Five movies that audience members died watching
Movies are meant to be a form of escapism, a chance to leave regular life behind and enter a world of wonder, magic, and excitement. While some people like to watch sad movies or films about more challenging topics, nobody wants to be confronted with an actual tragedy while at the pictures. Sadly, that luxury isn’t always afforded, as the greatest tragedy of all has struck many times while people were trying to enjoy the big screen.
People die in all sorts of ways, and watching movies is definitely on that list. Most of the time, it’s a case of a film elevating someone’s heart rate too high or playing on a pre-existing condition, but sometimes, people just get really unlucky. Horror movies are an obvious culprit for this sort of thing, but it’s not always chillers that prove to be fatal, as people have died during major blockbusters and even light-hearted comedies.
Honestly, though, is dying while watching a film the worst thing in the world? We’ve all got to go one day, and if you’re a film fan, passing on doing your favourite thing might just be the best way to do it. If the cinema is your temple, then surely there is no holier way to pass into the next life.
Obvious trigger warnings are in place for discussions of death and medical issues in the body of this article. Also, as unusual as these scenarios may be, real people really died, and that is no laughing matter. Condolences to the family and friends of those affected; hopefully, they can take some comfort in knowing that their loved ones died doing something that they loved.
Five movies that audiences died watching:
Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022)
James Cameron’s Avatar was a game-changer. It broke all sorts of records when it was released in 2009, including the most money ever made by a single film, as people flocked in their millions to see what the visionary director could do with a raft of new technology at his fingertips. After 13 long years, Cameron once again invited audiences back to Pandora with a sequel, The Way of Water. Though not as compelling or novel as the first, the film still made big money and satisfied plenty of fans who had been waiting over a decade for their next fix. Sadly, this anticipation might have been too much for one cinemagoer in India.
Lakshmireddy Srinu of Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, went to see the movie with his brother but collapsed while watching it. He was taken to hospital, but doctors could do nothing to revive him, and he was declared dead. Apparently, his medical records indicated that he had high blood pressure, and it was theorised that he got over-excited whilst watching the film, which is what led to his unfortunate demise.
The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004)
Mel Gibson’s religiously motivated passion project (in more ways than one) was controversial from day one. Any fictionalisation of Jesus Christ’s life will always ruffle feathers, but this production seemed especially cursed. On one day of filming, both Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Jesus, and assistant director Jan Michelini were struck by lightning. Amazingly, this was the second time this had happened to Michelini while making the film. He’s nicknamed ‘Lightning Boy’ in the movie’s credits.
Whilst nobody died on the set of The Passion of the Christ, at least two people died while watching it. The first was an American woman called Peggy Law Scott, who watched the movie in Wichita, Kansas. During the scene in which Christ is crucified, she passed out. She was taken to hospital, where she died of a suspected heart attack. The second death happened in Brazil when a pastor named Jose Geraldo Soares took his entire congregation to see the film. About halfway through, his wife noticed that he was no longer awake. A doctor in the audience announced that he had suffered a heart attack and he was declared dead.
The Quatermass Xperiment (Val Guest, 1955)
The story of the first reported death during a horror movie is a very sad one, so feel free to skip this entry if you don’t feel up to it. The Quatermass Xperiment, which was released in the US as The Creeping Unknown, is a classic Hammer horror production from 1955. It’s based on a BBC television serial and chronicles a group of astronauts who, after crash landing upon their return to Earth, must defeat one of their number who is mutating into a dangerous alien creature.
By modern standards, it’s not scary at all, but the 1950s were a different time with very different sensibilities. In Oak Park, Illinois, during a double bill screening of the movie alongside Reginald LeBorg’s The Black Sheep, a nine-year-old boy suffered a reported ruptured artery and died. The boy, whose name is given as Stewart Cohan in some sources, entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first person to ‘die of fright’ during a horror film. This tragic incident is an insightful indicator of just how much horror has evolved and how the human capacity to endure fear has evolved with it.
The Conjuring 2 (James Wan, 2016)
This one is just plain freaky. The Conjuring 2, the third instalment in the wider ‘Conjuring’ universe, was a big hit. It moved ghost-hunting couple Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson respectively) to the UK and tasked them with finding the solution to the so-called ‘Enfield Poltergeist’. It made buckets of money and was well-received, especially the Warren’s climactic final battle with the evil nun Valak. This is the scene that ended up taking someone’s life and sparking a chain of events right out of their own horror movie.
During a screening of the film in Tiruvannamalai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a 65-year-old man suffered chest pains during the confrontation. He collapsed shortly after that and was rushed to hospital, where doctors declared him dead, but this was only the beginning of this wild tale. The man’s body was to be transported to a different hospital for a post-mortem, but it never arrived. Both the body and the person moving it completely disappeared. At the time of writing, no explanation has been offered as to what happened, and the body and its guardian are still missing.
A Fish Called Wanda (Charles Crichton, 1988)
It’s not just scary films that have led to people dying. Death via laughter is a rare occurrence, but it does happen, and comedy movies and TV shows have contributed to the phenomenon over the years. A famous incident in the UK saw a man die after laughing for over 25 minutes straight at an episode of sitcom The Goodies. The episode in question, ‘Kung Fu Kapers’, features a stereotypical Scotsman wielding bagpipes in a battle against a man armed with a black pudding. Rather than express anger at her husband’s death, the man’s widow actually wrote a letter of thanks to the show for making his last moments so enjoyable.
In the movie world, a laughter-related event occurred during the comedy A Fish Called Wanda screening. Starring John Cleese and Jamie Lee Curtis, the film is about a group of jewel thieves, each trying to one-up each other to make off with their loot. In one memorable scene, Michael Palin, Cleese’s old ‘Monty Python’ buddy, ends up with two french fries shoved up his nose. A Danish audiologist called Ole Bentzen found this to be so funny that his heart rate allegedly rose to somewhere between 250 and 500 beats per minute. His official cause of death was heart fibrillation, but everybody knew the real story.
