Too close for comfort. Also, not fake.
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Mission: Impossible
- The death of Jack. While on the elevator, it suddenly starts to move, and in a blink-and-you-miss-it shot, he gets impaled through the eye by the ceiling. Easily one of the most brutal deaths in the entire series.
- Krieger pushing the helicopter blades toward Ethan's neck. It's one of the few times in the whole film series where Ethan is absolutely helpless with nothing he can do to stop a gruesome death, and he only survives from the luck of the helicopter's tail hitting the Channel Tunnel roof.
- The whole plot is made of Nightmare Fuel. You just watched your whole team die. A list of half the world's secret agents is out in the open. And you just realized that your agency thinks you've done it. You get away, but where do you go? Everyone you can trust is either dead or thinks your a traitor. You're on your own. What do you do?
- While deserved, there's an absolutely brutal blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment where we see Jim's horrified face as the exploding helicopter smashes his body against the train tracks. Then his body horribly contorts in an almost horseshoe shape and is blasted offscreen.
Mission: Impossible II
- The effects of the Chimera virus. It has a twenty-hour incubation period, after which it sets about destroying your red blood cells. The medical pictures of its first victim show an emaciated man with horribly mottled skin and blood coming from his nose and mouth, as if he has internal bleeding everywhere, just underneath his skin. What a way to die.
- Hugh's death near the end of the film. Ethan knocks him out and then puts him in an Ethan Hunt mask (and puts on a Hugh Stamp mask himself) and gags him. He then takes him to Sean, who proceeds to torture "Ethan" by kneecapping him and then stepping on his knees and grinding his foot into them before shooting him dead as "Hugh" watches, looking visibly uncomfortable/nauseated as "Ethan" screams repeatedly in agony. It's only when Sean notices the bandage on "Ethan"'s finger that he realizes who he actually killed.
- The still above in which Ethan is barely able to stop Ambrose from impaling his eye with the blade with it stopping inches from contact. Even more terrifying is that it was an actual knife that almost went through Tom Cruise's eye.
Mission: Impossible III
- Davian's brutal interrogation of the Rabbit's Foot at the start/climax of the movie, where Davian slowly counts to ten before killing Julia. At one point during the interrogation, Ethan snaps at Davian and Davian yells back at him, and despite Ethan's pleas, Davian eventually reaches ten and executes Julia. It's later revealed, however, that the Julia Davian executed was actually his translator, with the real Julia held hostage in a separate building.
- There's also how terrifying the scenario is from the translator's perspective as she's forced to wear a mask of a woman she doesn't know, threatened by her boss who also uses her as leverage against a man she doesn't know, shot in the leg and then eventually shot dead. Regardless of what happened, the circumstances dictated that Davian was always going to kill her.
- The moment when Ferris is killed by the explosive inside her head is just... No. Made worse due to the ways her eyes suddenly spasm into opposite directions.
- Everything about Owen Davian. He's an utterly sadistic monster with zero empathy or compassion who will slaughter everyone you love and for whom murder is as natural as breathing. Philip Seymour Hoffman resists hamming it up and turns him into a cold-hearted bastard with little emotion which sells just how utterly removed from humanity Davian is, making him every bit as nightmarish as someone like John Doe in Se7en.
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol
- The Burj Khalifa climbing sequence. Just the notion that the slightest slip-up meant a long fall down for Ethan makes the sequence very uncomfortable to watch, especially for those with a fear of heights. Watching the scene in full IMAX just ups the vertigo factor; the sequence is credited with the huge success the film had in IMAX.
- The way Moreau dies. Sure, she kind of deserves it, but just imagine yourself falling several hundred meters. Her scream is not helping.
- Kurt Hendricks' plan. He wanted to invoke World War III to show how dangerous nuclear weapons are. This plan means the death for most living humans and being the most monstrous plan in the series, even surpassing Lark's plan in Fallout.
Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation
- At the start of the movie, Ethan gets his usual briefing... but then it’s revealed to be the Syndicate giving the briefing, which tells Ethan to “face his fate”, and should he “pursue them, he’ll be caught, and resist them, he’ll be killed, and his precious secretary will disavow any knowledge of his actions”. Then sleeping gas is released, and the last thing Ethan sees before passing out is Solomon Lane executing the female IMF agent before his eyes.
- The underwater vault sequence. Ethan nearly drowns and almost dies until Ilsa comes in and saves him. It can not be stressed enough how terrifying this can be for people with a huge fear of drowning, even with the possibility of waking up in major confusion after passing out.
- Ethan seeing Benji strapped to a bomb, in tears, and forced to read out what Solomon Lane wants to say.Benji: :This is the end, Mr. Hunt.
- Solomon Lane. Everything about him is creepy. He replaced Ethan's message and planted a bomb in the Austrian chancellor's car, his voice never raises and him owning the MI6 director. Ethan's "The Reason You Suck" Speech perfectly explains his nature:Ethan Hunt: I know you, Lane. Somewhere along the line you had a crisis of faith. Human life didn't matter anymore, or maybe it never really did. Either way, you killed too many innocent people without ever asking who is giving the orders. Or why. You blame the system for what you are. Instead of yourself. You wanted revenge.
Mission: Impossible — Fallout
