Death Becomes Her is a Black Comedy with some extra emphasis on the "black", directed by Robert Zemeckis...though you'd be excused for thinking it was Tim Burton, given the film's content.
- Many of the Amusing Injuries throughout the movie.
- Madeline's shockingly violent fall down the staircase, complete with a closeup of her neck snapping on one of the marble steps.
- A moment later, Ernest is talking on the phone and we see Madeline's corpse staggering to its feet in the background, with its neck twisted and broken. The uncanny nature of the CGI makes it incredibly creepy.Madeline: Ernest! You pushed me down the stairs.
- Madeline trying to "fix" her broken neck, twisting it back into place with a Sickening "Crunch!". And it's worth noting since she twisted it in the opposite direction from which it was snapped, her spine can be seen jutting out underneath her skin in a complete circle around her neck.
- A moment later, Ernest is talking on the phone and we see Madeline's corpse staggering to its feet in the background, with its neck twisted and broken. The uncanny nature of the CGI makes it incredibly creepy.
- Madeline blowing a massive hole in Helen's torso with a shotgun... and an incredibly pissed-off Helen rising up, moments later, from the bloody fountain she was blown into.
- Helen hitting Madeline on the head with a shovel, crushing her head and neck completely backward. Not to mention the gurgling noises Helen makes afterward.Damn, I just fixed this.
- At least the final cut of the film has the two women making themselves "presentable" in the aftermath of their feud. In the original script, Mad and Hel stand unseen in the doorway to Ernest's room, casting "horrible, misshapen shadows".
- Madeline's shockingly violent fall down the staircase, complete with a closeup of her neck snapping on one of the marble steps.
- The emergency room doctor (played by the late Sydney Pollack) examines a post-Neck Snap Madeline, and announces (after taking a swig from Ernest's flask) that Madeline's neck, along with wrist, is broken in multiple places (with bones protruding from the skin), her body is room temperature, and she has no pulse. In shock, he steps away for a minute to get a second opinion. Minutes later, Ernest finds him flatlining on an operating table, with doctors frantically attempting to revive him. The shock of Madeline's condition was overwhelming enough to put him into cardiac arrest. We don't know if he was brought back or if he died, though it seems the latter likely occurred.
- As Ernest runs around trying to find another doctor to help Madeline, he runs into the lobby of the emergency room, which is devoid of medical personnel — and occupied by people with bizarre, disturbing injuries: we see a man with an ice pack on his face, whose eyeball has popped out (and is hanging by a thread), a rollerblader whose leg is twisted 360 degrees, a tennis player with what looks like fragments of a racket shoved into both knees, and a man with a dislocated shoulder (which is hanging limp at his side). Nightmare Fuel or Black Comedy, it's unsettling all the same.
- Helen's Stalker Shrine. Her vanity is covered with candles and mutilated photos of Madeline, defaced with red marker. And then we pan back, and see the words "NEVER AGAIN" written on the mirror in lipstick.
- Goldie Hawn's glassy and literally-lifeless eyes after her death. Brrrrrr.
- The concept of being forced to live for eternity in a body that has been dead for decades and is literally held together by bandages and spray paint is pretty horrific when you stop to think about it. Especially the state they are left in at the end of the film. They're stuck like that forever!
- And spiteful egomaniacs that they are, they seem more annoyed than horrified.
- And how about the good folks that would soon be proceeding out of Ernest's funeral, only to find two disfigured corpses on the steps of the church talking to each other?
- Also, it's inevitable that each and every one of the people who have taken the potion will eventually get killed somehow and find themselves in Madeline and Helen's shoes. Ernest was right to refuse Lisle's potion.
- Throughout the movie, despite being physically dead, Madeline and Helen's heads always remain intact, begging the question of whether they could still 'die' if their brains were completely destroyed, a la Torchwood: Miracle Day, or else persist even beyond eventual and complete decay.
- The eerily floating, crying nuns that pass Ernest as he makes his way to the morgue. The scene comes completely out of nowhere, and is never explained (it was meant to tie into an unreleased Deleted Scene, which was only uncovered through the original script). The result is rather unsettling, even in a movie full of Black Humor and Body Horror.
- One proposed ending for the film had Madeline and Helen stealing a car at Lisle's and chasing after Ernest, only to drive off a cliff and crash with a fiery explosion (just like in the staged "accident" Helen had planned for Madeline earlier in the film). Madeline and Helen would've emerged from the wreckage of the car as charred, smoldering skeletons — who are still alive and fully conscious. Yikes.
- Imagine being the person to find Helen and Madeline in pieces at the bottom of the steps of the church. Trauma and therapy forever!