American Psycho (2000)

This unsettling, violent, and dark drama-thriller from director Mary Harron (adapted from Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 book) was about a Manhattan serial killer who assaulted both friends and random victims alike, although it was possible that the many murders were only hallucinations in his psychotic head.

Slightly-drunken Wall Street yuppie Paul Allen (Jared Leto) was invited to the expensive apartment of obsessed and wealthy investment banker named Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale). Allen should have been tipped off to something unusual that was about to happen. The furniture and floor were covered with sheets and newspaper in anticipation of the bloody event.

The Huey Lewis song 'Hip to Be Square' played in the background. The tune was critiqued by the greedy, vainly self-absorbed, and narcissistic Bateman, as he donned a clear rain-slicker and backed into the living room with a shiny new axe at his side:

The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far much more bitter, cynical sense of humor...In '87, Huey released this, Fore, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip to be Square," a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself.

Bateman attacked from behind after calling for his victim to turn around: "Hey, Paul!" He punctuated the gory hacking with anger: "Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now, you f--kin' stupid bastard!" as blood splattered over his face from the impact of the strikes (off-screen) from the shiny new axe.

The Living Room Axe Murder of Paul Allen

Chicken Run (2000, UK)

This G-rated Claymation comedy animated film from the UK's Aardman Animations (its first feature film) told about a chicken farm run by the evil couple Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy (voices of Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson). The doomed lives of the oppressed chickens, who were raised to eventually be made into chicken pies in the Tweedy factory, were invigorated and liberated with the arrival of an American rooster named Rocky (voice of Mel Gibson).

Before Rocky, however, there was the unusually grim, memorable execution by Mrs. Tweedy of chicken Edwina (#282) when she failed to lay eggs and she was singled out of the group of hens. Mr. Tweedy snatched bug-eyed, fearful Edwina from the group and she was brought to Mrs. Tweedy (who donned red rubber gloves) outside a wooden shed.

Edwina's Head Chopping Execution

In silhouette, Mrs. Tweedy's shadow was seen raising the axe above a chopping block. There was a dull whack sound (off-screen) as the axe cut off Edwina's neck. It caused all of the chickens on the farm to slightly flinch.

Afterwards, Edwina's gruesome fate was revealed as a pile of chicken bones on the Tweedy's dinner table.

Final Destination (2000)

# 18

The first of the series of five Final Destination films (2000-2011) had a tagline that explained the basic premise: "You Can't Cheat Death."

• Final Destination 2 (2003)
• Final Destination 3 (2006)
• The Final Destination (2009)
• Final Destination 5 (2011)

Each film included grisly, creatively imaginative, contrived, unexpected and improbable deaths of the major characters.

In the first installment of the supernatural teen horror film by director James Wong, high-school senior and psychic airline passenger Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) had a frightening premonition of a 747 airplane crash - and deplaned with others before it exploded on take-off in a horrifying scene.

Thereafter, many of those who deplaned and escaped death would soon die when literally stalked by Death:

• Tod Waggner (Chad Donella)
  Menacing and creeping blue toilet bowl water on the floor caused Tod to slip and fall, thereby becoming strangled in the bathtub by the retractable clothes-line hanger that whipped around and coiled tightly around his neck, while he struggled and was unable to reach a pair of nose-hair scissors on the counter.
• Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer)
  See below.
• Ms. Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke)
  Teacher Mrs. Lewton suffered an unlikely Rube Goldberg-like death. She was deeply gashed in the throat with shards of glass when her short-circuiting computer monitor exploded in her face; then when she accidentally pulled down a knife-rack in the kitchen, she caused one of the knives to stab her in the chest, after which another explosion caused a chair to fall over and drive the knife even deeper. She was also incinerated in the burning house.
• Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott)
  He was decapitated when a sharp piece of car metal after a train wreck was sent sailing into the air and sliced through his neck. He had just been yelling at Carter: "That's right! You're next, Carter! I'm staying the f--k away from you!..Get away from him. He's next....You're dead, you're dead and you ain't taking me with you!"
• Carter Horton (Kerr Smith),
  He was the fifth and last survivor to die. In Paris, he saved Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) from the aftermath of a bus accident, but then stood up as he asked, "So who's next?" (the film's last line of dialogue), when he was hit and crushed (off-screen) by a giant falling, swinging neon sign behind him (the screen went black)

The second of the deaths was the most memorable. When Terry's boyfriend Carter was arguing with Alex Browning outside a cafe, Terry lambasted her friends with her last ironic words:

They died and we lived. Get over it. I will not let this plane crash be the most important thing in my life. God! I'm moving on, Carter. And if you want to waste your life beating the s--t out of Alex every time you see him, then you can just drop f--kin' dead!

