Best Film Death Scene

[IrishCanadian25]

Which film death scene do you think is the best / most brutal / most greusome / most iconic / most realistic / etc.?

I was thinking today that, despite how I think Scarface is the most over rated film of all time, the chainsaw in the bathtub scene is just awfully brutal and very iconic.

So, whether from horror, drama, comedy, etc, which are the top death scenes in film history?

The end of Hellraiser 1 when Frank gets torn apart by the chains?

Quint's descent into the teeth of Jaws?

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

Tricky question, but I'll go with this one:

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Harry had already used the Magnum speech earlier in the movie, bluffing his way through it. This time round, it wasn't a routine job. It was Harry out to settle what had become a personal score between himself and Scorpio. Scorpio got away with multiple murders following Harry's own gung-ho capture of him. Scorpio was then followed everywhere by Harry. Losing his mind, Scorpio paid a man to beat him up so Callahan would look insane. Scorpio then kidnapped a bus full of children and held them for hostage. This of course failed when Harry came to their rescue. Thus leading to the scene above. Harry used the same speech as before, but this time he had that one bullet left and made Scorpio pay for his sins.

 

[Nate DaMac]

Personally, I love the scene in Law Abiding Citizen when the Judge answers her phone and it blows her fucking head off, though I'm not certain it would be considered "iconic." The scene where he throat fucks his cell mate with a T-Bone is quite fucking brutal as well.

One that probably would be iconic is when Vincent accidentally shot Marvin in Pulp Fiction. It has to be considered unique as it was probably the funniest execution style murder in a film.

 

[Wolf Pac]

I wouldn't say it's the best but it's a personal favourite of mine and that's Boromirs death in Lord Of The Rings. I love how he continues fighting while he gets shot with the arrows, he looked like a true warrior that never gives up and then the speech he delivers to Aragorn as he's dying was emotional, it nearly made me cry.

If I can remember another good death scene, I'll get back to this thread.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

This is a very tough pick for me, but Joe Pesci's death in Casino was unreal.

The bosses grew tired of Nicky's bad temper and rebel attitude, so they ordered a viscous hit on him and his brother, Dominick. Nicky(Pesci) and his brother thought they were headed for a normal and quiet meeting in the cornfields, but they were double crossed by their own crew. Nicky's brother was beaten unconscious with aluminum baseball bats, and Nicky was forced to watch this gruesome scene. Nicky was beaten next, and their own crew stripped both men down to their underwear. Nicky and Dominick were eventually buried alive.

I've watched Casino A LOT over the years, and this scene always manages to make me squirm. Frankie Marino(Frank Vincent) was Pesci's close friend, but he quickly turned on him, and he gladly participated in the viscous beating. Pesci was heartbroken, as he had to watch his own brother be destroyed with baseball bats. Listening to the aluminum bats crack Nicky and Dominick's bodies was unreal. It was a sicking thud, and the violent nature of this scene is just unreal.

Although, Pesci's character did turn into a real scumbag towards the end of this film. I know Ginger(Sharon Stone) became a trashy and drug addicted lowlife towards the end of this film, but Pesci managed to manipulate her, and he was having sex with her. Towards the end of this film, Ginger wasn't this desirable and attractive woman anymore, but she was still De Niro's wife, and it was just a low class move on Pesci's part. Pesci was just out of control, and he was "taken care of" in a very brutal and cold way.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

A good/great death scene to me entails someone's death being commensurate to how much we've grown to hate them. Realism's essential but it's not by itself sufficient to make a death scene great. With all this being said, I'd say the three best death scenes ever filmed are as follows:

1) Unnamed man mistaken for a rapist, Irreversible: after being mistaken for "La Tenia," a thug who brutally beat and sodomized his girlfriend, an unknown man is attacked by Vince Cassel in a dungeon-like S&M club called The Rectum. Obviously not a fighter, Cassel is taken down and gets his arm snapped in a way that rivals the gruesomeness of Joe Theismann's leg break. Albert Dupontel jumps in to save Cassel by hitting Cassel's assailant with a fire hydrant. Enraged, Dupontel repeatedly bashes the man's face in until it is pulverized.

