10 Most Horrifying Moments from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is here, and fans are raving over this Multiversal epic. The film has garnered mostly positive reviews, with many praising the distinct style that is present in the film. This is a Sam Raimi movie through and through, and his fingerprints are all over its two-hour runtime. And it is this Raimi signature style of movie-making that has audiences divided over the Doctor Strange sequel. 

Raimi comes from a background of directing mostly horror, making his name with classics like Evil Dead 1 & 2 and Army of Darkness. That is not to say the filmmaker has never taken on lighter fare, having helmed the original three Spider-Man films in the early 2000s. 

Even when the director moved away from his roots, he has been known to bring filmmaking techniques present in horror to whatever he is working on. But Multiverse of Madness, from the beginning, has been pitched as the scariest MCU film ever. 

And while it is not the true horror flick that the Scott Derrickson-directed version of the movie was shaping up to be, it does bring in some staples of horror, making the film easily the most brutally violent ever produced by Marvel Studios. 

So, in honor of Multiverse of Madness’ bloody fun, here is a list of the 10 most brutal, violent, and outright terrifying moments. 

Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The Gargantos Eye-Removal Maneuver

Right from the get-go, Raimi tells the audience that this Doctor Strange sequel is going to be something a little more brutal than what has come before. And that is no more evident than at the conclusion of the Gargantos fight early in the film. 

After doing battle with the giant one-eyed squid monster and chopping off a couple of his precious tentacles, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange impales the interdimensional being with a New York lamppost. And if that was not enough, the beast’s eye is then ripped from its skull, remaining skewered into the piece of NYC infrastructure. 

This isn’t a particularly bloody scene or even the most violent by any stretch, but it does set a tone that remains for the rest of the movie. It is a small detail that is so Raimi in nature and does so without gushing pools of blood. Marvel didn’t have to pull this creature's eye out, but it did and never looked back. 

Wanda Clicks Into Place

While not the bloodiest, most violent, or most terrifying scene in Multiverse of Madness, Wanda crawling out of the gong in Kamar-Taj is an image that will stick with audiences for years to come.

It would be scary enough if the Scarlet Witch just climbed from the reflection to threaten the film’s group of heroes; but instead, she does so with nearly every joint and bone in her body out of place, slowly clicking everything back to normal as she slinks across the room toward Wong, Strange, and America Chavez. 

Like many great horror moments, this is a scene that is almost as visually terrifying as it is auditory. The sound here of Wanda snapping her backbones into place is the kind of thing that sticks with the viewer long after the credits roll. It's the kind of moment that weeks later when hearing the crunch of a leaf on the ground or the bite of a tortilla chip is sure to send shivers down the spine as one is reminded of that single moment. 

Burnt After a Stab at the Darkhold

Okay, this one is just brutal. That is Sara stabbing the Darkhold in Kamar-Taj and feeling the full wrath of the Scarlet Witch and her magic. 

After Wanda eviscerates Kamar-Taj’s defenses, one trainee in the Mystic Arts, Sara, plays the hero, stabbing the source of the Scarlet Witch’s power, the Darkhold, only to be burnt to a crisp. And this is not just any simple burning; audiences see all of it as she is turned into nothing but a charred bit of bone and flesh. 

This whole moment would feel a lot better if Sara had not died in vain, but as audiences soon find out, the Darkhold was a copy of a collection of spells splayed upon a temple on Wundagore Mountain. So, not only did Sara die in a brutal fashion, her actions did not even matter in the grand scheme of things. R.I.P. Sara. 

Black Bolt Blows His Mind

Talk about a mind-blowing exit. Next on the list is Black Bolt's demise at the hand of the Scarlet Witch. The Inhumans character was revealed moments earlier to be a part of the mysterious Illuminati alongside a few other familiar faces (be patient, those are coming). It is after Wanda storms the Illuminati headquarters that she goes on the offensive after facing resistance from the shady organization’s best and brightest. 

Black Bolt is the first of these heroes to go up against the Scarlet Witch, and things do not work out all that well for him. In an attempt to blow Wanda away with his destructive hypersonic voice, the camera cuts to a close-up of the character whose mouth is now gone. This causes the shockwave he was about to unleash to dissipate inside his skull, causing his head to quite literally pop. 

While some horror imagery had been present before this particular death, Black Bolt’s death, for many, was the first 'Oh, they went there' moment. It is brutal, it is violent, and it is unlike anything ever seen before in the MCU. 

Mr. Fantastic Turned into Spaghetti

Another of the Multiversal heroes that Wanda Maximoff makes easy work of in Multiverse of Madness is Reed Richards. After years of fans fervently fan-casting The Office actor John Krasinski into the role of Mr. Fantastic, the world finally got it. That is until Wanda turned the iconic Marvel hero into human spaghetti. 