As she stepped back into the street, Terry suffered a splatty death when she was hit by a speeding city bus that suddenly appeared without warning.

Terry's Splattering Death by City Bus

Her friends, with their faces flecked with her blood, reacted in horror.

Gladiator (2000)

# 8

Director Ridley Scott's historical adventure epic, a popular Best Picture winner, revived the subgenre of 'sword and sandal' films. It told the story of the life of heroic trusted and capable Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe), who was betrayed by the treacherous son, power-hungry Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) of kindly Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). Commodus committed patricide in order to take the throne away from his father.

Maximus narrowly escaped execution during the change of power, although his own wife (Giannina Facio) and young son (Giorgio Cantarini) were both murdered in their home in Spain. He arrived too late to save them - he discovered the charred and crucified bodies of both his son and wife in the smoldering home of their villa. Slave-traders found Maximus and he was sold to become a gladiator, managed and trained by Antonius Proximo (Oliver Reed) in Zucchabar in North Africa, and renamed the Spaniard.

Eventually, in front of a cheering Colosseum crowd in the Roman arena, the Spaniard gladiator (after a decisive victory) was forced to reveal his name to Emperor Commodus:

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife."

His popularity increased with the crowds for his bravery, fighting skills, and for his desire to free Rome from tyranny. His one main goal was to wreak "vengeance" on Commodus and restore his former glory ("And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next"). He was incensed when Commodus embellished the story of the deaths of his wife and child:

"They tell me your son squealed like a girl when they nailed him to the cross. And your wife moaned like a whore when they ravaged her again and again - and again."

In the film's conclusion, Commodus challenged Maximus to a final confrontational one-on-one battle to-the-death in the "great arena," but first stabbed him in the chest (puncturing his lung) with a stiletto while he was bound, to gain an advantage and win approval from the crowd.

During the contest, the mortally-wounded Maximus stabbed the Emperor in the throat with his own hidden stiletto and killed him, after Commodus had dropped his sword and no one would provide him with another (Quintus (Tomas Arana) had shouted: "Sheathe your swords!").

Weary and dying from his own wounds, Maximus saw himself entering into his home's wooden gates in the afterlife. Before dying, he ordered Quintus: "Free my men, Senator Gracchus is to be reinstated. There was a dream that was Rome. It shall be realized. These are the wishes of Marcus Aurelius."

Maximus' Visions While Drifting Into the Afterlife to Greet His Wife and Son

As he succumbed in the arms of Commodus' sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), his own ex-lover, he told her (his final words): "Lucius is safe." She urged him to go to his murdered family: "Go to them."

As he perished, his body floated upwards and he experienced visions of his family in the afterlife as they greeted him on a dusty road and he was wading through waving yellow reeds. She reassured that he had greeted them: "You're home." Lucilla stood up and addressed everyone: "Is Rome worth one good man's life? We believed it once. Make us believe it again. He was a soldier of Rome. Honor him." Fellow gladiators surrounded Maximus and carried his body out of the arena.

The film concluded with newly-freed gladiator Juba (Djimon Hounsou) burying Maximus' two small statues of his wife and son in the dirt of the Colosseum where Maximus died ("Now we are free. I will see you again, but not yet. Not yet").

Pitch Black (2000) (aka The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black)

David Twohy's taut science fiction thriller, set in the 27th century, stated the premise that a constantly-lit, barren desert planet named Hades within a three-star system would undergo a rare one-month eclipse of its three suns every 22 years. The celestial event unleashed hibernating, terrifying winged alien creatures in the darkness from underground caves on the abandoned planet.

Amoral, vicious murderer and anti-hero prisoner Richard D. Riddick (Vin Diesel in a star-making role) was the only one who could see in the dark (with near-perfect night vision known as Eyeshine) and help save the crew from the sharp-toothed, ravenous flying birds-of-prey creatures, called "Bioraptors" or "Demons."

The ship's junior second-class pilot Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) aided Riddick when he was injured and bleeding following an ambush by two vicious, bloodthirsty nocturnal alien monsters. When she was helping him to his feet while holding him in her arms, she told him that she would die for the others, but not for him:

"I said I'd die for them, not you. Come on!"

