One of the most romantic valentines I ever received was a beautiful gift-wrapped box that opened to reveal a large, bloody cow’s heart. You can’t help loving a person who gives you something like that. After all, flowers aren’t really forever and candy causes cavities- but a heart is a thing of beauty. Especially when separated from the body it belongs to.
Now in movies people are always talking about their hearts: how they got broken, how they belong to another, how they nearly stopped when they saw their true love. But these are just figures of speech. The real heart is an awe-inspiring and feisty fistful of muscle that’s the real boiler room in your tenement of a body. It goes on pumping all through the day and you’re hardly ever aware of it (although I frequently find myself checking my pulse to see it it’s still beating while watching anything by Merchant/Ivory).
Occasionally a movie will give you a filmic glimpse of what this marvel of an organ really looks like. Such as that startling moment in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984) when the high priest thrusts his arm into a native’s chest and snatches out a beating, bloody, heart, much to the delight of kids who flocked to this PG-13 mega-hit. Parents were appalled, but, frankly, this might be a child’s first real glimpse of the human heart- not that tiny maroon object they couldn’t fit into the Visible Man at home.
The first time I personally recall seeing an actual heart on screen was in Tales From The Crypt (1972), an English omnibus horror film based on the notorious 50s EC comics. One of the tales starred Peter Cushing as a kindly old man tortured into hanging himself by two greedy businessmen. He comes back from the grave a year later on Valentine’s Day and gets revenge on his tormentor. He even leaves a holiday message written in blood: “You were mean and cruel right from the start, now you really have no…” And the paper unrolls to reveal a human heart. It was only a fleeting moment, but I recall the pleasurable kick of such gratuitous violence.
Doctor X. Police are investigating a maniac they’ve dubbed the “Moon Killer Murders.” While checking out suspicious doctors at an Academy one doctor (Preston Foster), an amputee and researcher on cannibalism, is experimenting with a beating heart in a glass beaker. This 1932 Warner Brothers film was one of the rare two-tone color films at the time and starred Lionel Atwill as “Dr. X,” Fay Wray as his daughter, Lee Tracy as an annoying reporter and a creepy-faced hooded killer.
Director Herschell Gordon Lewis was the first to show explicit gore to drive-ins all across America with Blood Feast (1963) about a deranged caterer and devil worshiper- Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold), who recreates an ancient Egyptian rite by using real body parts. When Fuad pulled a dripping human heart from a nubile chest, millions of car horns honked in a new era of screen violence.
In the campy horror/comedy Theater Of Blood (1973) Vincent Price stars as a vengeful Shakespearean actor who exacts his “pound of flesh” from one theater critic a la The Merchant Of Venice.
Mardi Gras Massacre (1976) A crazed Aztec priest in a three-piece suit picks up prostitutes in New Orleans by asking them: “Are you sure you’re really evil?”, then ties them down to a makeshift altar at home and cuts out their hearts. “Some weirdo’s making meatballs out of hookers!” a sensitive bartender remarks.
My Bloody Valentine (1981) Back in the halcyon days when teenagers existed only to be slaughtered on screen by crazed psychos. Here a mad miner excavates hearts from his victims with a pickaxe. The 2009 3D remake was pretty great too.
Cardiac Arrest (1974) San Francisco cops search for a mysterious murderer with surgical skills that leave his victims singing: “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”.
A Night To Dismember (1983) One anatomically baffling moment in this loony splatter film by exploitation queen Doris Wishman (Nude On The Moon) has a shadowy arm reaching through a victim’s back and plucking out a heart.
Beyond The Darkness (aka Buried Alive) (1979) Ultra-sick shocker by Joe D’Amato about a man living in a remote Italian villa who exhumes, stuffs, and makes love to his late girlfriend. There’s a jaw dropping scene where the hero, while removing her innards, takes a loving bite out of her heart.
An American Werewolf In Paris (1997) Wolfwoman Julie Delpy drops two huge human hearts into a blender and frappes a morning pick-me-up.
The Wax Mask (1997) In the Italian remake of House Of Wax a little girl sees her own father’s steaming, disembodied, heart when a masked killer punches his metal fist through the man’s chest while she is hiding under the bed.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). Oddball crime/horror hybrid from Robert Rodriquez (and screenplay from Quentin Tarantino) about a family held hostage by criminals who join forces to fight a bar filled with vampires. The scene in question is when the always-great Fred Williamson rips the heart out of an undead fang-banger and a quick-thinking Tom Savini (of special effects fame) plunges a pencil through it.
New Kid On The Block (1992). One of my all-time favorite Simpsons episodes- from season 4 and written by Conan O’Brien, when Bart Simpson gets a mad crush on the tough new girl that moves in next door- Laura Powers (voiced by Sara Gilbert). But when he discovers she is dating bully Jimbo Jones he fantasizes Laura reaching into his chest and yanking out his heart kicking it across the room saying, “You won’t be needing this anymore.”
And who can forget the Mexican gore classic Night Of The Bloody Apes (1968) which mixes mad doctors, lady wrestlers, killer apes and actual open heart surgery footage?
But perhaps the most chilling was the sight of Dick Cheney’s heart after his transplant surgery in the movie Vice (2018).
After watching these pulmonary pot boilers one can only repeat the sage words the Wizard says to the Tin Man in The Wizard Of Oz (1939): “A heart is not judged by how you love, but how you rip it out of the chest of a loved one.”
At least that’s what I think he said…
