Severed tongue

A severed tongue is when an individual's tongue is forcibly removed from their body. Severed body parts of any kind are always a staple of horror fiction and the tongue is no exception. In fictional accounts of Ancient Egypt, the removal of one's tongue was a common means of torture and/or punishment prior to the administering of the ritual of mummification. This was demonstrated in the 1959 Hammer Horror film version of The Mummy in which the character of Kharis had his tongue removed prior to his body being wrapped in linen. This scene was revisited in Stephen Sommers 1999 quasi-remake of The Mummy where the High Priest Imhotep suffers a similar fate.

In the 1989 film Warlock, the warlock antagonist of the movie kissed a homosexual man and bit off his tongue and then spit the remains into a frying pan.