20 Awesome Horror Movie Deaths NOBODY Talks About

4. Shovel To The Head - Psycho II

Though Psycho II faced the unenviable task of following one of the most beloved and iconic horror films of all time, it's still a solid, belated sequel in its own right - albeit one that's been too often ignored by even card-carrying horror fans.

And surely its single most effective kill comes right at the end of the movie, when Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) learns that the new spate of killings were carried out by Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar), a waitress who also reveals herself to be his biological mother.

Norman, who is once again psychologically broken by these revelations, calmly picks up a shovel and kills Emma with a single hard whack to the back of the head.

Though the moment is often clipped out as darkly funny without context, it's actually shockingly brutal, in large part because director Richard Franklin captures the shovel strike in a single unbroken, realistic-looking take.