The 10 Best Horror Movie Kills Ever Filmed

As horrible as it is to admit, sometimes there's nothing more fun than watching a movie where a ridiculous killer tears through their victims in equally ridiculous ways. But this isn't merely because blood, guts, and gore are cinematic cheat codes.

In addition to being fascinating and entertaining in morbid ways, these kills often express the creativity of our most gifted filmmakers in ways you never get to see otherwise. It takes a careful combination of a focused director, a darkly imaginative writer, a few talented actors, and an entire team of special effects artists to produce even the tamest of slaughters for most horror features — and when that level of effort makes itself apparent on screen, it's difficult not to enjoy it at least a little bit.

That said, this article dives deep into some of the most gruesome horror movie kills ever filmed. If you read further, you better be prepared to read about shower stabbings, frozen faces, a human puppet, and whether or not a bread cutter can actually do that to a human head (if you know, you know). And, of course, there will be some light spoilers for each film discussed below. Reader beware!

Our first entry on this list comes to us from the distant future of 2455, where "Friday the 13th" star Jason Voorhees finds himself flung into the far reaches of space aboard a scientific research vessel. Put simply, if you substituted the Xenomorph from "Alien" with a hulking slasher villain (as well as smart, tense thrills for low-hanging horror shlock), you'd arrive at something similar to 2001's "Jason X."

Said spaceship (ominously christened "Grendel") finds Jason's body, frozen for scientific study in cryogenic stasis at the Crystal Lake Research Facility several generations after the whole of humanity has migrated to a new home planet creatively titled "Earth 2." For whatever reason, this largely unknown but no less intimidating entity (played in this film by franchise and genre icon Kane Hodder) is left in the hands of ship intern Adrienne Thomas (Kristi Angus), who is tasked with dissecting his "corpse" for study. Lying on the table ironically allows Jason to thaw enough for him to wake up and pass on the experience to poor Adrienne — by grabbing her by the head and shoving her into a vat of liquid nitrogen.

However production managed to accomplish the effect of freezing her face in real time (perhaps through surprisingly decent CGI or maybe even shooting the scene in reverse, with the liquid actually washing off frosty makeup), it looks so convincing that it more than makes up for the lack of traditional spectacle. And the finishing head-smash — while thoroughly disproven by "MythBusters" — is a morbidly satisfying button that sets Jason's rampage off with a smash. This kill is just one of many reasons some consider "Jason X" to be the best guilty pleasure horror movie of all time.

Netflix's "Fear Street" trilogy was something of a surprise hit when it debuted on the streamer in 2021, with plenty of shockingly scary scenes you should never watch alone. The multi-century slasher epic begins with "Fear Street 1994," which follows a group of high schoolers trying to reverse a reanimation curse after one of them accidentally disturbs the grave of a 17th-century witch from their town.

One of the killers chasing the children throughout the night is Ryan Torres, AKA "Skull Mask" (David W. Thompson), who is supposed to have been recently killed by the town sheriff (Ashley Zuckerman) but is resurrected to run the heroes into a supermarket after hours. Though they put up a decent enough fight, Kate (Julia Rehwald) is tragically nabbed and then stabbed by Ryan, before getting her head shoved through an electric bread slicer.

A huge part of what makes this scene so memorably disturbing is how distinct Kate's face looks coming out the other side of the machine. Rather than a puddle of mush, she comes out in slices. In a behind-the-scenes featurette for Netflix, director Leigh Janiak and VFX supervisor Paul Graff explained how important that was to making the kill effective (even if it's among the least practical and/or realistic in the entire series).

One of the greatest horror threequels ever made, "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" actually ditches the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode for a brand new story that, well, also doesn't really involve any witches. Dubious title aside, it's a deceptively unsettling film, primarily for how horrifically evil the central villainous plot is.

A cultist — masquerading as a factory owner and industrialist — plans to resurrect Celtic spirits through mass ritualistic child sacrifices. To do so, he begins selling Halloween masks which secretly hide pieces of the "mysterious" Stonehenge structure in microchips on the back. When a child wearing such a mask watches a specific broadcast on Halloween night, the microchip will kill them. Viewers get to see this effect firsthand when a family is brought to the factory under the pretense of providing feedback on a new advertisement for the masks. The child of the family wears one of these masks — a pumpkin — and quickly keels over in pain as the hypnotic ad plays.

