2. Doug Bukowski (The Hills Have Eyes)
Horror remakes are a dime a dozen, leaving the vast majority of them little more than bargain basement movies. Fortunately the 2006 remake of
The Hills Have Eyes is a little different - evolving the story and the characters into more heroic, human territory whilst keeping director Alexandre Aja's propensity for gore. At the centre of this is Aaron Stanford's Doug - the son-in-law of the family's patriarch and easily the weakest character there, he rises to the challenge when the senior and stronger characters are eliminated by the cannibalistic mutants living in the hills and his infant daughter is kidnapped. Doug comforts the dying, tools up and leads a single man charge into the family's compound. The amazing thing is that despite it all, he keeps on fighting - despite losing fingers and blood and being in numerous dangerous situations, he rescues his daughter and takes out a bunch of the mutants. We were going to give this position to his sister-in-law Brenda who shows incredible strength and resilience, even after being violently violated and raped, involving a moment with a pickaxe, but Doug takes the biscuit. It's such a shame then that he's unceremoniously killed off-screen in a graphic novel without a heroic exit or a happy ending for the strongest, most heroic guy we've seen in a horror movie for a long time.