WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I’m sure you’ve all heard Randy’s rules for surviving a horror film in Scream right? Well, I wanted to look at one of them a little more in depth – specifically rule one: Never have sex. BIG NO NO! BIG NO NO! Sex equals death, okay? (Couldn’t resist the quote). However, I am not talking about the idea of two characters having sex and then dying about 3 or 4 scenes later. No, this about those scenes where the characters die, right there and then – in the act!
All Cheerleaders Die
I’m going to start off by saying this film genuinely did not turn out the way I expected. It sets you up for a slasher film but it is definitely something different – but we aren’t here to talk about that. This is actually a weird one, because it is Manny and Hannah having sex that actually causes the death of one of the other football players due to the fact that all the cheerleaders are connected to each other, feeling what the others feel. In the end, they end up dead too – also living up to the sex equals death rule.
Just an added point – the film really does live up to its title.
Jack Frost
What’s more jolly than a killer snowman at Christmastime? Truthfully this film would not have been out of place in my Unconventional Christmas Films article but there was a part of this film that I wanted focus on. Jack Frost goes on a revengeful killing spree throughout the town of Snomonton but there is only one murder is truly intimate. Obviously snowmen have no physical way of having sex with someone – but Frost kills Jill in his personal version of snowman sex. Basically freezing her arms in his body and ramming into her so hard that she smashes her head against the bathroom wall.
Species
We’ve talked about the snowman, now for the alien. Sex is practically the most important subject in this film as Sil’s main objective is to become pregnant. Obviously, her escapade with Steven is not her first attempt but it is the only successful one. As soon as they have finished, Sil knows that she is pregnant and even gets Steven to feel her stomach because he doesn’t believe her. Inevitably, she kills him but it isn’t clear if this because she has been startled by his friends trying to save him or because he has fulfilled his purpose. Talk about being used and abused.
American Psycho
This is technically not a horror film – more Wolf of Wall Street turned slasher film, but this doesn’t mean it loses its place in this article. They say that businessmen have the tendency to be high-functioning sociopaths or psychopaths. Well, Patrick Bateman is definitely the epitome of the latter. We’re talking about a man that invites women up to his apartment to have sex with and then kill them. It’s implied several times in the film (actually he even says it out loud a few times just no one listens) but we only actually see it happen once. Patrick takes two women back to Paul Allen’s apartment (spoiler…Patrick killed him to, just there was no sex involved) and kills one during the sexual act before chasing the other through the apartment building soaked in blood.
Night of the Demons
Firstly, it takes a little while for anything to actually start happening, and when it does – I guess it’s not exactly death by sex. It’s actually more like sexually transmitted demon possession. There’s a moment when Angela rips Susanne’s face off with her teeth post-make out session and you naturally assume, as the viewer, that she’s dead. Ha! You would be very wrong. So, in the end I guess this is a bit of a reach but it’s also a little bit of a propaganda film against unprotected sex. However, and believe me even I think I’m grasping at straws with this, the fact that everyone except for Maddy is dead by the end – maybe it is sex that kills them as that is what turns them into demons in the first place?
Cemetery Man
This is another slightly slow starter, other than Francesco shooting a zombie in the head – casually I might add – in the opening 5 minutes. It’s possibly quite an apt death by sex scene if I’m honest as our leading female is killed by her own husband while she was having sex on his grave. Even more so as they claim her cause of death was not from the bite but the sex itself. To top it all off, there is also nearly sex with death but thankfully Gnaghi takes an axe to her head before anything gets worse because honestly – I think Francesco still would have gone ahead with it even after she bit him. Then again, he does have sex with, and eventually kill, a woman that looks exactly like her – so is he technically sleeping with a dead woman?
Artwork Credit: Claire Bishop (Instagram: @clairebish_art)
