Favorite Death Scenes Part 5

Peepholes have always somewhat creeped me out. Perhaps it could be that I find the fisheye lens to be particularly disturbing to my already warped brain chemistry, I'm not really sure. That, and I've never been all too fond of pressing my eyeball against something to get a closer look. Is that what you call science? How about some better technology already. What, are you waiting for evolution to give our eyes X-Ray vision!? Ever since I was a child, people have been shoving my face into View-Masters and Kaleidoscopes, Microscopes and Telescopes, Virtual Reality Headsets and Binoculars. Fuck binoculars! I crawl through girl's windows like a real creeper and have no use for such tools of restraint. Sorry I went off on a tangent there. Peepholes and more notably the acts of voyeurism concerning them have been focal points of numerous films and television programs. It's almost as if the motion picture industry was obsessed with this invention. And horror film directors, the really good ones anyways, seem to be intent on bringing as much eye violence into your field of vision as possible. 

Which brings me to Dario Argento's 1987 film Opera, aka Terror at the Opera. That's where the connection between peepholes, eye violence and voyeurism comes in, with the viewer playing the role of voyeur as this shockingly gruesome event plays out. Betty was an alternate who became the lead in Macbeth after the original singer's "accident" left her notes a bit... flat! ;) Soon she's caught up not only in the pressure of rising to fame and thriving for excellence, but also the anxiety and sheer terror of being stalked by an obsessive maniac who's killing everyone close to her. Enter Myra (Daria Nicolodi), Betty's agent and friend, who comes to her aid during a desperate and confusing time. Locked in an apartment together, with perhaps a killer posing as a detective inside and outside, the lights go dim and there's a knock at the door.

Myra clings to a knife while pressing her face to the door and demands that the strange man show his face. He insists that he's an officer of the law and shines a flashlight off an ID that gleams so brightly you can't see a thing. She accuses him of lying and says that "anyone can get one of those" and that "it's a fake!" With all the muffled tenacity of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, the man responds with "Look, my gun!" and shows his weapon.

Myra starts flipping out and gets a bit more demanding, "No! Not the gun. I want to see your FACE again!". By this point the man has had enough. He presses the barrel up against the peephole and squeezes the trigger, blasting a shot right through Myra's fuckin' eyeball. The bullet exits out the back of her skull and rips apart the telephone in the background, ending any chance of Betty calling the police. How unlucky.

The awesomeness of this scene alone is amplified to an even more interesting and disturbing realm by the special effects involved, and a story shared by actress Daria Nicolodi. In the extras (Conducting Dario Argento's Opera, as well as in other documentaries about his films) we're shown the large scale model of what they used as the inside of the peephole. A huge, long open cylinder was built with a thin pane of glass in front and a firing mechanism that shot an over-sized bullet through it at hyper speed. A special camera that filmed at a very high FPS rate was required to capture this incredibly short but ambitious SFX shot. This is one of the cool little things that Dario Argento is known for going out of his way just to do for the sake of doing what he dreams and having fun.

At the time of this film's production, Daria Nicolodi was convinced that Dario Argento had concocted some kind of diabolical plan to assassinate her on set and make it look like an accident. The falling out and end of their personal relationship had been a harsh and humiliating time for Daria. Problems with Argento's behavior towards her supposedly started during Tenebrae (which furthered her agitation from being continuously not cast in roles she desired, stemming as far back as Suspiria), but her breaking point was during the filming of Phenomena where she was made to look "sixty years old" and had to perform in "stupid and dangerous stunts" involving a chimp. She was convinced that Argento was trying to ruin her. Now they want to strap real dynamite to the back of her head and shoot a blowgun with a condom full of blood in her face.

She accepted this role because she loved the death scene, and was also able to re-write her own dialogue. It's obvious from reading interviews with her and listening to her speak on these documentaries that she was terrified by a few of the scenes she had to perform in. If Argento was out to get her (or if it was just some unfortunate politics), or if he was really out to KILL her... well, I don't think we'll ever know the absolute truth regarding this. Who knows? Maybe it's a mix of all three of those things. Bottom line is that I love this beautiful woman as an actress and she's one strong lady for staying true to the cinema even though she got screwed over on a few roles she was meant for. We'll always have Deep Red and Shock. Watch the scene HERE!

Favorite Death Scenes Part 4

Cut to a scene where this lovely, black haired woman named Tina gets dropped off by her date. They say their I love you's and their goodbyes before she enters her locked apartment building.

