10 Top Macabre Movie Mutilations

The best and brightest have created some spectacular science fiction, creating fantastic worlds, faster than light travel and even entire galaxies, populated by weird and wonderful alien life forms. However, those same creative talents have also given us some peculiar ways to perish. We look at some of the most imaginative ways to meet our end...

Robocop (1987)

Victim: Emil (played by Paul McCrae)

Scene: during a perilous car chase through an abandoned steel mill, Robocop craftily sidesteps Emil’s attempt to ram him with his speeding van. Instead Emil drives straight into a giant metal vat, emerging a few minutes later in a somewhat disturbing state

Cause of death: slowly dissolving after being drenched in toxic waste

Coroner’s report: Clearly the toxic waste weakened the molecular bonding throughout Emil’s body as we see when he “splashes” all over the windscreen of crime boss Clarence Boddicker’s speeding car: a blessing really

Time taken to die: approx 3 ½ minutes

Agony rating: 5

Alien (1979)

Victim: Kane (played by John Hurt)

Scene: the crew of the Nostromo are enjoying one last dinner – after a troublesome experience on an alien planet – before entering cryogenic hibernation for the trip back to Earth

Cause of death: a particularly pesky alien fetus rips through your major organs and burst out of your chest a day or so after the embryo is unceremoniously ejaculated down your throat

Coroner’s report: as the fetus is ready to be “born” it starts tearing at your organs to be able to get out, and that’s got to hurt

Time taken to die: approx 20 seconds

Agony rating: 8

Starship Troopers (1997)

Victim: Zander Barcalow (played by Patrick Muldoon)

Scene: having crash-landed into a cave on Planet P, the wounded Zander and Carmen Ibanez inadvertently face off against the giant “brain bug”

Cause of death: having your brains sucked out just like when you slurp on a thick milkshake

Coroner’s report: the enormous alien limb that’s rammed into his head doesn’t penetrate at a point to cause actual death – that results from his brains being sucked out

Time taken to die: approx 8 seconds

Agony rating: 5

The Thing (1982)

Victim: everybody? Well, we don’t know for sure…

Scene: throughout the movie, the alien parasite uses stealth to attack and “become” the victim in order to slowly and strategically take over

Cause of death: being utterly absorbed or digested by an alien life form

Coroner’s report: since the creature seems to inherit memory and basic characteristics from the victim in order to camouflage itself more effectively, complete osmosis seems to take place at a genetic level

Time taken to die: unknown

Agony rating: 6

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Victim: Gestapo agent Toht (played by Ronald Lacey)

Scene: the Ark of the Covenant is finally opened to see if the broken tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed are inside

Cause of death: being melted by the power of God

Coroner’s report: rapid though it may be, it looks like the liquefying progresses inward as opposed to an all-at-once process, so death is far from instantaneous; the flesh and eyes would melt first and the skull itself would take a little longer

Time taken to die: up to 10 seconds

Agony rating: 6 ½

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Victim: Commander Sonak (played by Jon Rashad Kamal) and token assistant

Scene: two crew members are beamed aboard the Enterprise from Starfleet HQ not knowing the transporters aren’t fully functional yet as a result of her ongoing overhaul

Cause of death: not being able to reform properly after having every component molecule in their bodies scrambled and sent up to orbit and then back down to Earth again

Coroner’s report: during the attempt to save them, the unfortunate Starfleet officers begin to physically form, thus they are actually conscious of being pulled apart at a sub-atomic level

Time taken to die: around 10 seconds

Agony rating: 7

The Black Hole (1979)

Victim: Dr Alex Durant (played by Anthony Perkins)

Scene: the crew of the USS Palomino try to discreetly explain to Dr Durant that Hans Reinhardt is a complete loon, but the psychotic robot Maximilian is on to them and promptly dispatches the good doctor with menacing mastery

Cause of death: having a spinning 18in “blender” blade mince your abdomen

Coroner’s report: Disney has a dark side, who’d have thought. The anticipation of just about to be minced probably doesn’t help, and the mess would just go everywhere

Time taken to die: approx 5 seconds

Agony rating: 8

Total Recall (1990)

Victim: Vilos Cohaagen (played by Ronny Cox)

Scene: a desperate, last-ditch struggle over the “on” switch for the alien reactor has resulted in an explosion causing sudden explosive decompression in the control chamber

Cause of death: blown out and exposed to the surface of Mars sans environment suit

Coroner’s report: rapid decompression and exposure to a vacuum causes hypoxia, convulsions and fibrillation of the heart, however, loss of consciousness usually occurs after 15 seconds or so

Time taken to die: 90 seconds

Agony rating: 6

The Hitcher (1986)

Victim: Nash (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh)

Scene: psychotic John Ryder breaks into a motel room and kidnaps Nash, dragging her to a truck stop parking lot. He ties her between a Mack truck and its trailer and commandeers the truck’s cab, revving the engine

Cause of death: being tied hand and foot then slowly pulled apart

Coroner’s report: chances are the resulting effect would be having your arms and legs ripped off, rather than actually being torn in two, leaving the victim bleeding to death

Time taken to die: a few minutes

Agony rating: 9

Star Wars: Episode V – Return of the Jedi (1983)

Victim: seven of Jabba the Hutt’s henchmen and Boba Fett (played by Jeremy Bulloch)

Scene: Han, Luke and Chewbacca are only seconds away from ceremonial sacrifice by the galactic gangster by being thrown into the Great Pit of Carkoon

Cause of death: being swallowed whole by the sand pit-dwelling Sarlacc monster

Coroner’s report: victims are reportedly kept alive once inside the creature’s stomach so that they may be digested over 1,000 years, so death by dissolving would probably take second place to eventual starvation

Time taken to die: quite a few years

Agony rating: 10