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

4. Crushing Walls

It's a classic: someone, perhaps a hapless companion to our hero, trips some kind of booby trap and the walls begin to close in.

This claustrophobic nightmare fuel is certain to be one of the most unpleasant ways to die, and just how unpleasant depends on how fast those walls are drawing in. The slower they go, the worse it gets.

Death by crushing is such a miserable experience that it has been used as a method of torture and execution throughout history. Peine forte et dure was a French method of extracting a plea from criminals and consisted of placing heavier and heavier rocks on them until they cooperated or died.

As well as the obvious skull-going-pop cause of death, crushing injuries to the body have horrible systemic implications. The breakdown of muscles and bones releases substances such as myoglobin, potassium and phosphorus into the bloodstream. If you do manage to make it out of your trash-compactor grave, the chances are that you'll go into renal failure soon after.