And what an apartment complex it is! Holy shit, look at this place.

Of course, the elevator lift isn't working tonight and she's forced to use the stairs. She proceeds to ascend the triangular stairway when suddenly... the light goes off upstairs. Uh oh!

She lights a few matches and keeps going up. The music here is really creepy and atmospheric, with lots of heavy breathing and fiendish lalala's.

She makes her way to the next loft door when suddenly, she is struck in the back of the head(!) from behind.

She gasps and whimpers as the mysterious black gloved killer slowly pulls out a straight razor!!

The killer quickly and ruthlessly slashes away at the woman's arm and face...

The mysterious figure in black slashes the girl eleven times in about four seconds total, before raising the straight razor high above, and delivering one final slash. Blood spatters unto the floor.

You may be asking yourself, "Why this one? There are far better death scenes in Argento's films." Precisely the point I direct you towards this scene. Blink and you'll miss it! And I don't think this scene deserves to be missed. Dario Argento's straight razor deaths have gotten more brutal over time, but there's no denying the one that started it all. 

A little note about this entry: There were about three to five promotional pictures from this scene that have been printed on various lobby cards and posters throughout the world. These pictures are very visually stimulating (to me at least) and don't appear in the actual film. While this disappoints me greatly (as I had viewed these photos before ever seeing the film long ago), I still love this scene. While I wish it could have been longer, given time to savor the kill with these "missing scenes" intact, I still like how furious and sudden it is.

Favorite Death Scenes Part 3

Michele Soavi's brilliant film "The Church" starts off with this incredibly INSANE and pumped-up progressive rock music while Templar Knights, dressed in white and on white horses, ride through the countryside... on a mission! It's an immediate assault on the senses for an opening scene of a film. What the fuck is going on!? This shit is intense, and then it drastically slows down for the maximum effect of what is about to happen. Executed flawlessly, I may say. Let us take note in this day's edition of Horror Movie Death Scenes I Molest Myself To:

Some rhetoric-spilling derelict alerts the Knights to the whereabouts of so-called "evil doings". "Hey! Over Here..." he shouts before pointing to a rock with three spiraling 6's on it and giggling like Beavis. "This waaayyy." His overacting is funny as shit.

The Templar Knights slowly follow his torchlight through a darkened cave and into a strange hidden wilderness where a cute, yet dirty girl washes her feet and then drinks the feet water from her hands. Interesting.

The girl is warned by others as the Knights and Beavis emerge from the cave, and she quickly (not to mention suspiciously) wraps her foot. Beavis points at her, screaming "That's the one!", while she grovels over quietly too kiss a Knight's boot.

"Who are you? Where are the others!?"

Suddenly the priest runs up. "Beware Sire. She's a Witch! Don't let her speak to you. Don't let her touch you! She's one of Them!!1 In league with Satan!" Ect,ect. She offers him water, and then goes to touch the Knight's helmet. Big Mistake? We'll see...

The Knight of course opens his mask up from the middle in total badass fashion and stares her down like a complete lunatic!

She asks him with a young and completely innocent voice

"You won't hurt me will you?" Awwww...

Look at this guy and his gnarly side braid! I bet he never hurt a chick in his life.

No seriously. Look at this fuckin' psycho! He's cool as shit!

He slowly reaches and and begins to pet her face with his gauntlet. 

How Sweet.

He then wraps his hand around her face...

...squeezes it...

...and SQUISH!

Of course, they check her foot and find absolutely nothing incriminating... but end up killing the whole clan of "Satan Worshiping Witches" nonetheless. Go figure! This whole scene reminds me of the time I really wanted to kill my girlfriend, but instead of that just had her act it out while I filmed it. Weird, huh? When I was younger and first saw this film on VHS, I loved this intro, but I hated how it changed to modern times for the rest of the film. I really wanted more and more of this shit, but I've grown to really appreciate and love this film as a whole a lot more now.

Favorite Death Scenes Part 2

When I first witnessed the opening scene of Dario Argento's Phenomena (1985) back when I was sixteen years old, about ten years after the film was made, it left me dazed, stunned and astonished. A mix of strange and interesting visuals, set to the music of Bill Wyman and Terry Taylor's "The Valley", this scene was at first a slow boil that eventually erupted into an intense, psychotic and unnerving murderous situation. Fitting was the title of the film, as I had viewed it at the time under the CUT US VHS Retitled Version known as "Creepers". Especially so since this was a Creeper of a scene, and I myself that fateful night was tripping off some very heavy Creeper Green, twisting my mentality and thus thrusting me headlong into the fucked up aura that is the world of Dario Argento. This was the third Argento film I had seen, after UNCUT duped versions of Deep Red and Tenebrae. But enough about me (again)... welcome to Part 2 of Death!