Suddenly, something jolted them. A Bioraptor impaled her with its tail, seized her, and ripped her body away from Riddick, and flew away. There was no scream. No cry. No final words. Stunned and falling to his knees, Riddick expressed sadness at her death, bellowing after her with his pained reaction:

"Not for me! Not for me!"

X-Men (2000)

The first of a series of big-budget superhero films (based upon the Marvel Comics characters and stories) was directed by Bryan Singer, and told of an ongoing conflict regarding mutants.

The warring parties were two fearsome groups of psychic mutants, including:

Fanatical, prejudiced, and heartless anti-mutant Senator Robert Kelly (Bruce Davison) had sponsored a Congressional bill, the Mutant Registration Act, requiring mutants (superior human beings with special powers due to DNA mutation and an X-factor) to register with the government.

After being kidnapped, Senator Kelly was flown to the island fortress of Magneto, the embittered leader of the Brotherhood. There, Magneto demonstrated how he could profoundly amplify his abilities with a test mutation machine that he had built. His device emitted radiation that triggered mutation in the body of Senator Kelly.

The politician was artificially transformed into a mutant with a malleable, jelly-like body, able to stretch into pliable shapes. He fell from Magneto's fortress into the water during an escape attempt, and was washed up on a beach where sun-bathers were astonished at his pale water-logged skin.

Senator Kelly stumbled into Xavier's mansion, suffering deadly consequences from his artificial mutation. His unstable body (with a broken-down cell structure) was rejecting the unnatural mutation it had suffered. He dissolved or disintegrated into a puddle of water, after he told X-Men member Storm:

"I think you've got one less person to - to be afraid of."

Jason X (2001) (aka Friday the 13th, Part 10)

Part 10 of the horror/slasher series with the hockey-masked serial killer Jason Voorhees was in a sci-fi setting -- the 25th century on alternate planet Earth Two.

[Note: Kane Hodder was in his fourth and last screen appearance as the character, from 1988-2002.]

In the morgue of the spaceship Grendel in the year 2455, experienced pretty blonde lab worker Adrienne (Kristi Angus) examined Jason Voorhees' frozen corpse. She had been instructed to dissect Jason's cryogenically-stiff body.

When the bloodthirsty Jason thawed further (due to sexual activity on the ship) and reanimated with his superhuman strength, he abruptly sat up on the morgue table.

Adrienne was suddenly grabbed by the face and by the chest as she screamed and protested. Jason dunked her head into a sink filled with liquid nitrogen (shown from the sink POV), flash-freezing her face.

Jason then smashed the front of her face on the table countertop nearby, shattering it into pieces and finally tossed her body (without the front of her face) to the floor.

It was the beginning of Jason's killing spree onboard the spacecraft.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) was the first of director Peter Jackson's acclaimed trilogy of fantasy-drama epics. Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novel of the same name, the setting was Middle-Earth.

On the journey to Mordor, one of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring, Prince Boromir (Sean Bean) suffered a tragic, sacrificial death at the hands of Saruman's (Christopher Lee) advanced breed of warriors known as Uruk-hai.

He was shot with three big black arrows in his torso from the bow of the fiercesome Orc Commander Lurtz (Lawrence Makoare), although he valiantly kept fighting and kept his honor. After the third arrow pierced into him, he dropped to his knees, and Lurtz approached to finish him off with one more arrow to the head.

Angered Ranger Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) (aka Strider) attacked Lurtz, who was soon stabbed in the leg with a long dagger, had his right arm amputated, was run through with a sword, and was then decapitated with one swing.

The Killing of Orc Commander Lurtz
Stabbed in Leg	Right Arm Amputated	Decapitated

Aragorn rushed to the side of dying Boromir as he expired. Boromir confessed his wrongful obsession with taking Frodo's ring. Knowing that he was beyond help and would die, he offered an apology and expressed his fears for the worst after his passing:

I tried to take the Ring from him [Frodo]...Forgive me. I did not see it. I have failed you all...Leave it. It is over. The world of Men will fall. And all will come to darkness and my city to ruin.

Aragorn promised a forgiven Boromir that he wouldn't allow the kingdom of Gondor to fall into ruin:

I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall nor our people fail.

Then with his last few words, Boromir expressed his allegiance to Aragorn as his king:

Our people. Our people. I would have followed you, my brother. My captain. My king." (Aragorn blessed the fallen warrior: "Be at peace" and kissed his forehead.)

