Best Film
Deaths Scenes

1987


Greatest Movie Death Scenes
Title Screen
Film Title/Year and Description
Screenshots

Fatal Attraction (1987)

In the conclusion of Adrian Lyne's popular thriller, scorned, obsessed and psychotic Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) wielded a large kitchen knife as she assaulted spurned wife Beth (Anne Archer) in the Gallagher upstairs bathroom.

Alex's former lover and cheating husband Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) heard her screams from downstairs and came to his wife's rescue. He found himself in a fierce fight for his life when he charged at her, pushed her into a mirror (breaking it), and was slashed with the knife in the chest when she struck back. He wrestled and grabbed her and attempted to strangle her and drown her in his home's bathtub. He let go of her neck after she stopped struggling under the water and appeared limp.

The camera drew back slowly from her face and she seemed to have died, and Dan turned away to wipe his face and catch his breath. In the surprise, shock ending, she suddenly and explosively emerged from the bathtub with a deep breath - and charged at Dan to stab him.

He was saved by his wife Beth who was in the doorway and shot her in the middle of the chest. Alex slid down the tiled bathroom wall, leaving blood stains behind.

Alex's 'Return From the Dead' During the Bathroom Brawl



Alex Believed Drowned by Dan Gallagher

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

# 32

Director Stanley Kubrick's epic story of the Vietnam War began with the dehumanizing effects of Marine Corps boot camp on a group of trainees.

Tormented, overweight, misfit and psychopathic Marine Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio) showed signs of intense strain during boot camp training, leading to his inevitable bloody and suicidal death.

In the middle of the night, he was ranting about his rifle in the bathroom, while rehearsing one of his training routines:

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend.

The boot camp's brutal, foul-mouthed and demanding Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) heard the commotion and rushed in, asking Private "Joker" J.T. Davis (Matthew Modine) on duty:

"What is this Mickey Mouse s--t? What in the name of Jesus H. Christ are you animals doing in my head? Why is Private Pyle out of his bunk after lights out? Why is Private Pyle holding that weapon? Why aren't you stomping Private Pyle's guts out?"

"Joker" replied that the gun's magazine was fully "locked and loaded."

Hartman demanded that Pyle surrender his rifle and then insulted him when he didn't comply:

I want that weapon and I want it now. You will place that rifle on the deck at your feet and step back away from it.(yelling) What is your major malfunction, numb-nuts? Didn't Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?

Holding his rifle at waist level, Pyle murdered Hartman (filmed in slow-motion) by blasting him in the chest at close range.

Pyle's Suicide

He then backed up, dropped down on one of the bathroom toilets, put the gun to his mouth, and suicidally pulled the trigger. He blew his head off, splattering the wall behind him with his brains and blood. The bloody death scene slowly faded to black.





Pyle Shooting Gunnery Sgt. Hartman

Hellraiser (1987)

Writer/director Clive Barker's series of Hellraiser horror films began with this one (followed by numerous sequels) - about the resurrection of a man from a hellish purgatory. When blood dripped from the nail-cut hand of Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson) into the wooden attic floorboards of his London house, his sexually-depraved, pleasure-seeking pervert and estranged brother Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman), who used to live in the house, was hideously resurrected.

Larry had moved into the abandoned house with his new British-born wife Julia (Clare Higgins) and his teenaged daughter Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) from a previous marriage - Frank's own niece. Kirsty hated her step-mother Julia.


Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson)

Julia Cotton (Clare Higgins)

Frank Cotton - Julia's Former Lover (in Flashback)

Kirsty (Ashley Laurence)

Afterwards, Frank was beginning to reconstitute or regenerate his half-composed undead body. He used Julia (who once had a tempestuous and kinky adulterous affair with Frank, and would continue to be promiscuous) to entice men to the home, where Frank would suck out their organs and feast on the flesh of many victims, to more fully regenerate. Larry was one of his victims, who was both skinned and murdered.

Kirsty stumbled upon the truth of what was happening, found a magical, small metal puzzle box, raised ghastly, sadistic, supernatural denizens of Hell known as Cenobites (Frank's former captors, led by Pinhead), and led them to Frank's location, as part of a deal in exchange for saving her own soul. Frank (disguised as Kirsty's father Larry) confessed to killing Frank, when Kirsty suddenly realized that her father was actually Frank's latest victim and that her uncle was walking around in his brother's facial skin.

When Frank discovered that Kirsty had set him up and betrayed him to the Cenobites, he exclaimed: "You set me up, you bitch!" He vengefully approached Kirsty to stab her, but then his hand was literally snared by a metal hook attached to a chain. Then, his entire body was stretched out and impaled, in a crucifixion pose, by a network of dozens of hooks and chains ripping into his flesh.

Masochistically savoring the pain in the gory sequence, Frank knew he was facing death and eternal damnation in an alternate universe. He looked lustfully at Kirsty one last time (licking his lips), said (infamously): "Jesus wept," giggled to himself, and then was pulled apart and torn to shreds.


