Pre-Halloween: My Top Ten Favorite Death Scenes in Films

We're right on the cusp of Halloween, meaning we start dusting off the old horror collection and indulge in some good clean violence.

Death is an inescapable part of life, and as such it makes no sense to expunge it from our fiction. But I'll admit,I've always had kind of a shaky acceptance of the death I've grown up reading and watching. I'm picky about my horror films, because there are only so many innocent victims I can watch die before I disconnect from the story entirely. Did you know that Into the Woods has a higher body count than Scream? I'm sure that's a factor in why I think the latter is the superior narrative.

But every once in a while a movie kills off one of its characters in a way or for a reason that just tugs on my sense of satisfaction. Maybe a character really had it coming to them, or it's done with so much panache that I can't help but feel elated. I wonder if there's anything to learn from examining some of the most memorable death scenes I've come across. Probably not, except for confirmation that deep down inside we're all terrible people. But in the spirit of the forthcoming Halloween, I'm happy to open my home to the Grim Reaper as we Netflix and kill (that was originally going to be the title of this blog post, but I chickened out). Here then are my top ten picks for the finest examples of Old Grimmy's work.

10. Jacob McGivens -The Legend of Zorro (2005): Death by minimal effort

Curiously, a lot of the entries on this list are going to come from genres other than horror films, probably because you're more likely to see characters getting what they deserve in action flicks.

The Legend of Zorro was not a good movie by any criteria, with the poor quality on driven in deeper by how impressive its 1998 predecessor was. This should honestly have been a direct to video sequel with an unknown replacement cast.

Jacob McGivens is a corrupt preacher who looks like he's walked straight out of an episode of Goosebumps. The Nostalgia Critic has rightfully proclaimed him to be the worst villain in movie history based on lack of competency. But his death is a thing of cartoonish beauty. See, there's this whole plot involving nitroglycerin (and something about Abraham Lincoln). Zorro is captured by McGivens and his men, but instead of killing him they decide to beat him up first, essentially handing the turning tide to the hero. The fight ends with McGivens subdued on a wooden rack of some sort (I haven't seen this movie since 2005).

It's an embarrassing way to lose a fight that was completely in his favor and now he's stretched out in utter uselessness, like Charlie Brown if he grew up to be evil. And then even God decides to write him out of the story by sending down a single drop of nitroglycerin to explode McGivens's forehead. And in that one moment of over the top cruelty of fate his character completely stole whatever memorability this movie was going to have. Seriously, it's the only thing that stayed with me as being awesome. I vote we change the title to The Legend of This Guy.

9. The Mechanic -Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Death by poor blocking

You know this scene. Indiana Jones has escaped the Well of Souls and has a brief tactical advantage in stealing the Ark of the Covenant out from under the Nazi's collective noses. He and Marion only have to commandeer the propeller plane onto which the crate will be loaded. And the plan would have likely worked were it not for the untimely arrival of professional wrestler Pat Roach.

This is one of the all time great action scenes in cinema, and the reason is a combination of two primary factors. As an action hero, Indiana Jones isn't an unstoppable juggernaut like Schwarzenegger would play, but he's tough enough to get most of the way to his goals and wily enough to cover his blind spots. But when Roach's unnamed mechanic challenges Indy to a fistfight, even our hero knows he's out of his league. So factor one is that the protagonist is placed in a clear David versus Goliath situation.

Factor two is the careful building of tension. Every action Indy and Marion take to overcome an immediate obstacle creates a larger problem for them, capped off by the addition of a strict time limit with flames, fuel, and a trapped Marion in the cockpit. And the mechanic will not back down.

All things being equal, Indy would have failed were it not for the mechanic's accidental position in the path of the propeller blades. With the exception of blood hitting the side of the plane, the violence is left to the viewer's imagination, but boy does it leave an impact! His death is so horrible that it makes you rethink his whole character.

We accept without question that every other Nazi who dies in this movie deserves it, by virtue of being Nazis. They aren't real people to us, they're cannon fodder. And at first, we treat this guy as nothing more than a bully. But then it registers that he was fighting fairly the whole scene, and our hero was doing anything but. And that instills just enough doubt to think, maybe he didn't deserve to die like that. Even Indy can't watch him get chopped up.

8. Lt. Hiram Coffey -The Abyss (1989): Death by water weight

The best villains aren't the one's you love to hate, they're the ones you wish you could just give a hug to. Lieutenant Coffey (played flawlessly by Michael Biehn) was a villain created purely out of situation; his only real crime being a bit of an ego. He's assigned to a military operation on board a private salvage unit and immediately clashes with the personalities on board. No issues there, sometimes you just don't get along with people.

