The Complete History of Guys Getting Their Junk Destroyed in Horror Movies

In the long history of exploitation and horror movies, the fairer sex tends to get a raw deal when it comes to preserving their privates. But, as audiences found out this week, that’s changing with anti-heroines like Maxine Minx. Attempting to account for every woman’s wounded whispering eye would be an exercise in futility. What about the man-meat mutilation? How often do we get to see some gnards gnashed?

There’s a perverse pleasure that comes with seeing the family jewels dethroned—and it feels less exploitative since, y’know, women’s continued subjugation under the patriarchy. We’re rooting for the rump-splitter removal. And at the same time as women continue to fight for equality, men’s junk continues to get jettisoned more and more frequently in the horror genre.

For this list, we’re not looking at simple kicks to the groins—no, we want to see true damage. Give us your chain saws, sledgehammers, guns, and high heels yearning to wreck the D. Now, considering I lack the proper appendages to rate these on a proper pain scale, I’ve instead included whether I deem the destruction warranted.

The research for this is ongoing—every time I behold the maiming of a man’s mini-me in a horror film, I add it to my running list. For years, I’ve consumed the most gruesome torture porn, watching, waiting, hoping I’d have another name to record. If true feminism is equality among all genders and sexes, then we need at least a 450 percent increase in onscreen depictions of male-member mangling. Although there are still not that many, more instances of penis pulverization occur than many realize.

You may be able to think of a few off the top of your head, but I assure you, that’s just the tip—coughs—of the iceberg.

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The original rape-revenge narrative, Wes Craven’s debut film depicts a group of sadists torturing and sexually assaulting (and killing) two young women. It’s pretty rough to watch, but one of the women’s mothers is given the opportunity to turn the tables on one of the assailants by seducing him and offering oral pleasure near the lake where the earlier assaults took place. With a swift chomp, Estelle Collingwood becomes the first perpetrator of male mutilation onscreen, as far as my research shows.

Justified? Yes. Unequivocally, yes.

The Holy Mountain (1973)

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surrealist Mexican film, produced by the Beatles’ manager, Allen Klein, pushes the limits of narrative and features some truly indecipherable sequences, which loosely follow the fool’s journey from the tarot. On Neptune, the secret police chief Axon uses a force of castrated boys, “sanctuary of one thousand testicles,” to kill protesters. Although we never see the de-balling occur, we know, we know.

Justified? No, more like innocent balls in the hands of an angry god (Axon of Neptune).

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

In the final days of Mussolini’s dictatorship, four fascists kidnap 18 teenagers and abuse them over the course of 120 days. Anyone familiar with this film knows the depths of depravity it reaches—including a teenage boy getting his flesh candlestick burned off with a candle. For anyone unfamiliar, this torture is one of the tamer during four segments entitled “The Antechamber of Hell,” “The Circle of Manias,” “The Circle of Shit,” and “The Circle of Blood.” Big yikes.

Justified? No, no, no.

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)

Meet the SS officer who sexually assaults her captives and, when they fail to satiate her—and why would they, since it’s a nonconsensual (and that’s putting it lightly) encounter?—castrates and kills the poor men.

Justified? Definitely not—they’re already prisoners in a concentration camp, and somehow it gets much worse.

The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976)

Molly, a woman who suffered abuse at the hands of her father as a child, grows into a waitress with alcoholism working in Venice Beach. In her off hours, she seduces men, castrates them with a straight razor, and then proceeds to murder them. That’s one way of working through your daddy issues.

Justified? Nope. All of the sex was consensual, one of the guys was cheating (but that’s not worthy of capital punishment), and Molly needed a therapist.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978 and 2010)

Writer Jennifer Hills rents a remote cabin to work on her novel, and then four local men break in and viciously assault her. After surviving, Jennifer plans her revenge, and what a revenge it is. The quintessential rape-revenge film, both the original and its remake give us oh so many retaliatory fruit-of-the-pubis decimations—when people say “rape revenge,” this is the flick they’re probably picturing.

