Just to be clear – we here at Collider do not advocate murder, but we can appreciate a good kill on film. Saw makes us smile (but Smile does not make us saw, discuss). Jaws makes us jolly. Final Destination makes us frolic. Does that make us monsters? Probably. Nevertheless, a good movie kill is an art form, and a gnarly one is a masterpiece. Anybody can use a gun to shoot someone, but using a sleeping bag? That’s a skill kill. So if you’re a little warped like us, read on.
The Sleeping Bag Scene in Jason X (2001)
How do you top what is quite possibly one of the greatest all-time horror movie kills, the infamous Sleeping Bag scene from Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood? How about two sleeping bags? Jason X sees Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder), cryogenically frozen in 2008, reawaken in 2455, bringing his talents into the future and to the crew of a spaceship. To distract the timeless killer, a holographic simulation of Camp Crystal Lake is created with two virtual teenage girls. In an epic feat of one-upmanship on his own masterpiece, Jason picks up one girl in a sleeping bag, beats the other to death in her sleeping bag with that sleeping bag, then slams that sleeping bag against a nearby tree repeatedly. Effective, and efficient, a perfect example of how Jason utilizes whatever is immediately available to him.
Charlie in Hereditary (2018)
16-year-old Peter (Alex Wolff) brings his younger sister Charlie (Milly Shapiro) to a party, but after she goes into anaphylactic shock from eating nuts he's forced to bring her to the hospital. Racing down the road, Charlie sticks her head out of the window for some air, Peter swerves to avoid a deer, and... BANG! Charlie's head meets a telephone pole. This is why you keep all appendages inside the vehicle at all times. What would have been better? Had he said, "We're just gonna head off now" before leaving the party. In all seriousness, what's truly terrifying about this is the reaction of Peter. Specifically, his lack of reaction.
Pool Party ’66 in Sinister (2012)
True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) and his family move into a new home in Pennsylvania. The home is in a beautiful neighborhood, it's spacious, and also happens to be where the previous owner and his family were murdered by hanging. Ellison may have left that last little piece of information to himself, but that couldn't possibly lead to anything bad, right? Well, the attic has a bunch of Super 8 films that would suggest otherwise, each showing footage of families being murdered in various ways (SPOILER) by kids possessed by pagan deity Bughuul (Nick King). One of the creepiest? Family members strapped to pool chairs and pulled into the pool to drown, with the rather innocuous title "Pool Party '66". That Bughuul, what a wacky guy.
Lawnmower Zombie Kill in Dead Alive (1992)
Before The Lord of the Rings, director Peter Jackson gave the world zombie comedy Braindead (aka Dead Alive in North America), one of the goriest films of all time, and the lawnmower scene one of the goriest scenes in it (and morbidly hilarious to boot). Short recap of the journey to get there: Lionel Cosgrove's (Timothy Balme) mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody) gets bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey at the zoo, becomes a zombie, turns more people into zombies (including a pastor who "kicks arse for the Lord!"), Lionel locks them in his basement, they escape, cue lawnmower cutting through the zombies, spraying (mulching?) zombie everywhere. Its gratuitous gore in every sense of the word, taken to an unbelievable, funny, extreme.
Nurse in the Hallway in Exorcist III (1990)
Unlike the others on the list, you don't actually see the kill on-screen, a testament to just how powerful the scene is. It's one of the greatest jump scares in cinematic history, a stationary shot of a quiet hospital hallway for a full minute before an abrupt zoom in on a nurse crossing the hallway and a white robed figure following behind, wielding shears and ready to behead her. The unseen here is more unsettling than actually seeing the act. Perfection.
The Twisting Crucifix in Saw III (2006)
There are no shortage of epic kills at the hand of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in the Saw films, but one of the most memorable has to be the twisting crucifix trap in Saw III. It's twisted in more ways than one, twisting the limbs of Timothy (Mpho Koaho) one at a time to degrees they shouldn't be twisted. The creaking, snapping, screaming is ungodly, and despite its lack of blood it is truly horrific, tapping into that subconscious unease of sounds that are not normal.