Unfortunately, he winds up being the worst person on board to fall victim to the worst possible disorder (high-pressure nervous syndrome) at the worst possible time. And as his ability to think rationally deteriorates, he's further convinced that every wrong decision he makes is in fact the right one. This escalates into a fist fight, followed by an underwater sub chase, and ending on...I guess the opposite of a cliffhanger, where the movie lives up to its title in a couple of ways.

The implosion that kills Lt. Coffey is as perfect a tension-release timing as film can portray, but it's the helpless look on his face that really sells his tragedy. It's delightful when a character's death can be thrilling, but it's more respectable when it's presented as heartbreaking. For an unquestionable victim like Lt. Coffey, it's both.

7. Judge Doom -Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988): Death by gratuitous irony

I don't think I need to rehash this scene for you, but it's worth noting that Judge Doom has the distinction of being killed twice in the same scene by the same trope (i.e. hoisted by his own petard). The first is by the steam roller meant for Eddie Valliant, the trajectory of which has always gnawed at my inner continuity cop. The second of course is the "I'm melting!" shout out.

So what I want to explore here is the creature behind the mask. In universe, Judge Doom is a fictional character created by this creature. The toon behind the mask is never given an identity beyond voice and eyes, and it's possible he never had a concrete form. His freeway idea doesn't exactly add up as a legitimate motivator, and I would argue this wasn't his ultimate goal. I think what he wanted was identity. He wanted a character with a name and a goal, and what he decided for himself was Judge Doom.

The character of Judge Doom was in fact killed by the steamroller, at which point the cartoon boogeyman was left over. And I would claim that he no longer had any sort of investment in freeway plans or revenge or anything that requires forethought. Here he is reduced to unleashed id, for the pure joy of evil. I say this because if we believed this was a human character, or even a defined cartoon character like Snow White's stepmother melting, it wouldn't have the this-is-as-it-should-be impact. Hell, even the original "I'm melting!" trope namer from The Wizard of Oz doesn't feel like a satisfying death to the witch, it became more of an instant punch line.

But Judge Doom's puppet master goes down flailing, screaming, and writhing, in what's probably the most pain a toon can experience. And there is no sympathy from us. That evil toon gets nothing that he wants, yet also manages to latch onto something sadistically primal in all of us; that feeling of "Die, you bastard". None of us are above it.

6. The Duras Sisters -Star Trek Generations (1994): Death by technical glitch

Star Trek space battles aren't inherently exciting. Two large vessels fire at each other until one blows up. Um...yay. It's probably why pirate movies have had such a long history of not working. But the Star Trek films have at least found ways to play with the formula enough to make the scenes interesting, typically involving one ship getting the other to drop their shields.

Wrath of Khan probably did it the best, but Generations has the advantage of timing. We're having another David and Goliath standoff, although in this case our loyalties are meant to lie with the superior Enterprise crew and not the Klingons with the cleavage. The Klingon ship figures out the cheat code to bypass the Enterprise's shields and a one sided pummeling begins.

Timing. If there was ever a template, this is it. Watch the flow of this space battle. Klingons fire...Direct hit...Enterprise crew scurries to figure out what just happened...Another shot..Direct hit...Enterprise returns fire...Klingon shields hold...The Enterprise realizes how much danger they're in...Commander Riker desperately asks the half-Klingon on board for any information about the Klingon ship that might help...There's a plasma coil issue related to their cloaking device...Engineering is packing quite a wallop...Riker has to think fast...The idea might work...They have one shot...Klingons fire...Data initiates the pulse...Major explosion on the Enterprise bridge in slow motion...Klingon ship: "Target their bridge!" "We are cloaking! Our shields are down!"...pause...Riker: "Fire."

Jonathan Frakes doesn't deliver a Shatner-esq Look-I'm-acting! "Fire". His is a pinpointed cold-of-space utterance, and it sells the whole sequence. In the time it takes the photon torpedo to travel from ship to ship, you experience the weightlessness of a rollercoaster's big drop and feel the "Why you little shit" venom behind it. BOOM! The Klingon ship is no more. Goliath wins. And the 'When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth' banner drifts down in front of the Enterprise.