Justified? I’d say so.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Infamous for its guerrilla marketing campaign, found-footage style, and animal brutality, Cannibal Holocaust also contains the castration of a cameraman in retaliation for raping a young member of the tribe the film crew had been documenting before they went missing.

Justified? Yes. The crew were the real monsters here.

Pieces (1982)

Throughout Pieces, a serial killer with a chain saw dismembers female students across a college campus to create a human jigsaw puzzle to work through his mommy issues. In a bizarre, supernatural twist, our protagonist, Kendall, discovers a Frankensteined corpse, and it grabs his crotch, crushing his gonads.

Justified? Considering Kendall spent the whole film trying to find the culprit slicing and dicing coeds, no. But that’s what you get for doing a good deed.

The Ladies Club (1986)

After a policewoman is sexually assaulted, she forms a vigilante group of others who survived the same thing. Together, they abduct and castrate any men who have violated women and escaped punishment through legal technicalities.

Justified? Yep. These women are stepping in where the courts have failed—good for them.

Demons 2 (1986)

Lamberto Bava’s follow-up to his 1985 film, Demons, employs a similar setup: demons entering the real world from a screen, but this time it’s a TV movie instead of in a cinema. During the resulting mayhem, a demon rips a dude’s junk off in a parking garage, although the camera conveniently raises to the man’s face during the actual ripping.

Justified? Sure, the guy’s a meathead, but that doesn’t mean he should lose his lower head’s meat.

Street Trash (1987)

In this definitely-not-politically-correct film, a group of unhoused people play catch with one of their number’s severed detonator and sticky grenades. The context? They’ve all drunk tainted booze that’s caused them to melt. Yep.

Justified? Nope—capitalism and greed are to blame here. A local liquor store owner sells the toxic Tenafly Viper to the unhoused group for a steep, steep discount.

Angel Heart (1987)

During his investigation to track down a missing singer, private detective Harry Angel is told that musician Toots Sweet’s genitals were ripped off and stuffed into his own mouth. Although only described, the explicit detail is savage enough to merit a spot here.

Justified? No, Toots is merely a cog in this dark, sinister underground.

RoboCop (1987)

RoboCop shoots a would-be rapist in his predatory package. Perhaps not strictly a horror movie, but the level of violence depicted plus the rolling out of a cyborg enforcer by an already corrupt force in cahoots with an evil mega-corporation? Qualifies as horror to me.

Justified? Hell yeah.

Nekromantik (1988)

What’s true love? Probably when a boyfriend brings his girlfriend a male corpse, shoves a wooden chair leg into the corpse’s crotch, and lets his girlfriend get freaky with the phallus. Find you a partner with the same fetish, I guess.

Justified? No, but at least the guy was already dead.

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

When anthropologist and ethnobotanist Dennis Alan, played by Bill Pullman, absconds to Haiti to track down a mystery powder that supposedly turns people into zombies, the locals don’t appreciate the intrusion. Dennis finds himself kidnapped and tied to a chair, and the next scene involves a not-so-veiled threat, a nail, a hammer, and a testicle. Make some connections—that hammer and nail sure did.

Justified? You could spin this as an anticolonialist narrative, but really, Bill Pullman’s character is just having a bad day.

Society (1989)

A whole bunch of socialites turn out to be aliens, melt their bodies together, and forcibly enter a high school boy through his lower end in an act called “the shunting.” We don’t see what exactly transpires down below, but it’s safe to say it involves … everything.

Justified? His only crime was not being part of “high society.”

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

Dude’s dick turns into a drill, turning the euphemism “drilling” quite literal.

Justified? He did hit the Metal Fetishist with his car. Fair’s fair.

Santa Sangre (1989)

Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre has Orgo’s wife, Concha, pour a bottle of sulphuric acid onto Orgo’s genitals after discovering his infidelity.

Justified? Yes—hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Nekromantik 2 (1991)

Picking up where the first left off, the protagonist of this film digs up the protagonist of the first film’s corpse and saves his head and nethers for … romantic reasons.

