Sometimes F*@% Yeah scenes occur in movies that are no damn good. Fortunately, I adore bad movies, so I frequently find nuggets of gold hidden in steaming piles of poo. That’s a nice image.
Case in point: director Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea, a film that pits a number of otherwise quality actors and LL Cool J against a pack (a school? a gaggle?) of super-smart sharks in a collapsing undersea research base. You already know where I’m headed with this, don’t you? Deep Blue Sea is a fun, stupid movie that has the distinction of having the Best Death Scene Ever.
Don’t argue with me. It’s the Best Death Scene Ever.
Case in point: director Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea, a film that pits a number of otherwise quality actors and LL Cool J against a pack (a school? a gaggle?) of super-smart sharks in a collapsing undersea research base. You already know where I’m headed with this, don’t you? Deep Blue Sea is a fun, stupid movie that has the distinction of having the Best Death Scene Ever.
Don’t argue with me. It’s the Best Death Scene Ever.
It’s better than David Warner getting beheaded with a sheet of glass in The Omen.
It’s better than the girl getting hit by a bus in Final Destination.
It’s better than Rutger Hauer blowing up Gene Simmons' head with a grenade at the end of Wanted: Dead or Alive. "Fuck the bonus." (Sorry about the autographs - it was the only image I could find.)
It’s better than John Voight getting crushed, then eaten (snake cam!), then regurgitated (and winking!) by the title character in Anaconda.
It’s better than the flaming wheelchair scene in Manhunter.
It’s better than Greedo getting shot in cold blood in the original version of Star Wars.
It's better than Kevin Spacey's sudden, shocking death scene in L.A. Confidential.
It's better than the girl who takes the big slo-mo free fall to the grave during the opening scene in Cliffhanger.
It’s better than Taye Diggs “face off” with Christian Bale in Equilibrium.
It’s better than… you know, come to think of it, Taye Diggs’ death may actually be the Best Death Scene Ever.
OK, let’s just say that Samuel L Jackson’s death in Deep Blue Sea is One of The Best Death Scenes Ever.
I’m pretty sure everybody in the western hemisphere has caught this movie on cable, but if you haven’t – SPOILER ALERT! I am going to ruin the best part of the movie for you.
Samuel L Jackson plays a brilliant industrialist billionaire who is bankrolling this research project out in the middle of the ocean. Saffron Burrows’ hot but amoral scientist has genetically altered sharks to make them smart killing machines. Stop laughing, damn it! Things go wrong, and Sam and Co. end up struggling for survival in this big undersea base that’s flooding and falling apart while the sharks hunt them. By the laws of movie survival, Samuel L Jackson must survive the film, or at least heroically die at the very end. He has to - he’s the biggest star in the movie.
About halfway through the movie, the survivors are trapped in a chamber with a pool in the floor that opens out to the sea, and Jackson suggest they don wetsuits and swim for the surface. Understandably, the group freaks out – there are killer sharks out there, dude! Sam rallies the troops with a stirring speech about survival and sticking together – it’s his Oscar moment…
… and right in the middle of his speech a big fucking shark bursts from the pool, bites into him, and drags him screaming into the water. It’s over in like, two seconds.
I’m pretty sure everybody in the western hemisphere has caught this movie on cable, but if you haven’t – SPOILER ALERT! I am going to ruin the best part of the movie for you.
Samuel L Jackson plays a brilliant industrialist billionaire who is bankrolling this research project out in the middle of the ocean. Saffron Burrows’ hot but amoral scientist has genetically altered sharks to make them smart killing machines. Stop laughing, damn it! Things go wrong, and Sam and Co. end up struggling for survival in this big undersea base that’s flooding and falling apart while the sharks hunt them. By the laws of movie survival, Samuel L Jackson must survive the film, or at least heroically die at the very end. He has to - he’s the biggest star in the movie.
About halfway through the movie, the survivors are trapped in a chamber with a pool in the floor that opens out to the sea, and Jackson suggest they don wetsuits and swim for the surface. Understandably, the group freaks out – there are killer sharks out there, dude! Sam rallies the troops with a stirring speech about survival and sticking together – it’s his Oscar moment…
… and right in the middle of his speech a big fucking shark bursts from the pool, bites into him, and drags him screaming into the water. It’s over in like, two seconds.
