Steven Seagal’s films could be borderline horror when it came to their violence, with some being particularly brutal. The first batch of Steven Seagal movies, like Above the Law and Under Siege, became instant action favorites during the 1990s, where the martial artist turned actor was briefly one of the biggest stars in the world.

Reports of his bad behavior both on and off movie sets, in addition to efforts like 1997’s Fire Down Below bombing, soon saw Seagal heading straight to video. Seagal became a star during a very specific era in Hollywood, and while it can’t be denied that he had a unique charisma and screen presence, he wasn’t much of an actor.

Towards the end of his career he starred in films with increasingly shrinking budgets, and doubles were often used to perform Steven Seagal’s fight scenes; in many cases, he even refused to dub his own dialogue. Still, Seagal’s early films are considered minor action classics, and it can’t be denied they had some memorable death scenes.

The Pistol Shiv – A Dangerous Man (2009)

A Dangerous Man is one of a slew of largely nondescript action flicks Seagal fronted with director Keoni Waxman. The duo made eight movies together, with A Dangerous Man being one of the more interesting of the bunch. It cast Seagal as an ex-con who gets mixed up in a feud between Russian and Chinese gangs.

The movie quickly establishes Seagal’s Shane as a dangerous man when two dudes try to rob him. Being in a bad mood, Seagal’s Shane beats them up, then removes the slide from a pistol and proceeds to use the lower half as a makeshift shiv.

In the nastiest moment of A Dangerous Man, Shane stabs one of them repeatedly in the face, making good on his earlier promise to “f*** him up ugly.” While the rest of the film is forgettable, this scene gets points for its gruesome creativity.

“Where’s My Cue?” – Hard to Kill (1990)

SH๏τ under the тιтle Seven Year Storm, Hard To Kill cast Seagal as tough cop Mason Storm. After lying in a coma for seven years, Storm awakens to take down the senator who murdered his family and tried to kill him. In the final act, Storm confronts the corrupt cop who murdered his wife, who is playing pool with pals.

After dispatching his friends, Storm fights Detective Axel (Charles Boswell) before stabbing him in the neck with a broken pool cue. To add insult to injury, Storm kicks the dying man in the face in one of the more satisfying takedowns in a Seagal thriller.

Hugh’s Torture – On ᴅᴇᴀᴅly Ground (1994)

On ᴅᴇᴀᴅly Ground is Seagal’s only directing credit, with its critical and commercial failure being the beginning of the end of his A-list status. The film is a deeply bizarre blend of brutal Seagal action movie and mystical eco-thriller, concluding with an infamous scene in which Seagal’s character lectures an audience on the dangers of pollution.

This comes after he blew up an oil refinery in Alaska. While the film features Seagal’s trademark aikido fights, On ᴅᴇᴀᴅly Ground’s most brutal scene doesn’t involve his character. Instead, it sees oil foreman Hugh Palmer (Richard Hamilton) tortured to death by goons sent by Michael Caine’s villain.

This starts with Hugh’s fingers being crushed by a whalebone, before they slice into his leg with a pipe cutter. While not overly bloody, the drawn-out nature of the scene and Hamilton’s performance make it linger in the memory.

The Eye SH๏τ – Driven to Kill (2009)

One of the better entries in Seagal’s STV phase is Driven to Kill, where he plays a Russian gangster seeking to avenge the death of his ex-wife. His accent is truly terrible, but the action is effective and bluntly staged, and it has a good villain in the imposing Igor Jijikine (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

Their showdown takes place in a hospital, where Seagal’s Ruslan puts Mikhail’s (Jijikine) pistol to creative use. Ruslan stabs the silenced weapon into Mikhail’s eye and then pulls the trigger, resulting in a geyser of viscera. In a thriller loaded with nasty fights and shootouts, this is a truly eye-popping moment.

Pistol Whipped – The Glimmer Man (1996)

The Glimmer Man tried to merge a buddy cop movie with Se7en, to predictably mixed results. Seagal stars as a mysterious cop and former CIA ᴀssᴀssin, who teams with Keenan Ivory Wayans’ wisecracking LA cop to hunt a serial killer. The serial killer angle distracts from a film that is a reasonably breezy Lethal Weapon wannabe.

