Unworthy survivors: five horror movie characters who deserved to die
Horror movies often contain characters that deserve their deaths. Using the word ‘deserve’ might be harsh, but if that character is bad, useless or annoying in the horror movie world, those are grounds for meeting your demise. When an irritating popular guy archetype or a character who runs up the stairs rather than out the door gets sliced and diced by a killer, most viewers will be in agreement that they had their gruesome fate coming for them.
However, some horror movies simply allow these annoying or terrible characters to make it through alive, even if they narrowly avoid their deaths multiple times. We’re left shouting at the screen, wondering why the writers decided to kill a great character while leaving a terrible one unscathed.
In some instances, the killer is able to walk away alive, but there are many movies, specifically slashers, where it would have been better for the murderer to have been slain by their final victim. This is certainly the argument for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but if Leatherface had died, how would it have been able to turn into a money-making franchise?
So, from unworthy final girls to killers who got away with their crimes, here are five horror movie characters who should have died.
Five characters who deserved to die:
Psyché – Climax (Gaspar Noé, 2018)
In Gaspar Noé’s Climax, we follow a group of dancers as they celebrate a flawless rehearsal with a party. However, things soon turn awry when it becomes apparent that the sangria has been spiked. The dancers start to lose their grip on reality, ganging up on whoever they think is responsible. It is a relentless film that is disorientating and truly horrifying.
We discover that Psyché was responsible for putting acid in the sangria at the end of the film, something that is ever so subtly foreshadowed throughout the film. While several members of the group survive the chaotic night, multiple characters, including a child, die. Psyché, who encouraged the persecution of certain members of the group, is the only one who walks away unscathed, and if we had it our way, she wouldn’t have been able to get away with her crimes.
The party goers – Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)
There are many great characters that sadly die in the Scream franchise – if this was a list of characters who didn’t deserve to be killed, then you could easily fill every spot with someone from Wes Craven’s iconic slasher series. However, there are also many that make it out alive, allowing the franchise to continue. For most of Scream, you might hope that Gale Weathers dies, but she earns herself a redemption arc when she helps to save the day.
Thus, we’d like to talk about the party-goers who attend Stu’s house party, which is where the movie comes to a dramatic end. The party sees Tatum and Gale’s cameraman get killed. Luckily for all of the party-goers, they avoid Ghostface’s wrath by running off to see the hanging corpse of their principal. Yet, the fact that two nice characters had to be killed, while these idiotic and insensitive party guests got to escape (to go marvel at another great character’s dead body), is just unfair.
Kristen – The Strangers (Bryan Bertino, 2008)
Sometimes, a slasher just doesn’t succeed at being a good entry to the genre, and The Strangers is a perfect example of this. You need characters to root for, and in Bryan Bertino’s film, it is easy to get annoyed at the people on screen, who seem to make all of the wrong choices. The characters even fall over their own feet in their poor attempt to escape the masked murderers who break into their home.
At the end of The Strangers, it becomes apparent that Liv Tyler’s character, Kristen, is actually alive. She might have played dead while the killers finished their spree, or perhaps they didn’t do a good enough job when they tried to murder her. Still, she becomes the sole survivor, but with the way she acted throughout the film, it is surprising that she actually made it out alive.
Leatherface – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most influential horror movies of all time, with Tobe Hooper taking inspiration from the infamous killer Ed Gein to form Leatherface. The chainsaw-wielding, apron-wearing killer is part of a cannibalistic family, and as the movie comes to an end, we see Leatherface’s brother, the hitchhiker, getting run over.
As Leatherface chases after final girl Sally Hardesty, it seems likely that he might also meet his demise, especially when a truck driver throws something at him, leading the killer to drop the chainsaw on his leg. Yet, Leatherface survives, in spite of the heinous acts he committed earlier in the film. It would have been great to see Sally kill Leatherface before escaping; instead he waves his weapon around in defeat before presumably returning home to Grandpa Sawyer.
Julie – I Know What You Did Last Summer (Jim Gillespie, 1997)
There are many beloved final girls in horror movie history, like Laurie Strode from Halloween, Sidney Prescott from Scream, and Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Julie James from I Know What You Did Last Summer is not one of them. Many people regard her as one of the worst examples of the final girl trope, simply because she doesn’t fight for her life in the same way that the others do.
Played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, the character pales in comparison to her friends, like Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Helen, yet Julie is the only one who survives the film. Most viewers find Julie too annoying and useless, leaving us wondering how she was even able to end up as the movie’s last standing character.
