Moral Event Horizon/Film: Difference between revisions

** The scene made it into the novelization of the movie, however. And the Marshall's son grew up with a strong sense of discipline, and made sure it got instilled in all his kids. So Buford just made life hell for all his descendants in general, and Biff in particular.

** It's also referenced and possibly canonised in the [[Telltale Games]] sequel.

* ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Film)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'':

** Judge Turpin, who is established as a [[Kick the Dog|dog-kicking machine]] after he has Benjamin Barker, who would become Sweeney Todd, sent away to Australia on a false charge so that he could have Lucy for himself, crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]] during the "Poor Thing" sequence where he has the Beadle take Lucy to the Judge's place, where he has a masked ball in progress, and then proceeds to rape her once she's cornered and at his mercy. Then, as if that wasn't enough to make us hate him, we get a scene later on in the movie that has Turpin sentencing a little boy to death -- which was actually a stand-in for a much [[Squick|squickier]] scene that involves him getting...rather worked up over his sixteen-year-old ward Johanna, who he eventually [[Wife Husbandry|decides to marry]]. And then, when Johanna won't go along with this and wants to marry Anthony? He has her thrown into a madhouse to [[Go Among Mad People|spend some time among mad people]].

* In ''[[Magnum Force]],'' the second [[Dirty Harry]] movie {{spoiler|[[Vigilante Man|Brigg's death squad]]}} cross the horizon when they {{spoiler|1=kill Charlie McCoy when fleeing the scene of their most recent vigilante killing.}} A more observant viewer could argue they cross the horizon earlier when {{spoiler|they attack a mobster at a pool party and kill a large number of innocent guests in the process.}}

* ''[[Goodfellas]]'' plays with the idea of the MEH with the character of Tommy. While Tommy is unquestionably evil, he doesn't quite seem to cross the Horizon when he kills Billy Batts. While clearly an over the top move, Batts declared he was a rapist in prison, and was looking to take over Jimmy's businesses, which is why Jimmy helped kill him, not to mention him going out of his way to insult Tommy to boot. Tommy does however launch himself miles over the MEH when he shoots Spider, a young associate, to death. Over a "Fuck off." no less!

* In ''New Jack City'' Drug Lord Nino Brown was already a bastard, but during a hit on his life at a wedding, using a little girl as a human shield pushed him into [[Complete Monster]] territory.

* In [[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]], the League of Shadows seems earlier on like a group that's dedicated to justice, [[Knight Templar|even if their notion of what qualifies as justice seems rather warped]]. {{spoiler|When they talk about how Gotham needs to be destroyed, that does not confirm that they mean it, given the nature of their training. Then you get to hear a bit more detail on how they plan to do it, but that still doesn't rule out that the option of talking them out of it before it's too late. Then you see Ducard switch on a microwave emitter, vapourizing the water supply that he apparently knew had been laced with Crane's drug, as a means of drugging the people of Gotham, including the innocent children, into mass panic. Not exactly justice...}}

* In ''[[Batman Returns (Film)|Batman Returns]]'', the Penguin crossed the line after he had to ditch the mayor campaign and decided to kidnap all of Gotham's firstborn children, including the babies.

** The brilliance of Penguin's character in ''Returns'' is that he was already on the other side of the line from the start of the movie. His reemergence into society, his attempts to gather census data on the populace of Gotham, all done from the start so he could identify and kill the first born children of every wealthy family in the city. It is even implied that he's already murdered children when he was a circus freak (I mean literally - as his job).

* In [[Tombstone]], Sherman McMasters, a member of "The Cowboys" outlaw group [[Even Evil Has Standards|quits in disgust]], enlisting the aid of Texas Jack Vermilion and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and tells Wyatt Earp that if he needs help, they're on his side. McMasters decided that {{spoiler|Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo}}, the leaders of the Cowboys, have crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]] by ordering a (failed) hit on the Earps' wives.

* [[Serial Killer|Scorpio]] from the first [[Dirty Harry]] movie starts out sniping out his victims [[For the Evulz|for fun]], which is already pretty nasty stuff, but it gets worse when he {{spoiler|kidnaps a 14-year-old girl, hides her in a well with limited oxygen supply and sends the police a message that if ransom money doesn't drop in time, the girl will die. Scorpio then proceeds to tell Harry Callahan that he changed his mind and is going to let the girl die anyway. When the girl is found, she's dead (and it's strongly implied Scorpio repeatedly raped her).}}