I actually saw this movie in a crowded theater (I told you I like bad movies) and the audience went insane! You couldn’t hear the dialogue in the movie for the next five minutes because people were laughing so hard and screaming their approval. It was fantastic.
Deep Blue Sea – it may not be the Best Death Scene Ever, but it gets a hearty F*@% Yeah from me.
Willem - back me up, brother!
39 comments:
I appreciated the scene more for the fact that it looked like the sharks were eating Barbie's pal Samuel in the special effects scene. Then they went and turned on the power breakers UNDERWATER. I watched this movie with my dad whose an electrician - he laughed and we both appreciate bad movies.
I also saw DBS in a crowded movie theater, and the reaction was the same. It made me decide to stay away from all movie spoilers ever, since I want to be that surprised at least once more in my life.
One more for Clint- when he lays into the group of guys with the 2x4 in Pale Rider. The toughs are beating the stuffing out of farmer brown, and we know Clint is the Man With No Name and we expect him to gun them all down, but instead, with just a board, he pummels them all mercilessly.
The Matrix has a ton of these, but the first use of bullet time, with Trinity taking down the cops, has to qualify.
Here's a non-action-flick nominee: When Randal orders "Happy Scrappy Hero Pups." The sequence of movie titles, with the shots of the mom & kid spliced in, is so over-the-top it's exhilarating.
Maybe not a F*@% Yeah death scene but a F*@% No death scene . . .Sherrif Buster getting killed by Annie Wilkes in Misery. Totally unexpected and blew me away. I cried for Sherrif Buster. . .
I went to see this movie with my friend just for scenes like that. Unfortunately, the Giganto Size Soft Drink I downed in the first 10 minutes of the movie did me in. When Samuel L. Jackson started the speech I thought, "Oh, brother, this is where he earns his paycheck by screaming eloquently in the camera for five minutes... now's a good time to go!" I went to the bathroom and when I came back my pal was still laughing. All he could say was, "You missed it!" I later rented it just to see that scene.
Long Time Lurker, First Time Poster
I like how you warn people that there are spoilers ahead AFTER you tell us Samuel L. dies. That's pretty clever.
This was pretty cool. I hadn't seen the movie in the theaters because I'm not stupid, but I caught it on TBS and was pretty shocked when he died.
Here's the other thing I love about Deep Blue Sea:
Suit: "So, good script and all, but we were thinking...well, we were wondering if you could come up with a scene where in the only way the girl could save herself from being eaten by a shark is by taking her clothes off."
Screenwriter: "Why...why yes, I think I have just the thing!"
That'll do, pig.
Mission to Mars has two of my favorite death scenes. Tim Robbins pathetic martyrdom when his face freezes and cracks and that secondary character that gets whisked up in the Mars "tornado" and spins so fast that his arms and legs rip off. Two thumbs up.
Pitt's character death in Meet Joe Black is pretty wicked too.
I almost forgot the greatest superhero F*@% Yeah! moment in movie history:
"General, would you care to step outside?"
Count me among those who paid money to see this in a theatre. Ahh, the days before I became a father, when I could do what I want and spend money on action figures for me.
Anyway. Shark movies generally have at least one F*@% Yeah! moment. Jaws has several, though it also has a bad case of premature F*@% Yeah-alation. I'm talking about the scene at the very end, when Scheider says "Smile, you son of a bitch" and blows up the shark. A great F*@% Yeah moment that is immediately spoiled by discovering that Dreyfuss is still alive.
Dave, I agree with you 100% on this one. The other deaths you mention were all pretty spiffy (I'd add the guy getting flattened by the huge pane of glass in Final Destination 2(?) to the list as well), but SLJ's demise in Deep Blue Sea is the granddaddy of them all.
I didn't see DBS in the theater, so I had the luxury of pausing the DVD while we laughed hysterically, then rewinding and watching the scene three or four more times. At some point, I asked, "Can they do that? I mean, that's Samuel L. Jackson! They can't do that, can they?"
Apparently they could.
(Word verification: sghdbhua. I'm pretty sure I just summoned Cthulhu by commenting in your blog. Sorry about that.)
Ken S, you and I must share a mind - Birdy is slated for Friday.
DBS came out the same summer as another gutblaster, Lake Placid. I don't know if this movie was supposed to be hilarity, but it was. If you've never seen it, turn on TBS at 3 on Sunday.
Family Guy did a great bit with Sam Jackson getting eaten by the shark in other situations...
