Five of the Strangest Deaths in Slasher Movies
We love a good movie death, here at Paste. That goes doubly for horror movie deaths, and … triply? … for slasher movie deaths, given that the slasher is the niche of the horror genre most overwhelmingly defined by the depiction of death itself. One can theoretically have other styles of horror flicks without actual deaths occurring–all you really need is something to be frightened by. But slasher films? I’m not sure that a deathless one is possible, with the possible, clever exception of something like 1986’s April Fool’s Day.
And with so much death, a lot of those individual demises can become rather rote. People get stabbed, people get shot, people get strangled, impaled and blown up in a variety of locales until it all begins to blur together into a vague, blood-slicked splatter zone in one’s memory. That’s why I’d like to particularly highlight some truly oddball, off-kilter deaths from the genre’s history; the sort of deaths that are so striking or weird in various respects that you’re not likely to ever forget them. Some are from films considered under-the-radar classics; others are selections I’ve cultivated from pure trash, but are nevertheless fascinating on their own.
Of note: I made sure that none of the following deaths already appeared on our list of the 50 best movie deaths of all time, so by all means go check that out. Also clearly relevant here is our list of the 50 best slasher films of all time, which is a great place to start in any appreciation of this subgenre.
Now, let’s get to some unusual demises, presented in chronological order.
1. Hand down the throat — Just Before Dawn, 1981
Director: Jeff Lieberman
Just Before Dawn is a golden age slasher too often overlooked by horror geeks, one that is quite conventional in structure and in most of its kills, but unique all the same thanks to its use of startlingly beautiful forest backdrops courtesy of Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park. If you set this story of foolish campers blundering into the path of a pair of psychotic backwoods twins in a more conventional locale, it wouldn’t be nearly as memorable, but the sheer eeriness of the woods, waterfalls and natural splendor make it a minor classic, and a prominent entry on our list of wilderness horror movies.
The actual death in question happens in the final moments of Just Before Dawn, as final girl Constance is attacked by one of the surviving twins who are the film’s equally strange killers. Seemingly acting purely on instinct, she pushes him off her and then proceeds to shove her entire arm down his throat, up to the elbow. The hulking (and understandably surprised) killer thrashes on the ground and attempts to break free, making hideous squealing noises, but when someone has hold of your guts from the inside, this is perhaps easier said than done, and he dies via asphyxiation. It’s such an incredibly unexpected way to knock off the killer of your slasher movie: Never is there an inkling in Just Before Dawn that Constance would be capable of this, nor does it connect to any particular thematic significance in the film. It’s just as incredibly gruesome and uncomfortable as it is physically impossible … and perhaps one of the only times you’ll see a final girl triumph over a gigantic killer by straight-up overpowering him. Her shell-shocked and wounded boyfriend simply looks on in horror as she finishes the deed. Not a single additional word of dialogue is spoken in the next few minutes before the credits roll, like even the film is shocked by what just transpired.
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2. Flying car hood elbow drop – Home Sweet Home, 1981
Director: Nettie Peña
Home Sweet Home is a deeply incompetent golden age slasher from the middle of the “ripping off Halloween and Friday the 13th with horror movies set on holidays” era, mostly notable today for the fact that it’s one of the only vintage slashers set on Thanksgiving, along with 1987’s Blood Rage. That, and detail that its massive, PCP-infused killer is played by Jake “Body by Jake” Steinfeld, ‘80s fitness icon and uncle to Sinners star Hailee. The film is mostly a snooze, despite some unintentional humor–particularly the presence of a KISS-styled guitarist character whose name is literally “Mistake.” Far too much of it involves the running of errands and car trouble during said errands, but that’s where this hilariously odd kill occurs.
The thing that makes this death so great is its extreme abruptness. Our poor rube is the latest person in Home Sweet Home to experience car trouble, so he’s poring over the engine with the hood raised when Steinfeld’s psychotic killer suddenly comes soaring in from out of frame to land on top of the hoop with a flying elbow drop, crunching the helpless victim underneath. It’s not that the act of smashing a car hood down on someone is that strange for a slasher movie; it’s the way the shot is composed with Steinfeld launching himself like a lawn dart that makes it so unexpectedly side-splitting. It’s the last thing you expect such a massive man to do, particularly after silently creeping up on a victim. An inadvertent piece of slasher high comedy.
3. A car wash assassin – Edge of the Axe, 1988
Director: José Ramón Larraz
Sometimes it’s less the manner of the kill, and more a matter of a very unusual setting. Edge of the Axe is a distinctly kooky slasher thanks to its origin in Spain–this is effectively the domestic Spanish horror industry’s attempt to make an Americanized slasher film, in the English language, but this simultaneously conveys a strain of surreality to the proceedings. The techno-centric plot is also quite unusual for the genre; did you know that there was a slasher film revolving around a very early version of the commercial internet in 1988? Take that, The Net, although it’s by no means the first computerized horror movie, not with stuff like Evilspeak around.