Being a former ᴀssᴀssin, Seagal’s Cole has some tricks up his baggy sleeves, including a credit card with a razor blade hidden inside; he also ends up impaling the killer in a cruciform style in the finale. Still, the scene where Cole pistol-whips two killers during a fight in a car takes the brutality crown.

These two ᴀssᴀssins pose as internal affairs agents taking Seagal’s character into custody, but Cole soon susses out their intentions. This leads to The Glimmer Man’s most visceral fight, where he’s forced to pistol-whip both men to an almost excessive degree to win the day, with each blow hitting like a hammer.

The Throat Rip – Under Siege (1992)

Under Siege might have been dismissed as Die Hard on a Ship, but it’s a genre staple that has aged quite well. It helps that Seagal’s killer cook is almost a side character, with Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey’s hammy villains getting even more screentime. Still, Seagal delivers when it comes to the fights.

This includes a mᴀssacre in a workshop, where Seagal’s Ryback uses various tools to dispatch thugs, including kicking a guy into a band-saw. One of the standout kills is when Ryback pays homage to Patrick Swayze’s Road House by ripping a goon’s throat out like he’s pulling apart a piece of bread.

In a film that also features Tommy Lee Jones getting an eye gouged out, the throat rip stands out for sheer shock value. In the UK, Ryback’s tearing out the throat is often cut from TV and home video versions.

Zagon’s Demise – Above the Law (1988)

Seagal had never acted before 1988’s Above the Law, which he also co-wrote. He had been a martial arts instructor and in fact, broke Sean Connery’s wrist while training him for Never Say Never Again. While he’s a little wet behind the ears acting-wise, he’s shockingly pretty good in this 1988 thriller.

That extends to the exhilarating and bloody fight scenes, including the tough finale. This sees Seagal’s Nico face off with corrupt CIA agent Zagon (Henry Silva), who tortures him with a truth serum. Nico breaks free, kills Zagon’s other men, and in the span of five seconds, Nico breaks Zagon’s nose, arm and neck.

“Anybody Seen Richie?” – Out for Justice (1991)

Out for Justice might be Seagal’s best movie from his so-called “Golden Age,” where he plays a tough Brooklyn cop chasing a drug-addled thug on a killing spree. The most iconic scene of the John Flynn thriller is when Seagal’s Gino enters a bar filled with lowlifes looking for the killer, Richie (William Forsythe).

Despite being totally outnumbered, Gino bullies and taunts all the mobsters and bad dudes present, and when challenged to a fight, he doesn’t back off. Gino instead wraps some pool balls in a cloth and uses them as a weapon, wacking people across the head and knocking out teeth.

Out for Justice’s entire bar scene is great, but the pool ball club is just sick genius. It’s simple and horrifying, and the sight of teeth being spat out certainly leaves an impression.

Richie’s Death – Out for Justice (1991)

William Forsythe’s performance in Out for Justice is incredible, with Richie being a loathsome, hyperactive bully almost gleefully running toward his own death. This leads to the most one-sided fight in movie history, where an overconfident Richie is beaten to a bloody pulp by Gino, who is avenging his murdered partner.

The fight ends in a kitchen, where a blood-drenched Richie is hit with frying pans and rolling pins before Gino ends it with a corkscrew to the wannabe gangster’s head. For good measure, Gina then shoots his body four times – just to be sure, of course.

“I Hope They Weren’t Triplets” – Marked for Death (1990)

Marked For Death cast Steven Seagal as retired DEA agent Hatcher, who makes an enemy of a Jamaican drug kingpin named Screwface (Basil Wallace). After trying to kill Hatcher’s family, Seagal’s protagonist seems to solve his problems by beheading the drug lord during the third act.

However, he soon learns that Screwface has a twin, whom he also needs to kill. In a death scene that is a symphony of violence, Hatcher slashes the second Screwface across the face, gouges his eyes out, throws him through a wall, breaks his back before throwing him down an elevator shaft: he doesn’t survive the landing.

Marked for Death’s final line has Hatcher staring at the Screwface’s impaled corpse and declaring, “I hope they weren’t triplets.” In a filmography filled with brutal fights and deaths, Screwface’s demise really is in a class of its own.