A man has his testicles smashed by a high-heel shoe in a dark Hollywood alley. An apparent corpse springs to life in a house of horrors in Downtown L.A. A string of racially charged remarks flies from the mouth of a teenage ballplayer in the Valley.
These are the most shocking movie scenes shot right here in L.A.
Last April, we published a carefully curated list of 10 filming locations from scenes of infamous movie deaths shot in Los Angeles. It was no easy task, but we got inspired and thought we'd take it a step further, focusing this time on the filming locations from scenes that have shocked us (and hopefully some of you, too).
As soon as we got into it, however, we discovered that putting together this guide was going to require much more scrutiny. After all, who's to say what's "shocking"? Sure, we could have resorted to an oft-regurgitated slate of horror grossouts that resonate within our collective moviegoing consciousness, but that would have been child's play. At the same time, we didn't want to get too esoteric.
Here, we considered various genres over a period of multiple decades while also casting a wide net across L.A. Though a few of the scenes may not seem terribly provocative in a contemporary light, we took into account the eras in which the films were released and their influence on movies that were yet to be made.
So, from Malibu to Boyle Heights, from the Valley to San Pedro, here's our guide to the locations from 10 shocking movie scenes filmed in L.A.
Spoilers ahead . . .
10. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) ~ HOLLYWOOD HILLS ~ ALIEN PODS!
L.A.-area communities from Chatsworth to Sierra Madre make up the quaint, fictional town of Santa Mira, California, in Don Siegel's postwar horror-sci-fi classic, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns home from a medical convention to find that some of the townspeople are experiencing a mysterious mass neurosis; they swear their loved ones are carbon-copy imposters devoid of all emotion.
As cases start to spread, the skeptical doctor is unable to deny that something otherworldly has infiltrated Santa Mira as he beholds a handful of large, foaming seedpods that produce human-like clones with the ability to absorb people's memories and personalities.
Finally, when Becky (Dana Wynter), the woman Miles loves, falls victim to this pandemic of extraterrestrial proportions, Miles attempts to flee Santa Mira, making a run for the highway. The town's "pod people" allow Miles to escape, convinced that nobody will believe his story. Running into oncoming traffic on a bridge spanning a freeway, Miles rants and raves about the townspeople and witnesses a truck hauling dozens of pods.
Shot in a Dutch-angle close-up, Siegel breaks the fourth wall as Miles attempts to plead not only with those in their cars, but with the audience itself. "You're next!" shouts Miles, allegorically projecting the real-life fear and paranoia fueled by the authoritarian scare tactics of McCarthyism.
Mulholland Drive Viaduct, Hollywood Hills, CA 90068
9. THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) ~ CHATSWORTH ~ AN INCENDIARY DIALOGUE ON THE OUTFIELD
What could be so shocking in the Valley-set classic about a ragtag group of preteen and early adolescent Little League ballplayers that it made this list? Surely, cigarette-smoking middle-schooler Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Halley) riding around on a mini Harley-Davidson without a helmet isn't enough to turn heads. Even when the Bears' alcoholic coach, Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), passes out beers to the team, it may be frowned upon, but it's really a gesture of respect. And while the Bears curse with natural abandon, giving any foul-mouthed '80s-movie kid a run for their money, it reflects the simple reality of kids experimenting with profanity, for the most part.
However, the language spewed by one of the Bears is so inflammatory and offensive that it's almost hard to believe you heard what you heard.
After a rough-and-tumble introduction to the team—made up of white, Black, Mexican, and Jewish kids—and their dreadful first practice, Buttermaker pulls the team aside to explain the fundamentals of baseball. When pitcher Rudi Stein (David Pollock) interjects, lamenting that the team is going to be "the laughingstock of the league", short-tempered shortstop Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes), who compensates for his small stature with a big mouth, casually slings a handful of racial slurs in reference to his teammates.
The scene, shot at the film's central location of Mason Park in Chatsworth, arguably wouldn’t pass muster in today's corporate studio environment. And while Richard Linklater's profanity-laced and sardonic 2005 remake—co-written by the original screenwriter—includes a couple of racially pointed insults, absent is Tanner's highly bigoted rant. More importantly, however, the incendiary dialogue of the original doesn't quite fit the genetic makeup of Linklater's Valley-set update; rather, the 1976 film is reflective of a decade during which the San Fernando Valley experienced significant growth in racial and ethnic diversity—to the apparent chagrin of some.