As for the kill, it has less than zero relevancy to the actual plot or themes of Edge of the Axe, which only makes me love it that much more. It’s actually how the film opens, in fact: An unknown woman is going through an automated car wash in her vehicle when a strikingly masked killer suddenly emerges from nowhere and smashes the titular axe through the front window, killing her. Blood and soap suds fill the car as the wash continues on, uninterrupted. It’s not the most gruesome of deaths, but it’s extremely surreal. Why a car wash, of all places? What does this have to do with anything? It’s just one of the little eccentricities of Edge of the Axe. The film is still obscure even in most horror cultist circles, but that hasn’t stopped some particularly deranged individuals from doing things like recreating this death scene within Grand Theft Auto 5. Do not ask me why someone would take the time to do this.
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4. A deadly Power Glove – Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, 1991
Director: Rachel Talalay
The operative word in the title of this list was “strangest,” which implies not only objectively great deaths but also ones from films that horror fans would perhaps prefer to scrub from their memories. And with that in mind, I offer up this particularly egregious nugget from Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, the content of which sums up why we’ve ranked this installment as the worst entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Suffice to say, even in comparison with other poorly regarded entries such as The Dream Child, Final Nightmare entirely gives up on any proposition of Freddy Krueger seeming legitimately threatening, and throws in entirely behind zany, juvenile comedy. Rachel Talalay’s film can be stylishly shot at times, but it’s so aggressively madcap and ludicrous that its main effect is to become gratingly painful. Watch the death below, and tell me that there’s even the most infinitesimal scrap of “horror” left in how Krueger is being depicted here.
The Nightmare series has of course featured plenty of absurd deaths over the years, from a woman being transformed into a cockroach and crushed in a roach motel, to a man fusing with his own motorcycle in a piece of Tetsuo: The Iron Man-style body horror. But this one, where a kid is sucked into a “videogame” while his waking body bounces around the house to cartoon sound effects, has to be the most feverishly bonkers. I hate the art style of the “game” he’s ported into, which is a common pitfall of cinematic game depictions–it looks like it was drawn freehand by a child in MS Paint, evoking the look of old Schoolhouse Rock musical segments. Freddy kicks back and enjoys his nonsensical gaming references (and “Power Glove,” reminding one of The Wizard), but it’s the way that the action translates to the real world, with Spencer’s body pinballing through the old Krueger house to Looney Tunes sound effects that really nails down the sheer lack of gravity left in the series by this point. It’s a mercy when Freddy finally bumps the kid off.
5. Extreme yoga – In a Violent Nature, 2024
Director: Chris Nash
I often feel like horror geeks have an unfortunate tendency to think of the slasher genre as “easy” to make in a filmmaking sense, when the reality is that making a genuinely modern slasher in this day and age offers a substantial challenge. The history of the genre is so rife with repetition and self-reference at this point, that simply landing on a premise the least bit fresh is a tough bar to clear. It was deeply refreshing (and equally gross), then, to see Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature stalk into theaters, at least briefly, in 2024, billed as being more or less what a Friday the 13th movie might look like if we were just trailing behind the silent Jason Voorhees as he marched from locale to locale, butchering people. In truth, In a Violent Nature is a more cerebral film than just that, its long silences and gory nature walks achieving a sort of transcendental reverie at times; plenty of time to ponder mortality and the unstoppable force of entropy. And it also has what is probably the single most gnarly slasher kill of the last decade and change.
If you’ve seen In a Violent Nature, then surely you already know what I’m talking about. The undead serial killer known only as “Johnny” is marching as he does through the woods when he comes upon a young woman doing yoga near a cliff’s edge. Being an unstoppable killing machine, he trundles over to her and immediately punches his entire fist through her chest from behind–classic superpowered slasher villain stuff. This would be a fine, gross death, but in this case we’re only getting started. Somehow, the shocked and still-technically-alive woman turns around to face her assailant, only for Johnny to slam down the hook and chain he carries into her skull. He then rotates her around, inserts the chain through the newly created hole in her midsection, and proceeds to pull her head all the way through her own torso until it’s sticking out from her back. It’s all achieved through the most sloppy, harrowingly chunky practical FX wizardry you’re ever going to see employed in dismantling a human body. Suffice to say, there’s a reason why the embed below is age-restricted. If you are the least bit squeamish about horror movie gore, I do not recommend watching this. With this one kill, In a Violent Nature set a new benchmark against which similar modern slasher riffs are going to be judged for quite a while.
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Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter or on Bluesky for more film writing.
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