9 Unintentionally Hilarious Movie Deaths

9. “Young Man in Coffee Shop”, Meet Joe Black

How he dies: After bonding with Claire Forlani in a coffee shop, this beautiful, unnamed Aryan pretty-boy gets owned by two cars driving in opposite directions.

Wait for it…

Why it’s hilarious: You get to see a pre-Fight Club get the ever-loving sh-t clobbered out of him in a three-hour romantic drama that’s awful by three-hour romantic drama standards.

So worth admission.

8. The guy killed by Wardrobe, Beauty and the Beast

How he dies:
Like something out of Assassin’s Creed.  The dude is just hanging out, enjoying a friendly slice of mob-justice when Ezio over here has to spoil it.

[Target acquired.]

And then… assassinated.

[Assassinated.]

Wait, did that guy just get killed by an opera-singing wardrobe?  In a Disney movie?  Holy sh-t!

Still not moving.

Why it’s hilarious: It’s probably the most gruesome, nonchalant death in the history of animation.  Furthermore, it’s not something that happens and is quickly forgotten.  You see the guy for several screens afterwords: the man is still not moving.  The only explanation is that Wardrobe scored a murder-death-kill, which would put her in very select minority of Disney characters who murdered someone, and totally got away with it.

This lady kills people.

7. Mr. Arnold, Jurassic Park

How he dies: Death by man-eating, super-intelligent dinosaurs.  The fact that he’s played by a pre-Pulp Fiction Samuel L. Jackson makes it even sadder to see him go.  Had the film been released just a few years later, his popularity alone would have dictated a better death-scene.

How Mr. Arnold would have gone today.

Why it’s hilarious: Because when you think about it, he was murdered by Robert Muldoon: the Kenyan-born game warden at Jurassic Park with a checkered past when it comes to race relations.

Exhibit A.

After successfully shutting down the power to Jurassic Park/Newman’s desktop, Mr. Arnold volunteers to flip the breakers to the park at the circuit shed down the road.  Mr. Arnold attempts this unescorted, and possibly without processing the danger of walking past a deactivated velociraptor pen without them having been fed all weekend.  Such a move should have made Muldoon ghasp.  After all, knowing stuff like this is his freaking job.  Instead, all he does is nothing.  No warning, no concern… no complains.  However, once uber-WASP Dr. Ellie Sattler attempts the same exact thing, Muldoon’s instant reaction: “you can’t just stroll down the road, you know?” before unlocking a goddamn riot-box.

This woman should never speak about sexism in survival situations again.

So why does Muldoon do this?  Was it a lapse of judgment on his part?  Unlikely, since all those pieces in Muldoon’s locker are meant to be used in situations precisely like ‘strolling down the road’ to flip the circuit breakers.  The fact that Muldoon whipped out a Franchi SPAS-12 combat shotgun to protect a white woman – and a rather foxy one at that – but not for the single most important employee left on the island is criminal negligence at best, and something sinister at worst.  In short, Muldoon is just another stain on John Hammond’s hiring record.  He probably lied on his application, and was actually an enthusiastic citizen of South Africa during apartheid.

Robert Muldoon, making sure that Arnold’s dead.

6. Jacques Saunière, The Da Vinci Code

How he dies: Murdered by an evil albino before he could reconcile with his granddaughter after that whole sex-party thing.  His death is the first thing that happens in the Da Vinci Code – save the book’s bullsh-t disclaimers, and was for tens of millions of readers around the world their first impression of Dan Brown’s writing ability.

“Of course I’m talented!”

Why it’s hilarious: The fact that Jacques was able to do so much before dying is nothing short of a masterpiece of bad storytelling that even Dan Brown should have thought was too far-fetched.  Despite being mortally wounded, this seventy-three year old man somehow musters enough energy to play Video Power throughout the corridors of one of the biggest museums on the planet; miraculously without leaving a trail of blood the whole time.  He improvises complex anagrams on the spot, devises a scavenger hunt that he is confident someone he has never met will be able to figure out, and traces a nearly perfect representation of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man – in what we can only assume was one try – using his own blood.  At that point and that point only does he allow himself to die.

Seriously, you gotta train for that kind of endurance.

5. Col. Vogel, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

How he dies: As your archetypal evil Nazi in the last good Indiana Jones, Col. Vogel is the kind of character you wanted to see get snuffed out the minute he walked on screen.  In this case, the Gestapo a-hole goes down with his tank into the Canyon of the Crescent Moon after having the sh-t kicked out of him by everybody’s favorite archeologist.

