Which characters should have died, but didn’t in a MSTied movie. My candidate is the annoying boy in “The Black Scorpion.” Any number of times. But, sadly, he survived.
But I want to expand it: Let’s also talk about characters who died undeserving deaths. And let’s start by ruling out poor innocent Carrie in “Girl in Lovers Lane” as too easy. My pick is Sid Melton’s character in “Lost Continent,” who does absolutely nothing (other than being annoying comic relief) to deserve being devoured by a triceratops.
As for people who lived, how about awful Betty in “High School Big Shot”? Shouldn’t she at least have gotten winged in the crossfire?
What’s your pick?
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A big +10 for whoever said Rex from The Blood Waters of Dr. Z. What particularly got my goat is that he did all the heavy lifting and then Dr. Hairhelmet gets to swoop in with his jumpsuit and clown car and romance the hot woman for no reason. That stuff just isn’t right.
And I’ll also throw in Paul from Track of the Moon Beast. Sure, he was a bit of a doofus, but he was the only semi-likable character in the movie and the whole Moon Beast thing wasn’t anything he had any control over. Surely they could’ve figured out something else besides killing him.
Oooh oooh! More!
Shoulda died: Baba Yaga from Jack Frost. Forgetting that she is perhaps immortal, Ivan missed the PERFECT opportunity to ensure uninterrupted happiness for himself and Nastya and instead sends her running away with her magic mortar (hovercraft) on her head to undoubtedly plot revenge.
Undeserved death: The helicopter co-pilot from Mitchell. Hopefully the Coast Guard got to him before the sharks did.
Bonus Undeserved: The dad from High School Big Shot. How depressing was that? Seriously! Mst3k aside, a heart ripper-outer.
Did Fred Burroughs really die? He falls and is SUPPOSEDLY eaten by a dinosaur (remarkable that Sid Melton died that way as well).
That happened at the beginning of the movie, though that was a preview of something later in the movie. But later in the movie where that happened, the cop let Sister Nun & the wild & crazy guy out of jail because Fred Burroughs had told the cops all about them.
I took that as meaning Burroughs was found still alive by the cops.
I may be wrong though. I’ve watched Future War probably 200 times and I’m still pretty vague on the whole deal. The riffing is top-notch, either way.
“I’d like to have a nice bong bong right now”
I agree Fred Burroughs from Future War as an undeserved death (the only likeable character and a half decent actor).
As to WTF survivals, Nick from Hobgoblins- I mean really!!! Though now that I think about it NONE of the main characters deserved to survive that horrendous film!!!
Frank did not deserve to die in Beginning of the End, although his death did provide one of the funniest moments in the episode.
Lloyd Bridges’ death in Rocketship X-M, on the other hand, brings my wife and I back to that episode every time. Me: “Let’s watch Rocketship X-M.” My wife: “But it’s such a boring movie.” Me: “But Lloyd Bridges dies.” My wife: “Yeah, that’s right; let’s watch it.” :-)
Should have died? Mitchell!
Should have lived? The girl at the beginning of Beast of yucca flats.
Also awesome thread, makes me think about Crow getting to choose who lives & who dies, he called it after all :)
I agree about (30-year old) Teenagers from Outer Space – no fair killing hot women in bathing suits (obviously I have it in for Dr. Z. as well)! Also Teenage Strangler strangled the wrong victims. And what’s up with the caretaker in Werewolf not getting killed? He should have at least been fired on sight. Poor Russell Johnson and the turncoat in Project Moonbase – their only crime was being a third wheel. Unlike deserving characters like Watney, who is more of a square wheel. Kill him off, please.
Another should have died: Little Ken from Fugitive Alien. If Big Ken had just shot him and gotten on with the looting and pillaging, there wouldn’t have been a crappy Japanese TV series, which Sandy Frank couldn’t mash into a duo of incomprehensible “movies” and WE WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO WATCH THE STUPID THINGS!
Oh, but then we wouldn’t have the forklift song. Darn it, there’s always a downside to killing innocent children!
Should have survived: Everyone in “Gunslinger.” That movie was just so unnecessary to begin with.
Shouldn’t have survived: The rabbit in “Beast Of Yucca Flats.” Tor shouldn’t have kissed it. He should have ate it!
This is actually a tough couple of questions.
For undeserved death, I’m going to go with Carrie in “Girl in Lovers Lane”, if for no other reason than the hostile reaction to her death from Joel & the ‘bots. This was the only time it was so bad that they actually felt the need to rewrite the ending. A close second place goes to any animal that was needlessly knocked off, like in “Manos” or “Revenge of the Creature”.