Justified? Honestly, the deceased would have loved this—proof you can find someone sexually compatible, even if you’re dead. Rest in paradise, you corpse defiler, you.

Candyman (1992)

A boy who claims to have been visited by Candyman reveals a bloody injury between his legs—y’know the area.

Justified? Kids can be irritating, but this one didn’t deserve this.

The Doom Generation (1995)

Neo-Nazis take a pair of garden shears to Rose McGowan’s character’s boyfriend and the camera unflinchingly follows.

Justified? Ugh, no.

Perfect Blue (1997)

In this anime horror-thriller, the starlet Mima Kirigoe is being stalked by an obsessed fan. At one point, the stalker, posing as a pizza delivery guy, stabs a photographer, who took nude photographs of Mima, in his unmentionables.

Justified? Sure, the photographer’s work was exploitative, but in this case, he was collateral damage.

Red Room (1999)

With a plot centered on a sadistic game where contestants perform acts that increase in brutality and humiliation as the game progresses, it only makes sense that a contestant, Hiromi, would yield under pressure and bite off the contestant Isawa’s pride and joy.

Justified? Nope—an all-around unfortunate situation.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

After having sex with Ginger, who earlier in the film contracted lycanthropy, Jason McCardy pees blood. A werewolf-induced STD? We’ll count it.

Justified? Besides being an annoying, lustful teenage boy, Jason’s only crime was having unprotected sex. Let this be a warning to us all.

Battle Royale (2000)

In a graphic moment of paranoia and desperation, one of the student contestants in a fight-to-the-death game, Takako, stabs a student named Kazushi in his genitals after he threatens sexual violence. The sound design steals the show here—the squelching upon each entry, Kazushi’s anguished screams, the sound of the blade exiting. Haunting.

Justified? Given the circumstances and his behavior—more than fair play.

Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

The warden’s manhood, once bitten off, re-animates and battles a rat during the end credits.

Justified? Yeah, the dude was a dick. Only fitting he should lose his.

Feast (2005)

A monster’s androgen appendage is chopped off and flip-flops on the floor before being stomped flat.

Justified? Well, he is an aggressive, attacking monster …

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Leatherface slices Morgan in half, hotdog style, beginning at Morgan’s hot spot.

Justified? No, he’s simply a piece of meat.

Teeth (2007)

Two words: vagina dentata. Two more words: eggplant evisceration.

Justified? All of the “victims” in this one brought it on themselves. It’s like your dentist always says—if you just followed directions, you wouldn’t be bleeding.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

What’s more permanent than a kick to the nuts? A sledgehammer. Fans of nut butter, this pummeling of a National Guard trainee’s pubis is for you.

Justified? Depends on your view of the National Guard …

Inside (2007)

A deranged woman attempting to steal a pregnant woman’s baby stabs her employer, Jean-Pierre Montalban, in the crotch with a pair of scissors.

Justified? Jean-Pierre was only trying to prevent employee churn—and look where it got him.

Planet Terror (2007)

Picture a one-legged Rose McGowan facing down an oozing, bubbling Quentin Tarantino, who’s dropped his drawers to reveal dripping Silly Putty where his manhood should be. His plan? Sexually assault McGowan before his flesh pie sludges down his legs. And that’s not even touching the mercenary chemical engineer who collects male meatballs in a canister when men misbehave.

Justified? There’s a spectrum here, but Tarantino’s slop and subsequent plop are well deserved.

Hostel: Part II (2007)

Our heroine escapes her predicament and severs his trouser snake.

Justified? Have you seen any of the Hostel movies? Yes.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

If the title didn’t prepare you for this one, we’re not sure what to tell you. In true gore fashion, a prick is pricked off of a body.

Justified? In a battle of police versus mutant engineers, who’s really in the right?

Grotesque (2009)

Snatched off the street while on a date, a fledgling couple find themselves chained in a basement and exposed to all kinds of torture. In the man’s case, his nads get nailed. And, believe it or not, that’s the mildest part of his torments.

