Blood, guts, and creative carnage await! Join us as we count down the most inventive ways characters have met their maker in horror cinema. From everyday objects turned deadly to supernatural slaughter, these kills pushed the boundaries of imagination and special effects. Which gruesome demise made you wince the most? Let us know in the comments below!
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00:00Karissa, stop that! Karissa, you're hurting me!
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for those horror movie death scenes that felt inventive and outside of the box.
00:11(*Screaming*)
00:22Hey, I think we better pull over and check the car because it-
00:25Kimberly, the car is gonna be fine. Your dad's gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine.
00:30The Final Destination franchise frequently centers on one large-scale set piece of death,
00:35from which the main characters initially escape. This second entry is no different.
00:39Although, this isn't the only bit of vehicular carnage that afflicts this cast.
00:43Kat Jennings shakes hands with death after a car accident leaves her pinned to her seat.
00:47(*Screaming*)
00:48Oh, God, Jethro! Jesus Christ! I gotta use my legs when I'm done!
00:52It initially seems as if Jennings is going to survive the crash,
00:56but the airbag in her steering wheel is accidentally deployed.
00:59The resulting impact pushes Jennings' head into a PVC pipe that's lodged within her car's headrest.
01:04Could you be a little quieter with that thing, please?
01:06Yeah, sure. I'll just put it on quiet mode.
01:09That would be good.
01:17Number 29, The Lost Tape, Event Horizon.
01:20It's in your head. It's just in your head.
01:25(*Screaming*)
01:27This movie from director Paul W.S. Anderson possesses a neat and nasty little twist that
01:32presents itself around the halfway mark. The crew of the rescue ship Lewis and Clark have
01:35been tasked with finding out what happened to the missing crew of the Event Horizon.
01:39They find out the answer within the ship's log database,
01:42a disturbing and violent video of the previous crew's grisly demise.
01:46The footage is grainy and distorted, like a futuristic snuff film.
01:50It feels by design as well, since rumors have long swirled around how there's allegedly an
01:55even more extreme cut of Event Horizon out there that extends the sequence even longer.
02:00Get the files. Vacate. I want off this ship.
02:03You can't leave. She won't let you.
02:06You just get your gear and get back on the Lewis and Clark,
02:08Doctor, or you'll find yourself walking home.
02:10I am home.
02:11Number 28. Truck Radiator Fan. Final Destination 3.
02:15(*Screaming*)
02:17Fans have continually expected the Final Destination franchise to up the ante.
02:22We're speaking specifically of ingenuity and how entries like Final Destination 3
02:26continually think of new ways to, well, kill their characters.
02:30We're guessing that Radiator Fan is just as much a fan of the original as it is of the movie.
02:35We're guessing that Radiator Fan wasn't on the audience's bingo cards when this film debuted in 2006.
02:39We're guessing that Radiator Fan wasn't on the audience's bingo cards when this film debuted in 2006.
02:44Still, that is exactly what happened to Frankie Cheeks
02:46when the entire engine was pushed out of a truck parked behind him.
02:51The resulting impact caused the fan to slice Frankie open,
02:54physics and logic be damned, effectively cutting him out of the movie.
03:02Number 27. Unique Torture Kill.
03:04Bone Tomahawk.
03:05Nick, wake up!
03:07Don't do this! Don't do this, please!
03:11Nick, wake up!
03:14The filmography of S. Craig Zahler is one that frequently incorporates
03:17some grossly realistic and visceral scenes of violence.
03:20It was Bone Tomahawk that initially set that bar,
03:23combining horror and western tropes in a stunningly effective manner.
03:26Deputy Nick perhaps receives one of the most shocking kills in the entire film.
03:31That man deserved to die.
03:34All right.
03:37You sent my possessions back to Michigan,
03:40most of that stuff belonging to my brothers, I'll send it.
03:44He's scalped and brutally bisected by a group of cannibalistic troglodytes
03:48who consume him as a snack before turning their attention to other captive prisoners.
