How do horror films kill thee? Let us count the ways in some of the genre's best death scenes

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN Movies

When it comes to death in horror movies -- which is basically what the entire genre is about -- the journey is almost always much more interesting than the destination. By that, I mean that horror films have specialized over the years in finding some of the most creative, original, gruesome and downright nasty methods of sending someone down to the clearing at the end of the path. It's not a dead body that's particularly fascinating to horror fans, but rather how many different and frequently unspeakable things can be done to bring the body to that state in the first place.

The way in which a horror film character is extinguished can be simple as a knife through the chest -- good old Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" and, we assume, Rob Zombie's new "Halloween II" was good at that -- or as elaborate as the mass destruction that ensues when flaming chunks of car go flying into the stands at a crowded racetrack, as in "The Final Destination." The latter film, the latest installment in an improbable franchise built around an escalating series of more extravagant and punishing death scenes, is opening in 3D, giving viewers an even more immersive ride into the machinery of human eradication.

And boy do we love it. The four "Final Destination" films are among the many throughout the years that have gripped audiences' imaginations with all kinds of new ways to stab, strangle, tear apart, burn, drain, bludgeon and squash our frighteningly frail bags of bones. Viewers may groan in disgust, but more often they laugh and applaud -- after all, it's not happening to them. Here is a selection of great horror death scenes that have made many jaws drop over the years, including my own. Luckily no one reached from behind and yanked the damn thing off my face.

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Related: Check out the Scream Queens gallery on Rotten Tomatoes