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With James Cameron's Titanic in 3D hitting theaters tomorrow, there's a good chance you will have to don some specs and indulge your lady, who grew up dreaming about being loved the way that Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) loves Rose (Kate Winslet). While you will regard this movie-going experience as a major concession on your part, and one clearly worth a night of the freakiest sexcapades you can cook up, she will observe how Jack freezes to death in the frigid North Atlantic so that Rose may survive on a floating wall panel and ask why you don't love her that much.
The thing about Jack's tragic sacrifice: He didn't need to perish. Find out why, and get some ammunition for the heated arguments to come, by reading our countdown of 15 Easily Avoidable Movie Deaths.
Written by Justin Monroe (@40yardsplash)
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15. Ruth jumps in the acid lake in Dante's Peak (1997)
In Roger Donaldson’s volcanic eruption disaster flick, a rescue party led by volcanologist Dr. Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) attempts to traverse a sulfuric acid lake in a metal boat only to realize that the acid is corroding the vessel and its engine and they can go no further.
Luckily for them, they are all of two feet from a wooden dock—which is why it makes no sense that Ruth (Elizabeth Hoffman), the old lady everyone had risked their lives to save, hops into the burning bath to pull the boat to shore. She does make it to land, but on some leg stumps, and soon dies. Whoever said wisdom comes with age wasn’t talking about Ruth.
14. Jack freezes to death in Titanic (1997)
Would James Cameron's record-setting romantic epic endure if Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) hadn't sacrificed himself and frozen to death in the ocean to keep Rose (Kate Winslet) alive on a floating wall panel (one that we're supposed to believe can't also support the 85 lbs. that is Leo's soaking wet body)? We just can't help feeling his life could have been saved by two words: Scoot over?
13. Vega domes Marvin in Pulp Fiction (1994)
If anyone could find hilarity in somebody getting shot in the face, it’s Quentin Tarantino. Hit men Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are driving from the scene of an execution, debating miracles and divine intervention in the wake of a near-death experience, when Vega turns to the back seat, his gun carelessly pointed at their informant, Marvin (Phil LaMarr), with his finger on the trigger and the safety apparently off, to get his opinion. Why does he even have the gun out?
The hand cannon accidentally fires a round, painting the rear window with the young man’s blood and brains, and no doubt inspiring a young Andre 3000 to one day warn us: “Don't pull that thang out, unless you plan to bang.”
12. Lover boy strolls into traffic in Meet Joe Black (1998)
Being love-struck: cool. Being car-struck: not so cool. In the otherwise forgettable fantasy romance Meet Joe Black, Brad Pitt plays a gent who absentmindedly strolls out into traffic while longingly looking back for the anonymous woman he just met and instantly connected with at a coffee shop. Finding she’s disappeared, he snaps back to reality just in time to avoid a speeding car—and, we might add, to see the bright red “Don’t Walk” sign—before getting hit by not one but two vehicles. That, friends, is why you should always look both ways.
11. Moochie lets himself be crushed in Christine (1983)
A sentient, and extremely jealous, demonically red 1958 Ford Plymouth that murders anyone standing in the way of its love affair with its owners? Why not. What's harder to accept in John Carpenter’s iconic adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, is that Moochie, the chubby bully who Christine chases and corners in a loading dock as payback for threatening Arnie and vandalizing her, stands still as she slowly mashes her metal sides in to crush him.
For several minutes we’ve just seen that a fat guy can haul ass when properly motivated, and yet, presented the opportunity to simply jump up onto Christine’s hood as she inches forward and escape, his survival instinct completely abandons him? Forget that TV show—Moochie, you are officially the biggest loser.
10. The witch gets splashed to death in The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Despite her impressive name, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) can be destroyed by—get this—a splash of water. Knowing this, you would think that the evil green antagonist would position herself a safe distance away from the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) after setting him on fire in The Wizard of Oz’s climax.
Instead, she plays him close like she’s about to make some S’mores, and when Dorothy (Judy Garland) throws a bucket of H20 on her friend to put out the flames she inadvertently wets up the witch, who melts to nothingness. You probably forgot how ridiculously that went down in this so-called “classic,” didn’t you? Is it too late to rescind that 1939 Best Picture Academy Award nomination?
9. Wannabe superhero "flies" in Kick-Ass (2010)
In the opening scene of Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, based on Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.’s comic book, a young man stands atop a skyscraper dressed in a winged crime-fighting outfit as a voiceover speaks of the universal desire to be a superhero. The would-be champion of justice leans into a dive and descends rapidly as onlookers applaud, expecting him to fly or at least glide skyward at the last instant. Only he doesn’t, because he doesn’t have super powers and his suit sucks and he can’t fly. And he ruins a perfectly good taxi in the process. Asshole.