I have to agree on Equilibrium, which rocked five ways from Sunday. I love the part right before Taye Diggs dies, where Batman is surrounded by all the black suited baddies, and Angus McFayden has this smirk on his face...Batman cuts them all up in two seconds, and with barely a movement in the facial expression, the smirk morphs into "Holy Sh*t, I'm screwed."
Latest contribution: Clark Kent in the diner at the end of Supes II -- "I've been working out."
God I fuckin love that Willem Dafoe pic. You should start sellin T-shirts of it.
A few more fuck yeahs, oh excuse me F*@% Yeahs.
"Happy Gilmore" where Sandler pulls that assholes shirt over his head and smacks him.
"Punch Drunk Love" Where Sandler kicks the shit out of those guys after they run him off the road. I think they run him off the road, well anyway assholes + Cars + Crowbar x Sandler = Fuck Yeah, oh excuse me F*@% Yeah.
"Punch Drunk Love" again where Sandler freaks the head at Phil Seymour Hoffman.
aaand
"To Live & Die in LA" William Petersons White T-Shirt Green Scarf and Skin Tight Jeans Combo. Oh thats right...FUCK YEAH! oh excuse me F*@% YEAH!!
You forgot one of the best parts, Dave: Sam L's last line is "Now, the first thing we do is--" KA-CHOMP!!!
Spacey's death scene in L.A. Confidential is partially shocking because it was done by James Cromwell. Sure, he had played Charles Keating earlier that year, but he had rose to stardom as Farmer Hoggett, the crusty but lovable farmer, and Zefram Cochrane, the crusty but lovable inventor of the warp drive. The man who made contact with the Vulcans wouldn't hurt you, would he? D'OH!
Other F-YEAH! moments:
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut: the Army General puts a bullet in Bill Gates' brain because Windows 98 doesn't work. That, more than any other scene, got a big rise out of the audience the two times I saw it in theaters.
X2: Jean Grey saving everyone, by blocking that tidal wave. If you don't scream f- yeah when Famke does that handblock, there's no hope for you.
U.S. Marshals- when you see the guy in a chicken suit near the beginning, and he whips out a 9mm. Then you realize it's Tommy Lee Jones as that chicken! Also Wesley Snipes' line, "I... I think I'll go back to bed."
The Rundown- "That's a lot of cows."
Masters of the Universe- Skeletor: "Now... you will... KNEEEEEEEEEL!!!!" "Inspired" by Superman 2? Yes. Still a F-yeah moment? Yes. Also Skeletor's "Yes! Let this be our FINAL BATTLE!"
The X-Files- that's no secret base, Mulder, that's a freaking SPACESHIP!!!!
Young Guns- Emilio Estevez gets off a head shot from sixty kabillion miles away into Jack Palance. Thus following the rule of Head Shots only Happen from Unbelievable Distances in movies.
Serenity- "Say hello to our little friends, Operative- THE REAVERS!"
Adventures in Babysitting- Chris and the kids discover that her boyfriend (West Wing snotnose Brad Whitford), instead of staying home to take care of his sick sister, is really going out with another girl. Teenager Brad (Keith Coogan), who has a secret crush on Chris, reads the BF the riot act and says, "I could punch you right now... but I won't, because I won't sink to your level."
Brad's friend Daryl, who has remained silent for most of the scene, shrugs and says, "But I will." And then plants his foot on Whitford's ass, knocking him into the buffet table.
I personally still am in shock over the death at the end of the first broadcast episode of Firefly.
it's just beautiful.
Mal tells the henchman "here's the money, get outta here."
henchman gives the typical "blah blah I'm a great big villian who will come back to haunt you" type speech.
so Mal shoves him into the intake of Serenity's engine.
makes me crack up just thinking about it.
this is a gimmie, but what about the dude who gets splattered on the windshield after being dumped in toxic waste in the original Robocop?
is my memory failing, or wasn't that the dad from That 70's Show?
(and I almost wrote "Robocopy" above, which is a free idea I offer to the world--a xerox machine who goes batshit crazy and starts killing criminals.)
Clerks: The Animated Series also had an episode where Samuel L. Jackson got eaten by a shark - twice. I saw that before I saw the movie, and didn't know what that meant.
Samuel L. has a great F*@% YEAH moment in another shabby movie: when he drives a car out of the back of a truck in The Long Kiss Goodnight. "CHARLIE!!"
