Hostel Part II (2007)

In this writer/director Eli Roth slasher film sequel, accused of torture-porn, the most controversial and disturbing death scene was the unsettling and lingering death of the socially-awkward and uptight character of Eastern European vacationer and art student Lorna (Heather Matarazzo).

After she became drunk and was kidnapped, she became the victim of a member of the sick and sadistic wealthy elite who paid to experience the torture and suffering of others.

She was stripped and hung by chains upside-down by her ankles, while the female client (Monika Malacova) entered and removed her black robe to reveal her nakedness, and reclined below her in an ornately-decorated tub surrounded by candles. Lorna was first terrorized when the bather took a large hand-held scythe by her side and stroked the bare skin of the torture victim, and then cut off her mouth gag.

Swinging above her, Lorna (begging for her life) was then repeatedly sliced by the "Mrs. Bathory" character, who believed that she would retain her youthful image by bathing in the blood.

A Deadly Blood-Bath Torture

The naked bather was ecstatic as she slashed away with the large scythe, and the victim's blood dripped down upon her, in the style of Elizabeth Bathory. After reveling in the blood, "Mrs. Bathory" cut Lorna's throat to kill her.

I Am Legend (2007)

Richard Matheson's 1954 horror novel "I Am Legend" about zombies and the apocalypse was the inspiration for a number of sci-fi horror films, including The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971), and this 2007 film.

In the year 2012, ex-military scientist-virologist Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) was the sole survivor in NYC after a man-made virus (a genetically-engineered cancer cure that mutated and became deadly) virtually wiped out most of the global population three years earlier.

In the film's climax, he realized that he had found the cure for the virus (preserved in a vial of blood), while he was being attacked in a protective, plexi-glassed enclosure. His violent assailants were victims of the virus - aggressive zombified, vampirish, virus-infected mutant creatures or hemocytes, called DarkSeekers.

To save two other survivors, Anna (Alice Braga) and her son Ethan (Charlie Tahan) and the human race, he pulled the pin on a hand grenade and charged at the attackers to sacrifice himself.

His strategy killed off the infected leader Alpha Male (Dash Mihok) and all of the others in his laboratory basement.

Into the Wild (2007)

Jon Krakauer's 1996 non-fiction book was the inspiration for this Sean Penn-directed biopic drama.

Free-spirited, idealistic, arrogant college-grad adventurer Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) (aka Alexander Supertramp) died a lonely and painful death in a remote portion of Alaska in August of 1992.

He suffered from starvation and poisoning after eating inedible Wild Sweet Peas (mistaken for Wild Potato Alaska Carrot).

McCandless scrawled his final words (written in bold letters) into his journal:

"HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED"

The film ended with an incredible pull-back shot from his face gazing up at the light in the back of his abandoned, derelict 'magic bus' home as he expired.

This was followed by an actual self-portrait photograph of Chris sitting next to his bus.

The Mist (2007) (aka Stephen King's The Mist)

In this horror sci-fi thriller's controversial ending, a group of five survivors from besieged Bridgton, Maine were in a car that ran out of gas on a winding forested road. They were in the midst of an unexplained monster-ridden mist, while they were trying to escape.

In their final few minutes - a sadistic, tacked-on, bleak and sacrificial ending, widowed artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) realized that there were only four bullets left, so he opted to mercy kill the other four occupants of the car:

• Billy Drayton (Nathan Gamble), 8 year-old son
• Amanda Dunfrey (Laurie Holden), a married teacher
• two elderly survivors: Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) and 3rd-grade teacher Irene Reppler (Frances Sternhagen)

The others were murdered with bullet shots to the head, shown as four bright gun blasts viewed from outside the car.

Drayton was left alive and screaming in anguish. He then stepped out of the car and repeatedly called out: "Come on!" for one of the unseen blood-thirsty creatures to kill him -- but then a military caravan of tanks and trucks pulled up from the mist, in a deus ex machina moment. The military police torched the remaining creatures with flamethrowers and aided survivors.

The sight caused a weeping David to collapse to his knees in dazed disbelief at the pointlessness of his inane murderous sacrifice. The camera rose up to display the large-scale recovery-salvage effort.

Mother of Tears (2007, It.) (aka La Terza Madre, or The Third Mother)

This supernatural film was the third horror-fest work of director Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy. It was preceded by:

• Suspiria (1977, It.)
• Inferno (1980, It.)

The film depicted, in 21st century Rome, a violent confrontation with the last surviving and cruel "Mother" known as Mater Lachrymarum (Moran Atias) - a member of a trio of ancient malevolent black witches known as the 'Three Mothers.'