Mason Park, 10500 Mason Ave. Chatsworth, CA 91311
8. MI FAMILIA (1995) ~ BOYLE HEIGHTS ~ KILLER COPS UNDER THE BRIDGE
Gregory Nava's sweeping multigenerational portrait of a Mexican American family residing in Boyle Heights remains a remarkable L.A. touchstone. Its legacy lies in its unwavering humanity and its epic yet intimate reflection of the struggles, successes, and sacrifices of a people and culture seldom depicted in studio films.
Beginning in the 1920s, "Mi Familia" roughly spans 65 years of life within the Sanchez family, but it's a pivotal sequence set in the 1950s that determines the trajectory of all that follows.
After killing the leader of a rival gang at a community dance, Chucho (Esai Morales), the third eldest of the Sanchezes' six children, is forced into hiding. The cops, who are hellbent on using deadly force in apprehending Chucho, discover him holed up at an industrial warehouse site. As the Sanchezes gather in their living room to watch "I Love Lucy," Chucho makes a run for it, and, as night pervades, ends up near his family's home at the base of the Lorena Street Bridge.
There, Chucho happens upon his younger brother Jimmy (Jonathan Hernandez). When two cops spot Chucho standing under the vaulting arches of the bridge, one pulls his revolver and fires, shooting Chucho in the back of the head—the image captured in a split-second close-up. As Jimmy looks on, the older brother whom he idolizes collapses to the ground when another shot strikes the back of his shoulder.
It's a chilling, traumatic moment that follows Jimmy into a troubled adulthood.
Lorena Street Bridge ~ E. 4th St. between Lorena St. & Concord St. Boyle Heights, CA 90063
7. MAXXXINE (2024) ~ HOLLYWOOD~ THE SMASHED TESTE IN A HOLLYWOOD ALLEY
In the spring of 2023, writer-director Ti West took a section of Hollywood Boulevard back to its sensationally sleazy, neon-lit glory of the 1980s for the third film in his "X" trilogy, "MaXXXine." Where the first film in the series, "X" (2022), pays tribute to the raw brutality of backcountry horror films like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974), "Eaten Alive" (1976), and "Tourist Trap" (1979), "MaXXXine" is an homage to Hollywood-set, psycho-sexual thrillers like "Vice Squad" (1982), "Angel" (1984), and "Savage Streets" (1984).
It's 1985, and adult film actress Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), who lives by her cardinal mantra ("I will not accept a life I do not deserve)," is determined to make the jump from hardcore to mainstream movies with the intent of becoming a star. Meanwhile, the Night Stalker prowls the streets of L.A., looking for his next victim.
One night, on the way home from her second job at a peep show, Maxine turns down a dark alley; unbeknownst to her, she's stalked by a figure following in the shadows. When she arrives at a chain-link gate along a desolate Hollywood Boulevard, she discovers it's locked. Turning around in frustration, Maxine stops dead in her tracks upon setting eyes on a man who extends a switchblade. She begins to frantically tug on the locked gate as the approaching aggressor, a Buster Keaton impersonator from the Boulevard, draws closer. But Maxine, who has killed before in self-preservation, is not one to be screwed with.
When she pulls a pistol from her purse, "Buster" immediately cowers in fear. Maxine orders the impersonator to strip; she makes him suck on the end of her gun barrel before commanding him to lie face-down on the ground. Finally, under the red glow from a neon sign hanging over a closed pizza place, Maxine stomps on Buster's testicles with a white high-heeled boot—a literal ball-"Buster" moment captured in grisly close-up.
6420 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028
6. PULP FICTION (1994) ~ ATWATER VILLAGE ~ A SYRINGE TO THE CHEST
From Mr. Blonde's (Michael Madsen) auricular mutilation of a bound and gagged police officer in "Reservoir Dogs" (1992) to Rick Dalton's (Leonardo DiCaprio) flame-throwing incineration of a "Manson girl" in "Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood" (2019), Quentin Tarantino's inimitable cinematic oeuvre has delivered to moviegoers its fair share of quote-unquote shocking moments. But one such scene from Tarantino's trailblazing, Palme d'Or-winning "Pulp Fiction" just hits different.
Following his "not a date" of five-dollar milkshakes and dancing the Twist at Jack Rabbit Slim's, professional hitman Vincent Vega (John Travolta) takes his boss's wife, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), back to her house. There, Mia mistakes Vincent's plastic baggie of heroin for cocaine, her preferred drug of choice, and begins to OD upon snorting it. Fearing the repercussions at the hands of Mia's husband, L.A. kingpin Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), Vincent has no choice but to rush Mia to the house of his lackadaisical drug dealer, Lance (Eric Stoltz).