Why did I take the time to describe this? Because it's the greatest death scene ever.

2) Military leader, 28 Days Later (forgot the guy's name): After kidnapping Cillian Murphy's women friends for sexual purposes, the main antagonist of 28 Days Later gets his just deserts when Murphy viciously gouges his eyes out. This death perfectly exemplifies what I was trying to get at earlier: we, as an audience, grow to hate a character and the only way that we can be placated is through an execution-style death that's just as vile and degrading as the individual subject to it.

I forgot the last one while I was thinking about these two. If it comes back to my mind, I'll post it.

 

[Davi323]

Paul Reuben's death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer...


kidding! When I think of a death scene, the first one that comes to mind is the Nazi getting his face melted off at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Classic! That is about the most gruesome death you will ever see in a PG movie.

 

[JGlass]

American History X. Putting it in Spoilers because it's a pretty huge surprise.

Spoiler

How about when Danny (Edward Norton's brother) dies in American History X? It's a total shock even though it was foreshadowed a few times during the movie. All his problems are sorted out, and he seems to have overcome the racism instilled in him by his brother and friends, but all that is blown away in a heartbeat when a black kid he once antagonized decides to shoot him. It's pretty graphic, and very real.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Interesting topic. One death scene that always stood out in my head was the scene in which Peter Weller's character, Alex Murphy, was "killed" in the first Robocop movie.

In the scene, he & his partner track some bank robbers to their hideout in this run down abandoned factory. Murphy is cornered by about half a dozen guys and they just pump round after round of shotgun blasts into him. I saw an extended director's cut of the film a while back that showed a much longer scene that had to be cut otherwise the film would have gotten an NC-17 rating. The extended scene showed more gruesome details when his right hand was blown off, including close ups with blood & everything spurting. The extended scene also showed them just unloading into him for a good minute or so with close ups of the shells going into his legs, blowing his right arm completely off, blood spurting all over the place, etc. The final bit of the scene has him taking a single gunshot wound to the forehead that ultimately kills him and sort of blows out the back of his head. Weller's character screaming in agony at the top of his lungs really added a lot to it.

I first saw this movie when I was about 10 and it'd definitely been far more gruesome than anything I'd seen in any horror film. Seeing the extended scene in the director's cut surprised me because I just didn't think it'd be anymore violent than it was. It's not an iconic death scene from movies like Scarface or Casino or anything, nothing overly fancy about it. It was just extreme, over the top old school violence that you probably wouldn't be able to get away with in most movies these days.

 

[PsychoBlack]

I have to go with the end of Menace II Society. I've seen this movie over a hundred times and it never fails that I always have this empty feeling at that part of the movie. Kane had finally straightened his life out and as he's dying he talks about how bad he had messed up that summer and he wished that he could take it all back but it's to late for that. This is what made this movie the iconic figure that it is

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

Well thanks to Mitch and Davi, two of my favourites have already been picked over (cheers, fellas).

Here's a couple good Bruce Willis ones:

Die Hard - the expression on Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber is priceless plus the symbolism of the death of yuppie greed in the release of the Rolex is (wait for it... wait for it...) priceless!

The Last Boyscout - "Touch me again and I'll kill ya." Comic and still brutal, Joe Hallenback's raison d'être.

The Jackal - Poor Jack Black, used to test drive the ultimate boy's toy gun... average movie, at best (Gere's 'Irish' accent), but fantastic scene.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

I agree with the guy who said Joe Pesci in Casino. In any other situation, even though he was a bastard, you'd feel bad for the guy. Forced to watch his brother be beaten half to death, then beaten himself, then thrown in a grave and buried alive. However, because of the how great Pesci was, you didn't. You HATED him. At least I did. The primal nature to want to see weak links in your species weeded out was tapped into and I enjoyed watching it. It was gratifying, which scared me. It scared me that the movie was able to make me enjoy watching guys get beaten.

One of my other favorites is Bill Murray in Zombieland. Just funny.

Jason movies always have good ones, like where he zipped the girl up in a sleeping bag and banged her against the tree. Pretty sweet.