03:52It's a scene that largely forgoes ineffectual CGI
03:55in favor of effects that remain both practical and convincing.
04:02Huh.
04:04Number 26.
04:05Puppetmaster.
04:06A Nightmare on Elm Street 3.
04:08Dream Warriors.
04:18Ask anybody who was there back in the 80s when the slasher boom was in full swing.
04:22Inventive kills were frequent water cooler and schoolyard talk,
04:25especially when they were on the level of this one
04:27from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors.
04:30The Elm Street parents responsible for the death of Freddy Krueger
04:33have seen their kids being stalked and killed by the dream demon in the present day.
04:36Philip Anderson was one of those kids,
04:38a sleepwalker whose veins and tendons are utilized by Freddy as marionette strings.
04:47The sight of Anderson being forced to jump off a building to his death
04:50remains one of the most iconic set pieces of late 80s franchise horror.
05:00Number 25.
05:05Garage Door.
05:06Scream.
05:14We as horror fans don't always pay close attention to the set dressing or scenery
05:19whenever a character is tussling with a slasher villain.
05:21Those who do, however, could very well have predicted what happened to poor Tatum Riley.
05:25Deputy Sheriff Dewey's sister initially holds her own against Ghostface
05:28when she's caught in the garage, away from the noise of a house party.
05:32Her attempt to escape via the garage door's cat flap is unsuccessful
05:35and Tatum becomes stuck, effectively at the mercy of Ghostface.
05:45What happens next is a slow and honestly troubling death
05:48as Tatum begs for her life but is ultimately crushed by the door.
05:56Number 24.
05:57Force Field.
05:58The Cabin in the Woods.
06:05This film from the creative team of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard
06:08reveled in referencing and satirizing some of horror cinema's most beloved creative tropes.
06:13Chris Hemsworth's Kurt Vaughn is initially set up as some kind of hero,
06:16complete with strength, smarts, and determination.
06:19His efforts to escape and seek help are thwarted, however,
06:22by a very unexpected source, an invisible force field.
06:28What's particularly effective here is how the score underlines
06:38what's effectively supposed to be an important moment,
06:41only for it to be undercut as Kurt slams into the wall.
06:44The creative curtain is then pulled back
06:46and the characters realize that nothing is exactly what it seems.
06:50Number 23.
07:01Lawn Mowing Zombies.
07:03Dead Alive.
07:09Adaptability is important when it comes to surviving a horror movie.
07:12You just gotta be willing to take whatever you can get and turn it into a weapon.
07:16Lionel Cosgrove does just that when he takes an ordinary garden lawnmower
07:19into his hands during the climax of 1992's Braindead.
07:22The film, directed by Peter Jackson and also known as Dead Alive,
07:26loves its black humor, playing it to the hilt during this scene.
07:35Party's over.
07:38Lionel is practically wading through the red stuff
07:40as he mows his way through infected zombies in his home.
07:43It's creative overkill to the nth degree,
07:45powered by Jackson's crazed frenetic cinematography
07:48and a committed cast that goes for it during this final sprint to the end.
07:56Number 22.
07:57Skylight.
07:58Suspiria.
08:09The cinema of Italy's Dario Argento
08:11was one that frequently combined the grotesque with the beautiful.
08:14His murder set pieces were artfully staged,
08:16while also containing some of the most wince-inducing moments of graphic violence.
08:21The first victim of Argento's 1977 masterpiece Suspiria is Pat Hingle,
08:26a young dance student who's mercilessly attacked by an unseen knife-wielding assailant.
08:30The brutality of her knife wounds,
08:32hanging and subsequent explosion through an apartment skylight
08:35are undercut by how Argento films the scene.
08:37It's bold and colorful, with flourishes of sound and framing
08:40that almost make the audience feel like accessories to the carnage.
08:44Number 21.
08:51Eye Trouble.
08:52Zombie 2.
