12 Terrible Movie Characters Redeemed By Awesome Deaths

2. Edward Malus - The Wicker Man (2006)

What even needs to be said about Nicolas Cage's jaw-dropping protagonist in his disgustingly inferior remake of the 1973 horror classic The Wicker Man?

An almost polar opposite of Edward Woodward's stern Sgt. Howie from the original movie, Cage's Edward Malus is an abject lunatic, stealing a woman's bike at gunpoint, infamously screeching "HOW'D IT GET BURNED!?!?!", punching several women in the face (sometimes while wearing a bear suit) and basically being everything you don't want in an apparently serious genre movie.

Cage, for his part, claimed after-the-fact that his performance was intentionally over-the-top, but he nevertheless scored a Razzie nomination and the scorn of critics worldwide.

Cause Of Death: Malus is placed inside a giant wicker man, which is set on fire, burning him to death in the hope that the sacrifice will restore the neo-pagans' honey production.

From Cage shouting, "Not the bees! The bees! ARGHGHGH!" as bees are funnelled into a mask he's wearing, to the immortal quip, "Killing me won't bring back your god-damn honey!", it's the single sequence in the movie that reaches the required intensity level where Cage's manic performance doesn't seem totally, hilariously out of place.

We still didn't care much that he died - again, totally counter to Howie's shocking demise in the original movie - but at least his death was suitably, unforgivingly harsh, and the imagery of the burning wicker man remains hauntingly provocative.