“30 Unexpected Movie Deaths”
Seeing as the tenor of discussion this week went rather morbid at times due the post “Reflections About Movies and Death, this TotalFilm.com list seems apropos: “30 Unexpected Movie Deaths”. Here’s five examples from their list:
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Gone To Meet Their Maker: Ofelia (Ivana Baquero)
Method of Dispatch: Knifed by Fascist stepdad Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez).
Didn’t See That One Coming, Huh?: Throughout Guillermo Del Toro’s fairytale, there’s the sense that — however brutal the adult story of revolution gets — Ophelia will be protected by the trappings of genre.
But we’ve forgotten that, back in the days before Disney, fairytales were once cruel affairs. Ofelia will have to find her happy ending in the afterlife.
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Gone To Meet Their Maker: Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr)
Method of Dispatch: Executed on camera by Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis).
Didn’t See That One Coming, Huh?: Oliver Stone has raised the bar for bloodshed throughout, but scumbag journo Gale looks like he’s gonna escape intact after becoming complicit in the Knoxs’ kill spree.
Think again. The Knoxs have had it with tabloid tittle-tattle, and are going to make Gale their last victim as a political statement against the media.
But don’t they always leave one survivor…? That’s what the camera is for, silly.
American History X (1998)
Gone To Meet Their Maker: Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong)
Method of Dispatch: Killed by a black teenager while taking a leak.
Didn’t See That One Coming, Huh?: OK, so Danny’s a racist skinhead, but he’s on the mend and the film looks like it’s heading for a mushy liberal denouement.
The irony is that his killer doesn’t know that. What goes on, comes around: the cycle of violence repeats, and the film ends as it began, with a senseless race-related murder.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Gone To Meet Their Maker: Arab swordsman (Terry Richards)
Method of Dispatch: Bang! No mercy shown by gun-wielding Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford)
Didn’t See That One Coming, Huh?: Sabre-rattling swordy bloke was expecting a fair fight. So was the film’s cast and crew, to be fair.
It took a bout of dysenetry to persuade Ford otherwise, and turn a hectic set-piece into a killer gag.
The Omen (1976)
Gone To Meet Their Maker: Keith Jennings (David Warner)
Method of Dispatch: Decapitated by a sheet of glass. Accident? Try an act of Satan.
Didn’t See That One Coming, Huh?: Photographer Jennings saw it coming from the start: he got involved because he developed a shot showing a telltale mark across his throat.
But there’s the matter of how. As he rummages for the sacred daggers that can kill Satan, he seems safe — but further up the hill, the brake has come off a truck filled with sheet glass and it’s headed his way.
Ever played Mousetrap? This is the 18-certificate version.
The list brings to mind the point I raised in the original post: how so many movies feature at least one character dying.
For more of TotalFilm.com’s list, go here.