The first thing I thought of when I saw the prompt for this issue was the Final Destination movies. I’ve never actually watched a Final Destination movie, but once I had that association I couldn’t get it out of my head. I haven’t seen any of the movies, but I know of the horrific deaths and violence featured in them so I linked that to something that I was more familiar with. This brought me to my dreams (naturally). I’ve had some pretty weird—and sometimes violent—dreams so I wanted to rank some of the most violent ones, starting off tame and ending with the most extreme. I will also be giving them somewhat interesting titles, unlike the Final Destination movies which are only labeled by number. Missed opportunity if you ask me.
7. Charybdis
Like I said, we’re starting off pretty tame with this one, mostly because the violence is implied. It took place in a zombie apocalypse setting, but for some reason looked like the neighborhood and houses from The Outsiders movie (more pop culture references to come). My group of ragtag apocalypse-survivors was looking for shelter when we came across this house that was already occupied by another group. We asked if we could stay there for a bit and they agreed pretty quickly. When we went inside we realized that the house was much bigger on the inside than it was on the outside (see there’s a Doctor Who reference). Instead of looking like a normal suburban household it looked like a warehouse with one wall shrouded in darkness, seeming to go on forever. The group that let us in told us to stay in the main warehouse room with the abyssal wall and for some reason we didn’t question them. The wall started to make noises and everyone was pulled towards it, but we all grabbed onto the rails near the edge. The group had apparently found the house where there was a Charybdis-like creature living in the wall that needed to be fed often, so they decided to stay—because zombies didn’t enter the house— and lure other people or zombies into the house to periodically feed it. This ultimately backfired because we all survived by holding onto the railings and when we went to leave the other group tried to stop us but wall-Charybdis was still trying to eat and sucked a few of them in.
I give this dream a 2/10 because though a few people’s deaths are implied, it’s not very violent, though it is kind of a scary concept (Charybdis always freaked me out).
6. Everything Everywhere All at Once Dream
Despite the title this dream is only loosely based on the movie because of one specific reference. I had moved to a new town to be reunited with my family who ran the town and I met a new group of friends that they didn’t approve of. My new friends showed me around and brought me to this abandoned house with a landline that they’d been trying to get to work because they wanted to leave the town. The phone finally started ringing but before we could answer a bunch of spotlights appeared outside.We knew we had been found. We quickly shut off all the lights in the house and hid but were caught when guards showed up and searched the house. A few guards tasered two of the friends unconscious. My family pretended to forgive me and hosted a party at the abandoned house, where my two friends who were shocked were, in fact, not dead. For some reason another friend and I decided to have a contest where we both backflipped off of the balcony in the living room, but when I landed the whole room was filled with confetti and my friend was nowhere to be seen (this is why it is loosely based on Everything Everywhere All at Once. If you know you know).
I give this dream a 3.5/10 because two people are shocked (on screen!) and one person violently explodes into confetti but there’s no blood, though death is still pretty explicitly obvious.
5. Zombie apocalypse dreams
I feel like an honorable mention before we jump into the really body-horror-esque dreams are your run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse dreams (or my run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse dreams because I don’t know if other people also have those). They’re usually around the level of violence you see in a less-violent Walking Dead episode, including but not limited to killing a few zombies with axes and other weapons, running from zombies, the usual. In one dream I did run over a zombie who was just trying to be my friend, though I realized later that she was planning on keeping me and another person hostage in a run-down house. Another dream did involve killing zombies with axes in a weird backroom of a warehouse with blue tarp. I don’t know what the significance of the tarp was, but I do remember it.
I give these types of dreams a 4 or 5/10 because it’s something you see everyday if you watch zombie apocalypse shows frequently like I do.
4. Frankenstein
These next few are going to be shorter because I specifically chose them based on their violence alone, not their plots. This one in particular is really short, but it involved a completely white room with only a few silver metal shelves that held various bloody human body parts that we (I don’t really know who “we” is) had to put together to bring someone back from the dead.
I give this one a 5.5 or 6/10 because there isn’t much meat to it, despite the bloody body parts.
3. Body Horror
I was in a high school history class talking with a group of friends when I suddenly passed out, but I could still see what was going on from outside of me. I would like to note that none of these friends reacted in the slightest, so I was already pretty offended right off the bat. I woke up in the nurse’s office which was completely dark except for a red exit sign that was hung inside the office for some reason. I noticed that I had a scab on my arm and I started to pick at it, but it just made the scab bigger and I kept peeling it until it unraveled the entire front half of my torso. I could look down and see my heart, rib cage, lungs, all that good stuff, basically the anatomy I know of, which isn’t much so that’s probably why I didn’t see much. This is when the nurse finally decided to show up and she stuck a needle in what was left of my arm and told me it would sew my body back together miraculously.
I give this maybe a 7/10 because 1) body horror yay but 2) it wasn’t necessarily very violent.
2. Pig
I will neither confirm nor deny that this dream predicted the episode of Gotham I would watch a few days after it (yes I watched Gotham). Everyone involved in the dream was running around a cornfield to escape a man with an ax or a saw or some other sharp weapon. I stumbled upon one of the killer’s victims, whose head had been chopped off and replaced with the head of a pig. This dream felt very inspired by 80s slasher films, Lord of the Flies, and apparently Gotham.
I give this an 8/10. It was kind of weak plot wise but the violence and the scene of the victim alone are already more violent than the previous dream.
1. Cannibal Pool
We have reached the final dream, or the final destination if you will. This dream started out at a public pool when a whirlpool began to suck people to the bottom where there were a bunch of giant razors. Everyone managed to get out of the pool except for about four or five old rich ladies with absolutely ridiculous hairstyles (one was blue and had a super high beehive style and another looked like frosting on a cupcake – this will be important later I promise). The dream cut to a party at someone’s house in a small but nice foyer where the waiter was serving unique dishes each with a different embellishment. The guests at the party, who were also at the pool apparently, recognized the embellishments as the rich women’s various hairstyles and the waiter revealed that the guests were all eating the rich women who were killed at the pool.
I give this a 10/10 for cannibalism and the public execution of old rich ladies.
I know I should probably have a conclusion but I honestly don’t know how to seamlessly transition out of that absolute horror movie of a dream. So I guess I’ll leave it at that.
All artwork and images by Cary Maloney.
