Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Sherlock Holmes
"And when the dead walk... the living will fill these coffins."
- Ambassador Standish's death. Thanks to a hidden sprinkler that sprayed gasoline on him during a rainy night, and the spark from his pulling the trigger of his sabotaged gun whilst pissed off at Blackwood, Standish gets set on fire, wails helplessly, stumbles through a window ON THE FIFTH FLOOR OF THE BUILDING, and demolishes a parked carriage. See for yourself
. - Sir Thomas' death, especially when Blackwood appears out of nowhere, casually steals his ring, and puts it on, all while Sir Thomas is drowning right next to him, unable to move because of the paralytic that was hidden in his bath salt.
- Holmes' boxing match with McMurdo. Seriously, it's cringe-inducing to watch the hits in slow-motion, because you can see the skin rippling with each connecting blow, especially when his jaw is being broken, to which you can hear an audible crunch.
- In the opening scene, Blackwood goads Watson into attacking him while turning to point toward the doctor a long, nearly invisible glass needle. Holmes stops Watson just in time, but Watson is still unnerved when he realises that he almost got himself impaled through his face/eye.
- Blackwood's conversation with Holmes before his hanging. The lighting and camerawork remove all the light from his eyes and hide all but his crooked tooth, leaving him with an ogreish appearance, mirroring the monstrousness of his true nature. It's a deeply unnerving change, especially as he softly murmurs into Holmes' ear through the prison bars.
- Irene has a similar moment when she's nearly sliced vertically in the slaughterhouse.
- Blackwood's death. After Sherlock reveals the true nature of his tricks, Blackwood is being dragged by a rope wrapped around his foot, and despite his attempts to hold a firm grip, Blackwood is finally rescued by Sherlock when he cuts the rope with a tomahawk. However, a large girder falls next to Blackwood, causing the boards to shatter and drag him into a bunch of chains that briefly hold him from the fall. The girder breaks said chains and sends Blackwood plummeting from the bridge. There's a long chain coiled around Blackwood's neck and as he falls, we see the chain stretching taut as we hear a loud cutting noise. Eventually, we get to see Blackwood's gruesome dangling corpse as the camera pans out to reveal the full view of the bridge. The fact that this death is extremely reminiscent to Clayton's brutal demise in Tarzan only makes it even worse.
- It also invoked Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane in an incredibly creepy fashion; as Sherlock points out, even if Blackwood didn't believe in any of the magic he invoked, he still performed every rite to the letter, and thus "the Devil is due a soul." The Creepy Crow that appears in the scene and the Diabolus ex Machina nature of his death are all enough to make you wonder...
- When you think about it, Irene Adler's situation is downright horrifying. Best case scenario: she manages to manipulate Holmes' feelings to succeed in her mission and then being able to flee. But considering that he is the best detective in the world, and she already outsmarted him twice so he is waiting for her, she probably knows it is unlikely. The second best case scenario, is that Holmes discovers her and she ends up in jail. And otherwise, she is stuck in a fight between the best detective in the world, Lord Blackwood whom, from her point of view, may be actually a Devil's spawn and a master of black magic and at the very least an extremely smart and creepy serial killer, and Moriarty himself, the smartest and one of the cruelest criminal in the world who already control her and a vast part of the criminal underground. No good can come from that. And as matters of fact:
- In the first movie, yes being captured by Lord Blackwood was as bad as it sounded. Adler ended Bound and Gagged at a butcher hook in a slaughterhouse (at least she is just chained up to the hook and not directly put on it), alone and helpless in this horrible place until Holmes and Watson come in. And once they are here, she is slowly thrown in a trap designed to burn them alive, and if they survive to bone-saw them in half. And to add a little injure to the trauma and the physical danger, it's a dark twist of the bondage-like aspect who sometimes appear in the teasing relationship between Adler and Holmes.
- And in the second movie (see below), yes Alder was perfectly right to fear what would happen to her if she failed Moriarty... At least it was quick.
A Game of Shadows
- More or less every one of Moriarty's appearances qualify. If attempting to kill Watson out of spite, murdering Irene once she's outlived her usefulness and then throwing the evidence in Holmes' face, manipulating a man into planting bombs and committing suicide by threatening his family, or attempting to start World War I for the sake of war profiteering doesn't convince you that the man is a monster, the scene where he impales Holmes on a meat hook and dangles him from the ceiling while gleefully singing along with a cheerful little Schubert tune probably will.
- What makes it more NF-worthy is Sherlock being yanked skyward out of frame initially.
- His vow to dream up "the most creative of endings for the doctor... and his wife." Given what we've seen of Moriarty by that point in the movie, the audience knows he's deadly serious, and if his idea of an interrogation involves meat hook torture, God only knows what the cruelest death he could imagine would be. All for the sake of destroying Holmes. And he includes Mary, who as far as he knows hasn't even done anything against him. Maybe even Make It Look Like an Accident of some kind. Shiver.
- His mental battle with Holmes certainly qualifies as one of the more chilling moments of the film. Initially, Sherlock goes into his Imagine Spot, figuring out how he will respond to Moriarty's attacks. Upon noticing what he's doing, Moriarty merely smiles and invades his hypothetical situation, countering him blow for blow. The juxtaposition of Moriarty's calm, clinical analysis with his outright "feral" attacks that take advantage of Holmes' injured state makes for an already dread-inducing scene. But the real payoff comes from the fact that both parties ultimately deduce there is no way for Holmes to win the outcome in a straight fight, a conclusion that is punctuated by Moriarty's insincere smile at Holmes that we now know is hiding a hotbed of rage mere moments from being released.
- The bombing at the conference, set to music from Don Giovanni. Namely the scene in which the title character is dragged off to Hell by demons.
- Poor Watson during the factory scene. He's pinned down by Moran, forced to listen to his best friend shrieking in agony while Moriarty tortures him, probably envisioning all sorts of horrific possibilities about what is actually taking place, and unable to do a thing about it. Until he realizes that he's hiding behind a BFG, at least. And even then, he seems quite aware of the terrifying possibility that his desperate attempt at a rescue has actually killed Holmes.
- After Moran ensures Moriarty is safe and not in danger from the collapse, he makes it abundantly clear both Holmes and Watson have reached the top of his "to kill" list, giving Moriarty a snarling reassurance that he'll "find them," and all that that implies.
- Moriarty's men are terrified of Moran, for good reason. When Moriarty threatens the German Commander if he doesn't catch Holmes and his allies, he doesn't question it; he snaps to it.Moran: (In German) If they get away, you are a dead man!
- Moriarty's men are terrified of Moran, for good reason. When Moriarty threatens the German Commander if he doesn't catch Holmes and his allies, he doesn't question it; he snaps to it.
- The Forest Chase is a small window into the future for the horrors the soldiers and civilians of Europe will endure in World War 1.