09:01It's one of the most well-known and frequently referenced scenes
09:04from the world of Italian horror.
09:05The infamous eye-gouging scene from Lucio Fulci's Zombie 2,
09:09a.k.a. Zombie Flesh Eaters.
09:10Actress Olga Carlatos truly has a bad go of it,
09:14as her battle against a zombie home invasion goes pear-shaped.
09:17Actually, make that splinter-shaped,
09:26since Carlatos' character has her face pulled into one.
09:29All in gloriously anguished slow motion, of course.
09:32Fulci's reputation as Italy's godfather of gore feels well-earned here,
09:37as Zombie Flesh Eaters goes for broke
09:39with regards to this unflinching look at some truly gross eye damage.
09:44Number 20.
09:50Liquid Nitrogen.
09:51Jason X.
09:52Jason Voorhees has creatively utilized many weapons to dispose of his victims,
09:57but the most out there has gotta be liquid nitrogen.
10:00Like we said, he's very creative.
10:02Jason gets the drop on Adrian in the futuristic spaceship
10:05and sticks her head in a sink filled with the aforementioned coolant.
10:09Her face instantly freezes past that of a snowman,
10:15but just to make sure that Adrian has been properly disposed of,
10:18Jason tests her new look against the countertop.
10:21Suffice it to say, the countertop wins.
10:24Say what you will about the goofy Jason X,
10:26but it contains a lot of fun kills.
10:28Number 19.
10:30Going for a Ride.
10:31Gremlins.
10:32Poor Mrs. Deagle,
10:33the thing meant to make her life easier ended up taking it away.
10:36Such is the beauty of irony.
10:38After getting scared by some caroling gremlins,
10:41a panicking and out of breath Mrs. Deagle takes a seat in her chairlift.
10:49However, the device has been tampered with by another gremlin,
10:52and Mrs. Deagle goes for the ride of her soon to be over life.
10:56The lift rapidly zips up the stairs before launching her out of the second story window.
11:07It's a horrible way to go,
11:13but that shot of Mrs. Deagle's body flying through the air will never not be funny.
11:18Number 18.
11:19Staircase Kill.
11:20High Tension.
11:22This French slasher earned a lot of controversy for its over the top violence,
11:26among other things,
11:27and that is on full display throughout the home invasion sequence.
11:31Alex's father Daniel answers the ringing door in the dead of night,
11:34only to be met with a blow to the head.
11:46Daniel is left incapacitated,
11:49and the intruder is thus easily able to squeeze his head
11:52between the uprights of the staircase banister.
11:54It's then that the intruder grabs a nearby dresser and gets to redecorating,
11:58starting with Daniel's head.
12:00The death is quick, but it's also graphic and disturbing.
12:04Props for originality though.
12:12Number 17.
12:14Defibrillator.
12:14The Thing.
12:16For the most part,
12:17the shape-shifting monster of this classic horror film lies in wait
12:20and only reveals itself when absolutely necessary.
12:23But when it does,
12:25you know all hell is about to break loose.
12:28In this classic scene,
12:29Copper is attempting to revive Norris,
12:31who has secretly been assimilated by the Thing.
12:38Copper finds this out firsthand,
12:40no pun intended,
12:41when Norris's entire chest opens up,
12:44revealing sharp teeth and bites his arms clean off.
12:50It's so shocking that we can't actually show it all here.
12:53Yet one still has to admire the ingenuity of director John Carpenter
12:57and his brilliant effects artists.
13:00In what other movie are you gonna get this crazy kind of action?
13:03Number 16.
13:04The Wicker Man.
13:05The Wicker Man.
13:06Few movies end on a bigger downer than Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man.
13:11In this classic British film,
13:13a police sergeant named Neil Howey travels to a remote island
13:16to rescue a supposedly kidnapped girl from a group of pagans.
13:20I am here to investigate the disappearance of a young girl.