Matt: nope- the Dad from That 70s Show got Robocop's interface spike jammed in his neck. The guy who got splatted was my fellow Philadelphia native and former ER star Paul McCrane, who exited ER when a helicopter fell on his character.
I'm serious.
Matt, I think that the dad from That 70's Show (Kurtwood Smith) was driving the car that hit the toxic waste guy.
One of my favorite F@#$ YEAH! scenes is the Air Cav assault on the VC village from Apocolypse Now. It might be a bit long to qualify, but so much of it kicks ass:
Kilgore: Charlie don't surf!
Chef: why do you guys sit on your helmets?
Soldier: So we don't get our balls shot off.
Chef: (Puts a helmet under his ass).
Then Kilgore fires up Ride of the Valkeries and it's on. It just keeps going, as they land on the beach, and Duvall is standing up while bullets fly all around him, culminating in the jets napalming the tree line to end the battle. And then, the cherry on top:
Kilgore: I love the smell of the napalm in the morning...
Yeah, it's supposed to underscore how idiotic the war is, but I defy you to watch that scene and not declare "F#$% YEA!" at least once.
That opening scene in Cliffhanger still gives me the shivers.
And I'm happy to see you're a fan of Equilibrium, too. What an excellent action movie that was, and hardly anybody's seen it. Gun Fu, baby!
Also, I agree with Matt: that Robocop death was one of the best ever. For weeks after, me and my friends would chuckle about bubblegum man getting splattered on that windshield. (There are SO MANY F*@% yeah moments in that movie, from "Bitches leave," to "I'm not arresting you anymore" as Robocop throws Clarence Boddicker through several windows, to "It's just a glitch," to "Dick, YOU'RE FIRED!!" and beyond. I have to go watch that movie again.)
Not quite related to this post directly, but get a load of this page of Nextwave #2.
Using the customs of Internet fandom logic, I think I need to declare that Warren Ellis MUST have done it as a shout-out to Dave's Long Box.
And I think any last residual resistance I had to buying Nextwave is now gone. Those 6 pages were too funny for words.
But what of "Pulp Fiction"? The last scene, where Samuel L. Jackson explains to the restaurant robbers why he's going to let them walk out of there, just as soon as they fetch his wallet. That is end-all and the be-all of F*%# Yeah moments. My name links to a website with "Pulp Fiction" re-enacted in thirty seconds by bunnies. It's so funny that you will wet yourself and you will not care.
One of the best sketches in the Chapelle show was the Samuel Jackson Beer.
"Haven't you seen my movies? Juice, that's a good one. Deep Blue Sea. A shark f@#$ing ate me in that one!"
Yail Bloor
The Doc: My favorite F-Yeah bit from The Long Kiss Goodnight was "If you let me out of this... I'll let you leave with the use of your legs."
I hope Birdy's post is about the ending. That was one of the best movie endings ever.
I would almost call this a "What the ... FUCK YEAH!" moment, because it comes out of nowhere.
Kurtwood Smith also has a really great death scene in RoboCop, though: Murphy's pinned down by all this debris, Boddicker's just impaled him on this giant pointy metal thing, Murphy screams in pain, he can't reach his gun, Boddicker's really twisting the pointy thing around like a sadistic bastard, he spits out "Sayonara, Robo Cop" - is this the end for our hero? -and then RoboCop stabs him in the neck! The best part is Kurtwood then staggers around for a bit, great Python-esque gouts of blood spurting out of his neck before finally collapsing. I'm not sure, but I remember him also giving everyone the finger in the process.
Another fantastic one, similar to Samuel L, is Steven Seagal in Executive Decision (I know, I know. It was on TV, all right? I was tired, all right?). He's the headline star (well, co-headline, with Kurt Russell) but the poor dumb bastard dies in like the first half hour. Falls out of an airplane. It's great.
dan c.--so we're saying the same actor got splattered on the windshield of a car AND had a helicopter dropped on top of him?!
that dude needs some kind of "F*@% Yeah" lifetime achievement award.
Obscure "F*@% Yeah" movie ending for foreign film fans: The end of "The Phantom of Liberty."
Anybody?
That's my nominee for best movie ending ever.
Man I saw DBS in the theatre not knowing what to expect. To this day, one of my all time favorite "bad" movies. That comes on TV I stop whatever I'm doing to watch at least two shark meals. I love Jaws for all its Hitchcockian suspense, but sometimes it's just more fun to watch sharks chow down on SLJ.