Vera Brandt (Dario Argento's beautiful other daughter, Fiore) is out on a school trip with her class in the Swiss Countryside, when she somehow gets separated from the group and is left behind. Even though she waves them down (and not to mention the bus turns completely around to go down hill and they still don't see her), this poor girl is left out in the deepening cold emptiness of the Swiss winds. Let's learn a lesson from the Swiss, shall we?

That's when the music kicks in. The credits roll as we pass over the trees, accompanied by one of the greatest soundtrack compositions ever created. Vera, lost, alone and stranded in the cold, wipes the tears from her eyes. And while it is some saddening stuff, the vibe is getting creepier by the second. That's when she notices a lone house far in the distance.

The camera follows closely behind as this young girl makes here way down the isolated road towards the house. The ominous music spells nothing other than complete lonesomeness and horrifying impending death, but the viewer can do nothing more than look on with excited interest. As she approaches the house, we see that someone is spying on her every action and behavior. And that's when the chains screwed into the walls begin to get tugged furiously. What in the fuck!?

"Hello! Is anyone home?" she cries. Chains rattle once more while someone looks at this cute girl through a window. What's with the chains? Could someone possibly be chained up somewhere in the house and spying on her at the same time? That seems rather unlikely. There's a great panning shot from behind as Vera walks trough the strange empty house. "Is anyone home? I'm a foreigner, unt I'm lost!" One of my favorite lines from the film.

 

Now that it's off the chain, some complete and utter madness is no doubt about to go down. As this lost young girl wanders aimlessly around the seemingly empty building, something creeps up behind her and throws chains around her neck! Yes, the very chains that were ripped out of the wall. During the struggle to remove the binding metal around her neck, a table is accidentally knocked over and scissors pierce the floor boards.

As this frightened young girl attempts to run away in fear and open the door, she's furiously stabbed through the hand with the sharp old-school instrument. She screams in panic as she looks upon her wounded left hand and whimpers before pulling the scissor blade out of her flesh. A fantastic sequence.

Cut to her exiting the building in a timely fashion, post haste, holding her injured palm and running like fuck! She's creaming... excuse me... screaming in agony and fearing for her very life. There seems to be some weird shit going on which doesn't make sense at first... but perhaps it might not later on, either. Let's just sit back and enjoy the weirdly exciting scene of the hot chick being violently slaughtered. Smiley face.

She goes running through these rocky corridors above flowing waterfalls and a rapidly gushing lake, screaming for about what seems like three full minutes! Probably more. Her eyeballs are darting all over the place every time she turns around and screams. Whatever is about to happen to her can't be good, but now I'm just stating the obviousness. Notice in the picture below that she seems to be looking up at someone right before she gets stuck.

She screams like a dumb bitch and then spreads her arms wide open, also like a dumb bitch, allowing whoever or whomever or whatever to stab this chick with some scissors in the gut area. Did they say "Freeze!"? Put your hands up! Done in by scissors, ain't that some shit. What happens next is one of the greatest moments in Dario's many slow-motion artisan shots. Using his always special and experimental camera and film techniques, he gets the better frame rate to see his little girl get hit square in the face with glass, glass and more glass before she dies.

It really is one outstanding scene. A thing of beauty. And left me speechless the first time.

All I could feel was a tingling inside myself. I came.

Her head is later hacked off (presumably not by the pair of scissors that had initially done her in) and drops off of a cliff into the white water rapids. Or is that green water rapids? It makes a really cool squishy sound when she's beheaded too. Pqwht! Thus delivering her pretty little head into the red water rapids below. We also get a blink or you'll miss it scene of her body's reflection in the lake being dragged away. The head however, is found some eight and a half months later.

Some time later...

"When a dead body is exposed to the elements, sooner or later it's eaten up by insects. First comes the common fly... lays its eggs in the rotting corpse. And thus the cycle begins. In the case of this head, the cycle not only seems to be complete, but to have been repeated!"

Larvae... of the great sarcophagus.

Gotta love it.