The coolest horror movie killings ever

7. When anyone dies in any of the “Saw” movies. This series really raises the bar on vividly imagined and carefully designed brutality and torture. The movies aren’t especially scary, but they bring it in the nasty killing-machine department. I’m slobbering right now to see “Saw III.” But because those jerks at LionsGate aren’t showing it to critics, I have to wait and buy a ticket like everyone else. Don’t they know that I’m different? That I would rather see that than “Babel”?

Anyway, the same goes for the “Final Destination” movies. Seriously, every single elaborately orchestrated death in this series satisfies. The plots are just whatever. Death is stalking a bunch of interchangeable kids. But the creators put their thinking caps on for the killings. Everyone talks about them being Rube Goldberg-esque. And they are — intricate and, at times, hilarious.

One of my fondest movie-going memories of the recent past involved seeing “FD2” at Los Angeles’s last remaining drive-in. And it wasn’t just the drinking that made it awesome, it was the group cheers that erupted from the collection of cars every time a new wooden teen got chopped down.

8. When Joe Pilato gets his legs torn off by zombies in “Day of The Dead.” As a sequel it’s not anywhere as cool as “Night Of The Living Dead” or “Dawn of The Dead,” but this scene wins by virtue of its victim’s defiance. As the undead drag his lower extremities away to eat, he shouts, “Choke on ‘em!” It’s the kind of presence of mind you always tell yourself you’ll have when actual zombies decide to start gnawing on you someday.

9. When Janet Leigh gets stabbed in the shower in “Psycho.” For its shocking editing alone it deserves to be here, a series of cuts so precise that it tricks you into thinking you’re seeing more murder than you really are. But it still moves me because of uniquely personal reasons. Like “Frankenstein,” I saw it when I was like eight. That was dumb.

My introduction to this movie happened to coincide with the presence of a Peeping Tom in our neighborhood. He’d stand in your backyard and watch you through your windows. Even boring stuff like dinner. It didn’t matter what you were doing. One night, my brother went to our dining room window and saw him. The guy jumped over our fence and ran into the woods behind our house. Later we found out it was one of the neighbors and they shipped him off to a mental hospital. Still, though, that’s my “Psycho” association and to this day I’m something of a nervous showerer because of it.

10. When Jennifer Jason Leigh gets torn in half by two big rig trucks moving in opposite directions in “The Hitcher.” She gets tied to them by The Hitcher, is why. And it’s really not a Jennifer Jason Leigh performance unless she suffers somehow. Someone’s always doing something horrible to her in movies. But you always think, “Wow she was great.” Even in two pieces.

Dave White is the film critic for Movies.com and the author of “Exile In Guyville.” Find him at www.imdavewhite.com.

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