# When the kid dies in a movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [March 15, 2022, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127 "2022-03-15T18:26:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/41 "2022-03-15T21:41:03Z")
Ok, lol, I shoulda caught that, since as I said I just rewatched the freakin movie two days ago. 😊 ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/42 "2022-03-16T00:12:42Z")
> [@de\_Worde](#): > > I just found out, that a girl got killed here last week, and you knew it! You knew there was a shark out there! You knew it was dangerous! But you let people go swimming anyway? You knew all those things! But still my boy is dead now. And there’s nothing you can do about it. My boy is dead. I wanted you to know that. Now fellas. This is not the time or the place to perform some kind of a half ass autopsy on a fish. And I’m not going to stand here, and see that thing cut open and see that little Kitner boy spill out all over the dock! ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/43 "2022-03-16T00:18:16Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > In the original _Frankenstein_ movie, Frankie accidentally kills a little girl. > > In _The World According to Garp_, his son dies when an enraged Garp (Robin Williams) violently rams the car in which his wife is fellating her lover. Very Sad, but it does lead to a great line when Roberta Muldoon (John Lithgow in an Oscar-nominated performance) says of Garp’s wife’s lover, > > > I mean, I had mine removed surgically under general anesthesia. But to have it bitten off in a Buick! You make it sound like Garp did it on purpose. It was established earlier that he was in the habit of turning off the car lights and coasting down the hill and stopping just in time. His kids loved it his wife hated it. During the later scene he was definitely angry but he only did the same thing he did before at the request of his children. The accident only occurred because the other car was in what should have been an empty space in the driveway. That was the movie. I don’t know if the book was different. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/44 "2022-03-16T00:27:12Z")
Of course, two children were actually killed in a horrific accident during the filming of _Twilight Zone: The Movie._ A helicopter crashed into the child actors – who were being paid under the table because the conditions of their work was illegally under California labor law – and actor Vic Morrow during a scene set in the Vietnam War. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/45 "2022-03-16T00:36:05Z")
I have never seen Face/Off but I understand from reading [Lindy West’s hilarious review of it](https://www.lindywest.net/shit-actually) that it qualifies for this category. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/46 "2022-03-16T00:36:34Z")
Didn’t the little girl die in Alien 3? Or at least she didn’t survive from Aliens to Alien 3. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/47 "2022-03-16T00:37:26Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That was the movie. I don’t know if the book was different. I was about to make basically the same post, but end it with, “That was the book, maybe the movie was different.” ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/48 "2022-03-16T02:07:40Z")
I didn’t mean to imply Garp did it deliberately, though I sure made it sound that way. My apologies. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie or read the book. I do remember Garp’s habit of coasting down the driveway but thought in the movie, he was speeding, not coasting. I checked [the scene on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUWnZAFfxYc), and he appears to be speeding. Then I went online (I wish I still had the book.), and found [this](https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/the-world-according-to-garp/summary/chapter-13): > As they hit the driveway going “about forty miles per hour” (13.389), Walt says he feels like he’s in “a dream” (13.394). So I think it’d be more accurate to say Garp was inadvertently going much faster than coasting speed because he was angry, and of course he didn’t expect Michael’s car to be in the driveway. Man, what a tough scene to re-watch. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/49 "2022-03-16T02:15:53Z")
Walt dying in Garp was a real slap in the face, wasn’t it? My contribution to the thread: [Bridge to Terabithia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_to_Terabithia_(2007_film)) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/50 "2022-03-16T02:41:23Z")
A strange one here. In the film _[Anna and the King of Siam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_and_the_King_of_Siam_(film))_ Anna’s son Louis dies in a riding accident. It is a mystery to me why they they included this. It didn’t happen in the original book the film was based on. The book is based very loosely on actual events. Heavily fictionalised, but with a grain of truth. Anna, Louis and the King were real people at least. And the [real Louis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_T._Leonowens) certainly did not die as a child in an accident, he died in his sixties of the global influenza pandemic 1919. I have no idea why they killed him off in the film. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/51 "2022-03-16T02:56:02Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > Didn’t the little girl die in Alien 3? Or at least she didn’t survive from Aliens to Alien 3. She died off-screen before the events of Alien 3, along with Hicks. > **[Why Alien 3 Killed Off Hicks & Newt](https://screenrant.com/alien-3-movie-hicks-newt-death-reason/)** > > Poor Ripley. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/52 "2022-03-16T03:16:41Z")
On Lonesome Dove, a teen cowboy named Sean gets killed by water moccasins while fording a river. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/53 "2022-03-16T04:11:02Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > Walt dying in Garp was a real slap in the face, wasn’t it? And the way it was presented. After the crash there’s screaming and crying, but the worst thing is the silence in the back seat. When I first read it, I didn’t know how terrible silence could be. Say what you like about Scarlett O’Hara, nobody should have to watch their child die. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/54 "2022-03-16T05:19:47Z")
In “Willy Wonka…”? Kenny? In Polanski’s “MacBeth”, maybe the heaviest scene is the death of MacDuff’s son, with the kid slowly walking toward (towards?) his mother and says, “He has killed me, mother”\* as he slumps into her, revealing the knife in his back plunged by the leering marauder he had just walked away from. \*IIRC it wasn’t the full line “He has killed me, Mother. Run away, I beg you!” ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/55 "2022-03-16T11:47:09Z")
_Better Watch Out_ (2016): Luke kills Garrett. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/56 "2022-03-16T13:00:40Z")
_Sophie’s Choice_. I’m just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/57 "2022-03-16T13:12:31Z")
Funny Games. The son was killed by the invaders to prove they were serious. For me this threw the movie off – it made the parents more compliant, while I would have expected it to have the opposite effect, as in, ‘well, our son is dead, so who cares, there’s nothing worse they can do to us’. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/58 "2022-03-16T13:13:30Z")
Don’t forget the kid on the raft in the original [Jaws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzewQ66gsSc) ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/59 "2022-03-16T13:13:46Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > _Sophie’s Choice_ . I’m just sayin’. One of the best movies of all time. ---
**Author:** ![thdudescar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thdudescar/32/4638_2.png) [@thdudescar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thdudescar)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127/60 "2022-03-16T13:24:49Z")
21 Grams. While not invested in the characters, it’s the catalyst for the movie. If you’re depressed, don’t watch this film. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-kid-dies-in-a-movie/961127.md?page=4)