10 Worst Times A Movie Character Returned From The Dead

Not everyone was happy to see these characters come back to life.

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Palpatine Death
Lucasfilm

As Benjamin Franklin once famously said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Well, somebody better check ol' Benny boy's audits, because death sure isn't as certain as he thought it was.

The founding father was obviously not around when movies were being made, so he didn't realise that a character's death is only as permanent as a scriptwriter or studio executive wants it to be.

Several of cinema's most beloved faces have perished on screen, only to be dragged back from beyond the grave in a sequel, sometimes kicking and screaming as they go.

In this list, we're examining the worst examples of when Hollywood pulled the old switcheroo and reversed someone's passage to the other side. What we mean by that, is that a character has to actually be dead first.

We're not including characters who were presumed dead or appeared to have died, just those who were 100% kaput before being reintroduced to this mortal coil.

Get ready for lots of stupid sci-fi mumbo jumbo and a lot of shoulder shrugging, because these resurrections are anything but divine.

10. Jason Voorhees - Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Palpatine Death
Paramount Pictures

This one might be slightly controversial, but the way in which Friday the 13th's hockey mask-wearing antagonist is revived from the dead is kinda rubbish.

In the fourth movie, erroneously labelled "The Final Chapter", Jason Voorhees is hacked to pieces by Tommy Jarvis. They think he comes back in the fifth movie, but it's actually an imposter. Thus, at the start of Jason Lives, Jason is dead.

However, as you can probably tell by the subtitle, that's not the case for long.

Driven mad by the idea that Jason could still be alive, Tommy visits his gravesite to destroy the body once and for all. In doing so, Jarvis rams a metal spike through the corpse just as a lightning bolt strikes it.

This burst of energy is enough to bring the killer back to life Frankenstein-style, setting in motion a brand-new killing spree.

Whilst it's nicely ironic that Tommy's fear of Jason being reborn is what actually brings him back, the way in which it happens is really silly.

The lightning striking the pole at the exact time it enters Jason's body is a bit too cartoonish and turns what could have been a really serious moment into a bit of a joke.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.