The resulting sequence, filmed both inside and out of a 1912 Craftsman bungalow in Atwater Village, is a standout in its pacing and payoff: the outrageousness of Vincent's red 1964 Chevy Malibu crashing into Lance's front porch; the frenzied search for the "little black medical book"; the ludicrous strategizing over the mechanics of administering an adrenaline shot to the heart; the quiet anticipation of the lens slowly zooming in on Mia's bloodied face and rack focusing to the tip of the needle dripping with adrenaline fluid. When the syringe finally strikes Mia's chest with an audible thud, and her body convulses to life, we feel it just the same.
3519 La Clede Ave. Atwater Village, CA 90039
5. KISS ME DEADLY (1955) ~ MALIBU ~ DEATH BY OPENING A BOX
The influence of Robert Aldrich's supreme atomic-age film noir, "Kiss Me Deadly," adapted from the book by pulp novelist Mickey Spillane, cannot be overstated. It can be seen and felt through an array of movies from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) and "Repo Man" (1984) to "Pulp Fiction" (1994) and "Lost Highway" (1997).
What begins as an investigation into the murder of a young woman spirals into something far more enigmatic and sinister when Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker)—could there be a cooler name for a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails private eye?—discovers a mysterious wooden box inside of a locker at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The box, which is hot to the touch and emits a blinding white light, is highly sought after by both the authorities and Dr. G.E. Soberin (Albert Dekker), an eccentric physician with nefarious motives.
When the box is stolen from the locker and Mike's employee (and occasional lover), Velda (Maxine Cooper), is kidnapped, the brash detective heads to Soberin's beach house, filmed at Westward Beach in Malibu. There, the doctor's femme fatale co-conspirator, Lily/Gabrielle (Gaby Rodgers), shoots Soberin and, against the doctor's dire warnings, opens the box. Consumed by the blazing light and ghostly thrumming that radiates from the within, Gabrielle bursts into flames, screaming in agonizing pain. Mike and Velda narrowly escape to the shoreline as the house is destroyed by an incomprehensible force unleashed upon the world.
It's an absolutely unsettling and graphic conclusion for a film of an oftentimes formulaic genre.
The apocalyptic destruction of Soberin's house was photographed as a miniature, as the beachside location could be spotted seven years later in the final scenes of Aldrich's macabre thriller, "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962).
Today, the house no longer stands.
Westward Beach, south of Birdview Ave. Malibu 90265
4. SE7EN (1995) ~ DOWNTOWN ~ HE'S NOT DEAD YET
The notorious climax of "SE7EN" is easily one of the most shocking moments ever committed to celluloid—a masterclass, really. And it was shot up in Lancaster. Luckily for our purposes, though, "SE7EN"'s ceaseless cascade of cynicism produced a number of unsettling sequences shot in town.
One such scene sends the film's two protagonists, Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Mills (Brad Pitt), and a SWAT team to the apartment of a career criminal named Victor. (Previously, Victor's fingerprints were found at a crime scene thought to be part of a string of methodical, ultra-violent murders.)
After ascending the winding stairwell of a rundown apartment building, the cops reach Victor's door, which they proceed to breach. Inside, they find a maze-like lair with hundreds of pine tree air fresheners hanging from the ceiling. As the tactical unit arrives at the last room, they train their weapon-mounted lights at a body covered with a sheet on a twin-size bed. When the cops' commands go unanswered, they pull back the sheet, revealing Victor's bound, tortured, and decomposing body, his left hand severed and missing. But that's not the end of it; when the SWAT commander whispers in Victor's face, "You got what you deserved," the victim suddenly comes to life, writhing in shock and pain as Somerset yells for an ambulance.
The scene was filmed inside the vacant penthouse of the Giant Penny Building, a historic downtown commercial building constructed in 1895 that was structurally deteriorating when the film was made. It was later revitalized as the Pan American Lofts.
Giant Penny Building ~ 253 S. Broadway, Downtown, CA 900012
3. PLANET OF THE APES (1968) ~ MALIBU ~ DAMNING THE HUMAN RACE ON THE BEACH
Upon its initial release, the final frames of "Planet of the Apes" were certainly among the most shocking ever projected onto the silver screen. Even today, the film's soul-crushing conclusion is enough to elicit gasps from the uninitiated.
After six months traveling near the speed of light, a crew of deep-space astronauts, commanded by mission leader George Taylor (Charlton Heston), enters hyper sleep with the notion that Earth has aged 700 years in the time they've been gone. Nearly twelve months later, when their spacecraft crashes into the waters of a barren planet with an unforgiving mountainous desert terrain, the ship's internal clock shows that 2000 Earth years have elapsed since they first departed. The three surviving crew members are soon to discover that the ruling species in this forbidding place is a highly intelligent simian race keen on performing invasive neurological experiments upon a tribe of devolved humans.
