There
are certain taboos that few filmmakers will breach. Killing kids is one
of them. That’s why a good child murder remains one of the moments in
any movie that will shock even the most jaded connoisseur of extreme
exploitation.
Some of you reading this will believe that kid
kills are beyond the pale, but remember – this is just acting and
make-up. This list is the best fictional kid kills – you won’t see the Twilight Zone movie
on this list. Adjust your outrage-meters accordingly and settle in for
ten of the best minor murders ever committed to celluloid.
Totaled Tot: “Little” Buddy Kupfer
Kiddie Killer: Silver Shamrock Pumpkin Mask
Minor Murder Method: I shit you not… STONEHENGE!
I’m not a huge fan of the Halloween franchise (as gentlemen prefer Hardee’s), but I have a very special place in my heart for this, the oft-maligned and only non-canon entry in the ought to have died in the 80’s series.
Veering completely away from the then-tired but popular “slasher” genre, this film delved into the slightly less popular “evil corporation with killer robots who make masks powered by witchcraft and Stonehenge” genre. Dashing braveness or lunacy? The jury is still out two and a half decades later but I’ll take a fucked-up trick shot from half court over a boring ‘ol lay-up every day.
The scene that earned the flick inclusion into this list is simple: A family is sequestered in a test room at the [in 1982] high tech facility that serves as the home base for enterprising mask and novelty company Silver Shamrock. A commercial airs featuring hidden messages that activate a chip [powered by a chunk of Stonehenge OF COURSE] in the kid’s pumpkin mask which causes his head to be burst from within [by insects and snakes OF COURSE] in a way which makes him an ex-boy.
His parents do not appreciate the gesture.
Mom faints to death [heart attack or just a severe case of being in the 80’s?] and Dad is bit by a snake which only recently had taken residence in his son’s head [OF COURSE]. But the important death is Master Buddy Kupfer, may he rest in many pieces.
Q: What’s a Kupfer?
A: To house woodland creatures, apparently.
Here’s the thing: Not only did they kill a kid without any remorse, they did it in front of his parents by one of the items we willingly buy our own kids every year. And an arsenal of living things exited his formerly healthy kid head for their troubles! He got his head blown out by marauding insects powered by warlock shit and Stonehenge pellets! How do you not own this? Amazing stuff.
The Silver Shamrock commercials and songs were etched into my brain as a child [entertaining the snakes and crickets I was and still am housing in there], and in no small part to this amazing, effective, and totally FUCKED scene that ought to get as much love as just about any of the great moments in the other 64 Halloween movies.
Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Totalled Tot: Bike Kid
Kiddie Killer: Comet-Driven Steamroller
Minor Murder Weapon: Crushing Force
In the trailer for this awful/great AC/DC music video/horror film, newly minted director Stephen King made a promise:
Did he accomplish his mission? Not in the least. Maximum Overdrive, which I defiantly and proudly own, is an abyss devoid of good and a movie that if boiled down to its essence could be injected into God’s kneecaps and kill him right off his cloud like Lakitu. I love it.
One person agrees with Mr. King, though. The boy on the bike who falls off just as a steamroller blasts through the fence at his ballfield. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:
Let me set up the last magic moments of this little ballplayer’s abrubt life:
After a soda machine kills a man with ejected cans most people in the crowd [ok, all seven] probably felt that they’d gotten their money’s worth and then some, but lo and behold… no kids had been flatted yet.
A minute later: SOLVED.
Little dude is pedaling, he fucks up, he falls. Luckily, he won’t have to brush off his pants and try to pedal through thick grass because his day is ending early. A steamroller powered by a comet [OF COURSE] arrives and drives over his face.
Apparently, the MPAA made Stephen King cut the gore out of the moment but it’s still lovely. Apparently George Romero vomited when he saw the original cut of this scene, but that may have just been due to a combination of bad bratwurst and a personal aversion to comet-related coke machine manslaughter. Either way, the scene is great and another kid takes the ultimate loss in a really splendid manner.
Way to go dead kids!