00:00People die in movies all the damn time, and while these deaths can of course be purposefully funny,
00:06it's far more common for them to either try and shock you, as in the horror genre,
00:10or garner a devastated emotional response. Sometimes though, filmmakers don't quite get
00:15the tonal balance right, and the result is a death scene that, while filmed with entire
00:20seriousness, ends up leaving audiences uproariously yucking their guts up.
00:25So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture, and here are unintentionally hilarious movies
00:29deaths.
00:30Royce Garrett, Vertical Limit
00:33The opening sequence to Vertical Limit should be goddamn harrowing, but usually dependable
00:39filmmaker Martin Campbell had a rather strange idea of how to film the death of Peter and
00:44Annie's father, Royce. A freak accident while the trio are climbing leaves Peter forced to
00:50cut his father loose in order to save himself and Annie, a horrifying dilemma that's aptly
00:55conveyed through dread-filled performances from the three actors. Except just as Peter
01:00begins cutting the rope, Campbell bafflingly cuts to a strangely tranquil wide shot of the
01:05surrounding area, complete with a buzzard circling, holding for a moment before Royce's body violently
01:12lands on the ground. The framing and pacing feel wholly inappropriate for a serious scene.
01:17It's a glorified comedy cut that somehow found its way into a supposedly devastating accident sequence.
01:23Considering this piece is the emotional foundation of the entire movie, it puts it on the back heel
01:28from the very beginning. Denethor, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King
01:32The death of Gondor's corrupt steward Denethor in The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King
01:38achieves a beguiling fusion of epicness and accidental hilarity. Driven mad by the apparent
01:44death of his son Faramir, poor Denny vows to burn himself and his not-so-late son on a pyre,
01:50only for Gandalf and Pippin to pull the pair from the flames. Denethor doesn't take kindly to having
01:55his ceremony interrupted though, prompting Gandalf's trusty steed, Shadowfox, to kick him
02:00back into the fire. Denethor gets just long enough to realise Faramir isn't dead before he bursts into
02:06flames and runs off. We then cut to Denethor having inconceivably run all the way out of Gondor Tower,
02:13towards the nearest cliff edge, a considerable distance away, while still on fire, before flinging
02:19himself to his demise. On one hand, it looks cool as hell, but on the other, it's absolutely
02:24ridiculous to picture Denny legging it for a literal hot minute or two before finally getting his end.
02:29Dr. Andrew Fastback, World War Z. World War Z is a zombie film that mostly takes itself very
02:36seriously, and so the basically slapstick-infused demise of one Dr. Andrew Fastback ends up sticking
02:42out like a sore thumb. Virologist Fastback is handed a gun as part of the military convoy in South Korea,
02:48and though our intrepid hero Jerry Lane pointedly warns the good doctor about keeping his finger
02:53off the trigger, lest he means to shoot, he just doesn't listen. Once the zombies attack,
02:59the convoy Fastback books it to the back of the plane, where he slips on the wet cargo ramp,
03:04causing him to accidentally fire the gun straight into his own cranium, killing himself instantly.
03:10While the intent was clearly to demonstrate how blind panic can quickly get someone killed,
03:15the sheer implausibility of such a slip-up causing one's death, combined with Jerry's weirdly
03:20unfussed grumble of, damn it, makes it impossible to take this death scene seriously at all.
03:26Javert, Les Miserables.
03:28In the legendary stage musical Les Miserables, Inspector Javert's suicide is one of its most
03:34unforgettable and tragically devastating moments, as a despondent Javert flings himself into the Seine.
03:40It should have made for a brilliantly operatic moment in the big-screen Hollywood adaptation
03:46then, and it got pretty close, save for one howlingly misguided sound design choice.
03:52Sure, Russell Crowe's singing isn't the most technically proficient, but he's giving everything
03:57he's got to imbue the scene with the requisite sadness. Yet all that effort is categorically undone
04:03once Javert flies through the air and hits the fountain below.
04:06Rather than tastefully keep the visceral sound effects to a minimum, the sound team decided
04:12to accompany the swelling musical score with a cartoonish, bone-crunch sound effect that
04:17would sound more at home in a Mortal Kombat game. You can basically picture the Foley artist
04:22enthusiastically snapping a celery stick in two when Javert collides with the side of the fountain,
04:28which probably wasn't the intent. The joke's evidently on us, though, as it didn't stop Les
04:33Miss from nabbing a Best Sound Mixing Oscar nomination, Marge Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street.
04:39A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the greatest horror films of all time, a near-perfect rendition
04:44of a ferociously original premise, albeit one that makes an unfortunate misstep in literally
04:50its final ten seconds. The ominous closing dream sequence sees protagonist Nancy drive off with her
04:56somehow-still-alive friends, while Nancy's mother, Marge, looks on from the porch.
