7 of the Saddest Deaths in Horror Films

Romantic comedies and dramas aren’t the only genres that can make people cry. If anything, killing off characters in horror films can tug at your heartstrings even more. Horror isn’t known for providing characters with quick deaths. These are a few character deaths that affected me personally. 

Gage Creed – Pet Sematary

After watching his son Gage (Miko Hughes) gets killed, Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) brings Gage back to life. However, Louis soon realizes what came back wasn’t his son, and he has to kill it before it kills him.

As if this scenario wasn’t heartbreaking enough, we are shown flashes of Gage before the crash and after. When Louis injects Gage and his crying echoes, Louis’s heart and my heart sank. It had to be done, but it’s always hard to watch.

Annie Brackett – Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2

(Synopsis provided by IMDb.com): Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) struggles to come to terms with her brother Michael’s (Tyler Mane) return to Haddonfield.

After escaping death in Rob Zombie’s first Halloween, Annie (Danielle Harris) is attacked by Michael again. This time, though, Annie doesn’t survive.Truthfully, I liked Annie more than Laurie in Halloween 2. Her death hit me the hardest when her dad walks into the house and sees her, and we’re shown videos of Annie as a child while he mourns. I liked the character and I thought she deserved better than that. Especially after what happened to her in the first film, and all the shit she got from Laurie in the second film.

Lily – Mama

(Synopsis provided by IMDb.com): A young couple takes in their two nieces only to discover that a foreboding evil, a.k.a. Mama has latched itself to their family.

Lily (Isabelle Nélisse) is the youngest of the nieces. She basically grew up with Mama and is having a harder time letting her go than her sister, Victoria (Megan Charpentier). It was gut-wrenching watching the two sisters get separated and Lily is taken over a cliff while Victoria reaches for her and cries out her name. Then, Victoria is forced to watch Mama and Lily drop off the cliff together.

Nancy – The Final Girls

(Synopsis provided by IMDb.com): After Max (Taissa Farmiga) loses her mother, she and her friends get stuck in a horror film from the 1980s that her mother starred in.

When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was expecting a goofy horror comedy with no emotion. Actually, they almost cut the whole mother/daughter story out of the film. I’m glad they didn’t, because a good slasher film can still have heart. Poor Max has to meet her mother’s character, Nancy (Malin Akerman) and tries her best to keep Nancy safe from the film’s killer. But, after Max is stabbed, Nancy realizes there can only be one final girl, so she sacrifices herself so Max can live. She starts to dance and strip to attract the killer’s attention while singing the exact song Max and her mom sang before the car accident. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time because at least Max got to say goodbye to her mother.

Meg Loughlin – The Girl Next Door

(Synopsis provided by IMDb.com): When their parents die in a car accident, Meg (Blythe Auffarth) and her sister, Susan (Madeline Taylor) are forced to live with their sadistic Aunt Ruth (Blanche Baker), and their cousins.

This poor girl endured so much throughout this movie. She was beaten, starved, raped, and branded. I’m not even going to mention the worst thing her aunt did to her! The end of the film brings you a little bit of hope when help finally comes. But that hope is immediately crushed when she takes her last breath. Abusing a kid is one of the worst things a person can do. The fact that some of the events actually happened make the death so much more heartbreaking.

Omi – Krampus

(Synopsis provided by IMDb.com): A boy (Emjay Anothony) who has a bad Christmas ends up accidentally summoning the festive demon Krampus to his family home.

After Krampus makes his way into the home, Omi (Krista Stadler) selflessly stays behind to face him while her son and his family make a run for safety. I really liked Omi’s character. She was the only one that truly had the Christmas spirit. I don’t believe she deserved to go out the way she did. However, her sacrifice was very selfless. For a second, I thought maybe Krampus would spare her because she still had the spirit, but as soon as he opened his sack, I knew she was screwed.

Frank – Return Of The Living Dead

(Synopsis provided by IMDb.com): When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.

Return Of The Living Dead was a goofy fun horror comedy that had one of the darkest deaths I’ve ever seen. Frank, played by James Karen (The Pursuit Of Happyness, 2006) is one of the funny, goofy employees infected by the gas in the very beginning. I knew his fate, but, I had no idea his death would hit so hard. As soon as he turns into a zombie, instead of going out and killing the other survivors, he escapes and makes his way to the crematorium. He turns the burner on and takes his wedding ring off, and places himself inside and burns (sort of) alive. I’m not sure if he killed himself so he wouldn’t hurt others, or because being dead hurt too much, but being burned alive would definitely not be a quick death.

I didn’t realize when I was making this list, that most of my choices involved family. It hits people the hardest when a character has to watch someone they love die, sometimes twice. That’s the key to a good, emotional death scene. Which death from horror movie had the most impact on you?