Though it's far outside the bounds of reality, seeing a kid lured to their death is heartbreaking. By the time his parents realize what's happening, it's implied that his head has mostly melted inside the mask. Somehow, these pieces of Stonehenge are also able to summon disgusting creatures like snakes and slugs that subsequently wiggle out of the child's head to chase and kill the parents.

For the first half of Jordan Peele's "Nope," the film plays out just as much like a sci-fi mystery-thriller as it does a horror movie. As OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) try to get a picture of the UFO flying above their California ranch, you can't help but be on the edge of your seat to learn more about who or what is aboard the craft and what their intentions are. But when the Star Lasso Experience comes around, it suddenly becomes clear that this isn't just a sci-fi movie — it's a creature feature.

Amusement park owner Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yeun) invites a crowd to witness the UFO with him at the Star Lasso Experience, a show meant to capitalize on the spectacle. Once he succeeds in summoning it, however, he realizes too late that this object is actually some kind of flying, saucer-shaped creature with a gaping mouth on its underside capable of inhaling anything underneath it.

The twist itself wouldn't be enough to land it on this list — not until the shot from inside the monster's (named "Jean Jacket" by the Haywoods) digestive tract. Peele puts the focus on a single woman getting slowly pushed upward through the dark, claustrophobic path. As moans, screams, and cries ring out elsewhere, her confusion and panic gives way to tragic horror as she comes face to face with the plastic horse Jean Jacket ate earlier.

If you had to explain the appeal of the "Final Destination" films in one scene, you'd only have to hit play on the infamous Highway to Hell scene from 2003's "Final Destination 2." Like most films in the series, it follows an unlikely group of people who must help each other cheat Death after one of them experiences a premonition that saves them all from some horrific end.

The premonition of the sequel takes place on a highway and is witnessed by carefree college student Kimberly (A.J. Cook), en route to a Spring Break vacation in Daytona Beach. In her vision, a police officer (Michael Landes) fails to stop a logging truck with an unsecured load, ultimately kicking off the carnage when a flying tree crashes through his windshield and the back of his car, turning him into a red mist. A series of complicated (and admittedly convoluted) missteps follow, leaving the highway covered in bodies, destroyed cars, and — a bit perplexingly — fire. (Seriously, it's like every car driving that day stored explosives in their trunks.)

It contains all the gore, violence, absurdity, and hilarious dumb mistakes from characters that make the "Final Destination" films classics of their kind. Even if it gets reversed, the Highway to Hell is a heck of a way to kick off the second installment and easily remains one of the best kills in the franchise.

Of course, this list wouldn't be a "best kills" list if we didn't include the master of dreams himself, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). The fantastical nature of Wes Craven's enigmatic "A Nightmare on Elm Street" villain in concert with the horror visionary's unparalleled imagination allows Freddy to execute kills you just can't see in any other franchise. Because of this, selecting a "Nightmare" kill to include here was somewhat challenging — but after sorting through countless scenes of slaughter, we finally landed on the marionette scene from "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors."

In a psychiatric hospital, Freddy preys on a young man named Phillip (Bradley Gregg) by entering his dream and turning him into a human puppet. The "strings," however, are actually slivers of Phillip's muscle tissue. Though the dreamworld version of him is in terrible pain and fighting to resist his attacker, Phillip appears to be simply sleepwalking through the hospital in the real world. Freddy eventually manages to drive him to an opening in the building's exterior and hurls him toward the ground — cutting the strings.

Even though Craven isn't in the director's chair for this film, the drama and effects work are as good as anything in the series. The shot of a giant Freddy looming above Phillip is especially striking and is arguably one of the most memorable shots of the film.

Speaking of both puppets and masters (especially overly dramatic ones), John Kramer aka Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) was an easy inclusion on this list as well — in fact, we actually had to fight ourselves not to include more than one of his legendary trap executions. If we have to choose one, there's really only one trap so iconic and synonymous with the franchise that its omission would surely invoke the ire of Billy the Puppet.