Similar to Black Bolt before him, Richards launches an attack on the Scarlet Witch in the Illuminati lobby and does not have much success. Maximoff begins to peel Richards apart, turning him into skin-colored Silly String before his head ultimately pops like that first bite of a cherry tomato.

Of the Illuminati deaths, this one has to be the least violent, but it might hurt the most. For years, fans have been begging Marvel Studios to cast Krasinski as the leader of Marvel’s first family. So, finally getting to see him on screen in that iconic blue suit, only to have him thrown through the Scarlet Witch cheese grater moments later, is devastating. 

Professor X’s Neck Gets Broken

Similar to Reed Richards's death, Professor X going out is one that is sure to rock fans to their core. However, this time it is a character - and an actor as that character - that the world has come to know and love over more than twenty years. But Wanda Maximoff doesn’t care about any of that. 

After trying to invade the Scarlet Witch’s thoughts to maybe try and defuse the situation, he meets Wanda’s power in full force. Charles goes into the mind of this version of Wanda that the Earth-616 Wanda invaded, hoping to bring out the best in her, and is greeted by a tearing open of his mind, thus breaking his neck in reality.

At no point does Wanda touch the Professor, she sees what he is trying to do and mentally breaks the neck of one of the most celebrated super-powered characters ever put on screen.

Captain Marvel Crushed

Here is yet another member of the Illuminati taken out at the hands of Wanda Maximoff. When it was revealed that Lashana Lynch would be returning as Maria Rambeau in Multiverse of Madness, fans got excited. And that excitement was ratcheted up even further when it was revealed she would be playing an alternate universe version of Captain Marvel. Well, after going head-to-head with the Scarlet Witch, the Captain Marvel star does not look so good. 

Of the Illuminati, Rambeau proved the fittest to match the strength of Wanda. However, when Ms. Maximoff discovers how evenly matched the two are, she brings down a statue right on top of the hero, leaving nothing behind. 

While fans don’t get to focus on the grizzly details of this death, they do get to see Rambeau’s hand go limp as it protrudes from the rubble. Captain Marvel has already been proven to be one of the most powerful on the MCU roster, but this death shows off how inconsequential the hero’s powers can feel when up against a mourning and angry Scarlet Witch. 

Captain Carter Being Cut In Half

The last of the Illuminati deaths on the list is also arguably the bloodiest moment from Multiverse of Madness. If there was ever an argument for this movie to get an R-rating, this would be the sequence that would be used as the decider.

After briefly going up against the Scarlet Witch, Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter is then bisected by her own shield. All fans see is a close-up of Atwell's face, before seeing her shield doused in blood as it sits protruding from a nearby wall. 

While audiences do not see the act of the shield cutting Captain Carter in half, the look of Atwell’s face says it all. And there are few images in comic book history more effective than a bloodied Variant of Captain America’s iconic shield. 

Sinister Strange Takes a Tumble

Next is Sinister Strange getting pierced by a fence post after going up against Doctor Strange. Upon concluding their musical fight, Earth-616’s Strange knocks his Sinister Variant from the top of his Sanctum before he promptly gets skewered by a fence post in the front yard. 

This human kebab moment is another that is almost all sound design. Yes, the imagery of a body wedged upon a metal pool is shiver-inducing, but the squelching sound that can be heard as Sinister Strange slowly slides down the rusty post is awful in the best way. 

It is not the most brutal moment of the film, but it is one of those brief shock value moments that will stick with the audience.

Strange Rises From the Dead

The perfect word to describe this last moment is unsettling. After realizing that Doctor Strange needs to find his way back to stop Wanda on Earth-616, he dreamwalks into the dead corpse of Defender Strange, who is killed early in the film and stored in a rooftop shed by America Chavez. 

This results in a decomposing, reanimated Strange traversing New York and finding his way - by way of some magic - to the top of Wundagore Mountain. Not only is this horrifying, as the equivalent of a zombie Avenger does battle with the Scarlet Witch, but he is also being tormented/eventually utilizing the souls of the damned, which are scary in their own right.

There are a lot of Raimi touchstones in Multiverse of Madness, but the inclusion of a straight-up zombie alongside shadowy ghost-like phantoms is easily the most Raimi moment of the film. It’s part Evil Dead, part Drag Me to Hell, all wrapped up in a Marvel Studios package. 

Scariest Scenes In Doctor Strange 2

And that does it. From front to back, there are plenty of brutal, violent, and outright terrifying moments found in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

This Strange sequel was always touted as an MCU horror film, which, to many, was hard to grasp as a concept. But in practice, it delivered a horror-inspired story, with plenty of blood-curdling moments, that while feeling like a Raimi horror classic was also distinctively Marvel.