Melted Faces and Temples of Doom: The Horror Elements of the ‘Indiana Jones’ Franchise

It truly goes without saying that the first three Indiana Jones films are some of the most beloved films ever made with one of the most beloved characters ever to grace the big screen in Harrison Ford’s Henry Jones. Jr. Spawned from the gray matter of George Lucas and brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg, these films are gilded in the eyes of cinema fans and sit alongside other beloved IPs such as Star Wars and James Bond.

I could sit here and indulge in a warmed-over analysis of why these films and the characters have endured so long, but that sounds boring and frankly, I don’t think I’m capable of offering anything new or unique to say. What I can do is gush about one of my favorite elements of the franchise – the veins of horror that run through them. Although these films are ostensibly seen as “family films,” they never shy away from grit, grim, blood, and spookiness.

In honor of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny releasing in theaters on June 30, the franchise’s first movie in 15 years, I thought I would display my love for the franchise and discuss its masterful mix of genre – and that means horror, baby!

While the Indy films are obviously action/adventure movies first and foremost, they are never far away from delivering on the heebie-jeebies. Steven Spielberg is at his most dastardly when he’s helming an Indy flick – always tossing rotted corpses, creepy-crawlies, and melting faces at the audience with gleeful enthusiasm. There is a sense of devilish fun to the horror and supernatural elements of these movies, as if Spielberg can envision entire audiences gasping, jumping, and squirming in their seats at every trick he pulls.

In the 2017 documentary simply titled Spielberg, the maestro recounts having a blast torturing his sisters with all manner of ghoulish scares and pranks. It seems that same impish pride carried over most strongly to his work on Indiana Jones and it all starts with the first film.

The opening moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark already flirt with the film’s supernatural undertones and gruesome underpinnings. A dark and mysterious jungle gives way to a danger-laden temple overflowing with tarantulas, booby traps, and desiccated corpses. Even the John Williams score in the opening segment of Raiders feels more akin to a horror film than an adventure film.

A subtle eeriness persists during the entire film, letting itself be known here and there to remind the audience that the MacGuffin – the Ark of the Covenant – is not just a mere historical artifact, but something far more unknowable and dangerous. The masterful score by John Williams is consistently used to emphasize this point. The leitmotif that accompanies the references and narrative allusions to the Ark is one of the most memorable pieces of music Williams composed for the franchise.

The power of The Ark is spoken of with grave concern by multiple characters throughout the film. Likewise, an inexplicable wind blows through Sala’s (Johnathon Rhys Davies) home when Indy uncovers an important clue to its whereabouts, and we all know the ultimate payoff during the climax.

The Ark is the perfect kind of MacGuffin in film. Not only is it visually distinct and impressive once it’s discovered, the importance the story and characters place on it give it a life of its own long before it appears on screen.

The shockingly gory and iconic ending of Raiders is the release of the supernatural tension that has built up the entire film. Vengeful angels emerge from The Ark and turn from ethereal to horrific while a vast energy melts faces, blows up heads, and shoots through the chests of every stinkin’ Nazi in sight. It is, quite simply, the Wrath of God. It’s brutal and horrific. The gore on display would be right at home in any 80s splatter flick, yet here it is in a PG rated action/adventure film.

However, it wasn’t until 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that the horror inherent in the Indy franchise really started to fully cook. What was suggested and teased in Raiders was pushed to the forefront in Temple. The film still retains its sense of humor and adventure, but goes all in on the supernatural elements. Indy and company enter a world of shadowy cults and human sacrifice – of child slavery and mind altering evil. Once Indy, Short Round (Key Huy Quan), and Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) enter the titular temple, the film becomes an outright and unambiguous horror movie.

In a 2022 interview with the magazine American Cinematographer, Spielberg said: “In many ways, the visual style of the film was conceived when George told me the story… I heard a couple of things. I heard Kali Cult and Thuggees. I heard temple of doom, black magic, voodoo, and human sacrifice. When he said words like temple of doom and black magic, what came to mind immediately was torchlight and long shadows and red lava light. I felt that dictated the visual style of the movie… It suggested the Bela Lugosi light you put under the vampire’s face that casts a nose shadow across the forehead. It suggested a lot of spooky, creepy, crawly, nocturnal imagery.”

