Bridesmaids: With a Little Help From My Friends
It started out innocently enough: facing mounting pressure from the patrician Helen (Rose Byrne), maid of honor Annie ( Kristen Wiig) attempts to impress her soon-to-be-married best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), by taking the entire bridal party out to lunch at a sketchy churrascaria on the outskirts of their native Chicago. If the stray dog wandering through the garage or its proximity to a check-cashing outpost weren’t big enough warning signs, as the ladies try on their bridesmaid gowns hours later at a high-end bridal boutique, the hefty Megan ( Mike & Molly’s Melissa McCarthy) unleashes a ghastly noise from an unidentified orifice. The ladies all begin sweating and turning blue, and, realizing they’re experiencing food poisoning, Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) bursts into the fancy bathroom and vomits all over the toilet. She’s soon followed by Megan, who sits on the sink and expels the food through her other end, and Becca ( The Office’s Ellie Kemper), who pukes all over Rita’s head. Lillian, meanwhile, trapped in a designer wedding gown, stumbles into the oncoming traffic outside, squats down in the middle of the road, and, well….
The Sandlot: Tequila!
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It’s the summer of 1962, and the diminutive Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) and his family have just moved out to a suburb of Los Angeles. He initially struggles to make friends, but soon falls in with a group of local boys—including de facto leader Benny Rodriguez—who play pick-up baseball games on the neighborhood diamond that they’ve dubbed “the sandlot.” After narrowly edging out a win against their neighborhood rivals, the gang of kids decides to dip tobacco for the first time, and then go on The Trabant (now called ‘The Wipeout’)—a carnival ride that spins you around in circles and dips you up and down. The boys start to feel queasy, and before long, they’re unloading tobacco-colored puke all over the other passengers, onlookers, and themselves, set to The Champs song “Tequila.” Kids, don’t dip and ride.
Superbad: Boys' Night Out
In this coming-of-age teen comedy from the screenwriting team of Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill) are two high school seniors who, two weeks before graduation, are desperate to lose their virginity. Evan has his eyes on longtime crush Becca (Martha MacIsaac), and when Becca asks Evan how his weekend was, the dorky virgin weaves a tall tale about crashing adult parties and crushing beers, when in reality, Evan, Seth, and their friend-by-default, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), spent their time watching porn, getting tipsy and embarrassing themselves at a family cookout, and then, getting kicked out of a strip club, at which point Evan, the lightweight that he is, unleashes a deluge of puke all over Seth’s chest.
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life: Making Room for Dinner
Unlike The Holy Grail and Life of Brian, this 1983 film from the Monty Python troupe features a series of comedy sketches examining the various stages of life. One of the most infamous sketches occurs in "Part VI: The Autumn Years," where Mr. Creosote (Terry Jones), an impossibly fat man dressed in a tuxedo, hobbles into a ritzy restaurant. When the fish in the tank see him, one of them utters, “Oh s---, it’s Mr. Creosote!” and they swim away for cover. When the French waiter asks how he’s doing, Mr. Creosote replies, “Better get a bucket, I’m going to throw up,” and proceeds to fill the bucket with a stream of puke, vomit on the floor, the menu, the cleaning woman, the waiter, and himself. After he clears some space, Mr. Creosote devours an epic meal, and despite his protests that he’s full, is convinced to eat “a wafer-thin mint” by the waiter. He does, and suddenly explodes, causing all of the remaining people dining to join in on the regurgitation.
Team America: World Police: The Most Epic Barf Ever
Before they conquered Broadway with Book of Mormon, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone unveiled their 2004 action-comedy Team America: World Police. Made entirely with marionettes, the movie was a cheeky satire of Hollywood action films and U.S. politics, concerning a fictional team of political paramilitary police who attempt to save the world from an evil plot by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. After ‘”Team America” is blamed by the Film Actors Guild for terrorists blowing up the Panama Canal, their leader-aspiring actor, Gary, becomes a depressed alcoholic. When he’s reminded of his worldly responsibility by a homeless drifter, Gary vomits all over the bar top. He gets kicked out of the bar, stumbles outside and violently pukes over and over again—a good 56 seconds total—to increasingly swelling music, before passing out in a pool (more like a lake) of his own vomit.