Frank to Kirsty: "You set me up, bitch!"





Frank's Gory Destruction

House of Games (1987)

In the unnerving, unexpected twist ending of this hoax film thriller from David Mamet (in his directorial debut film) about a confidence game racket, the used and betrayed best-selling author and psychiatrist Dr. Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) resorted to viciously murdering self-admitted, slick-talking con-man 'guide' Mike (Joe Mantegna).

In a deserted section of an airport baggage terminal, the swindled Margaret pulled a gun on Mike, but he didn't believe that she would shoot him with his back turned: "You can't bluff someone who's not paying attention." She shot him in the right leg, to which he responded: "Are you nuts? What are you nuts?" As he edged his way to an exit door, she ordered that he beg for his life: "I want you to beg me."

He claimed she was only bluffing:

"You're all bluff. What - are you gonna kill me and then go to jail? Give up all that good s--t that you have? Your best seller? That doctor stuff? All that stuff you're trying so hard to protect? You're gonna give that up?"

Her response was: "It's not my pistol. I was never here," before firing a second time. She was deadly serious: "Beg for your life, or I'm going to kill you," as he slid wounded to the floor. She added: "I can't help it. I'm out of control....Beg me for your life."

He ranted and raved at her with foul language, as she slowly approached with her gun drawn:

Hey, F--K you! This is what you always wanted, you crooked BITCH! You THIEF! You always need to get caught, cuz you KNOW you're bad. I never hurt anybody. I never shot anybody. You sought this out. This is what you always wanted. I knew it the FIRST time you came in. You're WORTHLESS, you know it? You're a WHORE! You came back like a DOG to its own VOMIT! You sick BITCH! I'm not gonna GIVE you S--T!

She remorselessly peppered him with another gunshot (her third) when he refused. He finally requested:

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

Three more gunshots echoed as she killed him in cold-blood.

In the ending, it was revealed that she had fallen into the addictive lure of being a con artist herself.


Dr. Margaret Ford


Con-Man Mike

"Thank you. May I have another?"

Innerspace (1987)

Director Joe Dante's science-fiction comedy (and Oscar winner for Best Visual Effects) featured a plot reminiscent of the classic Fantastic Voyage (1966).

Naval aviator Lt. Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) was miniatured to microscopic proportions, and was to be injected into a laboratory rabbit for a ground-breaking, top-secret exploratory medical journey, while navigating in a submersible pod. Accidentally, however, the daring but irresponsible Pendleton was injected into the body of insecure, unsuspecting, hypochondriacal Safeway clerk/manager Jack Putter (Martin Short) (Tuck: "I'm in a man!" while Putter exclaimed: "I'm possessed!").

During the action, criminal mastermind Victor Scrimshaw's (Kevin McCarthy) sinister, robotic-armed villain-henchman Mr. Igoe (Vernon Wells) was given the task of capturing Jack and obtaining part of the miniaturization technology within Tuck's pod. To accomplish his objective, Mr. Igoe was also miniaturized and injected into Jack's body.

Lt. Tuck Pendleton struggled with Mr. Igoe after he attacked in his own pod, but then after Igoe's pod was disabled, he ejected himself and continued to assault Tuck. They soon found themselves clinging to the top of Jack's stomach wall, where Mr. Igoe attempted to drill into the cockpit windshield of Tuck's submersible craft-capsule. Tuck growled as he was about to dump Igoe into Putter's caustic stomach acid:

"Okay, pal. Here's how I spell relief!"

Tuck's pod protected him from the corrosive liquid but there was a memorable, bizarre death scene for Mr. Igoe. The unshielded villain was disintegrated by the corrosive digestive enzymes into nothing more than a skeleton. A nauseated Tuck informed Jack after seeing Igoe's skeletal remains:

Jack. It worked. You just digested the bad guy.

Jack burped in response.


Lt. Tuck Pendleton Navigating in Pod

Mr. Igoe

Igoe Disintegrated by Stomach Enzymes

The Lost Boys (1987)

In director Joel Schumacher's teen horror film, evil Lost Boy teenaged vampire Dwayne (Billy Wirth) escaped death when Sam Emerson (Corey Haim) first tried to kill him by shooting him with an arrow - and missed.

Dwayne taunted: "You missed, sucker!"

Sam responded: "Only once, pal" and tried again with a second arrow that hit Dwayne in the heart and propelled him backwards.

It staked him into a stereo system that exploded in a shower of electrical sparks, electrocuted him, and caused him to explode.

His death was accompanied by the tune of "Good Times" (by InXs), after which Sam gleefully commented - with the film's most famous line of dialogue:

Death by stereo!



Lost Boy Vampire Dwayne vs. Sam Emerson

Dwayne Shot With Second Arrow

Dwayne's Death
"by Stereo!"

Nekromantik (1987, W. Germ.)

