Editorials
“Everybody Dies”: The Most Bizarre Deaths in Stephen King’s Work
Presented by Neon’s The Monkey, Bloody Disgusting is celebrating this Friday’s release of Osgood Perkins’ highly anticipated horror with Stephen King Week. Yesterday, Rachel Reeves dusted off adaptations from King’s Skeleton Crew, and today, Jenn Adams bandages up the most bizarre deaths in King’s Dominion.
The only thing certain in this unpredictable world is that every one of us will eventually die. No matter who we are, where we live, or what circumstances we’re born into, we will all one day reach our inevitable end. What we’re not guaranteed is the way we’ll go out. Perhaps in a quiet deathbed at a ripe old age or a grisly accident shortly after our birth, there’s no way to know how our precious lives will eventually wink out.
Oz Perkins explores this nihilistic idea in his horror comedy The Monkey. Inspired by Stephen King’s iconic short story, the tiny hand of this titular toy descends on an equally innocent drum unleashing jovial music and unthinkable carnage. Gruesome and grisly death scenes abound each time someone winds up the key. With each sequence more unhinged than the last, Perkins delights in creating these macabre fatalities.
Perhaps he’s taking inspiration from King himself? After all, The Master of Horror has no shortage of bizarre and upsetting deaths filling the pages of his massive catalogue. For fifty years, he’s written about every conceivable type of exit, each one a gruesome reminder that the spectre of oblivion is always nearby, just waiting to pounce in surprising ways.
Death by Station Wagon in “Mile 81”
While King is known for writing about vehicular killers, his short story “Mile 81” may just feature the most bizarre—and most deadly—example. On a bright summer day, a nondescript station wagon pulls onto the side of a Maine turnpike. With the passenger door standing ajar, the wagon is caked with alien handprints and mud so thick, it’s impossible to see inside. A passing good samaritan pulls over to help and immediately regrets this altruistic decision. As he places his hand on the open door, sharp pain explodes through his body and the thing that looks like a station wagon begins chewing through the bones in his hand. The poor man is pulled into this vehicle-shaped mouth that contracts and pulses as it swallows its victim. A seemingly endless series of drivers stop to help, falling prey to the venus fly trap-like creature as their cars form a line on the turnpike’s shoulder. There are many dangers lining the roads in King’s vast catalogue, but this sinister wagon may be one of the strangest.
Death by Toy in “Chattery Teeth”
King’s third short story collection, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, is filled with bizarre and nonsensical fatalities, but the most curious involves a wind up toy similar to the Monkey itself. When stopping at a roadside convenience store, travelling salesman Bill Hogan finds himself drawn to the titular novelty item’s unusual size and hefty weight. Though he quickly forgets about this impulsive new purchase, the metal teeth soon become a surprising savior. When a hitchhiker attempts to rob the kindly man, Bill flips his van, leaving them stranded in an approaching dust storm. Before the hitchhiker can take further action, the teeth roar to life and begin chattering away on his crotch and face. As Bill loses consciousness, he sees the strangely sentient toy drag the young man’s body off into the desert where he’ll eventually be found covered in bloody bites. Bill stumbles upon the teeth again nine months later and vows to keep them close by as a source of unexpected protection. This intriguing story and oddly cathartic death exemplifies King’s knack for finding sheer terror in unexpected places and causing us to rethink the mundane elements of our everyday lives.
Death by Leeches in It
The Master of Horror has always been terrified of leeches. The horrifying scene in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me (adapted from the 1982 novella The Body) in which the boys emerge from a forest pond covered with these blood-sucking worms was inspired by a real-life event from King’s own past. But common sense tells us that if we simply avoid freshwater pools, we should be fine, right? Not if you live in Derry, Maine. After a day of lighting farts in the town’s dump, budding psychopath Patrick Hockstetter visits the abandoned fridge he uses to torture small animals. But seconds after opening the door, he’s swarmed by a horde of flying leeches, each attaching to his skin and sucking his blood. The titular shapeshifting monster has transformed itself into these gruesome pests to claim the life of another child. Of course, Patrick had previously smothered his infant brother several years before so, although certainly horrific, this gruesome demise feels like one murderous monster eliminating another.