For undeserved survival, I’ll go with Watney in “Outlaw”. He’s a jerk at the start, he betrays his friend for selfish reasons, he’s tossed away once his usefulness has ended, he does nothing to redeem himself, and he’s just as big a jerk at the end. They could’ve at least made him do something good for Cabot before getting killed as punishment for treachery.
I’m loathe to defend Hobgoblins because, after all, Hobgoblins, but isn’t it set up as the rules of how the Hobgoblins kill folks that they get put into hallucinations of what they want, and since Gung Ho Idiot wanted to go be a lunatic action hero, then his eating a hand grenade would be part of that fantasy, and surviving such an explosion would be even more heroic would be impossibly surviving that and … so when the Hobgoblin spell was broken and people were freed from their fantasies he …
You know what? Hobgoblins is a really stupid movie and I don’t want to bother trying to make it make sense.
@7 Sorry Stefanie: I think I meant Gladys..not Babs. It’s hard to keep track of all those chicks and bugs!
#62
Yeah. I kind of wondered about that. Can’t see Babs
being killed by any spider (even Garry-spider).
Babs is too much eye candy muscles. Actually, kind of
reminds you of the Amazon race in Futurama.
Although it’s one of my favorite episodes, I never much like seeing Roddy McDowall get blown up in “Laserblast”. Not because of his character or role in the movie, really. Roddy McDowall is just cool. The riff that immediately follows about him not being dead is kind of sad now too… since he did indeed die a couple years later.
I’m seeing a lot of hate for Nick from Hobgoblins here, and I really can’t disagree, but since his loathsomeness has been fairly well covered, I’ll toss in my vote for his equally annoying girlfriend. The exchange “That’s weird…” “I’m not having sex right now” sums up her entire character, and boy does it get old fast.
The inexplicable survival is easy: the “Paper Chase” guy, from “Warrior of the Lost World”. A whiny, selfish, cowardly, mush-mouthed, woman punching prick. How is the most unlikeable character imaginable the hero?
Undeserved death? Rita, from “Sidehackers”. Just so wrong, in every respect.
Part of the problem is, in any drama we do have to care about the character a little for it to be worth anything to the plot. OR, have the character die as fodder, i.e., an expendable character like the redshirts in Star Trek. But some deaths are just not necessary to the story, like Adal or Kerry; and it makes you hate the movie.
I’m going to vote for Beverly Garland from It Conquered the World … she is easily the bravest character, a faithful wife, and arms herself tracks down the monster on her own. For that she should have lived, and her big stupid arrogant genius husband died in a confrontation first. (I know he died anyway.) I also second Liz from Giant Leeches: why was she preserved semi-coma for half the movie underground, only to reveal she might still be alive, inducing a desperate rescue mission, only to reveal…her corpse float to the surface with the others? Stupid film-making, that’s why.
Who should have died…where to start. Daphne from Hobgoblins, sure; Kenny/Kenny from Gamera: just die already, then let Gamera reek bloody revenge on the Pacific Rim.
Most unjust death? Doreen in “Horrors of Spider Island”. You remember her, right? Giant ponytail? Vaguely more ethnic than the rest of the cast? Bosom buddy to Gladys? They worked together as a duo number? They got hired together? And then she’s never seen or mentioned again? Even by her former long-time partner? Doreen?
Yeah, she’s apparently the only dancer who managed to die in the crash. And no one noticed.
Gotta second that poor guy in the helicopter (“He was my partner for ten years!!”) at the end of Mitchell-what the hell was that for? I guess a stuntman got to jump from a ‘copter into the ocean, but otherwise….
Seriously, in our world of increasing CGI usage, I always enjoy seeing stuntpeople getting work, even in the dumbest of films. Not employing them doesn’t seem to keep the budgets of movies any lower.
Zachary Taylor in Soultaker should have died. Joe Estevez had at least two clear chances where he could have killed him, but didn’t because it would have ruined the happy ending. (ie. Narrative convenience) It would have also made sense because Joe probably would’ve had an easier time convincing Natalie to go along with his plan, whatever the hell it was, if Zach were out of the way. If not, well, they’re both soultaken and Joe goes back to work the next day.