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

Director Steve Beck's intriguing horror film was a remake of the classic William Castle haunted house film many decades earlier, 13 Ghosts (1960) - filmed with a gimmick known as Illusion-O. In the film's trailer, William Castle spoke about wearing a pair of red and blue cellophane glasses that allowed the viewer to either see or not see ghosts on-screen:

"When you see 13 Ghosts, you will be given a supernatural viewer like this which will enable you to penetrate for the first time into the spirit world. It will let you see all thirteen of our weird, wonderful, and wildly-assorted ghosts."

13 Ghosts (1960) - The Original Classic William Castle Film

In the opening sequence of the 2001 remake, eccentric ghost hunter Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham), with his psychic assistant Dennis Rafkin (Matthew Lillard), were on a mission in a car junkyard to capture a 12th angry ghost for his collection known as Juggernaut. A semi-truck spewing the blood of innocents was driven into the junkyard as a bait vehicle to lure the ghosts out. Cyrus (and other ghost hunters) lost their lives in gruesome ways during the search (i.e., a bloody windshield impact, a backwards body-snapping, a car-slicing, a bashing inside ghost cell walls, etc.), although Juggernaut was eventually caught.

After the opening title credits, Cyrus' widower nephew Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub), who was suffering from money issues after a house fire that killed his wife Jean (Kathryn Anderson), was living in a cramped apartment with his two children: grown daughter Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and precocious son Bobby (Alec Roberts), and their live-in black babysitter/nanny, Maggie Bess (Rah Digga). He received a visit from Cyrus' shyster estate lawyer Ben Moss (J.R. Bourne), and was informed by Cyrus' final video recording that he had inherited his estranged uncle Cyrus' haunted mansion in remote woods - Arthur was presented with a key.

At nightfall, Arthur and his family (and Moss) arrived at the isolated, lavish, ornate home. The giant mansion dwelling was a very strange contraption or labyrinth indeed, in that it was composed of moving and shifting floor-to-ceiling transparent (see-through) glass walls (with Latin inscriptions or spells). In the center of the house was a large spinning platform engraved with a number of symbols.

[Note: It was later explained that the mansion was constructed by Cyrus as a complex machine known as the "Ocularis Infernum" (Eye of Hell), using designs from a 15th century book written by a possessed astronomer under the influence of the Devil himself. The house was powered by the dead ghosts collected inside, who had all experienced awful demises and were filled with rage. Cyrus was revealed to have had a secret plan involving spells and a 13th Ghost.]

Outside the home as they viewed the home's facade, the family met Cyrus' assistant Dennis Rafkin (Matthew Lillard) - who was posing as an electric company worker fixing a power outage - he was also allowed entry. As the family scattered and explored amazing artifacts and rooms upstairs, Dennis ventured to the basement, to try and recover money owed to him by Cyrus. After experiencing zaps of psychic strobing, he realized that a malicious group of twelve angry ghosts were trapped or held captive in the basement by Cyrus before he died. The ghosts could only be seen by wearing special glasses. Traumatized by the revelation, he admitted to Arthur that he used to work for his eccentric uncle Cyrus: ("I used to hunt ghosts with your uncle Cyrus"), and warned Arthur and his family to leave the dangerous house immediately. At the same time, Moss had been pressuring a hesitant Arthur to sign the deed and inheritance papers.

The next strange event to occur happened when unsuspecting Ben Moss entered the basement to collect his earnings. Donning ghost eyeglasses, he dismissively addressed a number of apparitions who were protectively sealed behind glass walls.

The Torn Prince (Craig Olejnik)

The First Born Son (Mikhael Speidel)

The Angry Princess (Shawna Loyer)

One was a naked female ghost of a slashed suicide victim with breast implants (known as The Angry Princess/Dana Newman (Shawna Loyer)) - she reacted negatively when he quipped: "Hey, nice tits." He asked: "Wow, geez, you. What's the matter, honey? Bad representation?"

Inside a clockwork room with huge gearworks, Moss located a black briefcase with his cash earnings inside. When he picked up the valise and then held up a large bundle of cash from the stashed treasure inside, he commented: "Not bad for an hourly wage." He didn't notice that something was triggered beneath the case, and gears whirred and grinded around him. The walls were reconfigured and rearranged in the entire house and shutters closed off the house to the outside world. Most seriously, the ghosts were released.

