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Dying in a funny way

G

gorillaonabike

I am looking for two characters to die in a funny way. This is in a very attractive, spacious London apartment.

The deal is simple. The female character - around 30, posh, attractive, accidentally dies in the living room in a funny way if possible. This should be a freak accident.

I had her accidentally stabbing herself with some scissors but that's not funny.

The husband finds her and accidentally dies as well, preferably in a way that's related to the first.

What ideas would you have?
 
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Spontaneous combustion. Perhaps a character slips on water in the bathroom or falls off of a chair changing a bulb in the bathroom, then the character smashes his/her head on the toilet. Or perhaps someone is reaching for something on top of a bookshelf. They climb down, having finally found whatever they were looking for, then the bookshelf comes toppling down, crushing them to death. Choking to death on pudding or applesauce. Laughing to death. Opening the window and immediately getting hit by a baseball. Trying to pull toast out of a toaster with a fork, getting hand electrocuted and stuck, and trying to make it better by throwing water on it to cool things off.
 
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She tries to avoid slipping on a banana peel she sees on the kitchen floor and instead steps on a mousetrap, startles herself and jumps back, hitting her head hard enough on the cabinets to cause a major concussion
 
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mussonman said:
She tries to avoid slipping on a banana peel she sees on the kitchen floor and instead steps on a mousetrap, startles herself and jumps back, hitting her head hard enough on the cabinets to cause a major concussion
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...Actually, a "mouse trap" like death might work. Have her do something common and simple (like dropping a spoon) that initiates something else ...and then something else happens as a result, and so on, and so on, and so on ...until some horrific final event takes her down for good. Kinda like a "Butterfly Effect"

-Birdman
 
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She sees a revolver. Takes it in her hands.
-What is this?
-That never worked.
He goes to put on a tie.
She looks at the revolver.
-Hmh! Nice!
She throws it back down. As it lands it goes off:
BAM!
He in the next room.
-Honey?!
No answer.
He finds her dead. Looks at the revolver "was it this?"
Picks it up. Looks into the barrel.
BAM!
 
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Birdman said:
...Actually, a "mouse trap" like death might work. Have her do something common and simple (like dropping a spoon) that initiates something else ...and then something else happens as a result, and so on, and so on, and so on ...until some horrific final event takes her down for good. Kinda like a "Butterfly Effect"

-Birdman
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A Rube Goldberg Machine of Dooooooom!

Otherwise, yeah. Check out the Darwin Awards for plenty of absurd case studies. :lol:
 
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Dreadylocks said:
Clipping toenails, one flies up and gets lodged in her throat. She chokes to death.
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:lol:

That could be very funny. Imagine.

But how to get the husband dead in a related way?



Maybe electricity? Electricity is dangerous. Maybe contemporary people don't have a proper respect/fear of electricity. That's what my dear ole mum used to say.

What if she's sitting on the couch, hair in curlers, and soaking her feet? A fly is bothering the hell out of her. She grabs a fly swatter. The fly lands on a lamp shade next to the coach. She swats at the fly and hits the lamp, knocks the lamp into her foot-soaker, zap!

She kicks the foot-soaker tub thing over when she's being electrocuted.

He comes out, steps in the puddle of water and is also electrocuted.

The fly lands on his nose and is electrocuted too. Dies.

Not so funny. Maybe too real and mundane. There's something more bizarre and fun about Dready's scenario.

But this is an interesting brain teaser. I, for one, will try to think of something more out there. =)
 
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Rube Goldberg was the first thing that came to my mind. One event, leads to another, which leads to another, and another, so on and so forth, until something, probably completely mundane, finally kills her.


Let’s have a think…


She enters her apartment and places her handbag on the side table. She takes a bottle of perfume from the bag and walk over to the lounge mirror. The bottle is practically empty. She sprays the last of the perfume on her neck, before dropping the empty bottle in wicker bin. She lights a couple of candles on the mantel piece, then heads into her bedroom to get changed.

The handbag, which was place precariously close to the edge, slips and falls off. As it hits the ground, the contents (a purse, lipstick, jewellery) spill everywhere. The bag itself knocks a large ornamental vase over. The vase rolls around the floor and knocks a tall, floor-standing lamp over. As the lamp falls, the ensuing draft blows an old receipt off of the side table and up into the air. It floats over the mantle, catching fire on one of the candles. The burning receipt then floats into a net curtain, which too catches fire.

The lady emerges from the bedroom to see the ensuing chaos. She grabs a towel from the kitchen and attempts to extinguish the now burning net curtain. As she bats at the flames, burning embers of the curtain break away and float around the apartment. One lands on a rug, causing that to catch fire. Another lands in the bin, which burst into flames.

The lady panics. She runs for the door. In the hallway, she slips on her lipstick, falls and cracks her skull open on the edge of the table. She bleeds to death.

Soon after, her husband enters the apartment. Seeing her limp corpse, he kneels beside her and cries. He pulls out his phone and dials 999.

Inside the bin, the flames lick at the empty perfume bottle. It explodes, causing a shard of glass to tear through the wicker and plant itself into the husbands neck.


Phew…
 
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Dreadylocks said:
Oh, man. That movie is in my top 25, for sure.
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What a classic!

a Rube Goldberg death could be fun. I think the beginning of The City of Lost Children had something along those lines, although with very elaborate set pieces and camera work.

and Six Feet Under always (usually?) started out each episode with someone dying, sometimes in very bizarre circumstances.
 
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mad_hatter said:
Rube Goldberg was the first thing that came to my mind. One event, leads to another, which leads to another, and another, so on and so forth, until something, probably completely mundane, finally kills her.


Let’s have a think…


She enters her apartment and places her handbag on the side table. She takes a bottle of perfume from the bag and walk over to the lounge mirror. The bottle is practically empty. She sprays the last of the perfume on her neck, before dropping the empty bottle in wicker bin. She lights a couple of candles on the mantel piece, then heads into her bedroom to get changed.

The handbag, which was place precariously close to the edge, slips and falls off. As it hits the ground, the contents (a purse, lipstick, jewellery) spill everywhere. The bag itself knocks a large ornamental vase over. The vase rolls around the floor and knocks a tall, floor-standing lamp over. As the lamp falls, the ensuing draft blows an old receipt off of the side table and up into the air. It floats over the mantle, catching fire on one of the candles. The burning receipt then floats into a net curtain, which too catches fire.

The lady emerges from the bedroom to see the ensuing chaos. She grabs a towel from the kitchen and attempts to extinguish the now burning net curtain. As she bats at the flames, burning embers of the curtain break away and float around the apartment. One lands on a rug, causing that to catch fire. Another lands in the bin, which burst into flames.

The lady panics. She runs for the door. In the hallway, she slips on her lipstick, falls and cracks her skull open on the edge of the table. She bleeds to death.

Soon after, her husband enters the apartment. Seeing her limp corpse, he kneels beside her and cries. He pulls out his phone and dials 999.

Inside the bin, the flames lick at the empty perfume bottle. It explodes, causing a shard of glass to tear through the wicker and plant itself into the husbands neck.


Phew…
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That's pretty damn good. It is exactly the type of thing - one thing leading to another etc... I can't use it but it's great stuff.

Reason I can't use it is because it means hiring a pyro guy to go do all of this and achieving this effect would be expensive. If I did it with VFX, it would take forever to pop in the smoke, the fire etc... Realistically, I'd use a mixture of physical, clever camera angles and VFX to put this together.

I
 
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