Rick living through the end of Pod People even though he was the trashiest, most awful person of that party was bizarre. The whole thing was being set up with him dying at the end in a big send off, but he didn’t. Instead, the cheating, surly jerkoff lived happily ever after with the girlfriend he was cheating on at the start of the movie. The rest of his benign, relatively good-natured group had been brutally slain. He’s a total bungling of the Final Girl trope.
Crapout in Sidehackers should’ve died just for being annoying. And J.C. too! In fact, it’s easy to forget that he lives! Granted, there was a strong suggestion that he was going to jail at the end, but that’s only a viewer assumption.
Now while I fully expected Liz Baby to die in Attack of the Giant Leeches, I can’t abide how she died. That was disgusting.
While I didn’t want her to die, I think Skydivers would have been vastly improved, and in a way that I suspect Coleman Francis would have approved, if Beth had died in the parachute sabotage instead of Harry. I thought for sure that when Suzy and Frankie didn’t know which parachutes were Harry’s when they were sabotaging them that for sure they were screwing up. And then when Beth dies it’s horribly sad (and tragic, in a way) because she was the only significant character in that movie who wasn’t a betrayer, and everyone loved her. She had the opportunity to cheat on her husband, who was established as a miserable cheater who treated her poorly, and didn’t take it. Unlike Harry, she seemed to enjoy being in the skydiving business, and was certainly more personable than him. It could have gone a long way to salvaging that story.
Oh, and I would’ve liked Neo from Robot Holocaust, Lance Fuller from The She Creature, Paul Anka from Girls Town and Adam Chance from Agent For HARM to have died, but their surviving could in no way be called inexplicable. It was just lamentable instead.
#69 Charles: Wow, what an improvement to Skydivers. Beth’s tragic death gives even the flimsy fabric of a Coleman Francis film a few filaments of gravitas.
But, alas, as Coleman Francis was the screenwriter, it never dawned on him to include actual drama in a dramatic movie, nor cogent dialogue, scenery, pacing, or anything resembling the three-act paradigm that had worked quite successfully for three or more decades prior to his nightmarish caricature of a film.
Odd Survival: Kendra in Phase IV. Apparently the smart killer ants didn’t kill the babe, they abducted her. Not that I’m complaining, but you’ve got to wonder why.
Another Odd Survival: Kathy Ireland falling to the center of the Earth and sustaining no noticeable injuries. Very Road Runner. Are babes more durable than the rest of us?
Cornjob 72: About Kathy Ireland, aka Wanda S. . . two words: kevlar bloomers.
ck wrote: Actually, kind of reminds you of the Amazon race in Futurama.
-How every guy would like to die: Death by snu-snu!
I think that the little girl being brutally murdered in Mad Monster was all kinds of wrong for an undeserved death. I think Tony the Pumaman should have died and Vadinho should have assumed the mantle of hero, since he already did all the heavy lifting.
I’ll second Roddy in Laserblast as being undeserved. To follow a theme of helpful doctors getting whacked undeservedly, I will stick my neck out and add Ted Nelson from Melting Man as being undeserved. Sure he was a noodle and kind of ineffective but he was well meaning and was concerned and shouldn’t have been offed the way he was that late in the movie and not even by the melting man.
As far as deserved death but eluded it, I think I will roll with the subordinate dude that conspired with Henry Silva to gain control of the company in Escape 2000. I don’t remember him not getting killed so he must have survived. And undeservedly so.
I’ll join in the group clamoring for the survival of the SPIDER ISLAND girl, mainly because it’s a dumb, heartless reversal of a dumb, heartless stunt. The poor girl thinks her ‘boyfriend’ is cheating on her, is broken-hearted, finds out he’s not, runs off to meet him, and is killed, just because the film-makers wanted to be cute.
Not sure what was going on at the end of RED ZONE CUBA, but it looked like either the soldier who’d been abandoned by Coleman and his chums in Cuba somehow managed to make it back home either just in time to see his wife killed or just in time to die alongside his dead wife or just in time so his wife could see him die before he died or… Good GOD, Coleman…
As for inexplicable survival, I’ll have to go with Kenny the Gamera child, if only because he should have been thrown from Gamera’s back during the flight back home.
Coily the spring sprite shouldn’t have survived. But wait, if he dies, does that mean no more springs for us?
“Revenge of the Creature”: Chris the Dog shouldn’t have been killed. He was a great boyfriend.
“Merlin’s Shop:” Sparkle the dog shouldn’t have been killed. The fly shouldn’t have been killed. And the terrible husband? Should’ve been killed. I mean, come on. It’s creepy that he’s going to be raised by his wife. And how is she supposed to explain to friends and family that she suddenly has a baby? Does she have to forge a birth certificate, too? And, ouch, my head.