5. Count Rugen -The Princess Bride (1987): Death by status quo

Ever since Roy Scheider growled "Smile you son of a bitch," a second before blowing up the shark in Jaws, movies have tried to replicate the combination of obscenity and final attack. My favorite example of a failure came from Michael Madsen in Species (an already horrible film) when he shoehorns in the line "Let go you mother f**ker", for no reason other than it's time for it.

But let's move on to a happier subject, revenge. The Princess Bride is a classic, and it nailed the whole obscenity/bloodshed moment with operatic finesse. You know this scene, and can probably act it out as well as I can, but every element in the build up is perfect; the repetition of the "prepare to die" speech with increased anger, the precise return of every cut and nothing more, and then the ultimate genre-savvy payoff with Rugen being force fed his lines before getting run through by the reality that there is nothing he can do to make up for murdering Inigo's father. Cue the orchestra.

I would argue that Inigo Montoya's subplot is the reason the movie is as great as it is. The Westley/Buttercup arc is decent enough, but it's almost as by-the-numbers as the formulas it's parodying. Inigo is the character who breathes life into the story.

On my first viewing, some 93 social gatherings ago, I honestly thought Inigo had snuffed it when he took Rugen's dagger to the groin. He barrels over, clutching the blade, and the scene cuts to Westley and Buttercup. And I bought it. I was like, "Shit, this movie went all Game of Thrones!" (I have no idea why I said that thirty years ago, but I'm sure at some point in my life it's going to make sense). But then we're back on him. The dagger is out, the orchestra the dramatic chord, and I crack a smile. Inigo is now invincible. From here on out it's not a duel, it's an execution.

Count Rugen is actually a very underdeveloped character. It's no fault of Christopher Guest and his limited screen time; as a comedic actor he quite effectively channels all of his dark side into every expression and inflexion. But the movie makes the cardinal mistake of telling us way more about him than showing us. But this death sequence flawlessly makes us feel what Inigo feels, and in the end we're left fooled into believing we knew more about Rugen than we really did. It's funny how we usually know our heroes better through their more flamboyant antagonists. Here it's quite the opposite.

4. The General (AKA Big Bob) -Arachnophobia (1990): Death by tropes

I've made it a point to avoid monster deaths as much as possible to keep this list fairly grounded, but I have something personally at stake in this film. Like Jeff Daniels's character, Doctor Ross Jennings, I am deathly arachnophobic. With that said, I can't say for certain what drew me to this movie. It may have been a trust in anything with Spielberg's name on it combined with a hope that some part of me might overcome something by enduring as much of the film as I could (after multiple viewings there are only two moments that I absolutely cannot watch).

The Face Your Fears trope is the easiest way to distinguish a thriller from a horror movie. It almost guarantees you're going to get that euphoric release after many waves of tension, a promise horror movies don't offer you. Big Bob isn't just a spider, or a bird-eating tarantula to be precise, he's every spider. He's what an arachnophobe imagines a spider is: big, lethal, and way too freaking smart.

In the climax of the movie, Jennings is trapped in his basement, with what is implied to be the egg sac that could conceivably wipe out North America (it makes sense in context). Circumstance has required him to override his fears long enough to destroy the sac, and he's one step away from doing so when Big Bob challenges him to a death battle. How hard is it to kill a spider you ask? Jennings winds up flat on his back after setting fire to his cellar.

You know what? If you haven't seen this movie I'm not going to ruin what happens next for you. It's unreal but so incredible in its gusto. One of the seven most basic plots is 'overcoming the monster'. Arachnophobia is not only part of that club, it has the VIP card to the back room where the password is "F**k yeah! Overcoming the monster!".

3. The Collector -The Collection (2012): Death by poetic justice

The Collector is the closest thing to a human spider as you'll ever see (sorry Peter Parker). People are prey to him, coupled with the human sadism that inspires horrible children to burn ants with a magnifying glass. You might have missed 2009's The Collector amidst the annual Saw ritual of that decade, but it's clearly cut from the same flesh.

Josh Stewart plays Arkin O'Brien, our classic anti-hero. He's an ex-convict/jewel thief who's been posing as a handyman for the wealthy Chase family, with the intent of breaking into their safe to steal a valuable gem. But it just so happens that the Collector has arrived at the same house, kidnapping the family and turning the place into a giant elaborate deathtrap. Thrust into this horrifying situation, Arkin does his best to help the family he'd come there to rob. I already gave you the spoiler spiel: he only manages to save one. And in the process, he survives fishhooks, razors, a hammer and chisel, and so on. And in the end he doesn't escape the Collector. It's that kind of movie.