The famously melodramatic scene—in which Heston falls to his knees and damns the human race for destroying the planet with endless war—was shot at Pirate's Cove, a secluded section of beach less than a mile from the explosive location of "Kiss Me Deadly."
Upon his capture, Taylor must fight for his survival and escape to the Forbidden Zone, an uncharted territory that the ancient hierarchy of ape society deemed deadly. But the truth of the planet of the apes is exposed when Taylor, riding up the shoreline on horseback, happens upon a familiar but devastating site—the ruinous upper half of the Statue of Liberty rising out of the sand, revealing that Taylor was on Earth all along.
The famously melodramatic scene—in which Heston falls to his knees and damns the human race for destroying the planet with endless war—was shot at Pirate's Cove, a secluded section of beach less than a mile from the explosive location of "Kiss Me Deadly."
Pirate's Cove, Point Dume, Malibu, CA 90265
2. MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001) ~ GARDENA ~ A HEART ATTACK AT THE COFFEE SHOP
The sorely missed late David Lynch was a horror filmmaker (wild) at heart. While perhaps not thought of as a master of the genre in the way we regard the likes of George Romero, Wes Craven, or John Carpenter, Lynch's oeuvre, from his early short films to "Twin Peaks: The Return" (2017)—I mean, the scene with the ghostly entity in the glass cube. Come on!—is filled with deeply unsettling, thought-provoking frights.
One of Lynch's ultimate scares, arguably his most nerve-rattling, comes in the first fifteen minutes of his dreamy L.A. masterpiece, "Mulholland Drive."
Two men in suits sit in a window booth at a fictional Hollywood coffee shop called Winkie's. One of the men, Dan (Patrick Fischler), relays to the other, Herb (Michael Cooke), the details of a horrifying recurring nightmare, one that takes place at the restaurant in which they are sitting. Both men are in the dream, and both of them are afraid of something unknown that manifests in the form of a mysterious man in the back of the restaurant—a man that Dan says he never wants to see in real life. Herb insists that both men go outside, to the back of the restaurant, in an effort to purge the lingering, overwhelming fear of the dream.
As the two men walk along the side of the coffee shop, Dan, reliving his nightmare, sweats profusely. Upon approaching a white cinderblock wall behind a couple of dumpsters, a menacing figure in black (Bonnie Aarons of "The Nun" films) with a face covered in dirt and long, matted hair, glides out from behind the wall. The utter shock is more than enough to cause Dan a fatal heart attack.
The chilling moment, filmed at the long-shuttered Caesar's restaurant at the corner of Vermont Avenue and El Segundo Boulevard in Gardena, stays with you well after the credits have rolled.
Caesar's Restaurant ~ 1016 W. El Segundo Blvd. Gardena, CA 90247
1. THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995) ~ SAN PEDRO ~ NOT THE SAME SUSPECT
Over 30 years later, the enigmatic myth at the center of "The Usual Suspects," another defining film of the '90s, still strikes a formidable chord.
After an unlikely crew of five career criminals pulls off a daring daytime jewel heist in New York City—a scene that was actually filmed in Los Angeles—they head to L.A. to lie low and fence the goods. Once in town, they're enticed into committing another robbery, which goes horribly wrong. All the while, and unbeknownst to them, they are in the crosshairs of Keyser Söze, a feared and mysterious international crime lord.
But who is Keyser Söze, really?
In the film's final moments, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) hobbles down the steps of the San Pedro police station to his freedom. But the seemingly defenseless and petty con artist with cerebral palsy—whose interrogation has provided most of the details of the plot that's unraveled—is not who he appears to be.
As Verbal continues along the sidewalk, his turned-in left foot straightens out and his stiffened left hand loosens up. U.S. Customs Service special agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) chases after Verbal, realizing the story he's been fed is a fabrication stitched together from rap sheets, photos tacked to a bulletin board, and the red print on the bottom of a porcelain coffee cup. Verbal is picked up and driven away, leaving Kujan standing on the sidewalk, tormented by the reality that he may have just let the infamous Keyser Söze slip through his fingers.
The location, the Beaux Arts-style San Pedro Municipal Building, joins other nearby spots featured in "The Usual Suspects" like the Korean Bell of Friendship and the Terminal Island harbor, near the end of Barracuda Street.
San Pedro Municipal Building ~ 638 S. Beacon St. San Pedro, CA 90731
Follow Jared on Instagram.