13:26As doubtlessly Harbour Master has already told you by now,
13:29there's the girl.
13:30Her name is Rowan Morrison.
13:32However, it's all just a ruse to kidnap Howey himself,
13:36and he is then sacrificed to the islanders' pagan gods
13:39for a bountiful harvest.
13:40And they do so in the most horrifying way possible,
13:44by burning him alive inside a massive wicker man.
14:00It's one of the most haunting images in horror history,
14:03and it leaves viewers feeling incredibly unsettled.
14:06We wonder if it worked.
14:08Number 15.
14:10Spider Eggs.
14:11The Mist.
14:12Disgusting is a good word to describe this death.
14:15And if you don't like spiders, we're sorry.
14:18One scene in Frank Darabont's classic sees a small group of survivors
14:22in the wake of interdimensional creatures being released upon the town
14:25searching a pharmacy for supplies.
14:27What they find instead are bodies strung up by what appear to be spider webs.
14:36One, however, is alive, with legions all over his chest and face.
14:40Just when it seems like the situation cannot get any worse,
14:44the legions are revealed to be egg sacks,
14:47and begin releasing countless spider-like creatures.
14:55We're calling it.
14:56Being eaten alive from the inside by spiders is not a good way to go.
15:00Number 14.
15:01Father Knows Best.
15:03City of the Living Dead.
15:04Director Lucio Fulci populated his films with some all-time kills,
15:08with this one arguably being his masterpiece.
15:11A garage owner named Mr. Ross finds the shady Bob
15:14sitting with his teenage daughter in a car and flies into a rage,
15:18assuming the worst.
15:26After backhanding him,
15:27Ross throws Bob onto a table and brings his head closer and closer to a spinning drill.
15:37The drill then makes contact near Bob's ear
15:40and ends his life in particularly grisly fashion.
15:43We can understand wanting to be a protective parent,
15:46but this has to be overkill, wouldn't you say?
15:48Number 13.
15:50Bad Mattress.
15:51A Nightmare on Elm Street.
15:52Any movie involving nonsensical dream magic is bound to have a few creative kills.
15:57And while the first movie in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series
16:00is relatively tame in comparison to its outlandish sequels,
16:03it contains what is arguably the most iconic kill of the franchise.
16:16A young Johnny Depp plays Glenn,
16:18who is unfortunate enough to fall asleep while watching TV.
16:22This allows the dream-hopping Freddy to grab him through the mattress and pull him down.
16:31We don't see what exactly happens to him next,
16:34but the iconic gushing blood that follows fuels our imaginations to nightmarish effect.
16:40Number 12.
16:41Tanning Bed.
16:42Final Destination 3.
16:44No other horror franchise had us tiptoeing around the house quite like Final Destination.
16:49While a lot of kills in the franchise happen quickly,
16:52this one takes its sweet, agonizing time.
16:55In honor of their fallen classmates, weirdly enough,
16:58two teenagers decide to get some color and go for a tan.
17:12However, death is out to get them,
17:14and concocts a series of events to trap them inside their tanning beds.
17:19The beds then increase in power to the point that they burn the girls alive.
17:28This death scene finds a way to combine multiple fears like pyrophobia and claustrophobia,
17:33as it makes for some seriously harrowing viewing.
17:36Number 11.
17:37Death by Sleeping Bag.
17:39Friday the 13th Part 7.
17:41The New Blood.
17:42The Friday the 13th series is filled with creative kills,
17:45including the aforementioned liquid nitrogen death.
17:48But sometimes the simplest scenes prove the most memorable.
17:52Jason's most appropriate kill comes in The New Blood,
17:55the seventh entry in the series.
17:57After disposing of her boyfriend Dan, Jason kidnaps Judy from their tent.
18:04He scoops her up in her yellow sleeping bag,
18:07drags her to a nearby tree,
18:08and practices his baseball swing with a human bat.
18:12As memorable and as brutal as this scene is,
18:15it was actually cut from six swings to one to avoid an X rating.