Justified? While you could say all fledgling relationships have their risks, this was truly a case of “wrong place, wrong time.”

Antichrist (2009)

In a remote cabin, a married couple retreats to … maim each other horribly. The wife smashes a particular erection with a large, wooden block.

Justified? In the sense that this married couple is punishing themselves for the death of their child as they had sex, sort of?

Cabin Fever 2 Spring Fever (2009)

A flesh-eating virus going ham on your ham? No thank you.

Justified? You had only one job: don’t touch yourself there. One job.

Piranha 3D (2010)

One of the titular fish bites off a dong, then immediately spits it back out.

Justified? Not more so than any of the other fish fatalities. If anything, the piranha didn’t deserve to fall for his hook and sinkers.

I Saw the Devil (2010)

After the serial killer Kyung-chul murders Soo-hyun’s fiancée, Soo-hyun spends the rest of the film capturing, torturing, and releasing the serial killer to prolong his suffering and torment. During one of these torture sessions, Soo-hyun beats the man bags between his thighs.

Justified? Yes. Two balls for a bride, I always say.

A Serbian Film (2010)

As infamous as they come, there’s a reason many swear by A Serbian Film—its graphic rendition of snuff ventures into snuff territory itself. After his money troubles put him in several … sticky situations with a snuff film crew he’s working with, Milos puts his money stick inside someone’s orbital socket. While not necessarily damaging the appendage itself, sinking a shaft into brain matter feels like some sort of penile trauma. Chances are, if you watch this one, you’ll also feel like you’ve been ocularly assaulted.

Justified? A father and husband takes the only revenge he can in the moment—justified but feels so wrong.

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (2011)

Not only is a victim shot in the crotch, but also Martin, the centipede sycophant himself, wraps his dong in barbed wire for his own jollies and is decked in the dumbbells by another victim attempting to escape.

Justified? The victims, no. Martin? He deserved far, far worse.

V/H/S (2012)

In the segment entitled “Succubus,” the succubus named Lily—perhaps a reference to feminine Mesopotamian demons (lilitus)—rips off a penis and set of testicles and throws them at the camera after a gaggle of guys attempt to surreptitiously film themselves having sex with her.

Justified? Considering the men in question planned to tape what’s insinuated to be group sex without consent? Yeah, retaliation seems fit.

Stitches (2012)

Possessed by the spirit of an evil clown, a teacher tears off a student’s bits and presents them to the entire class.

Justified? God, no. This one is cruel.

American Mary (2012)

In a film focused on extreme body modification, this one is mild. A man willingly does work to his joystick, but it heals improperly.

Justified? Yes. Clean your tool, dude.

Piranha 3DD (2012)

You guessed it: The piranhas attack a guy’s bait and tackle.

Justified? Not really—he’s just a dude at a lake party.

Silent Night (2012)

The porn videographer encounters a killer dressed as Santa Claus, who gifts him a swift pickax strike to his mistletoe.

Justified? He’s sleazy, exploitative, and deserving.

I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)

A sequel to the 2010 remake of I Spit on Your Grave, in this movie a group of men abduct aspiring model Katie after a photo shoot and assault her in a variety of ways. After surviving the ordeal, Katie turns the tables on her captors by methodically hunting each down and capturing their … flags.

Justified? And then some.

Julia (2014)

Julia seduces an implied rapist, has other rape survivors restrain him, and takes what she deems his weapon of choice. She does the same to two other men later on. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Justified? We believe victims here, so going with “yes.”

Clown (2014)

After fully morphing into an evil clown, Kent attacks a man in a restroom, specifically targeting his restroom equipment.

Justified? No—it was a random act of clowning.

V/H/S: Viral (2014)

In the segment Parallel Monsters, a man uses a device to enter a parallel dimension where he discovers his doppelgänger. The only difference between the two is the monstrous, demonic gorgon-like junk in his front trunk.

