Characters We Just Assumed Were Dead

Ever notice how some characters just randomly disappear from movies with no explanation as to what happened to them? Or how sometimes, the ending of a movie leaves a character still in a pretty awful situation? We're never told what happens to these characters outright, but sometimes it's pretty clear that even though their outcomes are not shown, things didn't work out so well. Here are a few movie characters that we just assume are dead, based on when we last saw them.

Superman Returns is kind of a crazy movie. Between Lois' super kid and Lex Luthor's plan to build a new continent so he can rent condos on it, there's a lot of weird stuff going on throughout the film. With so much happening, it's understandable that a lot of viewers overlook the idea that Luthor and his assistant/henchwoman, Kitty, most likely die a pretty horrible death. During the movie's climax, Lex and his goons have to flee their giant Kryptonite island (don't ask), before Superman throws it into space. Kitty and Lex are able to escape by helicopter. The next time we see them, they crash land on a tiny, deserted island in the middle of the ocean. So, they either starve to death or die from heat stroke. Granted, Lex kind of deserves this, but his assistant Kitty wasn't actually that bad of a person. In fact, the last thing she does before getting stranded is throw away Lex's Kryptonite crystals, so he couldn't ever attempt this horrible plan again. Her reward? Probably being eaten by a crazed Lex Luthor as he slowly succumbs to starvation. You know, the sort of thing you'd expect to happen in a Superman movie.

The first couple of Friday the 13th movies are a mess. Jason doesn't even appear as the killer until the second one (the hockey mask doesn't debut until Part III). It's never really explained how he survived drowning as a child, and neither the first nor second movie had an actual ending. The first film has the iconic, zombie-boy-jumping-out-of-the-water "ending," which may or may not be a dream, but Part 2 is even crazier. Paul and Ginny defeat Jason by confusing him with his mom's sweater (yes, this is seriously what happens), and they're just trying to relax in one of the cabins afterwards, without running to the police of course. Suddenly, Jason pops through the window and grabs Ginny, pulling her outside with him. Paul calls her name, the screen fades to black, and then Ginny wakes up being wheeled into an ambulance. What about Paul? Well, no one knows. He just disappears, but it's a pretty safe bet that Jason killed him. That's what he does, and it explains why nobody ever went looking for him. It's like lasagna disappearing around Garfield. We don't need to see what happened to know that he ate it.

Most people don't know this, but the family-friendly Jim Carrey movie The Mask is actually based on a pretty messed up comic. The movie took all of the violence and carnage from the comic and replaced it with slapstick comedy, because watching Jim Carrey brutally murder a bunch of people wouldn't have sold as many movie tickets. There is one character, however, who definitely meets a grisly end. Peggy Brandt is a reporter covering the exploits of the Mask. She discovers that he's really Stanley Ipkiss, and then tricks him into following her into the newspaper's printing press. There, she betrays him to some local mobsters, who had put a bounty on the Mask. After doing this, she completely vanishes from the movie, most likely because the mob killed her. She knows that the mob is framing Ipkiss for some pretty heinous crimes, making her a pretty significant loose end, one who is connected to the press. We all know how mobsters deal with loose ends. There's a deleted scene from the movie that shows Peggy getting killed, but since it was cut, can only assume that it still happened anyway.

Since the adorable Minions of Despicable Me stole the show, most viewers probably forgot how dark the ending of the movie actually is. The story follows two rival supervillains, Gru and Vector, who are both trying to steal the moon. It's a kid's movie, so it's allowed to have an over the top plot like that. The whole thing involves shrink rays and wacky shenanigans, but it ends with Vector being stranded, all alone, on the moon. One of the last scenes of the movie is a montage of all the characters dancing, and Vector is featured boogeying down on the moon—he's never seen or heard from again. Probably because he's stuck in outer space, with a limited supply of oxygen, and no discernible way to contact help. He's just dancing to kill the time before his air runs out. Sure, Despicable Me is a bit of a dark comedy, but it's still a kid's movie. Having a character slowly suffocate to death crosses the line, even if we never see it happen.

If you're a big fan of Ryan Gosling's face, then Drive is the movie for you. Even though it was promoted as an action-packed movie about a getaway driver, it's really a slow, thoughtful movie about a getaway driver who barely talks, but occasionally (and brutally) murders a bunch of people. There are brutal murders all throughout the film. Albert Brooks, the main bad guy, slices Bryan Cranston's arm open and holds him still until he bleeds out. It's a crazy movie, but it's also filled with scenes of Gosling driving around silently, so everything balances out, apparently. The movie ends with Gosling's unnamed character attempting to make things right with Brooks by returning some stolen money, but Gosling ends up getting stabbed in the stomach. Gosling is able to stab Brooks in the neck, killing him, before crawling into his car and driving away. The movie ends here, as Gosling's driving around with a giant puncture wound in his stomach. It's the sort of injury that if you don't take care of it, you will die. Driving around the city in silence won't do anything to stop the bleeding.

Everything bad that happens during the finale of Ghostbusters is Walter Peck's fault. Peck had the Ghostbusters' containment system shut down, releasing hordes of ghosts onto the city and inadvertently releasing the Keymaster from Egon Spengler's custody to go meet up with the Gatekeeper. This allows the two to summon Gozer the Gozerian, who unleashes its Destructor form, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, upon the streets of New York. It's only fitting that Peck probably dies during the whole ordeal. The last time we see him, he's standing on the street underneath the exploding Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, where tons of burning marshmallow are dumped on top of him. The Marshmallow Man was literally just on fire by this point, so Peck was doused in hot goo, which had also just fallen from a great height, which probably felt like lava dropping from atop a skyscraper. The way he screams when it hits him clearly indicates that it hurts, and he's never seen in the movies again. He doesn't pop up during the end credit montage, probably because paramedics were still trying to identify the remains.