20 Perfect Scenes In Otherwise Terrible Horror Movies
17. Most Likely To Die - DJ's Motivation
Most Likely to Die - in which someone murders a bunch of old school friends based on the 'Most Likely to...' quotes in their yearbook - is a largely wretched, low-budget slasher, the kind of thing that's destined to be buried in a streaming service's catalogue where, hopefully, few will find it. Those that do watch this one will be mostly disappointed, aside from one unexpectedly strong bit.
The motivation for the killer relates to John Dougherty, a high school colleague whose life was ruined by a prank and who eventually committed suicide. The killer turns out to be DJ (Chad Addison), the only one of the group who tried to reconnect with John afterwards, and he's driven by his terrible guilt over what happened to his former friend.
For what is otherwise such a brain-dead horror film, DJ's big speech explaining his motives and chastising the others is surprisingly well-written and relatable. "We gave up. We sold our souls to survive. We put on masks, turned our backs on the people who were actually our friends." That's actually a tragically truthful statement about the absolute minefield that is being at school.
The movie gives us this one cracking scene before descending right back into stupidity, complete with a baffling cliffhanger ending that implies that John Dougherty's ghost is about to carry on the murders, but at least this picture was good for just a few minutes. That's more than can be said for some horror turkeys.