Editorials
The Best Kills in Horror Movie History According to Bloody Disgusting Readers
As part of the most recent Bloody Disgusting Reader Survey, we asked you an incredibly difficult question.
Specifically, we asked you to name the best kill in the history of horror.
Hundreds upon hundreds of you answered. For some, the answer was clear and obvious. Others chose to wax poetic with near essay-length responses.
We parsed and analyzed over 700 responses to bring you a sincere attempt at identifying the single greatest kill in all of horror.
Read on for the results but fair warning, this article will feature mild spoilers for many horror movies…
Horror Kills Throughout History
‘Suspiria’
What was most impressive about the data we collected was the sheer range of kills mentioned by survey respondents.
The oldest kill mentioned was George Waggner’s The Wolfman (1941), so mentioned because, “it is a curse that can only be broken by death.”
We also received over a dozen mentions of the shower sequence in Psycho (1960) as well as a handful for the opening sequence of Suspiria (1977).
On the newer side, In a Violent Nature received two dozen votes, all of which were for the “yoga kill” whenever the respondent chose to be specific.
A small number of you also mentioned a particular third act death from Weapons. Might it be recency bias? Or do we have a new entry into the horror canon on our hands? Only time will tell.
Slashers and Science-Fiction Reign Supreme
‘Alien’
Six movies or franchises received more than 30 votes.
Alien received 36 votes, with all but one vote going to the chest burster scene (when specified), making it the single kill with the largest amount of votes.
The one outlier vote went to Dallas’s death because, “I love the way the tension builds when you don’t know where the alien is and you can see the panic increase in Dallas’s face.”
And in another chest-related death, 41 votes went to John Carpenter’s The Thing. Special shout out to the survey taker who left the comment, “the thing stomach mouth” and another who said, “The Thing when the chest opens up like a nightmarish Pac-Man.”
Then came the slashers. Halloween received 35 votes, especially for Bob’s death in the original film. The Nightmare on Elm Street series received 40 mentions. And relative newcomer Art the Clown took home 43 votes across the Terrifier franchise.
Which brings us to the absolute consensus killer… Jason Voorhees. At least half of the dozen entries in the Friday the 13th franchise were mentioned in the 90 total votes for the series.
But there was one standout from the beloved franchise. The sleeping bag kill from Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood received one third of all of the Voorhees votes.
So there you have it. Jason is our most prolific killer and the xenomorphs are responsible for the single most shocking moment in horror.
Now read on for a bit more data and select quotes from readers.
Runners Up for the Best Kills in all of Horror
‘Final Destination 3’
Just outside the top tier of horror kills is Scream, which received 27 votes.
The Final Destination franchise received 22 votes with the tanning bed, the nail gun, and–of course–the log truck.
Seven different readers voted by simply writing, “Choke on ‘em,” a reference to 1985’s Day of the Dead.
And finally, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Omen, Hatchet, Cabin in the Woods, and Ghost Ship all received a single digit amount of votes.
Bloody Disgusting Reader’s Thoughts on Horror Kills
‘Scream’
Perhaps the best part of this exercise, readers wrote answers that revealed more about themselves than the horror movies being discussed.
Many of the quotes mention seeing something upsetting, like Killer Klowns from Outer Space, at a young age, which explains a lot.
Multiple readers expressed dismay at the thought of trying to answer the question, “If I try to think of THE ONE I’ll be here forever.”
Others showed their love of horror by writing some variation of, “Every kill.”
One person said, “Anything eyeball related.”
Another commenter expressed their disdain for the entire project, “What are we twelve years old, who really cares?”
But the most sincere opinion, one likely shared by the majority of Bloody Disgusting readers, were the three responses that read, “Seriously, just one?”
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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