Stand By Me: Revenge Is a Dish Best Served…
This 1986 bildungsroman from the Rob Reiner fantasy factory follows four young outcasts—Gordie (Wil Wheaton), a storyteller neglected by his dad; Chris (the late River Phoenix), who descends from a line of crooks; Teddy (Corey Feldman), who is regularly abused by his father; and Vern (Jerry O’Connell), who gets picked on for being the pudgy one. The rascals embark on an adventure in search of a dead boy’s body they believe to be in the woods. One evening, Gordie tells the campfire tale of “Lardass” Hogan. Bullied to pieces by his entire community—close relatives included—Hogan, seeking sweet revenge, enters a pie-eating contest. Just prior to the contest, he chugs an entire bottle of castor oil and tops it off with an egg. The contest begins, and, after Hoovering several pies, Hogan stands up, and proceeds to hurl purple pie remnants all over his competition setting off a chain of regurgitation—or, as Gordie calls, it, “a complete, and total, barf-o-rama.”
The Exorcist: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Demon Scorned
Arguably the most famous regurgitation scene of all-time, spawning a hilarious plethora of puke in Scary Movie 2, this 1973 horror classic centers on Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), a 12-year-old child who has been possessed by the devil. The faithless Father Karras (Jason Miller) is sent in to try and prove that Regan is not possessed by Satan, and is taunted by Regan, who, in her demonic voice says, “Your mother’s in here with us, Karras. Would you like to leave a message?” Karras smirks, and replied, “If that’s true, then you must know my mother’s maiden name. What is it?” Regan replies by dousing Karras in a stream of green vomit. Apparently, the devil doesn’t take kindly to sarcasm.
I Love You, Man: Drinking Games, Not for the Faint of Stomach
Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd), the effete, air bass-slappin’, Rush-loving groom-to-be, has no male friends. On the eve of his wedding, he goes on a frantic search for a best man and, at his wife’s behest, makes a trip to her girlfriend Denise’s place to engage in a “guy’s night in” with her manly husband, Barry (Jon Favreau), and his fratty pals. Peter soon finds himself wrapped up in a game of “boat racing,” where two teams of three line up across from one another and chug a stein of beer against the opponent facing them, one after the other. After Peter summons the manliness to beat Barry, sealing the victory for his squad, he taunts him, and then proceeds to projectile vomit all over his host. The film’s director, John Hamburg, called it “the greatest vomit scene in the history of cinema,” and you can read about how they pulled off the stunt here.
Detroit Rock City: Sealed With a KISS
This underrated slice of 1970s nostalgia centers on four high schoolers in a KISS cover band who try to score tickets to see their idols in Detroit. Hawk (Edward Furlong), the de facto leader of the gang, is convinced by a scalper to enter into a strip contest to help raise money for tickets. Drunk and stoned out of his mind, he stumbles toward the strip club stage to the tune of “Boogie Shoes” by KC and the Sunshine Band, but, as soon as he gets on stage, senses the vomit coming. He grabs an empty pitcher off a cocktail waitress’ tray, and proceeds to fill it to the brim, as the presenter, played by Ron Jeremy, looks on in stunned silence. However, Hawk proceeds to strip down, to KISS’ “Strutter 78,” and soon wins over the crowd with his awkward, pelvic-thrusting routine.
The Fly: Acid Indigestion
David Cronenberg’s 1986 science fiction-horror film, a remake of the 1958 film of the same name, concerns scientist Seth Brundle ( Jeff Goldblum) who accidentally merges himself with a housefly during a drunken teleportation experiment gone awry. At first, he appears normal—his sexual prowess even improves—but his girlfriend, Veronica (Geena Davis), starts to suspect something is up when he experiences violent mood swings. Brundle’s body starts deteroriating, and he soon becomes a hybrid creature that he refers to as a “Brundlefly,” who can cling to walls, and must vomit digestive enzymes over his food in order to dissolve it. After Brundle kidnaps a pregnant Veronica, her editor and former lover, Stathis Borans (John Getz), arms himself with a shotgun and goes to rescue her. However, the now almost fully transformed Brundlefly has other ideas, crippling him by vomiting his corrosive enzymes all over Borans’ hand and foot.
Marlow Stern works for The Daily Beast and has a master's from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has served in the editorial department of Blender magazine, as an editor at Amplifier magazine, and, since 2007, editor of Manhattan Movie Magazine.