Of course, we're talking about the reverse bear trap, a piece of headgear first seen in the original "Saw" film. Though its potential victim Amanda (Shawnee Smith) escapes right before it goes off, fans finally got to see it work six years later in "Saw: The Final Chapter" (or "Saw 3D"). At the climax of the operatic drama between Kramer's wife, Jill (Betsy Russell), and his apprentice Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), the latter succeeds in trapping her to avoid being brought to justice for his crimes. Seeing the trap work after so many years is exciting in and of itself, but its use as the Chekhov's gun of this whole complicated "Saw" timeline is so perfect it kind of makes up for how so-so the rest of the movie is.

Perhaps one of if not the greatest horror movies of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" is still just as chilling as ever more than 60 years after it premiered. Even its most recognizable scene retains its cutting edge, thanks to sharp direction and even sharper performances.

After absconding with a trunk full of stolen cash, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) makes a break for her boyfriend's house up the coast — stopping at a small, unassuming motel on the way. Her first evening there is mostly uneventful, save for a slightly uncomfortable dinner with the motel's caretaker Norman Bates, after which she decides to unwind with a shower. Unbeknownst to her, a figure stalks her through the curtain before ripping it back, raising a knife over their head, and stabbing her until she slowly slides down to the floor.

Leigh's acting in this scene is surely one of the best horror performances of all time. As the life leaves Marion's body, with her blood swirling down the drain) she can only reflexively reach out for the curtain for support — only to drag it from the rod as she doubles over the tub's edge. Her work combined with Hitchcock's direction and Bernard Herrmann's instantly iconic score secures the scene's place both on this list and the annals of horror history.

An opening sequence can make or break a horror movie. It needs to be entertaining, memorable, and arresting, while also effectively establishing the film's tone, style, and in many cases even its killer. The opening to 1996's "Scream" accomplishes all of these goals and more.

The film opens with Drew Barrymore's Casey, a high school student waiting for her boyfriend to join her while her parents are enjoying a night out. When she picks up a phone call from a mysterious stranger, however, a game of horror trivia soon becomes a fight for survival, as the Ghostface killer chases her through her house with a large knife. The scene builds in intensity from reveal to bloody reveal, pulling the viewer into this world and refusing to let them go. By the time Casey does manage to make it outside, only to be murdered just a few yards from her oblivious parents, the audience knows exactly what sort of film they've just signed up for.

What elevates the scene even further is the presence of Barrymore, who was arguably the most famous member of the cast at the time. Though she had been considered for other, larger roles, she asked director Wes Craven if she could play Casey so as to subvert the audience's expectation of who would survive to the end of the movie. "In the horror film genre, my biggest pet peeve was that I always knew the main character was going to be slugging through at the end, but was going to creak by and make it," she explained during a Hot Ones interview. "What I wanted to do is to take that comfort zone away."

If there's one opening scene that could surpass "Scream" and even "Final Destination 2" in terms of hauntingly effective kills, it's the start of 2002's "Ghost Ship." In a flashback to 40 years before the film's events aboard the titular vessel (pre-haunting), the ship's passengers are all united on the deck for an evening of dancing and music. The night continues, and an unseen saboteur maneuvers one of the ship's cable lines in such a way that, when enough tension causes it to snap, it sweeps level with the deck clean across the ship — cutting almost every passenger in half.

It's not as complicated as the opening of "Final Destination," nor is it as evocative as the opening of "Scream" — and, to be honest, the film it precedes is much worse than either. But this cable cut is incredibly effective as an isolated kill, due in large part to how jarring it is. Especially after it finishes whipping through torsos, the frozen stares among the crowd as they slowly realize what has happened to them is one of the most terrifying things you could hope to see in a horror movie. The final reveal that the only survivor of the incident is a child — who holds on to the ship's captain as his head comes undone — is too brutal to be surpassed. This scene is something you'd never want to see in real life, yet experiencing it safely is precisely the reason why horror movies like "Ghost Ship" exist.