This year’s Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse is quite different than any before, as folks are virtually watching it. But for a dedicated homebody like me, this has been a great experience, getting to see so many of the movies I usually only read about and find later at the same time as others.
All of this fun should be shared. You can get a free Alamo On-Demand account to watch Fantastic Fest 2020 from home.
Kicking things off was this live event, which is still streaming, in which you can watch a hundred of the best on-screen deaths of all time, mainly concentrating on — if the title didn’t clue you in — heads being ripping clean off bodies.
A glorious assault on the sense, this Zack Carlson-hosted clip fest is filled with both big budget and small ticket films. Here’s a quick burst of the ones I was able to figure out, as well as some blank spots that you might help me fill in.
- Deadly Friend
- Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky: If you’re looking for the all-time head-smashing champion, this is it. More people have seen the clips of this film than the full movie, which is a shame. Just seeing a few moments of its gore-soaked excess was enough to lift my mind out of the post-debate doldrums.
- There was an astounding clip of a man begging a woman to kill him, with his head being cut off and then her stabbing him through the head until his brain crawled out and began walking by itself…
- The Greasy Strangler
- Hereditary: A big-budget head-ripper.
- Body parts of kids being dropped into a swimming pool.
- Dawn of the Dead
- Day of the Dead
- The Omen: If you’re going to show a head getting chopped off, you can’t skip this one.
- Deep Red: One of my favorite deaths in a film, the death by elevator in this scene stands, um, heads and shoulders above many of the other lift kills that were shown.
- A Bay of Blood: Bava forever!
- Bad Taste: To be followed by…
- Braindead: Man, Peter Jackson made some bonkers movies, huh?
- Evil Dead 2: Always perfect.
- Total Recall: Probably the most kills I’ve ever seen in a big budget film.
- Alien: Oh, Bishop.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- The Thing
- Aguirre, The Wrath of God
- The Godfather: An appearance by an animal — instead of human — cranium being torn off.
- Silent Night, Deadly Night: To be fair, the sledding head lopping could also come from Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, where it was recycled.
- Pieces: Again, all it takes is ten seconds of this movie to put a smile on my face.
- Nightmare
- Intruder
- A scene here shows a cop get a piece of wood through the face before he gets decapitated and I have no idea what it’s from, but it’s awesome.
- Chopping Mall: Pure joy as always.
- Street Trash
- Maniac
- Return of the Living Dead
- Reanimator
- An American Werewolf In London
- Final Destination 2
- The Prowler
- Wild at Heart
- Several Friday the 13th kills, starting with Betsey Palmer losing her head, Jason taking out paintball camo kids in Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI and the boxing scene from Jason Takes Manhattan and finally the astounding frozen face scene in Jason X
- A shot on video kill I can’t place
- A second shot on video kill I can’t figure out
- A mutant tearing off a man’s head in the woods.
- A guy in an Aztec outfit killing a woman with a snake and a knife
- Killing Spree: A man kills a mohawked woman and throws her head at an old man
- Multiple scenes from Highlander…
- As well as Highlander 2: The Quickening
- Speed
- Tales from the Hood
- The Mummy
- Resident Evil
- Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy (thanks Cinema Strikes!)
- Rambo 4
- Predator
- Robotrix
- Raiders of Atlantis
- A man with a cyborg hand killing people
- Dead Heat: I am so happy that this movie is finally getting some notice!
- A post-apocalyptic swordfight.
- The Running Man
- Conan the Barbarian
- She: Another movie I’m so excited to have more people get down with!
- Four movies in a row where motorcycle riders get their heads cut off, starting with a guy on a green bike losing his head…
- An entire gang losing their heads all at once…
- A motorcycle hitting a bus, which causes a massive crash
- An Indian man on a bicycle whose loose head lands on the hood of a fancy car.
- Death Race 2000
- Two fancy men in a car with a giant knife that emerges from the door and drops two kids’ heads in a basket.
- Warriors of the Wasteland
- Caligula
- The Lift
- Tammy and the T-Rex
- A Rambo ripoff in a POW camp with a decapitation
- A guy on a raft getting chopped in half by a plane
- Bone Tomahawk
- An Aztec sacrifice with a head tumbling down the steps…is this Apocalypto?
- The Patriot
- A guy’s head getting cut off by a pane of glass and then hitting a car window while kids watch.
- A white sports car hits a kid on a bike and backs up over him, then two girls take polaroids of the bloody accident.
- Multiple men are lifted into a ceiling fan and beheaded.
- Hobo with a Shotgun
- Punks killing an old man with a bumper car
- The Sender
- Someone cleaning out a tractor when an evil goat mentally shoves him into it. UPDATE: This is from Deadline.
- Empire of the Dark
- An Asian film with lots of smoke and a man puking as a flying head attacks.
- Master of the Flying Guillotine
- Boxer’s Omen
- Devil Fetus
- Infra-Man: Yes!
- A ninja slicing off the head of a security guard.
- A white ninja slicing the head off of a black one.
- An Asian man with a mullet and mustache flipping out on some henchmen before one of them emerges to kill a bandaged man with a katana.
- Raw Force: I think!
- Audition
- Battle Royale
- Tag
- An Indian man, a popcorn machine and a carnival ride that kills people.
- A guy’s head going back and falling off.
- Bones
- The Fury: John Cassavetes getting blown up for money.
- Killer Klowns from Outer Space
- A monster throwing a man’s head into a bowl of soup.
- A baseball player’s head getting chopped off.
- The Hangover 3
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- UHF
- Scanners
- If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?
That’s all I can figure out. This was a blast and I’m basically posting this in the hopes that others will help me fill in the blanks and let me know where I was wrong!
6 is Let the Right One In, I believe 60 is 13 Sins, 72 is indeed Apocalypto, 75 is The Toxic Avenger, 89 is Samurai Cop, 95 is Mindhunters, and that’s all I got. I also made a Letterboxd list of all of the recognized ones so far. https://boxd.it/8S5j4
LikeLike
Thanks, Josh. You have confirmed my belief in the goodness of the internet.
LikeLike