10 WTF Off-Screen Horror Movie Deaths
3. Mrs. De Luzio - Sinister
Horror hit Sinister is undeniably best remembered for its brilliantly disturbing series of tapes which depict the murders of entire families courtesy of the pagan Babylonian god Bughuul. And though the other tapes show the deaths of the families in agonising, painstaking fashion, for the tape entitled Lawn Work '86, director Scott Derrickson decides to spare us the gnarly money shot.
The tape in question shows one of the victims, Mrs. De Luzio, having her head run over by a lawnmower, but just as the mower approaches, Derrickson strategically cuts away to Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) reacting to the horrifying scream on the film.
It's one of the genre's most memorable jump scares of the last decade-plus, and while we all love a gory death scene, in this case, the implication of what happened to Mrs. De Luzio was certainly worse than any elaborate squib effect we could've been shown.
The grimy Super 8 cinematography combined with the outstandingly eerie musical score and evocative sound design is doing all the work here.