Director Jorg Buttgereit's first-time feature was a low-budget, cultish, gross-out, depraved and controversial German horror film. It started with a quote from V.L. Compton: "What lives that does not live from the death of someone else?" It also came with a disclaimer-warning in its opening frames for its many taboo-breaking sequences:


WARNING: Some of This Film May Be Seen As
"Grossly" Offensive and Should Not Be Shown to Minors!!!

It was reviled and banned in many countries for its depiction of necrophilia and other graphic activities and perversions - urination, bathing in bloody water, an autopsy, sex with corpses, rabbit cruelty (killing and skinning), cat disembowelment, graveyard sex, and decapitation by a shovel.

It told of the morbid preoccupation of a couple with corpses, helped by the fact that suicidal and manic-depressive accident clean-up crew member Robert "Rob" Schmadtke (Daktari Lorenz) would bring dead artifacts home.

The film opened with the aftermath of a horrific car accident, being cleaned up by Rob, employed by Joe's Cleaning Agency (JSA) - notable for its symbol of a pentagram surrounding a skull and crossbones (Totenkopf) on the company's truck/van. There were views of the bloodied, deceased victims (in and outside the vehicle). After work, Rob returned to his apartment where he kept a collection of preserved remains in various jars filled with formaldehyde. He added to his assortment of human parts gathered from his day's work, stored on a multi-shelved rack.

Cleaning Up After a Horrific and Gruesome Car Accident
Car Crash Victims
Fascist-themed Company

His girlfriend Betty (Beatrice Manowski) enjoyed bathing in bloody water, while Rob watched a televised interview with a psychiatrist speaking about phobias, including arachnophobia. Rob often had grotesque dreams/fantasies (one was of the slaughter of his childhood pet - a rabbit when he was a boy).

In the next sequence, an unnamed apple-picker/gardener (Harald Weis) was accidentally shot in the neck and killed by his neighbor (Volker Hauptvogel) (who was aiming at birds), who then hid the body to avoid incrimination by depositing it in a pond. In his job duties, Rob was able to make off with the rotting cadaver and brought it home to Betty - and they fondled it lovingly.

During a threesome, Betty also found pleasure in making love to a rotting and decomposed cadaver with a sawed-off piece of a broom handle (outfitted with a condom) stuck in its groin as a makeshift penis. After the menage a trois sequence, Betty pounded a raw steak before frying it in a pan, for a meal served with a blood-red liquid. The decomposing body also served as a "toy" or wall decoration in their apartment (next to a centerfold) - plates were set under the corpse to catch dripping fluids. The next day, Betty performed cunnilingus upon herself with the corpse's head.

Everything took a downturn when Rob was fired from his job and Betty fled (with the corpse). To reach new heights of degradation, Rob angrily resorted to:

  • committing animal torture, mutilation and the brutal killing of his own cat (and submerging himself under the dead animal in his bathtub while bathing in bloody water from its innards)
  • watching a misogynistic, cheap teen slasher horror movie in a theatre with other unemotional patrons
  • suicidal drug use and excessive alcohol consumption
  • and a dream sequence of his own partial decomposition inside a garbage bag
Mutilation of His Own Cat
'Film Within a Film' - Slasher Horror
Dream: Rotting Away in a Garbage Bag

After tossing a decapitated head and some entrails back and forth with a woman dressed in white, Rob enjoyed kinky graveyard copulation with a prostitute (atop a tombstone), but failed due to impotence. When she mocked and laughed at him for his sexual dysfunction, he strangled her and had sex with her corpse. The next morning, he also murdered an elderly man in the graveyard by chopping his head off with a shovel.

In the film's final socially-isolated sequence, Robert simultaneously masturbated and committed disembowelment (hari-kiri) with a knife - culminating in an orgasmic semen-blood mixed expiration, a sexualized suicide. It was intercut with a reverse-motion ungutting of the rabbit from his previous dream.

Robert's Simultaneous Masturbation (Semen and Blood) and
Disembowelment Suicide

The last shot - ending in a freeze frame - was his grave plot (marked with a wooden cross bearing his name) being dug up by an unidentified woman (wearing stockings and high heels) - had Betty returned for his dead body to perform more necrophilia?


Human Body Parts Preserved in Rob's Glass Jars

Betty Bathing in Bloody Water

Rob's Daydream: Rabbit Cruelty

Video of Autopsy

Rotting Cadaver of Gardener Found in Pond






Betty's and Rob's Necrophilia with Cadaver

Corpse Hung on Wall As Decoration, Next to Centerfold

Betty Engaging in Oral Sex with Corpse's Head


Dead Prostitute in Graveyard

Decapitated Elderly Man in Graveyard

Greatest Movie Death Scenes
(chronological by film title)
Intro | 1915-1929 | 1930-1933 | 1934-1938 | 1939 | 1940-1942 | 1943-1945 | 1946-1947 | 1948-1949
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