10 Horror Movies Where NO ONE Is Safe

To cinema, we arrive with certain expectations around character safety: the villains might die, the red shirts, maybe one valiant hero; but the bulk of the cast is on solid ground. In horror, the scales are tipped more in death's favour, but there are still a handful of characters we expect to make it – the chosen one, the final girl, the innocents, the main character etc.

Alas, even this is not always not so.

In some horror movies no-one is truly safe. In these films, any cast member can die or in some way get got, including the protagonist. Big name cast members are up for grabs, groups normally protected on the screen (children, animals, disabled characters etc.) are on the chopping block, characters intricately involved in the main storyline can be gone in a flash, and sometimes just, y'know, everyone dies. 

There are no sacred cows, no plot armour to the rescue, and once they're gone they're really gone. Do you remember what happens to the girls in Death Proof? The main character in Psycho? The children in Doctor Sleep? 97.5% of the cast in Halloween Kills?

We do – and we’re gonna fill you in. Here are 10 horror movies where no-one is safe.

The cornerstone of Hollywood horror, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has been referenced and revered by directors since it hit screens at the dawn of the 1960s, and despite falling on the wrong side of the Hays Code it still managed to pack in some gruesome kills, full-on scares and paradigm-shifting surprises. 

All three of these elements come together at the end of the first act, as protagonist Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) meets her untimely end. Setting up the entire plot of the film, real estate secretary Marion goes on the run with $40k of her company's cash and check into a motel in the sticks intending to rendezvous with her boyfriend. What she doesn't bank on is the motel's unhinged proprietor Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who has a split personality and an abundance of silverware. Marion is slain in the shower and the whole film lurches to the right, taking an entirely new narrative path than the one Hitchcock initially set up.

Although not that many people are actually dead by the end of Psycho – with just two on-screen kills – it is the foremost example of being willing to sacrifice any character. When Marion dies, bloody and screaming, in the shower, all bets are off – and no-one is safe.