entire film saga, Quirrell suffered what was arguably the worst fate of the bunch.

After revealing that Voldemort resides on the back of his head, Quirrell is ordered to kill Harry and retrieve the titular stone from the boy's grip. Sounds easy, right? A fully-grown wizard should be able to overpower a fledgling first-year.

WRONG.

While prising Quirrel's hand from his throat, Harry discovers he has the power to... burn his enemy's skin and turn him into rock? Alright.

The Boy Who Lived then proceeds to grab his assailant by the face, and Quirrell's mortified cries of agony as he simultaneously suffers a severe burning pain and crumbles into dust pierce the audio track like a knife.

Forbidden Forest aside, the first Potter flick was light and whimsical up to this point (aided by a playful John Williams score), but all this vanished here, and the fact that Harry is scarily ok with inflicting this much pain only amplifies the darkness of the moment.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!