Early on, it featured the spectacularly brutal and gory murder of curator Michael Pierce's (Adam James) assistant archaeologist Giselle Mares (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) of Rome's Museum of Ancient Art.

Researcher Giselle had been examining what had been found chained to an unearthed coffin (located with skeletal remains of a 19th century church official). It was an ancient rectangular box-shaped urn belonging to the Mater. The seal of the urn was broken and it was opened - unwittingly unleashing a long-dormant evil. The discovered artifacts inside the urn included:

• a dark-red cloak ("some kind of talisman" with unusual inscriptions in an "ancient language")
• an ornate dagger
• three small female statues (representing the three mothers or witches)

After the building shook, the assistant curator was suddenly assaulted, and her teeth were bashed out with a metal pestle. Her belly was disemboweled with the dagger (causing her intestines to spill onto the floor), her neck was strangled by her own ropy innards, and then she was consumed by three, shadowy, crazed demonic agents and an encouraging, evil screaming pet monkey.

Further assaults, suicides and murders spread rapidly through Rome.

No Country for Old Men (2007)

The dark Best Picture-winning crime drama from the Coen Brothers was based upon Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. The tale was about a bad drug-deal gone wrong in early 1980s West Texas.

It told of the relentless efforts of a psychotic hitman, who had escaped policy custody and jail, to recover a satchel with $2 million dollars from the aftermath of the failed drug deal. He was searching for the money that had been retrieved by Vietnam veteran and Texas resident Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin).

Its opening scene was the strangulation murder of a young deputy (Zach Hopkins) by the handcuffed amoral, thrill-killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), using his handcuffs as a garrote from behind. After the killing, he reacted with a grinning, satisfied exhalation, and then walked away from the bloody, scuffed-up floor from the flailing boots of the struggling man.

Throughout the film, the enigmatic Chigurh killed other victims with a compressed-air cattlegun as he pursued the satchel with the money, held by Moss. When he was able to confront Moss by phone, Chigurh promised that Moss' young and innocent wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), wouldn't be hurt if Moss gave up the money, but he defiantly refused:

Chigurh: You know how this is gonna turn out, don't you?
Moss: Nope.
Chigurh: I think you do. So this is what I'll offer. You bring me the money and I'll let her go. Otherwise, she's accountable, the same as you. That's the best deal you're gonna get. I won't tell you you can save yourself, because you can't.
Moss: Yeah, I'm gonna bring you somethin', all right. Decided to make you a special project of mine. You ain't gonna have to come look for me at all. (Moss hung up the pay phone)

At the film's conclusion, the evil and remorseless killer confronted Carla Jean in her bedroom - preceded by a mournful dialogue between the two. She spoke first:

"I knew this wasn't done with. I ain't got the money. What little I had is long gone and there's bills a-plenty to pay yet. I buried my mother today. Ain't paid for that neither....I need to sit down. You got no cause to hurt me."

Anton explained how he had earlier pledged to Llewelyn that he would kill her if he didn't bring him the $2 million in stolen drug money: "No, but I gave my word...to your husband." This was despite the fact that Llewelyn was murdered by Mexican drug lords, not Anton, and was unable to deliver the money. She responded: "That don't make sense. You gave your word to my husband to kill me?" Chigurh tried to explain: "Your husband had the opportunity to save you. Instead, he used you to try to save himself."

When she told him: "Not like that. Not like you say. You don't have to do this," he responded:

"People always say the same thing...They say, 'You don't have to do this'."

Chigurh then offered her his usual 50/50 chance of survival by flipping a coin ("OK. This is the best I can do. Call it"), but she refused:

"I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sittin' there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me... I ain't gonna call it...The coin don't have no say - it's just you."

He replied: "I got here the same way the coin did." She was then predictably murdered (off-screen), signified by his leaving the house alone.

Superman: Doomsday (2007)

In the animated movie, the Man of Steel Superman (voice of Adam Baldwin) had a dramatic, tearjerking death. The story was based on the "The Death of Superman" plot that appeared in DC Comics' publications in the 1990s.

After a violent battle between Superman and the mindless, inter-galactic, indestructible creature Doomsday released by LexCorps, the superhero sacrificially lifted the unstoppable killing machine miles into the atmosphere and crashed back into the Earth with it at super-speed, causing them to burn up during reentry.

The impact sent shockwaves throughout the city and left a huge crater, and extinguished the red-eyes of the monstrous creature.

When the smoke and debris cleared from the air, Lois Lane (voice of Anne Heche) ran to Superman's side after he collapsed, and found him with blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. He asked her if the creature was dead ("Is everyone...?") and she assured him:

"You did it Superman, we're safe, all of us."

When he spoke his final words: "Good, that's-that's all that matters," tears welled up in her eyes, as he fell limp and died in her arms.