Had Indy punched this guy any harder, it would have ended WWII.

Why it’s hilarious: On account of the worst special effects in ILM’s long, prestigious history.  If you look closely, you can actually see Col. Vogel’s doll bouncing around the model tank; which inexplicably starts leaking yellow.  It’s one of those “it’s so bad it’s good” death scenes that belong alongside Nazis melting in the first movie.  Actually, scratch that.  It’s awesome, and it blows away anything Crystal Skull had to offer.

Col. Vogel.  Seriously.

4. Russell Franklin, Deep Blue Sea

How he dies: Eaten by a super-intelligent shark, and it could not have come at a worse time.  All he wanted was for his team to pull themselves together with an impromptu, inspirational speech.

Cause of death: being played by Samuel L. Jackson

Why it’s hilarious: It could not have come at a more hilarious time.  The minute Deep Blue Sea tried to shock its audiences by showing a shark swim backwards, you knew you were in for a treat with a horror movie that would be anything but horrific.  However, if we just assume for just a minute that this backwards-swimming shark does have a human mind, then it makes Russell Franklin’s death in the film all the funnier.  It means that the shark deliberately planned when would be the most devastating point to kill Russell Franklin.

Drama like that is worth paying for.

By expecting too much out of American audiences, Deep Blue Sea was a box office bomb.  However, had they simply released the film as a 46-second clip last year, it would have easily won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Short Film (and Special Effects), and raised enough money to cure Alzheimer’s.

Ditto for Shark Attack 3.

3. Captain Kirk, Star Trek Generations

How he dies: The beloved Captain Kirk of the Star Trek franchise gets a f*cking bridge dropped on him.

…by Alex DeLarge.

Why it’s hilarious: The fact that William Shatner in real life has always been played by William Shatner: a man whose epic ego and awful acting has rendered him indistinguishable from his fictional counterparts.  In this case, Kirk had become such a gangrened limb that the Shat was eager to amputate for the sake of his career, which is understandable considering his exile at Rescue 911.

Only Giuliani would dig this job.

So, what does Paramount Pictures do to the beloved Captain?  They “Dropped a Bridge On Him”, assuring that he would never be coming back, and the result could serve as fan-service for every non-fan of the franchise.  The result was judgment day for Trekkies, which should really make us wonder what would have happened if the original cut where Kirk gets shot in the back while fumbling with a remote control had been left in.

Either way, we’d still love it.

2. Everybody, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

How they die: At the hands of Richard ‘Ricky’ Caldwell, the brother of the Christmas killer from the original Silent Night, Deadly Night.  Ricky apparently has some major psychological issues with everything from Roman Catholicism to bullying.

The Citizen Kane of cocky blond guys.

As a result of his constant torment, Ricky – who in case we haven’t made it clear is supposed to be the victim in this movie – vents his frustration through a host of methods ranging from the most bizarre vehicular homicide on record…

…pointing out that it is garbage day to his neighbor.

Alas, somewhere behind that vacant stare is an actor begging for direction.

Why it’s hilarious: Because Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 boasts what just might be the worst acting, screenwriting, editing, physics, and special effects ever captured on film.  In fact, it’s once you move past the fact that the whole ‘Garbage Day!’ meme is actually part of an entire movie that you get to truly appreciate just how awful a motion picture can be.

Well how about that… This movie actually has a story to it.

1. Lt. Colonel Austin Travis, Executive Decision

How he dies: After boarding a Boeing 747-200 with a crack unit of b-actors to thwart a hijacking, Lt. Colonel Austin Travis is forced to sacrifice himself in order to save the mission.  The man gets sucked out of his F-117′s boarding sleeve in an act of daytime-TV CGI glory.

Why it’s hilarious: Because Lt. Colonel Austin Travis is played by Steven Seagal.

This gorilla

We repeat, Steven f*cking Seagal dies in this movie. 90′s-era Seagal as well!  This was Steven before video of him pooping his pants went viral, before he exploded 50-lbs in every direction, and before he got busted for what appears to be sex slavery.  This is Steven at his most Seagalest, and he dies in a scene which could have easily sold the entire movie if it had been released today.

LET’S SEE THAT AGAIN!

What more could audiences ask for?