In the Undeserving Death category, I always feel bad for the “Three Inch Taxi Cab Driver” from Final Justice who probably had a family to feed and never thought he’d be blown up when he took ahead on Joe Don as a fare.
#34 – No, then they’ll just get turned into a series of EXTREMELY overrated movies.
Most undeserved death – the space Gaos from Gamera vs. Guiron. It’s just tooling around, being space Gaos, and then Guiron goes and hacks it into sushi. UNFAIR!
Most undeserved death – Ken from Fugitive Alien. No, not Ken, I mean Ken.
I would have like to have seen Jeter from Wild Rebels live. He would have made an eloquint prisoner for a piece of low life scum.
#82: You’ve reminded me of the fight between Banjo and Steve Alaimo in Wild Rebels. Banjo should have trounced Alaimo; instead, we get a nice bit of male fantasy when Alaimo (with his ropey little arms) flattens a champion boxer! I don’t think so.
#76
After several viewings I think Coleman has them both survive
in a “surprise, ironic” ending. Of course, the same director kills
the innocent, depressed, old guy at the Frog Legs restaurant and apparently
(in the full version movie) his blind daughter is assaulted and killed.
As Joel, Mike, or the bots must have observed, “That Coleman is DARK”!
Hey yeah, in Wild Rebels, what ever happened to the naked model and artist in the woods? Just because they were cliche didn’t mean they should come to harm!
I’m surprised no one mentioned Arch Hall Jr. character in Eegah in terms of characters that should have died.
Unjust death: definitely have to go with Adal from Mole People. Also the would-be girlfriend of Deathstalker (who enjoys a good potato). Did she even have a name?
Unjust survival: The reporter in Gorgo.
Deathstalker’s girlfriend had to die because they wanted the little perv to be free to perv on all new girls in the sequel without us wondering what happened to the girl who reciprocated his perving in the previous movie. He should have died just for that. Hell, that his girlfriend’s mother didn’t kill him when he was stealing one of her horses strains credibility.
Speaking of Deathstalker, I’m shocked that Terri Treas’s character, whose name I don’t remember, AKA Trucks Artist’s girlfriend, lived and actually took part in the happy ending.
I’m also surprised that Noel’s fate in Werewolf was never addressed. I would’ve thought that he either would have died or come around to Paul and Natalie’s side. As it is, Yuri’s co-conspirator was still alive at the end of the movie.
And #85, that was Hellcats.
Charles,
Regarding Noel, since Richard Lynch was one of Werewolf’s two name actors, I figure the producer(s) just didn’t have the budget to have him in the movie all that much (not that they had much budget to begin with). Either that or they just sort of incompetently forgot about him. Either explanation seems pretty compelling to me.
I’ve always thought that the death of the ride giving hippie in Laserblast was undeserved. Sure he was a walking cliche, but he was good natured and helpful. He even let someone keep their camera rig on his van. The world could use more people like him.
There was so much wrong with the death of the love interest in Mole People that a thesis could be written about it. I’d just like to add that the way she suddenly ran off to get into position to be crushed by a pillar looks absurd.
How about in Cave Dwellers there were four or five virgins sacrificed while Thong watched and waited until Ator was at the front of the line at the snake pit? What was he waiting for? Did it make sense that they weren’t worth trying to save?
Another inexplicable survival: Winky, from “Manhunt in Space” and “Crash of the Moons”. For many, many, many reasons.
Additional undeserved death: Donald Pleasance in any of his MST3K appearances. His only crime was being a talented actor, with bills to pay.
Inexplicable survival: While popular opinion sides against Nick from Hobgoblins, my vote instead goes to Kyle, the pink-beshorted weenie. While Nick had mad skills with a rake and kept hand grenades in his glove compartment, Kyle had a creepy phone-sex addiction, absolutely horrible taste in women, and did nothing remotely useful or even accidentally entertaining.
Undeserved death: Bea from The Atomic Brain. Arbitrarily killed off at the very last second before the end of the movie, after the villain was already disposed of, just so the screenwriter could make the point that any woman who isn’t 100% perfect deserves to die. Boo.
Runner-up would be the three-inch taxi driver from Final Justice. A pleasant, friendly little chap who gets shot dead by Palermo for no good reason, as if we needed any more reasons to hate the guy.