The sequel opens with Arkin's unintentional rescue at the cost of young woman Elena. Her father hires mercenaries to drag Arkin back into the fray to rescue her, this time on the Collector's home turf. The usual tropes apply, everybody but Elena and Arkin are killed, ending in a climactic confrontation where it looks like the Collector is dead ad the POV characters have escaped. And then comes the prerequisite reveal that the boogeyman's body is not found indicating the terror will continue. Two movies in two paragraphs.

But The Collection has an epilogue. It's not often a horror movie gets a happy ending, but Arkin doesn't passively wait to get kidnapped/killed. A few months later, he's hunted down the man behind the spider's persona at his suburban home and corners him at gunpoint. We never see the Collector's face, but Arkin does, and that's satisfying enough. Arkin almost talks too much, nearly losing control of the situation. But the torture that the Collector has put him through has transformed into fury. It's a case where a monster has created his own monster to undo him. You know the cliché where a victim's screams are music to a killer's ears? The Collection ends on the Collector's screams. And it's beautiful.

2. Mrs. Dribb -Young Sherlock Holmes (1985): Death by all means

I'm in touch with my cruel side here. First off, if you haven't seen this movie, see it. It's wonderful, and Nicholas Rowe might actually be a better Holmes than Cumberbatch (I said might). What you need to know for this scene is Holmes is wrestling with the chief assassin of a religious cult, whose choice of murder weapon is a blowgun. Um...yeah, it's scarier than it sounds.

The blowgun is loaded with a thorn that has been dipped in a chemical solution. The victim feels they have been bitten by an insect. But minutes later the chemicals take effect on the person's brain, causing intense hallucinations that they are under some kind of attack by a supernatural element. More often than not, the victim will accidentally commit suicide as a reaction.

We've seen several people die (or nearly die) throughout the film. Holmes himself took a bit of a mental beating. And now he finds himself struggling against a stronger opponent while the cult's temple is collapsing and burning around them. Even the music cue recognizes how gruesome what happens next is.

You've been warned. Mrs. Dribb finally gets the blowgun pointed at Holmes's face, so he does the only thing he's capable of doing. He puts his mouth on the other end and blows the thorn back into her throat. Whether or not she starts hallucinating is irrelevant, the thought of choking on a thorn is nightmare fuel. The fact that it happens to someone who has proven to deserve it is breathtaking. Understandably, Mrs. Dribb backs into some burning debris, setting herself on fire. It's rare one thinks of burning to death as a mercy kill, but after the thorn this is probably the one movie occurrence that qualifies.

1. Ed Thompson -Fright Night (1985): Death by cruel world

Fright Night is one of my all time favorite horror movies (the original, not the piece of shit remake). The 1985 vehicle is a love letter to the Hammer Film Productions of horror movies and the recurring actors who infused the films with credibility (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, etc). Roddy McDowall has the time of his life playing Peter Vincent, a past-his-prime actor reduced to hosting his own B-movies on late night television. Vincent is watched religiously by adolescent Charley Brewster, who discovers his life has unbelievably taken on the premise of such movies when a real vampire moves next door to him.

The horror beats are all checked off with fresh takes, serving as both its own story and as a commentary on those films that have preceded it without ever reaching Scream levels of metafiction. But the scene that really drives the proverbial stake in is the death of Charley's best friend 'Evil Ed'.

Charley is a nerd, but Ed is a complete outcast; the adjective 'Evil' having been assigned to him against his wishes. There's a sweet innocence to Ed. He doesn't believe Charley but is willing to help him none the less. When Ed gets bitten you feel the weight of how psychologically horrible it is, and just how much he doesn't deserve it.

Which leads up to the most painful thing in the whole movie; Peter Vincent has to stake him. Peter had staked many vampires in movies prior with a Van Helsing conviction that it's the right thing. But here the actor playing Peter has to do the thing that the character had found so easy to do, and it's anything but easy.

Ed doesn't hiss, spew blood, and disintegrate. He writhes. He trembles. He tries to pull the stake out while his body painfully transforms back into the human he once was. He even reaches for Peter's hand seeking any sort of comfort from the agony he's going through. And then he dies.

It's not a fun death, it's one of (literal) heartbreak. The truth is, we have gotten used to death through our films. We have become desensitized to it. And every once in a while a movie comes along with a death scene like this to serve as a slap in the face; reminding us that death isn't something to be happy about, or to root for. It's unfair and it's haunting.

Ed's death is one of those rare moments where reality about the preciousness of life slips into the fiction. And that's why it's at the number one spot on this list.