5 Movie Death Scenes and Why We Remember Them

What makes a death scene in a movie memorable? Hard to say when we’ve seen it all from sensational shoot-outs to psychos wielding knives and chainsaws and it’s all gotten to be fairly predictable. We’re so used to seeing people die in movies and TV that we barely blink an eye when a movie or television character gets knocked off these days and there really aren’t that many where we have much sympathy for the deceased.

Screenwriters and directors don’t have an easy task trying to come up with ways to kill off characters that people will even remember. Just about every possible theme has been used and reused, from mercy killing to senseless random death, but some have managed to put a different twist on a familiar theme and incorporate some detail that at least merits notice if not sympathy. (There are spoilers below, of course, but they’re not in the videos.)

Scarface (1983) – Possessiveness. Just about everybody dies in Scarface. Tony Montana’s last stand and last words: “Say hello to my little friend” continue to be a sensational “go out in a blaze of glory” death scene, but what about Tony Montana’s best friend and sidekick, Manolo “Manny” Ribera? Shoot first, ask questions later. That’s how it goes down when a coked up Tony chases down the man his mother tells him is shacked up with sister, Gina. Only they weren’t shacked up, they just got married, as a tearful Gina tells her brother before being hustled off to his mansion. There, a half-crazed and half-naked Gina wanders in and confronts Tony over his insane possessiveness, which she perceives as incestuous. She intends to kill Tony while he is busy snorting enough cocaine to deal with Sosa’s men. But the assassins have already infiltrated the grounds and ruthlessly kill Gina. The sister plot was taken straight from the original Scarface (1932). Ann Dvorak played Francesca “Cesca” Camonte who married Guino (George Raft), the henchman of her Al Capone-like-brother, Tony Camonte. Whether incestuous desire or an insane need to have one woman on a pedestal untouched by the brutal world the Tonys lived in, Gina/Cesca would not have been at the final showdown if not for uncontrollable possessiveness.

Sympathy Factor: Low for either Tony or his thugs, Guino and Manolo because they would presumably die violently anyway. High for Gina and Cesca. Some people felt Tony would not have murdered the sister’s husband if he knew they’d gotten married so she would have lived.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986) – Accidental. Steve Martin’s portrayal of crazy, abusive dentist Orin “I am your dentist” Scrivello is a highlight of this 1986 musical and so is his death. Rick Moranis plays love-struck nerdy floral assistant Seymour Krelbourn. He works with and loves Scrivello’s ditsy girlfriend, Audrey (Ellen Greene). Audrey’s self-esteem issues prevent her from choosing Seymour over Orin: “I know Seymour’s the greatest, but I’m dating a semi-sadist.” Seymour works up the nerve to kill Orin Scrivello not just because his instigating giant Venus flytrap plant, Audrey II (voice of Levi Stubbs) needs human blood to survive, but also because he agrees with the plant’s hypothesis: “some folks deserve to die.” But just as Seymour takes out a gun and aims it at the nutty dentist, Scrivello gets tangled up with his laughing gas mask and asphyxiates. Seymour didn’t kill him but he does chop Orin up and feed him to Audrey II.

Sympathy factor: So low. Scrivello was a comical loony caricature. Even his sadism in the dental office was laughable, especially when Bill Murray appeared as a masochistic patient. But his physical abuse of Audrey made us agree with the plant.

Fargo (1996) – Stupidity: Speaking of getting chopped up, it was no accident when Steve Buscemi ended up in the woodchipper in this dark comedy. Buscemi sure gets himself killed off in a lot of movies and even on TV. Usually, he gets shot. In Fargo, he plays bungling kidnapper Carl Showalter, who has teamed up with psycho boy, Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), to pull off a ransom demand being made to the wealthy father of the victim. They were hired by the victim’s husband and everything just goes wrong for all three, while the very pregnant but unflappable detective, Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) tracks them down. Carl has little patience with his close-mouthed big ox partner-in-crime, whom he obviously didn’t vet very well. Perhaps he might not have ended up in the wood chipper with his socks still on if he picked a smaller partner who wasn’t so handy with an axe. Ya.

Sympathy Factor: None. Nobody likes a stupid crook.