20 Movie Deaths That Happened In The Last Act That Were Completely Unnecessary
We've all been there, sitting in a theater when the collective "Oh, c'mon" groan from an audience when a fan favorite character inexplicably dies in its final minutes.
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Now there can be reasons, either in the narrative or behind the scenes, to axe a notable character in a film's last act, but that doesn't make the loss any less frustrating to the audience.
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With this in mind, I've assembled 20 examples of climactic movie character demises that were wholly unnecessary (and, in some cases, a bit insulting).
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Also: this article contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for various movies so if you're not looking to be spoiled in any way shape or form, TURN BACK NOW!
1.Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh), Saw 3 (2006)
The popular third installment of the Saw franchise offers our first entry on this list, when surgeon Lynn Denlon is shot, and later, has her head blown to smithereens by a head strap rigged with explosive shotgun shells. Her crime? While the film alleges infidelity and child neglect following the death of her other child, her death is mainly caused by other people failing their "games," including her estranged husband and Jigsaw's own murderous apprentice. The fact that her fate is ultimately in the hands of a pair of idiots and not her own is diametrically opposed to Jigsaw's "learning through pain" M.O. and unfairly punishes her as the film comes to its twisty conclusion.
2.Audrey (Willa Holland), Legion (2010)
There's plenty of silly nonsense throughout the R-rated religious horror film Legion, but it's ultimately a fun enough film that you root for the humans fighting against bloodthirsty angels and their possessed followers (such is the way of any brainless siege film). Yet one of the film's most empathetic survivors, the teenage rebel Audrey, dies for seemingly no reason in Legion's climax, and worst of all, she's not even given an explosive or heroic death: she simply dies in a car accident spurred on by a battle between angels. It's a bummer of a death that does nothing for the plot and is too lame to even count as a surprise demise.
3.Hugo (Keean Johnson), Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
This one especially hurts because the charming Hugo is already saved from the brink of death earlier in Robert Rodriguez's exciting cyberpunk epic, having his head supplanted on a robotic body as a result. Nevertheless, Hugo is absolutely decimated by a preventive hook ring on a massive cable, causing him to plummet to his oblivion. To pour salt on the wound, Alita doesn't even get to avenge his permanent death before the credits roll.
4.Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), Army of the Dead (2021)
There are a lot of characters to like (and despise) throughout Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead, and the film is perhaps at its most effective when killing off its cast of charismatic mercenaries. Yet one of the most unnecessary victims to Snyder's decision to leave as few survivors as possible comes in Lilly, the rogue-like smuggler who sacrifices herself in vain to help her friends reach a helicopter home, which still gets attacked by a super zombie and crashes a few minutes later. It would be a fitting end to have Lilly survive alongside her encampment friend Kate, but alas, her bone-headed last-minute death is what we're stuck with when all is said and done.
5.Seok-woo (Gong Yoo), Train to Busan (2016)
Korean cinema has a storied history of shockingly dooming some of your favorite characters right before the movie is about to end (see: Parasite, Karaoke Crazies, etc.), often punctuating their dramas as tragedies in the most literal sense. But Train to Busan uses that mechanism to maximize the tears that will flow from your face, as the heartbreaking sacrifice that Seok-woo makes to save his daughter elicited more than a few audible "nooooo"'s from the audience when I saw it in theaters several years back. Ultimately, you understand it, but you really, really don't want it.
6.Abner Krill/Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), The Suicide Squad (2021)
The bizarre anti-hero and fan favorite of The Suicide Squad, Abner Krill (aka Polka-Dot Man) transformed a surreal gimmick character into a living, breathing redemption story, one of overcoming psychological trauma while also offering a quirky blend of body horror and dry comedy. So when Krill is able to use his powers for the greater good and become a "hero," you feel absolutely gutted to see him die almost immediately after, especially since everyone was rooting for Krill to make it into future (now unlikely) Suicide Squad projects.
7.Andre (Jaymes Butler), Barbarian (2022)
Barbarian made its name on being able to shock audiences with its many macabre twists and turns, but one of the film's most jaw-dropping moments came at the expense of one of the few genuinely heroic characters in the film. After rescuing Tess and providing shelter to her and AJ, Andre does his best to explain the background of "The Mother" as well as his knowledge as a 15-year resident of the decrepit Brightmoor before The Mother bursts in, killing him brutally. While Andre's death is one that bumps up the film's relatively low body count, you still feel sorry that the good-willed character faces such a terrible fate, proving that no good deed goes unpunished in Barbarian.
