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Nightmare Fuel / The Godfather

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In general

  • The very concept of Corleone and his family, that this close knit and seemingly loving family are actually brutal, vicious murderers and criminals, no matter how clever and generous they may seem on the surface. For all the talk of honor, there's a reason Michael finds himself Dying Alone and abandoned in Part III.
    • The idea that by the end of Part II Michael is basically on his own. The once tight family is totally gone. Sonny was ambushed, his father died of old age and his mother too. He had his own brother murdered. Finally his wife has left him. You can imagine how awful this feeling must be, but all we see him do in the final shot is stare and not say a word. And in Part III when things seem to be getting a bit better for him: he has reconciled with Kay and his sister Connie, his reputation is better than before and he is about to leave the mafia business... the Cycle of Revenge gets back at him again. Near the end he dies alone, abandoned by everyone, having reached nothing with his life.
      • Turned up to eleven with the re-cut ending of The Godfather Coda in which Michael isn't even allowed to die.
      • Combined with a case of What Could Have Been, the Pentageli character in Part II was meant to be Clemenza, while Part III was to involve a full war between Michael and Tom Hagen, before Robert Duvall refused to return. So Michael would have been betrayed by both his capos, as well as fought his own adopted brother. Think about the tragedy.
  • Michael Corleone himself is pure Nightmare Fuel. Beneath that polite, charming personality lies a brutal, stone-cold man willing to commit murder without a second thought.
    • And remember that all this takes place in very few years. If he had never had a mafia family in the middle of a mob war, it's unlikely that he would have gone into the family business, so there could be plenty of people just as bad or even worse living out their lives like normal people just waiting for the right opportunity to unleash their inner monsters or, like Michael, not even realizing that they're there until they've broken bad. Sound familiar?
    • Unlike other fictional mobsters, many of whom are just plain cranky thugs with a Hair-Trigger Temper like his own brother Sonny, Michael is the opposite here, making him much more deadly. Michael is cunning, convincing, intelligent, incredibly good at showing a polite facade, rarely loses his composure, and has absolutely no problem in massacring all his rivals, even sending his henchmen on suicide missions (like Rocco, the hitman who murders Roth). And remember that massacring enemies is a plan that he carries out in all three movies. It certainly doesn't help that he has one of the highest body counts in the trilogy.

The Godfather Part I

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The horse owner should have accepted the offer he couldn't refuse.
  • Don Vito's "one day, and that day may never come..." speech from the first scene to Amerigo Bonasera. Although the resolution of that plot point turns out to be a Tear Jerker, just imagine being Bonasera at that moment: with the knowledge that you now owe a Mafia Don a favor, there is absolutely no way he will take a "no" for an answer if you don't want to (or just plain can't) do it when he comes to collect, and no knowledge of what that favor will be—let alone if you will survive its aftermath...
  • The murder of Luca Brasi. The whole scene is tense as he negotiates with Sollozzo and Bruno Tattagla, who seem to be buying it but have a clearly menacing demeanor that suggests they're on to him, and then Luca seemingly blows his cover by declining a handshake with Sollozzo. Bruno gives him a seemingly friendly pat on the hand, only to grab it roughly while Sollozzo stabs his other hand, causing Luca to scream, and he's then attacked and garroted from behind. The look of wide-eyed horror on his face as he slowly suffocates is hard to get out of your head.
  • The very cold and calculated way in which Michael kills Sollozzo and McCluskey in a restaurant. He retrieves a gun from the men's room, and then sits back down at the table. The camera slowly zooms in on his face as we hear the screeching of a Pelham Line train passing by, drowning out Sollozzo's Italian dialogue, before Michael fires the gun into Sollozzo's head, which emits a Pink Mist of blood and brain, before shooting McCluskey, once in the neck, and then once more in the face, killing him. The whole scene plays out like something out of a slasher movie.
  • The infamous death of Sonny Corleone. Ambushed at a toll booth by a dozen gangsters with tommyguns, he gets shot several dozen times inside his car, then shot some more outside the car, then shot on the ground after he's definitely dead, then has his face kicked in for good measure, just to make sure Sonny stayed dead and to disfigure his face more for his funeral. The state he was left in is enough that Amerigo Bonasera, the undertaker from the very first scene, had to be called in by the Don himself to reconstruct his face so that his mother could see him at the funeral.
    • Even before the bullets starting flying, there's Sonny clearly beginning to panic as all the mobsters pop out of hiding to corner him, causing him to realize he's not getting out of this alive.
    • Scott Caan once said in an interview that he didn't see the scene until he was twelve. He was so shook up by it that he wouldn't let his dad out of his sight for a week.
    • Carlo getting whacked as retribution for the above scene. After being told he's getting put on a plane to Vegas, he's put in a car with Pete Clemenza sitting behind him. "Hello, Carlo." On the signal of Tom loosening his necktie, Clemenza garrotes him so viciously that he's pulled partly into the backseat and kicks at the windshield, shattering it, which is a good thing because it saves us from witnessing the garrote cutting through the bastard's neck. It doesn't save us from hearing it.
  • The scene in which Jack Woltz, after actually refusing an offer he couldn't refuse, wakes up in bed the next morning, finds himself covered in blood, and throws open the covers to find the severed head of his prize horse Khartoum right in the bed with him. Creepier still is that they used the head of a real dead horse without telling the actor.
    • The novel gets into a bit more of Woltz's personal nightmare fuel. He had assumed during the entire Fontane-Corleone affair that despite Vito's criminal business, that he wouldn't dare follow through on his threat due to Woltz's business and political connections (that even go up to J. Edgar Hoover and the President himself). Yet he wakes with Khartoum's bloody head in his bed and realizes that Vito didn't care about any of that and had the power (and more importantly, the will) to butcher an innocent animal worth the equivalent of $9 million (2020 dollars) just to send a message. Against Vito, all his money and power and connections meant absolutely nothing.
    • And the music that plays during the build up to the reveal of the horse's head lying at Woltz's feet is a near-Creepy Circus Music loop of the main theme's opening notes.
    • Try to imagine the mechanics of severing a full-grown thoroughbred horse's head. Er.. on second thought, DON'T.
  • The aftermath of Michael's meeting with Moe Greene and Fredo displaying more loyalty to an outsider then his own blood, with Michael fixing his brother with a cold Death Glare.
    Michael: Fredo, you're my older brother and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.
    • This becomes especially chilling in the second movie when Fredo turns on Michael, and then is brutally murdered by him just when he thought Michael had forgiven him.
  • The mob hits against the remaining rival families while Michael was at church, showing how numb Michael has become at the thought of murder. Tattaglia's death is the worst, as Rocco and another assassin shoot him and a prostitute to death with submachine guns.
  • Pretty much the entirety of the hospital scene. The sense of urgency and wonder if Don Vito will survive another assassination attempt on his life again as he lies helplessly in his bed. Michael tells an oncoming nurse to help relocate him in another room and manages to stand his ground to the oncoming assailants (with the help of Enzo the baker who happens to be stopping by to pay his respects to Don Corleone) at the front of the building by warding them off with a ballsy bluff. The atmosphere for some reason screams Paranoia Fuel.
    • There's also the moment where the nurse suddenly appears onscreen, sharply asking Michael what he's doing. It's an effective Jump Scare if you're not expecting it.
      • It's an effective Jump Scare even if you are expecting it, especially if you're in a theater. The large screen and louder acoustics can make even the most seasoned of watchers get startled.
      • And the loop of the Christmas song skipping in the background doesn't help.
  • All of Carlo's violence towards Connie. It's horrific enough on its own, but if you've ever actually been in a situation involving domestic violence? It rings incredibly true to life.
    • And she was pregnant for at least one instance of the abuse. Carlo could have been responsible for the infanticide of his own child.

