You will die. We all will, eventually. But how are you going to get there? Face melting off, head exploding, getting shot by a hunter? There’s many a way to go, it’s not just about how gory it is although that’s always a good way, but it’s also about the style. As the old junglist hardcore track went; 6 million ways to die choose one! For death is inescapable, ever-present and a bit of a bastard really.
Final Destination 2 - Evan’s death
Plenty of great deaths in this film franchise, but this one’s the best because of the joy of the tension that builds up, and the fun to be had with the will he, won’t he? Will it be him tripping up on the toys in the hallway, the magnet in the microwave, the flaming pan? We’re even teased when the ladder comes flying towards him and stops, you think he’s going to be alright then splat! Ho ho, death what a card you are! Death, lol. Also lots of eye references throughout the scene, the iMac, doll’s eye is trod on, eye on the fridge spelt out in magnets.
Enter the Ninja - Villian’s death
Look at this, just look at it! That’s the way to die. Take a ninja star to the stomach and then overact like Al Pacino on coke. Then for a final flourish show us the double palms as a final ‘”meh” to a world you couldn’t quite understand or weren’t willing to comprehend.
Jaws - Quint’s death
Ah, my personal fav. After his great speech about delivering the Hiroshima bomb (”Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer.”), he then goes and dies like a man being dragged into purgatory to be consumed for all eternity by vicious man-eating sharks. Blood spilling out of his mouth like a gushing river of death. This is an epically grand way to go. Something like this can really ruin a man’s day.
Bambi - Bambi’s mother dies
Don’t look back. Keep running Bambi, keep running!!! Dear god this couldn’t be a more traumatic experience, I cried tears of venison over this when I first watched it, I was 25. It’s devastating stuff, when Bambi turns around and…*sniff*…his cries for mother fall to the uncaring ground just like those snowflakes. WHY-HY-HY!!! I felt like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes. It’s a hymn to loss, a lament to the cold cruel hands of death that snatch away our beloveds. But don’t let it depress you.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Paul Reubens’ death
The film is about as good as being bitten by the undead and then getting a stake driven through your heart, but this death by ruler is great. You can always rely on Paul Reubens in a movie. Sarcastic vampires making a meal out of dying can only be a good thing. Vampires usually make a meal out of dying, but it’s not usually their death.
Casino - Frank & Nicky’s Santoro’s deaths
You’re in a cornfield, badabing! Tough guy, you and your f#cking brada! Jeez, don’t fuck with the mob or they’ll baseball bat you a newbie, while you watch your bro’s eyes explode like crushed grapes, before you’re buried alive. Good times. Pesci’s character was based on real-life thug Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro, him and his brother Michael met a similar fate.
Scanners - Exploding head
Heads exploding like a cheap microwaved dinner, they were all the rage back in the 80s, everybody was at it. This was what started that craze. But beware of its lingering effect, say if you’re walking along the street and you hear an intense high-pitched sound coming from behind like the THX crescendo then you might want to think about quickening your pace a little. Just a thought.
Platoon - Elias death scene
Adagio for Strings, falling to your knees and throwing your arms in the air pleading to a non-existent god who doesn’t care, it’s an iconic shot and exposes that common existential fear of being shot at by the Vietcong while your supposed buddies fly off in a helicopter to leave you to die squealing like a diseased pig. A biblical name deserves a biblical death.
Robocop - Toxic waste
Out he comes from the back of that van like a toxic water ride and suddenly he’s gone from being the guy who says the cool line, “I guess you think you’re pretty smart, huh? Think you can outsmart a bullet?” to Sloth from the Goonies in seconds. Pretty smart. And then you he gets splattered as easily as an overripe avocado.
American History X - Curb stomp
Neo-Nazis, they certainly are a nasty bunch. This guy gets his fill of yummy curby crunchy goodness, and seeing those teeth scrap against the curb, it might as well be a 1000 nails being scraped down a 1000 blackboards. If you’re watching this scene with someone who winces at Tom and Jerry, then make sure you have a pillow ready for them to hide behind.
Cube - Sliced and diced
How annoying would this be, you hear a whooshing sound fly past you and for a brief nanosecond you think “I’m still alive!!” and then slowly, horribly, blood seeps from your cheeks and, by god, you’ve been cubed like some cheap animal being prepared for a curry. Somebody clean that mess up before health and safety see it.
The Godfather - Sonny’s death
Plenty to be proud of in this death. He takes an impressive amount of lead, probably simultaneously dying of multiple ruptured organs and lead-poisoning. He’s so tough that in the autopsy there will be two causes of death.
Live and Let Die - Exploding Dr. Kananga
Roger Moore, a man who could get out-acted by a rotting plank of wood. What a legend. What I like about this death is the realism; if you’re going to kill someone by inflating them then I want them to float up to the ceiling before they pop like a human balloon, just like they would in real life. That’s what the Bond films were all about really, the laws of physics.
