Feature
The List: Most Elaborate Deaths
Marjorie Gallagher examines the most interesting, indulgent and impromptu deaths in film - and not a Saw film in sight!
What makes a great death scene? Is it dignity? Realisation? Horror? Those oh so inspiring final, last words? Or perhaps it is just a simple case of blood. Lots and lots of blood. It can be an actor’s greatest moment or a fall from grace. The body count these days is higher than ever before and so death must become even more elaborate. A knife to the chest or a gunshot wound to the head isn’t enough in today’s post-Saw world. So here are our top five most elaborate death scenes, some of which are funny, many of which are bloody and all of which are totally over the top.
The death of the Black Knight - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Whilst rounding up as many of the finest and bravest warriors he can find to take back to Camelot, Arthur King of the Briton’s comes across the Black Knight who refuses his request and instead challenges him to a fight. Arthur cuts off the Knight’s arm which he declares is, “only a scratch!” Then proceeds to cut off each limb one by one until finally he ends up a bloody torso and declares the fight a draw. While probably not the favourite film of the Python oeuvre Holy Grail is still the funniest, most ridiculous and most quotable.
The death of Pnub - Idle Hands
A bit of cult classic since is DVD release, Idle Hands stars 90s heart-throb Devon Sawa as Anton, a young slacker whose right hand becomes possessed. One of his victims is his pal Pnub who he decapitates with a circular saw in one rather accurate and spectacular throw. Pnub stops dead (ha, ha geddit? Dead?!), his head drops to the floor bouncing down some steps before landing at Anton’s feet. Pnub manages an impressed “Cool!” before finally dying.
The death of Keith Jennings - The Omen
A pane of glass usually being huffed by removal men across an otherwise empty street at the most inopportune moment is a set piece usually the reserve of slapstick comedy. But it is neatly upended in one of the most excruciating death scenes ever. In Israel to find a way to stop the Antichrist, Jennings becomes a victim he himself knew was coming. A runaway van crashes, releasing a sheet of glass that comes flying toward the journalist, slicing his head off in one fluid, slooow motion. A first for mainstream Hollywood, it remains, to this day, one of the most gruesome deaths ever committed to celluloid.
The death(s) of Phil Connors - Groundhog Day
After realising he is stuck repeating the same day over and over again, eternal grump Phil Connors tries to kill himself. A lot. He tries: electrocution; stabbing; shooting; walking in front of a van; driving off a cliff and poisoning. All to no avail. So it’s perhaps the most elaborate non-death sequence ever. I wonder how many of those there are?
The death of Vincent Ludwig - The Naked Gun
Frank Drebin has a habit of inadvertently killing people. The total must be somewhere in the hundreds at least. In a cruel twist Vincent Ludwig, the evil mastermind behind the attempted assassination of the Queen, suffers the same fate as Ed’s father. After being hit by a tranquiliser dart (by accident, of course), Ludwig falls over the stadium barrier to the street below, where he is hit by a bus, flattened by a steam roller and then trampled on by a high school marching band. What a way to go.
Marjorie Gallagher