8.Jakob Toretto (John Cena), Fast X (2023)
I might be eating crow with this entry, seeing as the track record of the Fast & Furious franchise proves that none of their supposedly dead characters ever stay dead. Bust as of this writing, John Cena's Jakob Toretto met a fiery end at the end of Fast X, sacrificing himself to save Dom and his son. While the character was certainly different from his no-nonsense introduction in the previous Fast film, it was still shitty to see the naturally charismatic Jakob bite the bullet in Fast X, especially as we literally barely knew him.
9.Cameron Elam (Dylan Arnold), Halloween Kills (2021)
Cameron Elam was a bit of a shitheel in Halloween (2018), but it was relatively normal teenage shittiness, certainly not deserving of death; in fact, the character had been arrested for criminal mischief in deleted scenes for that film. But with the canon narrative of Halloween Kills, Cameron and his father, Lonnie, attempted to help Allyson bring Michael Myers down and, well, it goes as well as you might expect. Admittedly, Cameron's exit from this mortal coil is particularly cruel and unnecessary, witnessing the bleeding corpse of his father before Myers takes his sweet time brutalizing the young man before killing him in from of his ex-girlfriend.
10.Nathan Sears (Arlen Escarpeta), Final Destination 5 (2011)
This one stings! Nathan gets a lot of undue shit throughout Final Destination 5, dealing with abusive coworkers, the trauma of the inciting incident, and the genuine horror of being hunted by a vengeful death. But through a coincidental accident, the sympathetic character becomes the first Final Destination character to inherit the remaining years of someone else. Yet after the film's fantastic final twist takes place, Nathan learns that the character who died in his stead had only days to live, leading to a (rather undeserved) punchline on the film when some airplane wreckage rips through the roof and claims his life right before they cut to credits. Poor Nathan!
11.Shogo Kawada (Taro Yamamoto), Battle Royale (2000)
Shogo Kawada is the closest thing Battle Royale has to an altruistic character, having won the previous game, and is revealed to be there to destroy the Battle Royale system. Aiding the lead lovebirds in their efforts to survive, the anti-hero does take a ton of damage at the hand of the movie's primary sadist, Kiriyama, and succumbs to his injuries on the literal boat ride off of the island. In a movie so filled with death, would it have killed them to have let the selfless badass make it out alive?!
12.Sarah Caraway (Bojana Novakovic), Devil (2010)
Sarah Caraway falls into the same category as Lynn in Saw III, depicting another character who is killed in the last act of Devil for what ultimately is revealed to be small potatoes: she stole money from her husband, who might want her dead. In fact, the film's primary protagonist, Tony, even attempts to trade his life for hers, but the Devil has already enacted his wrath upon her, despite being an all-powerful, shape-shifting being. It's a pointless death that only serves the convenience of the premise, and is far from justified in the grand scheme of Devil.
13.Scott Fuller (Ernest Liu), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Scott Fuller's death in From Dusk Till Dawn's last act is a real gut-punch, as he gets so close to the finish line. Falling victim to his own love for his father, despite promising to kill him once he turns into a vampire, Scott is bitten by his father before he finally gains the strength to kill him, but it's too late: Scott gets swarmed by other vampires before begging his sister to kill him. It's a bleak, graphic death that occurs mere moments before the survivors are rescued, and it's one that's later corrected in the From Dusk Till Dawn television adaptation, where the character becomes a villainous presence in the series.
14.Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell), Pitch Black (2000)
For a film that later launched a franchise around Vin Diesel's Riddick, it might be easy to forget that Pitch Black's hero was Carolyn Fry, the ship's pilot and de-facto leader of the crash survivors. Fry and Riddick help the survivors as best as they can on the dangerous, treacherous planet, but in one last surprise, Fry is killed by the creatures after saving a wounded Riddick. The sacrifice is unexpected (yet entirely in-character) but it's nevertheless a stab in the heart of both the character and the audience to kill off the film's traditional hero in the last minutes of Pitch Black, which is largely seen as a call to shift the focus on Riddick should the film spawn sequels (which, admittedly, it did).