05:01After a beat, however, we get one final scare. Freddy Krueger's bladed glove smashes through the
05:07front door's window and drags Marge into the house through the tiny window hole. Even though it's
05:13physically impossible for a human being to be pulled through such a small space, it's embarrassingly
05:18obvious we're looking at a very cheap dummy here. The texture of its skin and utterly lifeless
05:24movements failing to cohere with the frantic physicality of Ronnie Blakely's performance in
05:28the shot prior. In fairness to director Wes Craven, his original ending had no sequel-baiting twist
05:34whatsoever, but he was encouraged to shoot this ending by New Line cinema boss Bob Shea,
05:40and shortly before his death admitted that he regretted ever agreeing to it, and you can kinda
05:45see why.
05:46Mufasa, The Lion King, 2019
05:49This one really hurts, given that Mufasa's death in the original animated version of The
05:54Lion King is basically tattooed on the retinas of an entire generation, serving as one of the most
06:00traumatic and brilliantly executed death scenes in cinema history. It was the scene Jon Favreau
06:06needed to get right for his live-action remake, and it's the one that he categorically whiffed due to
06:12the awkwardness of the technology involved. Objectively, the visual renditions of the central characters are
06:17mind-bogglingly impressive as photorealistic recreations of real animals, but something
06:23vitally important is also lost in the quest for realism. Soul and expressiveness. The Disney animation
06:30wasn't ever trying to be realistic, and so taking characters who look exactly like actual animals and
06:37slapping human voices on their largely blank, expression-devoid faces causes a fundamental
06:42disconnect with the viewer. And this is never more brutally felt than when Scar swipes Mufasa
06:48to his death, at which point Mufasa lets out a distinctly human scream that feels wholly at
06:54odds with his very animalistic dying expression. Couple this with the same rather silly-looking
06:59slow-mo, and you've got the recipe for ruining an iconic death scene.
07:03Paolo, The First Omen
07:05The First Omen is a surprisingly robust horror prequel, though there is a single scene that induces
07:11inadvertent chuckles when a man Margaret met, Paolo, is hit by a truck out of nowhere.
07:17Paolo is left pinned against a truck as Margaret desperately attempts to help him, seemingly
07:22pulling him free. Except a moment later, we hear screams from the crowd watching, and
07:27cut to a wide shot of the scene, where we see that Margaret is only holding Paolo's bisected
07:31upper half. The wide shot looks like something you'd see in a parody film than a serious horror
07:37movie, and it's made further ridiculous by the fact that Margaret somehow didn't realise
07:41that Paolo, well, half of him, weighed suspiciously little.
07:45Nell Tiger 3 basically saves the scene by acting her heart out, but it's an incredibly
07:51silly part of an otherwise exceptionally well-crafted piece of work.
07:55André Sator, Tenet
07:56There's no denying that the death of Tenet's villain, André Sator, is supposed to be a
08:01satisfying, fist-pumping moment for the audience. But it probably wasn't meant to be quite
08:06so funny. In the climax, Sator's estranged wife, Kat, shoots him in the chest, after which
08:12she wheelbarrows his corpse over the edge of the boat. And here's where the funny part happens.
08:17As Sator's head makes brutal contact with the side of the boat, the musical score suddenly
08:22cuts out for a brief moment as we witness Sator's body flop into the water. Only once it makes
08:28contact does the score resume, with a sense of timing that can only really be described as comical.
08:33Not since the propeller guy in Titanic has blunt force trauma elicited quite such uproar as laughs.
08:39For, despite being one of Tenet's most important dramatic moments, Christopher Nolan inadvertently
08:44made it something you're more likely to guffaw at.
08:47Tyg McCabe – The Field
08:49Jim Sheridan's otherwise very good 1990 drama The Field climaxes with one of the most
08:54misguidedly daft death scenes ever inserted into a deadly serious, even awards-baiting movie.
09:01In the climax, Father Bull McCabe herds his cattle to the cliffs in a fit of insanity. And as his
09:07son Tyg tries to stop the herd, he ends up being hurled over the cliff edge by the cattle.
09:12Even if you can forgive that Tyg clearly graduated from the Prometheus school of running away from
09:17things and the awkwardly serene music, the shot selections are just overwhelmingly goofy.
09:23From the slow-mo imagery of Tyg flying backwards, to the POV shot of him spinning through the air,
09:29and the ludicrous visage of cattle yeeting themselves off the cliff.
09:32To modern audiences in particular, it comes off as hilariously histrionic, and couldn't
09:38feel more out of place in a bleak, otherwise awards-friendly drama.
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