Hilarious Ways Movie Characters Bit The Dust

Mel Brooks famously said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." Look, there's nothing funny about death—unless, of course, it's happening to someone else. Then, well, all bets are off.

That's just one of the reasons we go to the movies: to be entertained by other people having to deal with the crap we go through, without the consequences. So when some roided-out stunt man falls through that sewer and hits every pipe on the way down, we don't worry about his friends and family, or who has to pay for his funeral services. We just point and laugh. Here are some of the most hilarious movie deaths cinema has blessed us with.

Mark Wahlberg describes The Happening thusly. "F***ing trees, man. The plants. F*** it. You can't blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn't playing a cop or a crook." Yep, that about sums up a movie filled with more ominous gusts of wind than a Chicago weekend.

Loads of people die in this frightful flick, but no one gets more points for originality than that dopey dad who decided to die by way of letting himself get run over and shredded to bits by a giant riding lawnmower. If you can't tell from Wahlberg's constipated reaction, this was the highpoint of a movie that featured dialogue like, "You know, hot dogs get a bad rep. They got a cool shape, they got protein. You like hot dogs, don't you?"

Look, Sylvester Stallone: we hate bad guys as much as the next guy, but sometimes strangling a dude to movie-death is good enough, right? We get it: you're Rambo. We get that this is your fourth movie, and exploding arrows just aren't going to cut it anymore. But still, this just seems a bit ... over the top. You're literally ripping a dude's throat out, which isn't just overkill — it's physically impossible, which actually hurts Rambo's credibility as a stone-cold killer. Throat-slitting? We get that. But throat-ripping? That's, like, sub-Troma.

But hey, what do we know? We've never tried to go back and win the Vietnam War single-handedly. Maybe you do need to rip out throats, as a time-saver or something. Maybe we should just leave this one to the murder-experts.

It's never easy to hide your disappointment at a lousy gift. We've all had that awkward Christmas morning, opening up a six-pack of underwear and having to put on a happy face or risk pissing off Mom for the rest of the day. Chubbs, the one-handed golfer with a bad taste in protégés, knows that disappointment better than anyone.

You know what, Happy Gilmore? If a darn alligator bit your friend's hand off, maybe give him a head's up before you spring its dismembered head on him. Seems like common courtesy.

Chubbs doesn't even try for the Christmas morning poker face here. There are no strained smiles. Just abject horror, as he panics and falls out a window to his death. Oops. When you think about it, the only thing that's fallen faster, or harder, than Chubbs is Adam Sandler's career, and there's nothing funny about that. Don't take our word for it. Just watch The Ridiculous 6.

Shoot 'Em Up is what happens when you combine a hardnosed, viciously violent action movie with a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and the results are oh so glorious. The movie opens on Smith (Clive Owen) chomping down on a carrot, in case you were somehow too dense to get the inspiration. When a pregnant woman rushes by, panicked, he just keeps on chomping. It's only when a thug follows, gun in hand, that the reluctant hero intervenes, shoving the carrot through the guy's head and dropping a cheesy quip that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud.

This death launches the whole movie and tells you everything you need to know about how in the cheek its tongue is going to be. But if psycho salad killers are your thing, this is all you'll need to see. Eating vegetables has never been so unhealthy.

There are so many ridiculous deaths in the Friday the 13th franchise that it's hard to pick only one, but this killshot from Part VIII is hard to ignore. After Jason corners boxing phenom Julius on a rooftop, he spends several minutes uselessly pummeling the horror movie icon to no effect. Talk about a Rope-a-Dope, Julius tires himself out so much, he ends up just giving Jason a free shot. And if there's one thing you never do, it's give the Crystal Lake Killer an opening.

This might not technically be a knock down, seeing how Julius is never going to get up again, but Jason proves you don't need good footwork or jabs when you have the punching power of a Mack Truck. You don't ever want to lose your head when you're fighting Jason, figuratively or literally. Poor Julius failed on both accounts.

Why don't they ever just run away? Jason moves slower than a grandma getting her exercise at the mall.

Can't a guy sit on the toilet in peace? If Yelp was around when Jurassic Park opened, you can bet it would have gotten a lousy review from Donald Gennaro, the weaselly lawyer who had about as much interest in dinosaurs as they do in the law. Still, being the pro he was, he joined his boss, John Hammond, on the park's initial tour and somehow found himself hiding in the men's room during a T-Rex rampage.

Clearly the dastardly dino never learned to knock, tearing the little hut down, and finding a snack waiting for him. We supposed the attorney at law could be grateful his pants weren't around his ankles, but that doesn't mean he didn't make a mess. If ever there was ever a pants-filling moment of terror, seeing the jaws of a T-Rex barreling down on you has got to be it. Life always finds a way, whether you're on the can or not.

Happy accidents come in all forms, even if some can be crappier than others. As legend has it, Harrison Ford, tired from three months of playing Indiana Jones in the hot Tunisian sun, and suffering from a wicked case of dysentery, was more interested in spending some time on the toilet than in the blistering sun for a three-day stunt sequence. He came up with the idea of dispatching a killer swordsman with his gun and just getting the whole thing done with.

From those modest, lazy roots came one of the most classic movie deaths in film history. It just goes to show you, sometimes it's better to crap out a scene than to crap your pants during one. The scene was so beloved, they reference it in the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but this time, he forgot his gun and presumably wasn't suffering from a case of the runs.

Look, right off the bat it should be explained that Big Trouble in Little China is probably the best movie ever made. And, if we are to accept that as fact, which most film reviewers and scientists do, then it becomes a question of what is the best death in Big Trouble in Little China. And that, friends, is no question at all, because this is one of the best movie deaths of all time.

The code of the samurai calls for honor above everything. When a samurai fails to protect his master, there is only one way to retain his honor: ritual suicide. But we're guessing no samurai ever committed seppuku quite like this, probably since this character is Chinese and not Japanese at all. Well, whatever. It's still an impressive sight to a see a man so overcome with grief that he turns himself into an exploding Garbage Pail Kid.

The effects here are somewhere between corny and impressive, which is really where most '80s movies lived, when you think about it. Here is one glorious hybrid of practical effects that don't look real but sold our eight-year-old selves on the fact that a ninja could make himself explode if he got mopey enough.