5 Gruesome Movie Deaths That Are Way Worse Than You Think (And 5 That Aren't)

1. Shot In The Head

Amazingly, taking a bullet to the brain is not always a one-way ticket to the afterlife. The human body can take a fair amount of punishment and a third of people with gunshot wounds to the head actually survive. Whether or not you walk away from a headshot is largely dependent on which bit of your grey matter you damage.

Catastrophic interruption of brain signals, particularly in the mid-brain and brainstem, is what you're really aiming for here (no pun intended). That ensures that your consciousness winks out before you're even aware that a gun was fired.

Damage to other parts of the brain may result in symptoms that are almost stroke-like. Aphasia (trouble with language) is a common problem, as is memory loss and problems with mobility. Something that many people report as being absent is, amazingly, any pain.

The brain itself cannot feel pain and, even if it takes you a while to bleed out from a gunshot wound, the symptoms are more likely to be perceptual distortions than excruciating pain.

So, whether it's a painless, back-seat-ruining headshot, or a survivable ordeal, there are things much worse than a hole in the head.