8. Phillip – Nightmare on Elm Street 3

Choosing just one of the enumerable deaths from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is a tall order but we’ll stick our necks out and name the death of Philip in film 3 as its denouement. Strung up like a marionette by his own tendons, Phillip is walked to the edge of the roof of the psychiatric hospital at which he is a patient. Once on the roof, Phillip’s “strings” are cut and he’s left to plummet to his death. Gruesome but effective.

7) Scanners

We like exploding heads as much as the next guy, and no film pulls off the spectacular gore of a head explosion quite like Scanners. Accomplished by filling a latex head with dog food and rabbit livers, and shooting it from behind with a 12-gauge shotgun, the illusion of skull bone and brain matter spraying out at 360°is mesmerizing. Anybody for a 2012 re-release in 3D?