The imagery in reference here is one of the film’s greatest assets. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe paints the film in deep shadows and glowing reds. The trek into the temple is a descent into hell itself. After crunching through a passageway filled with squirming insects and narrowly escaping impalement and crushing from a booby trap, our trio of protagonists are seen framed in a cavern aglow in crimson, stalagmites and stalactites looking like the teeth of some abyssal leviathan. They have unknowingly entered the jaws of the beast.

The darkness of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is at once its main attraction and its biggest repellent. While a hit when it came out and still largely beloved by fans today, it was met with controversy and harsh nose-thumbing upon release for going too bleak, too dark, too icky. It’s one thing to show a few Nazi’s melting and another to feature extended scenes of cult ritual sacrifice, voodoo possession, and child slavery.

Like the exploding head of Raiders, Temple has its signature moment of shocking violence – the heart rip. The film’s villain, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) reaches into the chest a still-living sacrifice and out comes the heart…with the PG-13 rating attached. One of the standout bits of trivia for Temple of Doom is that it is partly responsible for the creation of the PG-13 classification alongside Gremlins, also a Spielberg production.

An Indiana Jones movie would never get as intense or horrific again. Spielberg’s commitment to going all the way in Temple of Doom makes it the most pulpy of the series. It’s all derring-do, banter, narrow escapes, and one effective set piece after another. The horror isn’t just extra sauce this time, but a main ingredient.

All of this came at a cost though. Temple of Doom received backlash from both critics and parents for being too dark and violent. Spielberg himself agrees and has essentially dismissed the film as misguided on his end. Well, it’s a shame he feels that way because while Temple of Doom still receives a degree of scorn from some fans and critics, it’s still largely beloved and many (including myself) consider it their favorite film of the franchise.

The horror elements of both The Last Crusade and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are far more sparse than the two films preceding them, but they still have their signature moments.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a film that feels like an apology for Temple of Doom. You can feel Spielberg asking for forgiveness here. I don’t mean to sound disparaging of the film, it’s fabulous; if just a little tamer, a little softer, a little safer – even compared to Raiders. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker the backpedaling from controversy wouldn’t play, but I’ll be damned if Spielberg doesn’t pull it off with the most personal and emotional Indy story yet and set pieces just as immaculate as ever.

Despite this more family friendly tone, heads still roll (literally). Crusade favors globe-trotting intrigue over emphasizing the supernatural power of the Holy Grail until the climax of the film, where its fabled powers of granting everlasting life are shown to us in ironic and ghoulish fashion.

With pure ignorance and avarice, Crusade’s villain, Donovan (Julian Glover), drinks from a false Grail and rapidly ages to a dried up mummy in a matter of mere seconds. It’s another injection of pure nightmare fuel imagery brought to life by ILM wizardly.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may be the most family friendly film of the four and is still seen as a massive letdown by most fans although it does have its fans and defenders (me being one of them). The requisite creepy crawly bit here is an army of death dealing jungle ants that can carry a grown man into their massive ant hills. Crystal Skull‘s henchman character Dovencho (Igor Zhizhikin) meets his end by having the ants crawl into his mouth and eyes – not bad, not bad. Oh, and Cate Blanchett’s Spalko has her eyes burned out by the films alien- er, interdimensional beings. But the effect is pretty quick and lacking in the jolt factor the other villain deaths of the franchise offer.

So now that we’ve detailed what the horror elements of the Indiana Jones films are, we have to ask: What makes it all work on a deeper level than just thrills, spills, and chills? The world of Indiana Jones is one of history – history that isn’t respected or understood by the franchise’s villains or often even its titular hero. These films are about the avaricious pursuit to exploit history and its treasures for evil gains and corrupt the world as we know it.

The horror in Indiana Jones is often a sharp punctuation to the adventure that preceded it. It’s always quick and it’s always brutal, and it’s always due to the film’s MacGuffins being used against the villain. Nazi’s melt and explode from not taking the power of the Ark seriously. A religious vengeance is wrought upon them for their evil, culture destroying ways. A cult leader falls to his death after the very magical stones he used to brainwash and torture people burn his hands. An immoral American industrialist has his vanity and greed turned against him in the most ironic way possible by aging into dust. A Soviet scientist’s single-minded pursuit of knowledge without responsibility has her eyes burned from her head.

The world of Indiana Jones shows us that history, that the things we take for granted about our past because we see power and profit in exploiting them, will be reckoned with if disrespected – and that reckoning won’t be pretty. Dark stuff, indeed.