Top five women who’ve hanged themselves
Whenever I see a woman hanging lifeless from the rafters as the result of a tragic suicide, I have the same sexist thought, which is: Where did she learn how to tie that noose? Here are five sad ladies from films who didn’t want to live anymore. Every one of them got that knot figured out before the advent of the internet.
5. The Prestige (2006)
Rebecca Hall’s suicide may be the dumbest thing that happens in Christopher Nolan’s otherwise underrated masterpiece about a couple of guys who are inexplicably obsessed with magic to the detriment of life’s finer things. Knowing she kills herself isn’t much of a spoiler, but the reason why is, so just watch the goddamn movie. Her suicide is dumb because I have a hard time believing this tough lady would have gone down like that, but the act itself is so well executed that I’m inclined to forgive. Her fingers graze the rope and she looks up at the ceiling. You hear the fluttering of a bird’s wings instead of the snap of the neck, and that’s all she wrote.
4. The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Who can tell these blonde girls apart? The best suicide of the film plainly belongs to Cecelia, but this isn’t a list of top five films featuring women who are dramatically speared through the gut by falling on a metal fence, is it? It’s cool how the remaining four siblings each chose a different death. Seems like it would have been simpler for all of them to pile into the car in the garage, albeit a little less terrifying.
3. Pet Sematary (1989)
You probably don’t even remember this death from Pet Sematary, overshadowed as it were by the evil cat and demonic toddler, but in some ways it’s the scariest and most serious of the lot. The Creed family have just moved to some quiet, sleepy town where the head of the house is going to be the town doctor and nothing will ever go wrong. Their housekeeper has had enough with the chronic pain so goes ahead and hangs herself in the cellar. There’s nothing particularly artful about it. She just kicks away the chair and hangs there twitching until she’s gone and then nobody even wants to bury her in a pet sematary. Hers is the loneliest and most graphic of all the deaths. RIP Missy Dandridge.
2. Girl Interrupted (1999)
Brittany Murphy’s untimely death (in the film) preys on one of my many, reoccurring hopes/fears: That I will accidentally happen upon a suicide. On the subject of taking money off of a corpse, I side with Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York when he says, “It’s fair. A touch indelicate, but fair.”
1. The Omen (1976)
This bitch is grinning from ear to ear before she makes the big jump, which just makes it extra scary.”Look at me, Damien.” She says. “It’s all for you!” Call me old fashioned, but I don’t want anybody to dedicate their suicide to me.