10 Most Shocking Movie Deaths Of 2022

We're still not over Clerks III.

Given that the long-awaited Clerks threequel was inspired by Kevin Smith's own experiences of surviving a near-fatal heart attack, most fans likely expected it to be a life-affirming, dew-eyed send-off to loveable slackers Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randall (Jeff Anderson).

But Smith decided instead to say farewell to these characters with an all-timer bummer of an ending, where Dante and Randall have an emotional argument before Dante suffers his own heart attack - after Randall had one at the start of the movie - and is hospitalised.

A distraught Randall visits Dante in the hospital and shows him a new cut of the movie based on their lives they've been making, at which point Smith cuts to Dante watching the film in an empty cinema with his late partner Becky (Rosario Dawson).

Soon after the film finishes, Dante dies peacefully as Randall looks on.

While Smith clearly wanted to deliver a more "realistic" ending to his trilogy following his own brush with death, for many it rang sour, that after suffering through so much grief and pain, Dante died without ever getting a chance to better his life.

The closing sight, of Randall at the Quick Stop counter while the "ghost" of Dante looks on, was absolutely soul crushing, and fans remain heavily divided on whether killing Dante off was the right call.

Either way, nobody saw it coming.