18:20Darn censorship ruining creativity.
18:23Number 10.
18:24The Glass Pane.
18:25The Omen.
18:26Mainstream horror films of the 1970s are quite tame by today's standards,
18:30at least in terms of on-screen violence,
18:32which only makes Keith's death that much more shocking.
18:36While retrieving some magic daggers in a construction site,
18:39Keith suffers a workplace accident via an out-of-control truck
18:43and a sliding pane of glass.
18:47While it looks kind of goofy today,
18:49it's also a brilliant bit of filmmaking,
18:51mixing nasty visuals with the surprise death of a major character
18:55to create one of horror's most memorable sequences.
18:59Though come to think of it,
19:00it's kind of like a prototypical final destination death, don't you think?
19:04Number 9.
19:05Lawnmower.
19:07Number 9.
19:08Lawnmower Surprise.
19:10Sinister.
19:11Unique filmmaking can often prove scarier than depicted violence,
19:15and that is certainly the case with Sinister.
19:18After discovering a slew of grisly home videos in his attic,
19:21Ellison watches one labeled Lawn Work.
19:28On it, someone's head gets run over by a push lawnmower.
19:32It's the movie's scariest sequence,
19:34despite containing no blood or actual on-screen violence.
19:42Rather, the eerie use of lighting,
19:45the unsettling sound design,
19:47and the sharp cut before the violence occurs
19:49all work in tandem to create a perturbing atmosphere.
19:53It's highly effective,
19:54and one of those cases in which imagination proves far scarier than depicted reality.
19:59Number 8.
20:00Death by Basketball.
20:01Deadly Friend.
20:03One of Wes Craven's better-known movies,
20:05Deadly Friend is not.
20:07In any case,
20:08it's certainly not up there with the likes of Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street,
20:11and it's probably because of ridiculous sequences like this.
20:15As it turns out, a basketball can be used to kill someone.
20:19Yeah, a basketball.
20:26Not only that,
20:27but they have the power to turn someone's head into mush with a simple throw.
20:32The scene has all the goofy cheesiness of a cheap B-movie,
20:35but there's no denying Craven's imagination.
20:42Only the most ridiculous horror movies could turn a basketball into a deadly weapon.
20:47Number 7.
20:48Eaten by Boars.
20:49Hannibal.
20:50This sequel to The Silence of the Lambs sees Gary Oldman playing Mason Verger,
20:54a victim of Hannibal Lecter's,
20:56hell-bent on getting revenge for his disfigurement.
21:03Verger plans on feeding Lecter to a herd of wild boars,
21:06but he becomes their dinner instead
21:08when Lecter convinces Verger's mistreated physician Cordell to turn on his boss.
21:12The boars eat the defenseless Verger alive,
21:15and viewers are left thoroughly put off by the whole ordeal.
21:19For a series invested in the psychology of human beings,
21:22the most grotesque death strangely comes at the hands,
21:26or mouths,
21:27of some primal animals.
21:29Funny how that works out.
21:30Number 6.
21:31Death by Leeches.
21:33Puppetmaster.
21:34While released directly to video,
21:36Puppetmaster nevertheless proved popular,
21:38and launched a franchise.
21:40In the first film,
21:41a psychic named Frank is sensually tied up and blindfolded by fellow psychic Carissa.
21:47However, Carissa is killed by one of the puppets,
21:50and another puppet named Leech Woman takes over.
21:56Leech Woman gets her name because,
21:57well,
21:58she regurgitates live leeches,
22:00and does so all over Frank,
22:02who thinks it's Carissa being kinky.
22:10He discovers the truth far too late,
22:12and his literal lifeblood is drained by the leeches.
22:17This entire sequence is like a fever dream filled with horrifying and otherworldly images,
22:23and we must commend the filmmakers for their ingenuity.
22:26Number 5.
22:27Amanda Diggs.
22:29Saw.