Gymnastics Death in Final Destination 5 (2011)
"Oh death, where is thy sting?" Ah, there it is, off of the uneven bars. Truly gnarly. It's a great set-up, with the camera focusing on a number of potential threats before setting off the morbid choreography that leads to Candice (Ellen Wroe) falling off of the uneven bars and not quite nailing the landing. The Finnish judge gave her a 10, though, seeming to appreciate the weird angles of Candice's limbs and bones. Similar to the Twisting Crucifix kill above, this taps into the subconscious revulsion at seeing normal things in abnormal positions.
Christian in Midsommar (2019)
Ari Aster needs some serious psychiatric help. Dude is wack, confirmed by Hereditary's Charlie decapitation, Annie (Toni Collette) cutting her own head off with piano wire, and this, Charlie's (Jack Reynor) death in Midsommar (get the feeling Aster dislikes anyone named Charlie?). Charlie gets drugged, paralyzed, has his tongue cut out, is stuffed into a disemboweled bear, wheeled into a temple which is then set on fire with him inside. Purely accidental, of course. What makes the kill so tragic is that it is Dani (Florence Pugh), his girlfriend, who makes the choice for him to be sacrificed, effectively committing herself fully to the Hårga commune.
Wire Slice in Ghost Ship (2002)
Passengers aboard the ocean liner MS Antonia Graza are enjoying a beautiful starlit night, dancing on the deck to the sweet sounds of Francesca (Francesca Rettondini) and her band. A hand lifts a lever that tightens a wire cord, which snaps and whips across the dance floor. Whew, close call! Everyone looks around, bewildered, until it becomes obvious that all the crew and passengers, save one girl, were bisected by the cable. Lends a whole new meaning to cutting the rug, don't you think? What make this truly effective is that moment of uncertainty in the faces of the people giving rise to the horrified revelation that they've been bisected.
Russell's Death in Deep Blue Sea (1999)
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A mako shark breaks free from an underwater research facility, and is recaptured moments before attacking a boat. Close call, but it still prompts the research backers to send executive officer Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson) to look things over. Things appear alright, with the researchers looking to see if there might be a cure for Alzheimer's disease in the brains of the sharks. Only normal mako sharks' brains weren't big enough to get what they needed, so they genetically engineered them to develop bigger brains. Sure, it made them smarter, and deadlier, but they're contained. Make that were contained. So as explosions rock the facility and seawater floods in, Franklin calls the group together and delivers a stirring speech about unity, and about... um, dunno. Shark comes up and eats Franklin in mid-monologue. It's shocking to see a headliner die so early in a movie, the "Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in Psycho" trick, and it genuinely is a surprise. A great moment in a film better than one would expect.
Bread Slicer Scene in Fear Street Part One: 1994 (1994)
It's 1994 in Shadyside, the murder capital of the United States thanks to a curse placed on the town by Sarah Fier, a witch executed back in 1666. A series of events resurrects several of Shadyside's notorious killers, who are after Sam (Olivia Scott Welch). But to get Sam, they'll have to go through Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger). Okey dokey then. One will just run Kate's head through a bread slicer. Just as grody as you'd expect, an actual unique means of murder on film.
Blender Kill in You're Next (2011)
Masked assailants attack a home in rural Missouri, where a reunion of the Davison family is taking place. Worse, the assailants were hired by siblings Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and Zee (Wendy Glenn) to kill the family, so they can collect the inheritance. What they didn't expect was the presence of Erin (Sharni Vinson), who grew up in a survivalist compound. She takes out the antagonists with tools at her disposal: meat tenderizer, screwdrivers, and in one epic takedown, a blender. Did she make a toxic margarita? No. She actually took the blender, stuck it into Felix's head, turned it on and turned his head into a smoothie, another truly unique means of killing that is the exclamation mark on Erin's resourcefulness. It's an epic kill, but Felix had mixed thoughts about it. It stirred up emotions. It rained on his puréed.