User blog:BrianBerta/My Favorite Villain Deaths From Movies

Spoiler Warning: This Page Will Contain Spoilers

It's always great to see a movie villain go out, and get what he/she deserves. If done right, the villain death can be very good. I've seen many villain deaths in movies, but here are the ones which I find the most memorable. These are in no particular order. You may disagree with some, but remember that this is just my own subjective opinion. You are welcome to list your favorites as well.

1) Norman Stansfield from Leon: The Professional (1994)

While Mathilda's father is being paid by DEA agents to stash cocaine inside his house, the DEA agents (led by Norman Stansfield) kill everyone in her family after they realize that he was keeping some to use himself. Mathilda is the only one to survive since she wasn't home at the time, and a hitman named "Leon" who lives next door to her takes her under his wing and he agrees to protect her from them. However, after Stansfield discovers where they live, he sends an NYPD ESU team to infiltrate their apartment. Leon helps Mathilda escape, but he is injured and is eventually shot by Stansfield who corners him alone. As Leon lays dying, he puts something in Stansfield hand and says "This is from Mathilda." in a weak and shaky tone. Right after he dies, Stansfield opens his hand, only to discover that it is a pin to a set of grenades strapped to Leon, and Stansfield is killed instantly as it blows up. It is quite a sad scene to see Leon die, but the surprise he has in store for Stansfield is enough to make you appreciate the films creativity with how it killed him off. The scene was handled really well.

2) Wez from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

The Mad Max franchise is a post-apocalyptic franchise about a drifter named "Max" who wanders the barren wasteland of Australia where people are killing each other in order to obtain gasoline. In this movie, he agrees to help a small, gasoline rich community escape a band of bandits. During their final escape, Max and a feral kid find themselves alone from the rest of the group. As the feral kid tries to grab a bullet on the front of their truck that they're driving in, Wez manages to board their truck, and he makes one final attempt to grab the feral kid. However, after Max notices that they're about to collide with another car, he pulls the feral kid to safety as Wez gets killed instantly by getting crushed by the 2 speeding cars head on. While another villain actually died in the other car that Max's truck collided with, his death is nowhere near as jaw-dropping as Wez's death is. While the original Mad Max had a gory way to 'kill' off Johnny, I didn't include that one because it's unknown whether he really did die in that film. Therefore, Wez will be on this list.

3) Ma-Ma (Madeline Madrigal) from Dredd 3D (2012)

I was very impressed with this movie. It's a shame that the marketing sucked. In the far future, the U.S. is a dystopic wasteland. On the east coast lies Mega City One, a violent metropolis. After Ma-Ma, the leader of a drug den, traps Judge Dredd and Cassandra Anderson inside a slum tower block, they have to fight their way to the top as they kill off the enemies one by one. After they get to the very top, Ma-Ma informs Dredd that if he kills her, a censor on her arm will release a signal that will detonate bombs which will destroy all of the top floors of the complex. However, Dredd reasons that the detonators signal will not be able to reach the top floors from the bottom so he forces her to inhale "Slow-Mo" and he throws her off the top floor of the complex down to her death. Also, we actually get to see her fall to the bottom in slow motion. When the filmmakers went out to create this sequence, they wanted to create a scene both beautiful, but disorienting. The glass looks like glitter, but the close up final impact is the cherry on the top for this scene. This scene is gorgeous and gruesome.

4) Max Cady from Cape Fear (1991)

After Max Cady is released from prison after 14 years for the violent rape and battery of a young woman, he vows to get revenge on his trial lawyer, Sam Bowden, for burying evidence which might have lightened his sentence. He stalks his family throughout the film, but at the end, he finally follows them out to a house boat traveling down a river. He attacks their family, but Sam is finally able to handcuff him to the boat. Soon after that, the boat is torn apart by hitting a large rock. Sam and Max end up on the shore. They fight for a bit, but Sam quickly prepares to kill him by smashing his head with a rock. As he's about to finish him off, a wave washes Max out to sea as the section of the boat he is handcuffed to sinks, dragging him underwater and drowning him in the process. As he goes down, he yells gibberish as he slowly sinks. Just before he's dragged under, the scene where the 2 men stare at each other right before Max is finally pulled underwater is haunting. Robert De Niro gave an incredible performance in this scene, and his death is haunting as fuck. If the wave didn't wash him out to sea, he would've died a quick death, but his painful death was well-deserved.

5) HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The U.S. spacecraft, Discovery One, is bound for Jupiter. On board, they are guided by Hal 9000, a powerful computer which has supposedly never made any error before. After the 2 crew members: Dr. Frank Poole and Dr. David Bowman become suspicious of him, they plan to shut him down. They go into a space pod, assuming that he can't hear them, but he can read lips and he finds out that they're going to shut him down. HAL kills Poole and he turns off the life support for all other crew members, leaving Bowman outside the ship until he finally dies. However, he is able to make it inside the spaceship, and he goes to shut him down. As HAL is completely powerless at this point, all he can do is try to convince him with last minute hopes. The quietness of this scene is really unnerving, and the viewer keeps on fearing that HAL will find a way to stop Bowman. Just before he does shut him down, he sings "Daisy Bell" as he gets shutdown. This scene is really memorable and the constant quietness makes it more unnerving. It's very hard for the viewer to look away from this scene as it's so absorbing.

Anyways, what are your favorite villain deaths? Feel free to leave your favorites down below.