Top 10 Shocking Times Movie Characters Came Back from the Dead

Two men are chained up in a dingy, abandoned bathroom y with no memory of how they got there. Their only clue is a dead body in the middle of the room. In one of the most ingenious misdirects in horror, the shadowy figure behind the depraved torture games in “Saw” isn’t revealed until the very end. That supposedly dead body on the floor for the entire movie? Not so dead, as it turns out. He is actually John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, who’s been silently observing his deadly experiment up close and personal. Before “Saw” spawned an overload of sequels trying to repeat its dizzying plot twists, the original had us gagged.

Well, she was technically missing, only presumed dead, as she reminds us. But if you go into “Gone Girl” with no idea what it’s about, you’d be justified in thinking that Amy Dunne has been kidnapped and murdered before the five minute mark. We’re led to believe that someone, whether it was her husband Nick, or someone else, killed her. Of course, that’s all undone halfway through when Amy gleefully reveals to us that she staged her murder-kidnapping to frame her husband. If the fact that she’s alive doesn’t surprise you, her cold and scarily thorough plan should.

Most of James Cameron’s sci fi action flick is dedicated to just how unkillable this robot from the future is. Yet, when the semi he is driving explodes and we literally see his flesh melt off, it kinda seems like it might finally be the end. But no, it isn’t. The T-800’s metallic, exoskeleton rises, screeching, from the flames and continues on its mission to kill Linda Hamilton at any cost. It’s a horrific moment because it really drives home how unstoppable a force the T-800 is. It’s just a piece of complex machinery on a mission. What, if anything, can actually stop it?

The hard pivot that the ninth “Star Wars” movie took from its predecessor cannot be overstated. Emperor Palpatine, the villain of the two original trilogies, turned out to be alive even after Darth Vader tossed him into the void. Yes, it turned out to be Palpatine all along. The lack of explanation for his return bothered a lot of fans. But the revelation that he was alive and behind the villainous First Order also came with the shocking revelation that he was related to the character, Rey. Even actress Daisy Ridley was shocked by it. The idea hadn’t even been pitched until the ninth movie, after “The Last Jedi” had made a point to say she wasn’t related to any “Star Wars” legacy character.

It was the movie that made dating scary again. Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest isn’t exactly Freddy Krueger or the Terminator, but what she lacks in supernatural or cybernetic superstrength, she makes up for in pure, unadulterated wrath. In the final duel between her and her married ex-lover, we almost believe he’s succeeded in drowning her in the bathtub. But then she rears up, knife in hand. Though she’s immediately shot, it doesn’t stop it from being a heartracing moment of absolute terror. It means that she was lying in that bathtub, eyes open, not moving, just for effect. You have to respect the showmanship.

James Cameron was dealing with scenes of ocean peril long before “Titanic.” This adventure film about underwater aliens features several scenes that cash in on a fear of tight spaces and the constant threat of drowning. In a sinking submarine with only one diving suit between them, Dr. Brigman volunteers to effectively enter hypothermia to give her ex, Bud, the time to carry her to the surface. The attempt to revive her is long, brutal, and disturbing. It’s shocking both because she does end up being revived, but also because of Ed Harris’ shockingly physical and heartbreaking performance. The scene was so difficult to film and Cameron required so many takes that actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio stormed off the set.

Given that Jack Sparrow shot him at the end of the first movie, the creepy and formerly immortal Captain Barbossa was pretty much the last thing on our minds going into the sequel. For most of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” we had the slimy, tentacled Davy Jones to worry about. But, in an extremely last minute twist, the sequel got us good. As the priestess Tia Dalma explains how Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann might go about rescuing the kidnapped Jack Sparrow, Barbossa creeps down the stairs with his faithful monkey in tow. The immediate cut to black and rolling of the credits just made the revelation even more jaw dropping.

Last we saw the good-humored but immensely powerful wizard, he was plummeting to his death in the Mines of Moria. Although actor Ian McKellen was on the “Two Towers” poster, we had to do some waiting to figure out just how he would come back. Now, given that the “Lord of the Rings” books were about fifty years old at the time, it may not have been a shock to Tolkien devotees. But for the rest of us, Gandalf’s sudden reemergence as a new and improved wizard was a delightful surprise. That Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli first thought his blinding, ghostly white light was a threat only made his resurrection all the better.

Though he may not be the big bad until the sequels, Jason’s presence looms over the first “Friday the 13th” movie. His drowning in Crystal Lake is the catalyst for his mother’s killing spree. But just because he’s not the main baddie doesn’t mean he doesn’t make an appearance. The thought-dead Jason actually has a very memorable revival at the end of the movie, when the lone survivor of the Camp Crystal Lake massacre thinks she’s safe, floating away in a canoe. Young Jason shoots out of the water and drags her to the bottom of the lake with her. Although it’s passed off as a dream sequence, the real Jason would begin his reign of terror in “Part 2.”

In 1978, Michael Myers wasn’t the invincible slasher we now know him to be. Audiences watching the first movie in theaters had no way of knowing there’d be a dozen sequels. So when he fooled us into thinking he was dead not once, not twice, but three times in one movie, it was totally unexpected and genuinely frightening for an unassuming audience. Between getting it in the neck with a knitting needle, a wire hanger to the eye, and a knife to the chest, audiences slowly began to realize there was no killing this killer. Surely, though, he couldn’t survive multiple gunshots at point blank range, could he? The unkillable killer was gone but definitely not dead.

Which of these “back from the dead” moments is your favorite? Leave us a comment.