As he left through the same corridor, he realized that the door originally holding the suicidal Angry Princess ghost was now open. He backed up from the nude apparition, the first ghost to be released, who approached menacingly with a butcher knife in her upraised hand to confront him for his earlier rude comment. He nervously tried to explain himself: "Hey, I, uh, I was just kidding, before. A little lawyer humor, ha, ha, ha." An automated sliding glass door behind him activated when he stood in an open doorway, and he was instantly sliced in half length-wise down his frontal plane, although the bifurcation wasn't obvious at first.

Lawyer Ben Moss Approached by the Released Angry Princess Before He Was Sliced in Half Length-wise by a Set of Sliding Doors

His ghost eyeglasses tumbled from his face and his tie fell from his body as he stood in shock. The nude ghost came closer - and his paralyzed expression might have been toward the frightening figure. But then, the front half of his body slid downward on the blood-streaked glass and left the bloody back half of his body behind on the back far side of the glass. The glass door, serving like a sharp razor blade, had bisected him laterally, slicing straight through his body that slowly dripped to the floor.

Shortly later, Arthur was with his daughter Kathy, who donned special viewing glasses, and was dragged around and ravaged by the Jackal.

There were multiple plot twists as the film proceeded, delivered in complex expositions:

• the spirit of Arthur's burned-to-death wife was the 4th Ghost
• the mechanism released the Ghosts one by one to use their power/energy to unlock the Ocularis Infernum (Eye of Hell), the giant demon device - ultimately granting its wielder ultimate knowledge including being able to see into the future
• after the 12 ghosts were released, the only way to stop the mechanism was for a 13th Ghost, used as a fail-safe device, to shut down the mechanism - the Ghost would be derived from a person's willing sacrifice to the machine (with a motive of pure love)
• Arthur was being pressured by spirit liberator Kalina Oretzia (Embeth Davidtz) to willingly sacrifice himself and become the mechanism's 13th Ghost - in order to rescue his two kidnapped children from the Jackal, and to activate the demon machine
• the double-crossing Kalina was revealed to be Cyrus' secret partner and lover who was following his orders; Cyrus had faked his death at the junkyard, and was using her to convince Arthur to become the 13th Ghost; in fact, if Arthur was to become the 13th Ghost, it would not shut down the mechanism, but initiate, activate or trigger it even further
• Cyrus then double-crossed Kalina, no longer needing her, by crushing her between two sliding walls of glass

Cyrus Grabbed and Vengefully Killed by 12 Ghosts

• Cyrus met his own fate when all 12 Ghosts sought revenge by grabbing and capturing their tormentor, and throwing him into the machine's rotating metal rings, where he was chopped and sliced up into pieces

Training Day (2001)

Antoine Fuqua's fast-action police drama contrasted two undercover LAPD drug-enforcement cops during a day's work among LA's toughest street gangs:

• Detective Sergeant Alonzo Harris (Best Actor-winning Denzel Washington), a hardened and corrupt 13 year veteran mentor
• Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), Alonzo's naive, slowly-wised up young rookie training partner

By the film's conclusion, the corruption of the villainous, unlikeable and intimidating Alonzo was once again revealed, and Jake realized he had been set up to be the fall guy. However, he was saved while Alonzo's blurred and unorthodox morality finally caught up with him. Alonzo asserted his tough bravado to neighborhood gang members while surrounded in the street:

Awwww, you motherf--kers. Okay. Alright. I'm putting cases on all of you bitches! Huh. You think you can do this s--t. Jake! You think you can do this to me?! You motherf--kers will be playin' basketball in Pelican Bay when I get finished with you! SHU program, nigga. 23 hour lockdown! I'm the man up in this piece! You'll never see the light of - who the f--k do you think you're f--kin' with? I'm the police, I run s--t here. You just live here! Yeah, that's right, you better walk away! Go on and walk away, 'cause I'm gonna burn this motherf--ker down. King Kong ain't got s--t on me! That's right, that's right. S--t, I don't f--k. I'm winnin' anyway, I'm winnin.' I'm winnin' any motherf--kin' way, I can't lose. S--t, you can shoot me, but you can't kill me.

When shot in the ass and then deserted by his partner Jake Hoyt, abusive crime-fighter Alonzo delivered his final words in the film while lighting up a smoke:

Oh, what a day. What a motherf--kin' day!

Shortly afterwards, his car was surrounded by hooded members of the Russian Mafia with machine guns - who pulverized his flailing body up against his car with an incredible volley of gunfire (similar to the finale of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Sonny's death scene in The Godfather (1972)).