| Film Title |
Description |
Example |
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
|
The disturbing deaths of
two crew members who were trapped in a malfunctioning transporter
beam on the newly refitted and redesigned USS Enterprise - their bodies slowly deformed into misshapen lumps; an anguished
female screamed before materializing (gratefully) off-camera at
the remote transport location; a jolt of horror occurred soon after
when a shaken crew member informed newly-promoted Admiral James Kirk (William Shatner):
"Enterprise, what we got back didn't live long, fortunately"
|
|
Zombie (1979) (aka Zombi 2)
|
This Lucio Fulci film had one of the most gruesome eye gouging or 'splinter-into-the-eye'
death sequences ever filmed, in which Paolo Menard (Olga Karlatos) was hiding behind a door to avoid an undead, marauding
flesh-eating zombie from attacking; when her bedroom door was broken down, he
grabbed her by the hair and slowly dragged her right eyeball into a shard of wood
sticking out; after her death, she was eaten by zombies; a similar scene appeared in Fulci's The Beyond (1981) |
|
Dressed to Kill (1980)
|
The elevator murder of
Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) by an unknown, knife-wielding blonde
woman
|
|
The Elephant Man (1980)
|
The deformed title character
John Merrick's (John Hurt) stretching out for peaceful, suicidal
death in sleep (his normal position for sleeping was sitting up
- lying down would prove fatal), followed by a montage of his spirit
passing into eternity, accompanied by Samuel Barber's haunting "Adagio
for Strings" |
|
Friday the 13th (1980)
|
One of the many death
scenes in this film and in the multiple sequels: Camp Crystal Lake camp counselor Jack Burrell (Kevin
Bacon) had just made love to fellow counselor Marcie Cunningham (Jeannine Taylor) - when she went to 'go pee,' and he was lying on a lower bunk bed smoking a cigarette, he was grabbed and stabbed by a sharp pointed arrow in the
throat from UNDER the mattress; also the death scene in the finale of vindictive schizophrenic mother Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) when decapitated by sole-surviving camp counselor Alice (Adrienne King) wielding a machete |
|
Heaven's Gate (1980)
|
The fiery death scene of mercenary Nathan Champion (Christopher Walken) outside his wall-papered frontier cabin by the hired killers of evil cattlemen association leader Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) - with his hasty writing of a farewell note to his friends knowing that he would die; also later, the surprising shock ambush killings of both John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges) and young bordello madam Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert) wearing a beautiful white dress; Sheriff Jim Averill's (Kris Kristofferson) lost love died in his arms |
|
9 to 5 (1980)
|
The three uniquely-creative
dream-fantasy murders of their chauvinistic boss Franklin Hart (Dabney
Coleman) by three female office workers (Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton,
and Jane Fonda) after they smoked a joint: by a Wild West shoot-out,
by a rodeo hog-tying and spit-roasting, and by a Snow White poisoning |
|
The Shining (1980)
# 39 
|
Jack Torrance's (Jack
Nicholson) sudden fire-axe (to the stomach) ambush murder of Dick
Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) in the lobby of the deserted Overlook Hotel |
|
The Shining (1980)
|
The frightening vision
in the hotel corridor of the murdered twin girls, and Jack's (Jack
Nicholson) frozen death in the hedge maze at the conclusion |
|
The Beyond (1981) (aka E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore - L'Aldilà, or You Will Live in Terror)
|
Director Lucio Fulci's graphic horror film featured a horrific scene in which zombie Joe (Giovanni De Nava) pushed Martha (Veronica Lazar) headfirst into the blunt end of a nail, causing her eyeball to entirely pop out of its socket; two years earlier, Fulci's film Zombie (1979) featured a similarly gruesome eye-gouging death sequence, making Fulci "the king of ocular mayhem" |
|
Cannibal Ferox (1981) (aka Make Them Die Slowly)
|
The torturous death scene in this Italian exploitation 'cannibal' film of female victim Pat (Zora Kerova), who was impaled by iron hooks through both breasts and then suspended by ropes attached to the hooks to die in the Amazon jungle sun |
|
Excalibur (1981)
|
The bloody, climactic
mutual impaling scene, in which King Arthur (Nigel Terry) was stabbed
by a spear wielded by his son Mordred (Robert Addie), who snarled
at his father: "Come father, let us embrace"; Arthur
slid on the spear towards his son, and stabbed him in return with
his magic sword Excalibur
|
|
Gallipoli (1981)
|
The freeze-frame shot
of Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) as he was shot by Turkish machine guns
on the Anzac battlefield in 1915 in an ill-fated attack at film's
end |
|
are
the films that "The Greatest Films" site 
Introduction: Deaths in film scenes can be either cool, teary, metaphoric, grisly,
scary, bloody, amusing, violent, transcendental, unforgettable, spectacular,
frightening, funny, or shocking. The victim's death may be well-deserved,
accidental, expected, sudden, or intentional. Some effective death scenes
even occur off-screen. Other
areas of this website have death scenes also, such as 