Death by Garbage Disposal in Firestarter
One of the most upsetting deaths in King’s 1980 sci-fi classic has nothing to do with fire at all. Charlie McGee may have been born with pyrokinesis, but her father has a somehow more sinister talent. After taking part in a college experiment gone dreadfully wrong, Andy McGee now possesses the power of mental domination. He’s able to “push” people into doing his bidding with intense thought and concentration. Unfortunately, these external intrusive thoughts sometimes cause a dangerous phenomenon known as a “ripple.” When Andy pushes his way into a mind, the victim sometimes finds himself fixated on an obscure memory or inconsequential object until it slowly tears his consciousness apart. After being pushed, Dr. Herman Pynchot cannot stop thinking about an incident in his fraternity kitchen and begins to equate sexual excitement with his garbage disposal. When he can no longer bear these uncontrollable thoughts, he dresses in fine lingerie and jams his arm down into the appliance’s gnashing gears. Anyone with a trash compactor of their own has likely imagined this horrifying end, but King expands on the gruesome details. Not only does Dr. Pynchot die of blood loss and shock, when removed from the sink, what remains of his bloody arm resembles a freshly sharpened pencil.
Death by Gardening in Under the Dome
While many fatal accidents occur when the dome comes down on Chester’s Mill, perhaps the most devastating departure plays out in the Evans’ vegetable garden. This mysterious forcefield descends in a flash around the idyllic burg, severing anything that happens to stand in its way. A deer is decapitated while munching on grass across the town line and a woodchuck is cut cleanly in half. Myra Evans suffers a similar fate when she reaches for a squash growing just a foot outside this invisible border. With her right hand now severed in neighboring Motton, Myra cradles the stump and calls to her terrified husband for help. Despite a makeshift tourniquet, he’s unable to stop the gushing blood and Myra bleeds to death on the kitchen floor, becoming one of the first casualties of the aptly named “Dome Day.” Of course considering what happens to those still trapped inside the translucent prison, this relatively quick and painless exit could be considered a blessing in disguise.
Death by Vending Machine in Maximum Overdrive
This 1986 cult classic is known for two things: its King’s sole directorial turn and it begins with a string of unbelievable deaths. The world-famous author opens the film with a brief cameo in which an ATM calls him an asshole followed by a drawbridge opening on its own. Cars, vans, and trucks filled with watermelon all topple down the steepening slope crashing into anyone not able to get out of the way. As machines come to life all across the US, more brutal and bizarre accidents are yet to come. A coach attempts to buy sodas for his little league team when the strangely malfunctioning vending machine begins shooting out heavy cans. Hoping to save their dying leader, the young players wind up becoming the disaster’s next victims. Some fall to the carbonated rockets while others manage to escape the assault only to be felled by a driverless steamroller bursting through the gates. It’s a smorgasbord of strange fatalities targeting a piece of American iconography and an endearingly ridiculous reminder that no matter who we are or how innocent we appear, death may befall us at any time.
Death by Self-Cannibalism in “Survivor Type”
Amidst a sea of hideous ends, King’s most grisly death occurs in the same short story collection in which “The Monkey” resides. “Survivor Type” is based on a series of journal entries from mob-connected surgeon Richard Pine who attempts to smuggle heroin onto a doomed cruise ship. As the boat sinks off the shore of a deserted island, Richard finds himself stranded with only the water, sewing kit, and first aid supplies he found in the lifeboat. After fracturing his ankle, Richard amputates the wounded appendage and finds an unexpected solution to his growing hunger. Dipping into his stash of heroin, the doctor begins slicing off and eating more and more of his body while slowly losing his grip on reality. We leave Dr. Pine on an ominous note with little left of his dwindling frame. He’s already eaten both of his legs and most recently dined on his own severed earlobes. The last line of this harrowing journal sees him rave about something that tastes like lady fingers, implying which piece he’s most recently cleaved off. Though we don’t see Richard’s inevitable demise, the final image of a grinning corpse gleefully eating his own left hand remains one of the most disturbing images in King’s vast catalogue.
The Monkey is now playing in theaters everywhere. Get tickets now and enter to win an exclusive 1/50 resin sculpt made from the original Monkey.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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