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Melting Nazis
Ah, a classic death, well three classic deaths. Death by melting caused by the holy madness escaping from the Ark of the Covenant. That ghost woman goes from hot to freakishly scary so quickly when I watched it as a child I thought my time was up. But then the Nazis’ heads start melting like an ice-cream in the Sun and that ghost seemed like the sweet vision of a great Goddess smiling at me and beckoning me to bed. Another great Indy death is the uber-aging Nazi from Crusade.
Psycho - Shower scene
The very first slasher movie with a death scene that shocked audiences so much we’d only be able to replicate it now if we sliced people open with sharpened children and then raped an animal while aborting a foetus with our teeth and then eating it with some drowned puppies while dressed up as the twin towers and screaming, “JIHAD!!” at the top of our voices. And even then our modern sensibilities are so hardy we’ll barely wince, or probably just shrug and say, “Meh”.
Alien - Chest bustering alien
OM NOM NOM NOM. OM NOM-splurge! Holy f#ck-Christ that is some life-threatening indigestion. Sometimes I get such bad heartburn I too think something will soon erupt from my chest in a torrent of cartilage, gristle, burst lung and plenty of spouting blood, but then I eat an antacid. Not so easy for poor John Hurt. Classic scene, even if the little alien that scurries away looks a bit silly these days.
300 - Death of Leonidas
THIS. IS. THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS!!!! Going down in a hail of arrows is so ancient world old school cool, such a noble way to go. It was the way to do it back then, now it’s all about getting blown up by a roadside bomb. But B.C. if yourdead corpse didn’t have the same amount of arrows in you as years you’d been alive then by the immortal gods of a distant land you can forget a decent burial, you f#cking pansy.
The Meaning of Life - Exploding Mr Creosote
Eating yourself to death and then exploding. What more can be said. Look out for an awesome comedy jump from John Cleese to escape the oncoming flesh and fat.
Dr. Strangelove - Slim Pickens’ death
Well if you’re going to go, might as well do it rodeo-riding a nuke whilst screaming manically, like an unhinged loonfresh from escaping the asylum.
Assault on Precinct 13 - Little girl ice-cream van
Worth waiting for this, a true shocker, little girl buying an ice-cream. Shoot her in the f#cking chest goddammit! BLAM! Ha! Nothing like a child dying from a blast to the chest to make me think about putting it on a list. All she wanted was a f#cking ice-cream. Hey little girl you got red on you, looks like you spilt a bit of strawberry sauce down yourself, oh, oh right, that’s not sauce…
Total Recall - Cohaagen’s bulging head
This is impressive, those eyes popping out like a pair of birds from a cuckoo clock telling you it’s one minute to death. Dramatic, ridiculous, bulging, everything a good death should be.
Apocalypse Now - Death of Kurtz
“Even the jungle wanted him dead, and that’s who he really took his orders from anyway” Badass line. What on earth could they be trying to say with the juxtaposition of Kurtz and the sacrifice of an ox? Slices straight through me. Symbolism, huh. But one thing I do know is that Marlon Brando knows how to die, first as Don Corleone falling over like a dead elephant in a vineyard and now this. Always with the drama.
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls - Racoon cliffhanger death
A brilliant parody of a great opening to a movie. Look at the racoon’s little eyes as he falls to his doom. Take a good look at those terrified eyes, because those eyes will visit you every night in your dreams for the rest of your life.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day - Arnie’s death
No Arnie, don’t go! Don’t leave uuuus! Oh OK then if you must as long as I get a cheesy thumbs up as you sink into that molten lava. You can almost smell the Monterey Jack, but by the end of the movie I demanded a decent Arnie send off. Now I like to have this part of the movie on some crackers after a lovely meal, maybe with a glass of port. Here’s a little Arnie joke: Last Easter Arnie didn’t get any Easter eggs and his wife said to him, “I suppose you hate Easter now, because you didn’t get any eggs.” Arnie looked at her, smiled, and said, “Not at all, I still love Easter baby!”
The Untouchables - Baseball to the head
The team, the team. I love this guy who gets battered about the head until a thick pool of viscous blood comes oozing onto the table like the creeping onset of an untimely death. He’s looking about nodding happily to himself thinking, “Yeah you bozos, don’t piss Al off” and then with a swing of that bat down he goes. So if a man ismenacingly pacing behind you when you’re noming down on your dinner, make your excuses and leave. Say you’ve got a date at a speakeasy or something.
Day of the Dead - Death of Captain Rhodes
Being shot down by a zombie has got to hurt your pride. I mean, how the hell do they aim? Anyway, after that humiliation you then have to suffer the indecency of being ripped in half by your undead compatriots. I mean, who doesn’t want to go out like that?
Well most of those were pretty gruesome, I didn’t mean them to be but I’m a sick f#ck I need help what do you want me to do? Death stalks us, be brave.
