Movie ratings are often a controversial thing. As strict as they often are, the MPAA rating board often can be surprisingly lenient on violence. The recent MCU outing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, for example, has been surprisingly violent for what is meant to be a movie aimed at family-centered audiences.
Shocking scenes getting pasted the rating board is not just a new trend, however, as several movies have managed to get away with genuinely horrifying death scenes while still earning a PG or even a G rating. These films really test the limits of suitability for "general audiences", even to this day.
Planet Of The Apes - Stasis Pod Failure
Planet of the Apes was a groundbreaking sci-fi film that is still enjoyable today, but there were several scenes that pushed the limit of its G rating, including violence, profanity, and some brief nudity. One of the more unsettling moments of the film comes right at the beginning, when the lead astronauts awake from their hibernation.
As the astronauts wake from their long slumber, they find that one of their team, Stewart, has died due to an air leak in her pod, and is already heavily decomposed. While Stewart's death itself was likely peaceful during her sleep, the crew discovering her long rotted body is no less unsettling.
Star Wars: A New Hope - Uncle Owen And Aunt Beru's Fate
While the Star Wars franchise does feature the occasional surprise moment of violence, for the most part, the series sticks to a tamer, PG level of action that the whole family can enjoy. That said, the original film A New Hope in 1977 did showcase an unusual level of cruelty in its first act.
Luke's Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were small parts of the movie, but they had practically been Luke's parents for his whole life. When Luke returns from Old Ben's, he finds his Aunt and Uncle's still smoldering bodies in the remains of their home. Owen and Beru's actual deaths are offscreen, but the lingering shot of the charred corpses leaves little to the imagination.
Poltergeist - Face-Off
To be fair, this iconic scene from Poltergeist is not an actual death of a character, but a hallucination. That did not make it any less disturbing to watch, especially for the younger viewers who went to watch the PG-rated horror film.
When Marty, a parapsychologist brought in to investigate the strange happenings in the house, attempts to wash his face in the bathroom, he peels at a small cut on his cheek. Peeling more and more, Marty slowly rips almost his entire face off, leaving only a bloody skull behind. He may not actually die, but the scene is shocking and horrifying nonetheless.
Jaws - Shark Attack
The antagonistic shark in Jaws may actually make very few appearances on screen, but when it does it certainly makes its mark. The PG-rated movie features several bloody deaths, including a young child and a man whose leg is completely severed, but the worst is the fate of shark hunter Quint.
As Quint, Hooper, and Chief Brody are hunting the shark, their boat begins to sink. As Quint slips further towards the water, the shark leaps out at him. Quint struggles against the shark's teeth for what seems like ages before it finally bites down around his waist with a sickening crunch. The animatronic may look cheesy on a rewatch, but this death is still effective.
Tarzan - Vine Hanging
It is a common trend in many animated Disney films to have their villains fall to their deaths so as to avoid too much on-screen violence. Their adaptation of Tarzan however, gave its villain a decidedly scary death for a Disney villain. In the film's climax, Tarzan and villain Clayton face off high in the trees.
When Clayton becomes tangled in a mess of vines, he begins hacking away at them to cut himself free. Unfortunately for him, one of the vines becomes caught around his neck as he plunges from the canopy. While at first, it appears as if he has just fallen like many other Disney villains, a lightning strike briefly silhouettes Clayton's body hanging as if from the gallows.
The Black Cauldron - Sucked Into The Cauldron
The poster child for dark Disney movies, The Black Cauldron was the first of the company's animated movies to receive a PG rating. The film was so dark and creepy that it became a huge financial failure, although has seen some renewed appreciation since.
The pinnacle of the movie's creepiness come at the end, after the villainous Horned King has unleashed a zombified army. One of the film's heroes sacrifices himself to the Cauldron, which begins to drag the Horned King into it. As he struggles, the King's flesh is ripped off his body before his skeleton erupts in flame. Needless to say many felt that the film was not quite suitable for children.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Transporter Malfunction
The long-running Star Trek franchise has featured a few gruesome moments over the years, but few quite so haunting as the transporter malfunction in the original, G-rated Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Early in the film, Commander Sonak and another officer test out the new transporter.
As the two try to beam over from Starfleet, the transporter begins to malfunction. Kirk and the others frantically try to abort the transport as two misshapen bodies begin to form. The two blobs seem to writhe in pain and let a horrifying digitized scream before being beamed back to Starfleet, who chillingly tells Kirk "What we got back didn't live long. Fortunately."
Watership Down - The Movie In General
PG-rated Watership Down is unquestionably one of the most disturbing animated children's movies ever made. A film about rabbits, Watership Down featured enough terror and blood that some fans on Reddit actually consider it a horror movie.
The film is full of rabbits meeting their demises in particularly nasty ways, including being torn to pieces by a dog, poison gassed in their dens, snatched by hawks, or in one case having their throat torn out by the film's villain. Watership Down likely left a generation of children never able to look at rabbits the same way again.
Mission To Mars - Torn Apart by a Tornado
Despite a PG rating and likely being inspired by a Disney World ride, the opening of Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars is brutal. Centering on the first manned mission to the planet mars, the opening scenes hold nothing back in dispatching the astronauts.
Almost all of them are killed in unpleasant ways, but one particularly unlucky spaceman is sucked into the center of a massive vortex. He is spun around like a rag doll in a washing machine for several agonizing seconds until his whole body is violently torn apart with limbs and blood flying everywhere. Disney World rides thankfully left that part out of the ride.
Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom - Human Sacrifice
As if the face melting at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark wasn't nightmarish enough, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom pushed things even further with its disturbing imagery. A man is flattened by a rock crusher, children are tortured, and most infamously, there is a disturbing scene of human sacrifice.
After chaining a man in a cage, the villainous Mola Ram reaches into his chest and pulls out his still beating heart with his bare hands, before lowering him into a pit of fire, where both he and the heart burst into flames. Temple of Doom and this scene, in particular, were so gruesome that they were the driving force behind the creation of the PG-13 rating soon after.