15 Times a Movie Character Suffered a Fate Worse Than Death

When we see a movie and follow the main character around, we want them to survive no matter what. After all, that means they’ve won, right? Well, not quite. While we don’t know what happens after we die, a life of absolute suffering (or a similar fate) doesn’t sound all that enticing.

We’ve gathered here a few films where the characters, through their different trials and tribulations, end up in situations where being dead might just be a better fate. Thankfully, these movies aren’t based on real events, otherwise they’d be very unsettling to think about.

Trapped in the Sunken Place in Get Out

After a brain transplant, the original consciousness goes into a hypnotic void. You are trapped forever as a mere passenger in your own body, unable to interact with the outside world at all.

Quynh Drowning in The Old Guard

Being locked in an iron maiden and tossed into the water is bad enough. Quynh had to spend centuries in a perpetual grave, drowning to death and reviving 1000s of times in a row.

Helen and Madeline Shattering in Death Becomes Her

Seeking eternal youth seems like a great idea until your body actually breaks apart. Shattering into pieces while remaining completely conscious is a heavy price to pay for wanting to look fabulous forever.

Bootstrap Bill Bound to the Flying Dutchman

Sailors trapped aboard the Flying Dutchman have to serve 100 years. Over time, crewmen mutate into grotesque mishmashes of sea life until they permanently merge and become part of the ship itself.

Wallace surgically transformed in Tusk

Waking up to find you have been forcibly surgically transformed into a walrus is the stuff of nightmares. Losing your humanity and being treated like a captive animal is incredibly disturbing on every level.

Alex Murphy resurrected as RoboCop

After being murdered, police officer Alex Murphy was revived by Omni Consumer Products as a cyborg. Mostly unaware of his former life, he fights crime while dealing with lingering fragments of his humanity.

Doctor Weir Trapped in Event Horizon

Searching for answers at the edge of space can go horribly wrong. Being trapped in a dimension of pure chaos means your mind and body are subjected to endless, unpredictable torment with no escape route.

David Trapped Under Ice in A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Wanting to be a real boy leads to a very cold ending. Getting trapped under ice for 2000 years, just waiting and hoping while the entire world changes above you, is profoundly sad.

Humanity Reduced to Batteries in The Matrix

Imagine finding out your whole life is fake and you are just a power source. Humanity being reduced to living batteries in a pod means we are totally oblivious to our real, terrible reality.

Frank Cotton Tortured in Hellraiser

Opening the wrong puzzle box brings the ultimate pain. Being subjected to eternal Cenobite torture means your body and soul are torn apart forever by beings who think suffering is an absolute art form.

Seth Brundle Slowly Mutating in The Fly

A simple teleportation experiment turns into a slow, rotting nightmare. Mutating into a giant fly means watching your own body parts fall off while your mind slowly turns into that of an insect.

Alan Parrish Trapped Inside Jumanji

One bad roll of the dice and you are stuck in a hostile jungle. While the 1995 movie spawned a 2017 sequel directed by Jake Kasdan, poor Alan spent his best years surviving giant mosquitoes.

Saito Aging Alone in Inception

Going too deep into a dream means you might never wake up right. Aging alone in the Limbo dream state forces you to live an entire lifetime in isolation before remembering it is not real.

Craig Schwartz trapped in Being John Malkovich

Finding a portal into someone else’s head seems fun at first. But getting permanently trapped inside a young girl’s mind means watching her live her life while you are nothing but a helpless passenger.

Colter Stevens Reliving the Same Moment in Source Code

Trying to solve a disaster on a train is incredibly stressful. Reliving the exact same 8 minutes repeatedly means facing explosions and panic over and over without ever getting a chance to rest.