15.David Dunn (Bruce Willis), Glass (2019)
Okay, this third act death flat-out sucks. After being reintroduced in Split after his debut in the amazing Unbreakable, David Dunn returns to face Mr. Glass and The Horde in Glass, M. Night Shyamalan's low-budget superhero thriller. Glass has high points and low points, but there's no doubt the lowest point is when David Dunn is unceremoniously drowned in a flooded pothole by a nameless SWAT team officer, killing off the character just to put an unnecessary hat on for the film's "real" villain. It's a bad ending for a great character and one that feels arbitrary instead of narratively necessary.
16.Scarlet (Rose Byrne), 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Scarlet is one of the primary heroes of 28 Weeks Later, believing that saving the young Tammy and Andy might help produce a cure for the Rage virus, and stands by these kids through attacks by both zombies and homicidal soldiers. Sadly, Scarlet meets her end shortly before the film ends, suffering a memorable but graphic death in which her head is bashed in by a rifle. It's a grim expiration that seems to exist just to make the film's heavy, Don, more savage, and if we're being completely honest, the film's final beats feel less believable without her presence.
17.Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors rightfully brought back series creator Wes Craven (as a co-writer) and Heather Langenkamp into the budding franchise's fold after the disastrous second film. Teaming up with a new generation of potential victims, Langenkamp's Nancy Thompson anchors Dream Warriors and eventually dies by Freddy Kreuger's hand in the film's finale — but not before stabbing him with his own glove, which helps (temporarily) send the slasher back to the grave. It's a heroic sacrifice that allowed Langenkamp to leave the character in her rearview as she pursued other roles in Hollywood, but it ultimately feels like a bittersweet death, given all that she had been through in the first Elm Street film. However, Thompson's death doesn't hurt as much knowing that Langenkamp would return to the franchise playing a fictionalized version of herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which also saw Craven back in the director's chair for his final Nightmare outing.
18.Taylor Ann Smythe (Bex Taylor-Klaus), Hell Fest (2018)
Hell Fest may be a lean and ghoulish old-school slasher with a mean streak, but that doesn't mean it went too far with the third-act demise of one of the film's most beloved characters. In one of the film's most intense sequences, the adventurous Taylor has taken part in the theme park's live guillotine "beheading," unaware that the film's masked killer has taken on the role of executioner. However, Taylor narrowly survives their beheading and escapes the trap, only to be hunted down seconds later and murdered in front of a crowd anyways. I'm not going to argue that the character's death doesn't make for a not-entirely-unexpected addition to the film's body count, but to have the character survive their initial death sentence only to die immediately afterward felt not only unnecessary, but also like a cop-out for a more inventive and memorable exit.
19.Jordan Welch (Jack Quaid), Tragedy Girls (2017)
Jack Quaid has done a solid job at portraying villains who die in a number of big films, including The Hunger Games, Scream (2022), and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but the rising actor played a much less deserving victim in the 2017 horror-comedy, Tragedy Girls. Playing the love interest character of Jordan Welch with vulnerability while also sporting his trademark wit, Welch's death in the film's final minutes cements the homicidal edge of one of the titular characters but is really devastating to the audience, as he'd shown nothing but kindness and affection to the character, and his death is further punctuated by the tormented cries of his father in the subsequent scene. It's a move that nearly sours Tragedy Girls entirely for the audience, albeit one that ultimately falls in line with the underhandedly ruthless tone of the film.
20.Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Last, but certainly not least, we have the tragic on-screen offing of Miles Dyson, who is killed during Sarah Connor and the T-800's attempt to destroy Skynet and prevent "Judgment Day." Dyson, who is spared from an untimely execution from Connor earlier in the film, ends up taking a bullet from an armed response team and is tasked with setting off an explosive as he waits to die from a collapsed lung. Actor Joe Morton does an amazing job with his performance, as his struggled panting remains one of the most harrowing depictions of a mortally wounded man ever put to screen. But why does Dyson have to die, especially after we see him with his kid? If we're all tears when the T-800 willingly lowers himself into a pit of molten metal, why is Dyson's third-act death played off so flippantly? I think Miles Dyson certainly deserved better than being the final act "means to an end," and should we get any additional Terminator films in the future, I hope the character ultimately receives a second chance to get his flowers.
