10 Awesome Movie Moments Where You Think The Villain Might Actually Win

Joss Whedon really just loves to play with his fans like a cat playing with a mouse before devouring them, and that's never been truer than in his Firefly spin-off movie Serenity.

After Wash (Alan Tudyk) successfully pilots his titular ship through a battle between the Reavers and the Alliance, he's fatally impaled out of nowhere by a Reaver spear, breaking fans' hearts while setting an "anything goes" tone for the remainder of the third act.

According to Whedon himself, he killed Wash in such jarringly abrupt fashion for precisely this reason, to make audiences think that any of the remaining characters could actually die during the rest of the movie.

While all of Wash's crew-mates ultimately do survive, killing a character as beloved as he - arguably the most well-liked member of the roster, in fact - demoralised fans enough to believe that Mal (Nathan Fillion), Zoe (Gina Torres), and company could also meet their maker.