First of all.... that particular scene really means something if we follow the model of the Poseidon Adventure. Gene Hackman the bad-ass rallies the troops and leads the wusses out. He dies just before the end.
That is why we expect Jackson to survive. That is why it is so unexpected that they get him in just that way. That is why it's so logical yet so shocking.
What makes it doubly hilarious is like joncormier said... the Jackson that go eaten looks so fake.
I also have a distinct memory of Sam Jackson Doll screaming "help meeee" before it just pulled him in! Gone.
So basically if not for Gene Hackman and the grand knowledge of grand ocean-going disaster movies one's appreciation of the scene is empty indeed, especially because I truly believe one scene would not exist without the other.
Second.... Dan Coyle is being too emotional about that Jean Grey scene in X2. That scene just makes me wonder why the heck should couldn't do the same trick inside the damn plane.
In fact, the only way that scene would illicit the F YEAH reaction from me is if she sustained herself by telekinetically forming an air bubble; instead she held up the wall of water and then got tired and died by drowning. I never got a clear idea why she couldn't do that same business from inside the airplane.
Interestingly I got the F-yeah feeling from the TORNADOS that Storm made. Or from Nightcrawler making the Secret Service look like talentless dolts.... also Professor X shutting down the country temporarily; that was cool.
Jean's death scene? bla. An excuse to kill Jean Grey.
Serenity- "Say hello to our little friends, Operative- THE REAVERS!" - that was not a F Yeah moment. That was a "Holy Crap!!" moment. Do not confuse the two. The F Yeah moments in that movie basically amount to Mal shooting unarmed men. There's also every part where he's fighting hand to hand against the Operative and gets the upper hand.
Anonymous 6:37 AM? That was just foolish. Plainly purely foolish. I haven't ducked out of a theatre to use the head in YEARS. I am prepared. I also have a superior biological constitution.
"It's better than Kevin Spacey's sudden, shocking death scene in L.A. Confidential." Totally disagree with that, but otherwise you nailed it. Honorable mention might be when Michael Caine mows down several dozen inbred pirate retards at the end of The Island. Goddamn I love that scene.
Deep Blue Sea.
DEEP BLUE SEA?
DEEP BLUE FLIPPING SEA?!?!?!
Sir, I am morally outraged.
The guy who got splatted was my fellow Philadelphia native and former ER star Paul McCrane, who exited ER when a helicopter fell on his character.
bwahahahaha, that was a hilarious death.
he was supposed to be on the roof when the helicopter took off, but had lost an arm to the helicopter blades some years before, and had PTSD moment. he runs down to the street to grab a breath of fresh air, still flashing back and panicking- and then he looks up just as the helicopter falls on him.
it was supposed to be all poignant and deep which made it all the funnier.
I'll have to join forces with Christ Arndt regarding Jean Grey's death in X2: X-Men United. Plus, the exchange between the Grey-channeling Professor X and Cyclops makes me scream "don't kiss him!" every time I watch it, so my emotional investment is (sadly) zero.
The final flyover of Alkalai Lake is much more poignant for me than Jean's actual death.
Also, Nightcrawler kicks so much Secret Service ass in the beginning of X2 that Clint Eastwood feels it all the way back in 1963, preventing him from saving JFK!
Word Verification: sabocop
It's the remake of Robocop starring Tyler Mane in the lead role.
Have you seen the recently released French film 'Hidden' ('Cache' if you're in France). That's got a very good shocking death scene. I mean the kind which is so unexpected that the audience give out a collective gasp. I was opened mouthed and I looked around and it looked like someone had replaced the audience with pillarboxes.
I almost forgot- Paul McCrane also played the title character in the classic X-Files episode "Leonard Betts", where he gets decaptitated in the teaser, but comes back to life because he's some sort of weird cancer vampire. So. Very. Gross.
DBS was my first shark film. I know - pathetic right?. But have to say it was great. One of the funnest films I have seen.
Almost agree with Sam's death as the best death, although anything with Nathan Fillian (Firefly, Caleb's death on Buffy, or Slither come to think of it) have a special place in my heart.
What makes Sam#s death so shocking is that the guy who makes the speech doesn't die. It is like a movie law or something.
I was so shocked I did a backwards summersault in my seat, so the laughter in my cinema was split fifty fifty I think.
Here, I don't really believe this will work.
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