5 Most Brutal Deaths In Sci-Fi Movies

Sci-fi movies have a knack not only for showing us fantastical stories we could only dream of, but also for presenting nightmarish character exits that often require cleanup with a mop and bucket. Such is the blessing and curse of sci-fi stories: They allow storytellers to come up with some pretty heinous ways to kill off their characters and assure, without a shadow of a doubt, that they shouldn't have tried out that daring experiment, would've been better off never visiting that foreign planet, or could've avoided poking around an alien crash site.

While all of those lessons certainly land when they need to, it doesn't stop audiences from saying, "Well, that was an absolutely horrific way to go," when certain folks bite the dust. Whether it's being sucked out into the blackness of space or succumbing to movie science that hasn't yet been made a reality (thankfully), movie history is littered with brilliantly wild kills that stand the test of time, sometimes more than the films they're a part of. With that in mind, we've skimmed through some of the most brutal deaths in science fiction and found five bleak, brilliantly effective, and at times stupendously stomach-churning demises that we always love to go back to.

It might seem like a strange choice, but in the grand, gory, and excessively goopy scheme of things, there's something deeply cold and brutal about the death of Clark (Richard Masur) in John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror, "The Thing." So many members of Outpost 31 are either assimilated or attacked by the desperate and deceptive life form in one of the greatest remakes ever made. There's the horrific defibrillator scene that sees someone lose their hands and another character get caught like a Venus flytrap and thrown around in the air. For Clark, however, his end comes with a brutally swift gunshot to the head, fired by a paranoid MacReady (Kurt Russell) who doesn't know who to trust anymore.

The act leads to one fewer human in the camp, which, as highlighted by Childs (Keith David), "makes you a murderer, don't it?" The irony of this is that mere minutes earlier, Childs was willing to let the outpost's pilot freeze to death outside to ensure his own survival. It's a horrible, unapologetically base human reaction, given the circumstances they've found themselves in with danger hidden among the ranks. It also delivers the tried, tested, and undeniably true message that no matter what kind of monster is waiting in the wings to take over, a human at the end of their rope, with no one to trust, is sometimes the most terrifying creature of all.

Delivered like a bullet you just can't dodge, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) makes the rules of life and death in "The Matrix" abundantly clear to Neo (Keanu Reeves). "The body cannot live without the mind." It's one of the many dark elements of breaking free from the Wachowskis' digital prison, and it's brought home with brutal impact by Joe Pantoliano's steak-loving traitor, Cypher.

After turning his back on humanity and choosing to rejoin the Matrix, Cypher reveals to his team what plans are ahead as he disconnects some of his former friends, killing them instantly. Humans being transformed into living batteries for the machines is bad enough, but turning out the lights of our heroes as easily as unplugging a lamp makes things even worse.

The first to go is Apoc (Julian Arahanga), who ragdolls to the floor before Neo and the rest of the Nebuchadnezzar crew understand what's happening. What makes this even more heartbreaking is that Switch (Belinda McCrory) quickly recognizes what's coming and pleads for another way. "Not like this. Not like this," she says, before her eyes roll back and she falls to the floor as well. While it might not be as gruesome as some of the other deaths on this list, getting unplugged in "The Matrix" shows that even with all the guns ("lots of guns") and extensive kung fu knowledge only a download away, death can be handed out just as easily, and it doesn't even take a machine or an Agent to do the deed.

"One day, someone like me is gonna kill you and your whole f*****g race," asserts hotshot pilot Zander (Patrick Muldoon) as he kneels before the gelatinous-looking smart bug in Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi war movie, "Starship Troopers." Those are, unfortunately, his last words, as the monstrous creature reveals its barb-like sucker and proceeds to pierce Zander's noggin before removing its brainy goodness. It's yet another horrific character death brought to life by the master of sci-fi, who is never content with a character getting a peaceful death if the opportunity arises.

It's hard to really grieve over Muldoon's character, given that he spends most of his screen time flirting with Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), the former girlfriend of Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien). Nevertheless, having your skull transformed into a slushy machine and getting its contents vacuumed is easily up there among the worst ways to go in sci-fi movie history. It's slow, painful, and, worst of all, helps bugs get the upper hand in the excessively violent space war. By this point in Verhoeven's cult classic sci-fi, so many characters have died from bug attacks, but the Brain Bug's methods are possibly the most monstrous. Even now, the grueling process can still make skin crawl after all these years, proving that the only good bug really is a dead one. 

By the third act in Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi action movie that gives capitalism a metallic middle finger, there have been some pretty heinous death scenes in "Robocop." ED-209 has turned a businessman into a pincushion and even Murphy (Peter Weller) himself has been left clutching onto life before he is turned into the titular tin man. Arguably, the stickiest character snuffing in the film is Emil Antonowsky (Paul McCrane), the unfortunate member of Clarence Boddicker's (Kurtwood Smith) gang who finds himself up to his eyeballs in toxic waste. The result sees him looking like a self-sentient, worn-down candle, lurching his way through the steel mill in absolute agony. To top it all off, Clarence, desperate to evade the future of law enforcement, accidentally drives at high speed into his horrifically deformed lackey, who explodes like an enormous bag of paint.

As deaths go, Verhoeven was a master of sending people on their way in grotesque fashion, but there's something about Antonowsky's exit that lingers more than most. The toxic waste would've been enough for some filmmakers, leaving Emil as nothing but a puddle on the floor. Instead, the director of films like "Total Recall" and "Starship Troopers" makes his character's curtain call a splatter fest that's an unnecessarily gross but stupidly fun touch in this action movie for the ages.

What else was going on this list besides John Hurt coughing on noodles after waking up from a nightmare in Ridley Scott's 1979 movie, "Alien." As rightfully pointed out by one of the movie's icons, Yaphet Kotto's Parker, "the food ain't that bad, baby." The real issue that's causing problems for Hurt's Kane is the parasite that has infiltrated his body and left a nasty surprise that is itching to get out.

The story goes that, during filming of this anxiety-inducing scene, the cast was unaware of how messy things were going to get. All that was written in the script was that "the creature emerges." It's through a masterful appearance from Hurt convulsing on the dinner table and every other cast member trying to pin him down that the terror of just how bad things have gotten sets in. After what is easily the most memorable squib explosion in movie history, Kane's chest bursts open, and the baby xenomorph makes its big-screen debut.

It's a terrible way to go, with this insect-like being killing its host by way of its own birth, and every remaining Nostromo crew member takes a heart-pounding beat before it scuttles off the table. Extra praise must also go to Hurt, who makes the scene all the more real by letting his hand twitch in the background as the alien takes its first breath, leaving us struggling to catch ours.