8. Anyone who summons Candyman in the Candyman franchise
When somebody tells you, even jokingly, that the way to summon the pissed-off spirit of a black artist who has a hook for a hand because a white mob cut off his hand before covering him in honey so bees would sting him to death is to say his name five times, you have two choices: do that shit or live. Shaking. Our. Heads.
7. Dep. Fallon battles killer fish in the water in Piranha (2010)
Contrary to his resurrection for the highly anticipated sequel, Piranha 3DD, we're 99.99% positive that Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames) dies in Alexandre Aja's 2010 remake. Not that you can really argue the logic of a visual gore-fest such as this, especially when its characters use none.
When piranhas feed upon a spring break water party on Lake Victoria, the deputy first tries blasting them with his shotgun as if it will have any impact. In a more inspired move, he snaps up a boat motor and uses its propeller like a water chainsaw to make sushi. But does he do this from inside the boat or even from a dock? No, he stands exposed in the water, where the hungry buggers eventually take his legs out from under him.
We just hope that in the next movie he refers to his peg legs as his "fish sticks."
6. Rex dies to know in The Vanishing (1988)
When his girlfriend, Saskia (Johanna ter Steege), disappears mysteriously at a gas station, Rex (Gene Bervoets) becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her. Three years later, a man (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) approaches him and says he kidnapped her to see if he was capable of doing the most evil thing he could imagine, and promises to reveal her fate if Rex submits to experiencing the same thing Saskia did. Rather than snuffing the twisted man's life out right then and there, he agrees, drinks some spiked coffee, passes out, and wakes in a coffin, buried alive. Dying to know indeed.
5. Neil risks his getaway for revenge in Heat (1995)
Payback is a bitch, and nobody knows that better than Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), leader of the crew of anti-hero bank robbers in Michael Mann’s epic L.A. crime story. About to make a clean getaway to New Zealand with his money and his girl (Amy Brenneman), he risks everything to plug holes in Waingro, the snitching former accomplice who turned his last big bank job into a bloody shootout with police.
Though he does send the rat, who’s under police surveillance, to hell, he also alerts the fuzz to his whereabouts, leading to a final, and fatal, showdown with his nemesis, Robbery-Homicide Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). But hey, L.A. to New Zealand is like a 13-hour flight, so at least he saved himself some leg cramping.
4. Quint slides into the shark's mouth in Jaws (1975)
The love-hate relationship between Quint (Robert Shaw) and Jaws is never so apparent as when the salty old fisherman "helplessly" slides into the shark's eager mouth—despite a number of things to hook his hands or feet onto, and a slant that is so slight that it takes him approximately five minutes to reach his bloody end. Call us hopeless romantics, but we think deep down Quint just wanted to enter his Great White lover one way or another.
3. Anybody killed in the Child's Play franchise
People who defend Don Mancini’s Chucky, the two-foot-tall Good Guy doll into which the spirit of voodoo-practicing serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) is transferred, as a legitimately scary horror movie villain will explain that he uses black magic and the element of surprise to overpower much larger people.
Our counterargument: fuck outta here. Even if this snide little twerp possessed supernatural strength, he still weighs 5 lbs. at most. If you can be done in by that, well, you weren’t long for this earth anyway.
2. Anyone killed in the Gingerdead Man franchise
If you thought getting murdered by Chucky was embarrassing, feast your eyes on the Gingerdead Man. The tastiest little terror you ever saw, and the star of a three-movie horror-comedy franchise, he is the resurrected form of executed murderer Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busey), whose witch mother mixes his ashes with a gingerbread spice mix and drops it off at the bakery belonging to the woman who testified against him, where a drop of blood and an electrical surge bring him to life.
Despite his diminutive stature—and the fact that he’s a motherfucking cookie man (!) who’s defeated with relative ease in the original when he’s baked to a death—the Gingerdead Man catches a ludicrous number of bodies. Want to make a cookie crumble? Try milk, people—a glass of 2% works 100% of the time.
1. Male models blow themselves up in Zoolander (2001)
We admit, it might not be easy for vacant male models to avoid having a gasoline fight and then lighting a cigarette, but we like to think that even mentally challenged men of chiseled cheek bones could, with some great amount of effort, keep from blowing themselves up.
