10 Deaths That Ruined Horror Movies

Of all the egregious sins committed by 20th Century Fox during the preparation, production and filming of what ought to have been David Fincher's Alien 3, none is greater than the early-doors slaying of the second-best character in the franchise.

James Cameron's Aliens (1986) kicked the blast doors in and injected the sci-fi horror series with a serious dose of action, pitting Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn) and the Colonial Marines against a small army of xenomorphs. Ripley, Hicks and the young orphan Newt (Carrie Henn) make it out the other side of the film pretty much in one piece, and float off into space to star as a kind of makeshift family unit in the next sequel.

But they never made it. Alien 3 dispatches Hicks and Newt during the title credits, when a stowaway facehugger damages their ship and sends them crashing into a nearby planet, ensuring they're killed on impact.

Most fans felt -- and still feel -- that this ruined the film outright, depriving them of the characters they came to watch, as well as treating the sacrifices and consequences of the previous picture with utter disregard. And they're not wrong. The movie isn't terrible, but it's nothing like it could or should have been, and it's hard to get invested in a series that doesn't seem to care.