Justified? It seems normal in this other dimension, so this question isn’t quite applicable here.

Zombeavers (2014)

Your standard cabin-in-the-woods fare: A group of college kids go out to enjoy nature but a nearby chemical spill causes the local beaver population to morph into aggressive, undead creatures. So, what do you get when you cross a zombie beaver with an annoying college dude’s nethers? Dam fodder.

Justified? He’s a frat bro, so there’s a good chance it was.

The Human Centipede III (2015)

A particularly odd one: A man rips open a captive’s pants, castrates him, rubs the blood all over his face, and then orders surrounding guards to “have him stitched up.”

Justified? It’s a Human Centipede movie—does anyone deserve what they get in this series?

Deathgasm (2015)

When a band of New Zealand metalheads accidentally unleash “The Blind One” using a blazing guitar riff found on ancient sheet music, everyone gets possessed. One unlucky possessed man loses his south-of-the-waist weed to a weed whacker.

Justified? The man, no. The demon inside of him? Yes.

I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance Is Mine (2015)

This one features a boner bisection—hotdog style.

Justified? Officially ruled a “rape retribution rupture.”

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Deputy Nick loses his privates when a group of cannibalistic troglodytes use primitive weapons to saw him in half … beginning with his nethers as he hangs upside down.

Justified? Maybe so, maybe not. It’s the Wild, Wild West, after all.

The Limehouse Golem (2016)

One of the grisly murders in this film’s Victorian London setting includes the murderer constructing a tableau by placing one of his victims’ crotch knobs on an open book. Talk about a heavy read.

Justified? No, he’s just another notch on this serial killer’s belt.

Prevenge (2016)

Picture this: a close-up of a severed testicle plopping onto the floor. Oh, man, oh, man.

Justified? The protagonist Ruth blames Dan and his friends for her partner’s death, but their true culpability is left ambiguous—so maybe?

Kuso (2017)

For multiple performances, a character named Mr. Quiggle stabs a one-eyed flesh monster with a safety pin. Repeatedly. Evidently Quiggle has no quibbles with using a penis as a pin cushion.

Justified? Is a bad trip truly anyone’s fault? This surreal show-within-a-show suggests Mr. Quiggle is the end-all-be-all and his victims exist solely for his pleasure. Yikes.

I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu (2019)

In this chapter of an ongoing rape-revenge saga, our protagonist stabs one of her aggressors in the gnards with a broken beer bottle.

Justified? Oh, yeah.

Mortuary Collection (2019)

When a skeevy college lad slips off a condom during intercourse with a new partner, he doesn’t expect what he gets—pregnant. Sure enough, his stomach swells, he tracks down his partner’s family, and they help deliver the baby—through his sex shaft. The structural integrity does not hold.

Justified? Everyone loves it when the asshole gets a taste of his own medicine—and then has his shlong blown up.

Yummy (2019)

During a zombie outbreak in a medical facility, a fire ignites during the chaos and burns a patient named Jan’s pubic staff. But it doesn’t stop there—his dude wand catches fire and, to his horror, falls off.

Justified? A rather hapless, comical fellow, Jan didn’t really deserve his flaming phallus.

Blood Quantum (2019)

In this zombie apocalypse, white people can become infected while Indigenous people maintain an immunity. This leads to the unfortunate zombification of a white refugee on an Indigenous compound … who proceeds to gnaw on one of the native’s naughty spots.

Justified? Most certainly not. Haven’t white people done enough?

Freaky (2020)

Another PG-13 entry, Freaky doesn’t display the chainsaw-up-the-banana-hammock, but we do hear it happen off-screen.

Justified? Yep. The jock attempted to sexually assault our protagonist—it just so happened his would-be victim body swapped with a serial killer. Oops.

Spell (2020)

Protagonist Marquis T. Woods stumbles upon a sheriff held captive by Eloise and her Hoodoo cult. A brutal, ritualistic wound between his legs suggests the sheriff has lost his deputies.

Justified? Sorry, sheriff, but you should have known that snitches get stitches.

