Violent Content
Oh, where to begin? Well, I suppose I can start with the opening credits: As names flash across the screen, we hear horrifying screams coming from dozens of people. And screaming becomes a bit of a theme, especially when one of the Jimmy cultists notes that she can’t tell the difference between screams of pain and screams of fear since their victims are always screaming.
Just for some backstory, once a human becomes infected with the Rage Virus, they almost go into an insatiable, unstoppable, furious rampage. The franchise suggests that every emotion except for rage is suppressed by the virus. And this film in particular shows us that the infected people are suffering a psychological effect that makes them believe that non-infected folks are the dangerous ones. As such, we’re told that they’ll attack anyone and everyone, including young children and even babies.
Samson, before he befriends Kelson and receives treatment for the Rage Virus, attacks a hunter in the woods. He shoves his fingers into the man’s eye sockets, grasps onto the guy’s skull and rips it from his body, spine still attached. Later on, he cracks the head open and eats the guy’s brain. Elsewhere, Samson carries around a deer’s head, apparently freshly torn from a carcass.
Other infected humans chase, tackle, bite and scratch non-infected humans, attempting to kill or infect them. At one point, a seemingly cured Samson gets swarmed by the Infected. He fights them, breaking bones, ripping off limbs and otherwise decimating his opponents. He emerges from the horde drenched from head to toe in blood.
That’s the Infected. Now on to the cult of Jimmy Crystal.
The Jimmys are brutal and ruthless—perhaps unsurprisingly so, given that they’re Satanists. Crystal and his Fingers travel from one location to the next searching for non-infected survivors. Once they find some, they grant them “charity.” Unfortunately, that just means torture.
For instance, after capturing some survivors and stringing them up in a barn, Crystal tells his followers to perform the “removal of the shirt.” The Fingers cackle cruelly, and one by one, they begin to carve the skin from the chests of their victims. We don’t see this entire bloody act take place onscreen, but we do see the entire gory aftermath.
Later on, a survivor is given the chance to save himself from a gruesome death. He’s told that if he can kill a Finger in a fight, he can take that Finger’s place in the cult. He chooses a smaller, female follower, thinking he’ll easily overpower her.
He’s partially correct: He manages to get one good hit on her. But the young woman is well-trained and merciless. She slices and stabs the guy repeatedly with her knife. Finally, Crystal tells her that she has won and that her reward is to pick an act of “charity” to inflict upon her victim. She straddles the guy and asks to “take off his trousers”—which, from the partial description we hear, involves castration.
Similarly, Spike is granted the opportunity to fight a Jimmy for his survival. They hand Spike a knife and force him to face a guy who’s twice his age, weight and height. Spike is nearly killed in the encounter, but in a quick move, he manages to stab the guy in the leg. His attacker is furious and rips the knife out, planning to gut Spike with Spike’s own weapon.
Unfortunately, removing the blade tears open an artery. Blood gushes from the wound, and within just a few minutes, the Finger bleeds out and dies.
We see other fights throughout the film. Throats are slashed. Bones are broken. And knives fly freely. One guy throws boiling water on the Jimmys before he’s tackled. Another survivor sends a hook careening into a Jimmy cultist’s skull. (The Jimmy bleeds from the nose before collapsing to the ground.) One Jimmy is burned alive. An infected person stumbles around on a partially severed foot.
Crystal orders Spike to chase down a pregnant survivor, but she punches Spike in the stomach and escapes. Later, Crystal gets angry with Spike (who lies that he killed the woman), saying that Spike should have brought the woman’s face or her preborn child as proof of her death.
Some of the Jimmys have scars where inverted crosses were carved into their foreheads. Kelson removes several arrows from someone’s body (who sports mangled scars from other past injuries). The Fingers sometimes wear masks, a few of which have human teeth sewn into the mouths. Birds pick apart a mask made of human flesh.
At one point, Kelson offers to euthanize Samson, believing it to be an act of kindness. (He does not follow through.) Kelson boils and cleans the bones of a corpse, which he then adds to his Bone Temple. As mentioned in Spiritual Elements, Jimmy Crystal is crucified on an inverted cross. Other characters are killed throughout the film. Some survivors abandon their friend as they flee some Infected because he falls behind.