The Friday Five: Death in Film Music

Let's look at some of the best musical death scenes around...

It's Friday, so I'm bringing something back that I used to do eons ago when I was writing on my LiveJournal: The Friday Five. Exactly as it says it is, it's just your average list of five things brought together by a theme. It could be composer, film genre, year, or anything.

Today is all about death, influenced by Twitter, the social media equivalent of the Titanic. The iceberg is one Elon Musk, who seems to have about as much clue about running it as I do about running a diamond mine. Here are five great pieces of film music that happen to score someone - or something - kicking the bucket.

1. 'Married Life'

Tissues at the ready. Okay, this is obvious, but it's because it's still so damn powerful. Michael Giacchino essentially won the Oscar for 2009's "Up" based on this cue that runs just over four minutes, and it's a wonderfully bright and optimistic melody that suddenly pulls the wool over your eyes as it charts the life of Ellie and Carl. It's impossible to stay composed when it reduces everything to those delicate piano notes, and we're just as crushed as Carl.

2. 'It's Over'

Robots have feelings, apparently. What 1991's uber-blockbuster “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” did was make us feel bad for the guy who spent the previous film murdering everyone in sight to the point where he's given a heroic yet bittersweet send-off. Composer Brad Fiedel cleverly plays his optimistic 'Hope' theme as John Connor, his mother Sarah, and the T-800 throw the remainders of the previous Terminator into the furnace, ensuring everything is taken care of. However, as the T-800 points out, one microchip is left, and the main theme literally mourns him as he's lowered into the molten steel. Terminated.

3. 'Flat Spin'

In Tony Scott's "Top Gun," dogfighting is a competitive sport. So it is that when Maverick and Iceman are vying for a chance to go further up the leaderboard, someone else suffers, in this case, Goose. When a hesitant Iceman pulls out of a firing position, he unintentionally catches Maverick and his RIO in the aircraft's jetwash. Harold Faltermeyer's moody synths crank up the tension by running up the scale as the jet spins but quickly release as Goose's head hits the canopy after ejecting. It's perfect "he's fucked" music, and Faltermeyer doesn't have to work hard to set the mood, immediately introducing a tragic theme for Maverick that dominates much of the following score.

4. 'Sumer is icumen in'

The terrifying climax of Robin Hardy's 1973 folk horror classic "The Wicker Man" is entirely predicated on diegetic music. That is, music that exists in the world of the film. In this case, the performers are the inhabitants of Summerisle with their rendition of the thirteenth-century ditty 'Sumer is icumen in,' merrily warbling as Police Sargeant Howie burns to death inside, a sacrifice for their harvest. What's unnerving is just how upbeat the song and their performance is, with the grin on Christopher Lee's face as he swishes from side to side, leading the islanders like a demented conductor. It's a brilliant yet horrible sequence, defining exactly why the folk horror subgenre is so successfully scary.

5. 'The Final Conflict'

Stuff "The Dark Knight," 1983's "The Final Conflict" felt it didn't need to include the word "Omen" in its title like its predecessors, although they relented when it came to home video releases. The film ends, as you'd imagine, with the death of antichrist Damien (now a grown-up played by Sam Neill). Jerry Goldsmith completes the trilogy with a fantastic score. Where it began with the dark fury of 'Ave Satani,' here it ends with a superb pseudo-religious cue that recalls the epic music of Miklos Rozsa for pictures like "Ben-Hur," as Jesus comes back to Earth to save us all. Yes, really.

Bonus: 'A Fighting Chance to Live'

The dying object here is the original starship Enterprise, which took its final voyage in 1984's "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock." James Horner was on-hand to write a devastatingly beautiful cue for the self-destruction of the famous vessel and, to quote George Takei, "Oh my." Listen to that dramatic timpani as the ship falls into the atmosphere, followed by a soaring melody as it burns up before disappearing. Chills.

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Got an idea for a future Friday Five? Let me know in the comments.