Paying Up (2021)

What would you give up for what you crave most? Paying Up stretches the limits of slavery to one’s own vices as we watch a heroin addict drum up money for his habit by selling his man bits to a cult.

Justified? Is an addict to blame for his addictions? Your answer dictates the justification for this one.

The Sadness (2021)

A plague causing people to murder and torture anyone in their path? Color me intrigued. Maimings include kids ramming a man’s genitals into barbed wire, a bonecutter castration, and multiple beatings of the groin area? Color me invested.

Justified? Definitely not, but the virus also makes people enjoy the torture, which sort of makes it better?

Men (2022)

From the writer-director who brought us Ex Machina, Alex Garland continues to explore the dynamics between genders in Men. But in the final 15 minutes, we’re treated to various men giving birth to one another, leaving their nethers in ruins—to say the least.

Justified? Probably, since the film critiques misogyny and male supremacy. If you can decipher the ending’s meaning, let us know.

Fresh (2022)

After Noa meets Steve in a supermarket and embarks on a relationship in typical rom-com fashion, the horror kicks in after Noa wakes up in a locked room and discovers that Steve … vivisects women and sells the meat to cannibals on the black market. It also turns out that Steve is a cannibal as well. Playing into his proclivities, Noa seduces him and chomps on his meat stick.

Justified? Wholeheartedly. At one point, he surgically removes one of Noa’s butt cheeks on top of the countless other women he’s butchered. Yikes.

The Outwaters (2022)

After a strange trip to (and in) the desert, our protagonist finds a large animal tooth and uses it to sever his skin snake and disembowel himself. For his final act, he reaches toward the sun … as some sort of offering?

Justified? Depends on your stance about roping one’s friends into shooting a music video in the desert.

Terrifier 2 (2022)

Following up on the first Terrifier’s female genital mutilation, it’s only fair that Art the Clown even the score a bit in this sequel. Here, Art removes Jeff’s shaft and waves it around, taunting Brooke, Jeff’s girlfriend, with his stolen goods.

Justified? In a moral sense, no, but Jeff had been dismissive of Brooke’s concerns about Sienna, her missing friend, and generally a douche.

Beau Is Afraid (2023)

In the latter part of this Ari Aster film about a domineering mother and the psychological effect on her adult son, a penis monster lunges at Joaquin Phoenix’s Beau as he navigates through a disorienting, claustrophobic labyrinth. To defend himself, Beau uses a knife to stab and slash at the creature in close-quarter combat.

Justified? Considering the penis monster is probably a manifestation of Beau’s tumultuous relationship with masculinity, it might be both an act of self-defense and self-harm? Either way, Beau was defending his corporeal body—fair game.

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams’s Lisa Frankenstein managed to score a PG-13 rating despite including a neutering. After the titular character finds her crush in bed with her stepsister, her undead creation barges in and hacks off the crush’s bits and pieces, which we see fly across the room in shadow. The creature’s intentions were both noble (he was defending Lisa’s honor) and practical (he needed a replacement for his own unit).

Justified? I’d say not, but teenage betrayal is a hell of a drug.

MaXXXine (2024)

Our most recent entry, MaXXXine takes place in 1985 Los Angeles, where the titular Maxine works multiple jobs while trying to catch her big Hollywood break. While walking home one night, Maxine notices a man (dressed like Buster Keaton?) following her. She ducks down an alleyway to pop out near her apartment, but someone locked the chain-link fence at its end. Right as the man flicks open his switchblade, Maxine draws a gun and orders him to strip and lay face down on the pavement. With one high-heeled foot, she steps between his legs and smooshes his goods back and forth on the dirty ground.

Justified? Yes. This is how you teach a man a lesson he won’t soon forget: Beware of girls walking alone at night.

Brooke Knisley is a comedy writer and freelance journalist. She’s written about horror for Paste Magazine, Vulture, and anyone who gets her text messages. Find more of her work on her website and follow her on TikTok for jokes.