22:29To be honest,
22:30we could put any kill from Saw on here,
22:32such is the grotesquely imaginative power of the franchise.
22:36But nothing beats the original,
22:38and in the case of the original,
22:39no trap was worse than Amanda's.
22:42Amanda Young is a drug addict,
22:44whom Jigsaw captures and attaches her jaw to the infamous reverse bear trap.
22:54She's then forced to find the key within the stomach of a sedated man.
22:57Needless to say,
22:59Amanda proceeds to dig her way to freedom,
23:01and the man into an early grave.
23:10Unlike future Saw movies,
23:11viewers don't see much of the violence itself,
23:14but what we do get is incredibly disturbing.
23:18Number 4.
23:18Head Explosion.
23:19Scanners.
23:20David Cronenberg's Scanners isn't super well-known outside horror communities.
23:29Once the demonstration has begun.
23:30It's one of those cases in which one specific scene is more famous than the entire movie,
23:35and that scene is a horrifying head explosion by way of telepathy.
23:40The practicality of it is fantastic,
23:42but also so fantastically revolting
23:45that we have opted to shield you from the entirety of it for now.
23:49It is interesting to know that the effect was achieved by shooting a dummy head with a shotgun,
23:54and the results are every bit as messy and propulsive as one would expect.
23:59It is an iconic sequence,
24:01and has lived on in the form of gifs and memes.
24:04Which is what every director aspires to, right?
24:07Number 3.
24:08Down the Drain.
24:09The Final Destination.
24:11The final destination of the movie.
24:13You gotta feel for Hunt.
24:15All he wanted was to lay by the pool and catch some rays.
24:18While relaxing at a country club,
24:20a series of events forces him underwater to retrieve his lucky coin.
24:31Unfortunately, the pool's drainage system had been accidentally activated,
24:36and the pressure sucks him in and traps him in the pool.
24:39Drowning is scary enough,
24:41but then things get much, much worse,
24:43as poor Hunt is turned inside out by the powerful suction.
24:50Hunt's death hits that Final Destination sweet spot
24:53between outlandishly creative and disturbingly plausible.
24:57And it's made even more memorable thanks to the vile 3D effects.
25:01Number 2.
25:02Runaway Cable.
25:03Ghost Ship.
25:04The final destination of the movie.
25:07Number 2.
25:07Runaway Cable.
25:09Ghost Ship.
25:10This movie takes the idea of ghost ships literally,
25:14and the inciting incident makes for a highly memorable opening sequence.
25:18It takes place in the early 60s aboard the Antonia Graza
25:22and sees a large group of passengers dancing to a lounge singer's performance.
25:32A mysterious person then tampers with a thin wire cord
25:35and sends it flying across the deck.
25:38The cord slices through everyone like butter
25:41and leaves behind a repellent mess that scars a poor little girl
25:45who was too short to be hit.
25:55It is beyond eerie,
25:57especially the way everyone stands still immediately after,
26:00but before they, you know.
26:02Despite the fact that this is an otherwise mediocre movie,
26:05this is undeniably a great scene.
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26:24Number 1.
26:25The Chestburster.
26:26Alien.
26:27The first Alien is an undeniable horror classic,
26:31and it contains a legendary death scene.
26:34Kane's entire downfall is just one long nightmare,
26:37and it speaks to the horrific imaginations of Ridley Scott and his filmmakers.
26:41Kane is first attacked by a facehugger that wraps its tail around his neck
26:45and sticks its proboscis down his throat.
26:51This in turn impregnates him,
26:53and the little baby xenomorph subsequently eats itself free through Kane's chest.
27:00We couldn't even imagine how that felt.
27:03It was tough enough just watching it,
27:04and it shouldn't be surprising that it has a reputation
27:07as the most famous death scene in the history of horror cinema.
27:11What in your opinion makes for a classic horror movie death?
27:14Let us know in the comments.
27:16Check out these other clips from WatchMojo,
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27:33you