10 Horror Movie Deaths That Get Worse The More You Think About It

Tarsem's first feature film, before the nigh-immaculate visual experience that is The Fall (2006), opened up a world of aesthetic possibilities for the horror genre, taking to surreal hellscapes that Pinhead and Freddy Krueger could only dream of.

Pairing a police procedural with a Dali fever dream, The Cell follows psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) on her journey into serial killer Carl Stargher's (Vincent D'Onofrio) mind. Here, she experiences the many manifestations of his desires, ego, passions, and, of course, penchant for torture and death. The film comes to a head when Catherine takes Stargher's consciousness into her own mind (don't ask how - just go with it), where she slays not just one but all three manifestations of himself - child (played by Jake Thomas), adult, and monstrous, shapeshifting 'king'. 

The thing is, all manifestations suffer as one, meaning that when Catherine savagely beats and impales king Stargher, the child version experiences it too. But while this kills the king, it doesn't kill the child, and she has to drown him in a pool in order to complete the process in real life. While it's all good and well talking about this as an airy-fairy non-material plane, the fact of the matter is Stargher has to die in three different ways (king, child, then physical body), and has the phenomenological experience of dying again and again. Eesh.