I feel like the Saw movies and their ilk would give the lie to the idea that people don't want damsels in distress to be too gory . . . but that's also aimed at a particular audience, rather than a more general public.

Except that this would require me to go back to watching police procedurals, I'd like to assemble a comparison of opening scenes -- you know, the ones where you see how the murder victim got murdered -- and see what gendered differences show up in how men get whacked vs. how women do. This is anecdata rather than hard statistics, but I do have the impression that you see a lot more of women ineffectively pleading or fleeing or otherwise being taunted with their impending deaths, whereas men are more likely to be blindsided or go down swinging.