DEATH BECOMES HER Raises a Terrifying Question That Still Haunts Me

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I previously named the 1992 film Death Becomes Her as one of the funniest horror-comedies, and it was a clear choice. It felt equally obvious that it belonged on a list of the scariest horror-comedies, but looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have included it. The movie has genuinely bothered me for over 30 years. Robert Zemeckis’ film poses a truly unsettling question – one I can’t shake because it has no answer. And that’s what makes it so scary: what would happen to Madeline and Helen if they tried to end their endless lives by being cremated?

The movie Death Becomes Her is a fantastic horror-comedy because it balances humor and imagination with a genuinely frightening idea. The story centers on two rivals obsessed with staying young who seek out a witch. She offers them a potion that stops aging completely, preventing them from getting any older at all.

The warning arrives only after they drink the potion. They’re told to “take care of yourself” because they’ll be stuck with their bodies – not just for a long time, but forever.

Madeline and Helen’s intense hatred consumes them, leaving their bodies broken and trapped between life and death. The film concludes with a somber scene: they are forced to attend the funeral of Ernest, who chose a natural death over eternal life. Unlike Ernest, they are cursed to live forever, fully aware of the monstrous forms they’ve become – the very fate they dreaded. They will never find peace or escape their suffering.

This movie is a brilliantly dark and funny way to end a horror-comedy. Ever since I first watched it as a child, I’ve been stuck on one thought: could the characters have somehow escaped their fate? I believe their real prison is their own awareness. Their suffering comes from knowing, not from any physical pain. So, even if they can’t find peace in death, what if they could find peace in simply not knowing? Perhaps if they destroyed their brains completely, preventing any possibility of reconstruction, they could finally find a kind of quiet peace.

Perhaps cremation offers a way out, maybe their only one. But there’s a terrifying possibility: what if it doesn’t work? What if being cremated doesn’t end their consciousness, and instead traps them as thinking dust, unable to control their endless suffering? Being a conscious pile of ash could be even worse than living forever as a monstrous, undead being.

Having essentially unlimited time to contemplate escaping their curse, Madeline and Helen almost certainly thought about cremation. However, they likely rejected the idea for the same reasons I’ve already explained. They could never risk trying it, because there was no guarantee it wouldn’t make things even worse than they already were.

As a huge film buff, I’ve always loved Death Becomes Her for its hilarious take on the horror-comedy genre. But the more I’ve thought about what happens to those two women over the years, the more I realize it’s genuinely terrifying as well. It’s not just funny, it’s legitimately scary! By the way, that piece was written by Mikey Walsh, who apparently spends a lot of time thinking about this movie – and ranking Targaryen kings, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can find him on Bluesky at @burgermike.

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2025-10-21 21:03