The Godfather Part II

  • Don Ciccio killing Vito's entire family when he was a child.
    • Likewise, the scene where Vito returned to his hometown to find Don Ciccio, who was old as well as somewhat blind and deaf. This didn't stop Vito from slicing Ciccio's stomach open with a blade to avenge his family, showing just how strong his desire for revenge was.
  • Michael's dark-clad assassin in Cuba stalking around homes and hospitals like a slasher villain or vampire.
  • Though it was well-deserved, the scene where Fredo is killed, while Michael just stands and watches from the lake house. The editing leading up to the scene of all the mobsters dropping like flies, similar to the montage near the end of the first film is part of what makes it so frightening. In addition, the blu-ray menu consists entirely of Michael standing and watching from his lake house.
  • The scene where Michael slaps - almost punches - Kay across the room, discovering she had an abortion instead of a miscarriage. Echoing painfully the damage done by Carlo to his own sister Connie, and showing a violent side of himself (even when he killed Sollozzo and McCluskey he was relatively calm). One of the few times Michael ever loses control, and it's to hurt a woman he claimed he loved...
    • Perhaps even more frightening is the look on Michael's face before he loses his composure. His initial shock about his son being aborted is quickly replaced by an animalistic rage. He's even shaking he's so furious. At that moment, it looks like he's going to KILL Kay.
  • Related to the above: when Kay is saying her goodbyes to her an Michael's children, Connie is doing her damndest to hurry her along and get her out of there, warning her that Michael is coming. Kay still doesn't take the hint, pleading with a hesitant Anthony to give her a kiss. She makes it outside the door, but turns back at the last minute, utterly begging her son for a bit of affection. Then MICHAEL appears. The look on his face (despite his outwardly calm demeanor) is terrifying. You share Connie's fear for Kay's wellbeing.
  • Michael saying to Al Neri about Fredo; “I don’t want anything to happen to him while my mother’s alive.” Basically he’s just given Fredo a death sentence and the look on his face at his mother’s funeral says it all.

The Godfather Part III

  • Mosca is frighteningly deranged and terrifying overall. His methods of murder were pretty brutal. Part III's Blu-ray menu shows the Vatican banker hanging from a bridge, and nothing more.
  • The frightening wounds on the victims of the mob war (shown in headlines and newspaper photographs) hit home how bloody and terrifying the "war" is.
    • What's even worse is that many of them are photos of actual mob hits and murders.
  • When Michael has a stroke after Joey Zasa's assassination attempt. It all looks so real you'd think Al Pacino was having one for real and was rolling with it. It then leads to Tear Jerker territory when before he collapses he shouts Fredo's name.
  • Any parent will find Mary's death to be pure Nightmare Fuel. The thought of watching your own child die in front of you is enough to make anyone remain sleepless.
  • The Death Wail Al Pacino delivered for Mary's demise was reportedly so terrifying, most of it was edited out of both versions of the film.

The novel

  • Luca Brasi plays only a brief role in the film trilogy, and we learn little about him before he's killed. In the novel, however, we learn more of his past - and there he is pure Nightmare Fuel, as it is described that he dismembers a rival gangster with an ax slowly, and even has his own his own baby thrown into an incinerator because he wants none of the mother's Irish people to live (and later murders the mother herself for good measure).

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