Alien 3 (1992)

The main protagonist of the Alien series of franchise sci-fi horror films was female heroine Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).

In this third installment by director David Fincher (his directorial debut), Ripley discovered that the embryo of an Alien Queen was growing inside of her. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation had plans to use the "magnificent" Alien specimen as a biological weapon.

In the film's downbeat ending, she was able to exterminate the Alien by thermal shock, but then was forced to make the ultimate suicidal sacrifice to kill the about-to-be-born Alien embryo.

She executed a free-fall (in a crucifix pose) backwards into a gigantic foundry vat of molten metal, as the screeching alien queen embryo burst out of her chest during her fall.

She grabbed it to prevent it from escaping, and took it to its death.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Before the successful TV series starring Sarah Michelle Geller, this comedy/horror film from writer Joss Whedon initiated the main title character:

• Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson), a vacant-headed Valley Girl cheerleader

She reluctantly found out that she was a warrioress vampire-hunter (The Slayer), and was destined to fight against the hordes of undead, led by Lothos (Rutger Hauer).

One of the lead vampire's minions was Amilyn (Paul Reubens, or Pee Wee Herman) who suffered an exaggerated, hysterically comical, hammed-up, agonizingly-long death scene.

After he was stabbed in the heart with a ruler by Buffy, he cursed at her: "You're gonna wish you'd died." He slid to the floor, but rose up again and moaned, unconvincingly:

"Ooh, ah, Ow, ah, ooh, ah!"

Then, after looking at Buffy, he unconvincingly said another: "Ooh, ah", then fell to the floor. He kicked the wall a few times in rhythm to the "Oohs" and "Aahs," and continued to cry out: "Ooh, ah" before slumping over.

He even suffered some more pains after the credits rolled.

The Crying Game (1992, UK)

In the conclusion of Irish writer/director Neil Jordan's jolting, suspenseful and twisting thriller, femme fatale IRA accomplice/assassin Jude (Miranda Richardson) entered the apartment of androgynous, transgender nightclub singer/hairdresser Dil (Jaye Davidson).

She found her tied-up accomplice, IRA member Fergus/Jimmy (Stephen Rea) and Dil lying together on the bed. As she held a gun with extended arms at Fergus, she blurted out: "You stupid s--t, once was bad enough, but twice."

She was shot repeatedly by Dil who sarcastically greeted her:

"You didn't knock, honey."

As Jude writhed about wounded on the floor, she grabbed for her gun, but Dil shot it away, as he confronted her. Dil accused her of being complicit in the death of lover Jody (Forest Whitaker), a British soldier. [Note: Jody - who tried to escape, was accidentally killed in a traffic accident by a convoy of British army soldiers.] Dil said that she had entrapped Jody by seducing him while he was intoxicated - and thereby had fooled him.

Dil: (To Fergus) "Was she there too, when you got my Jody?"
Dil: (To Jude) "I asked you a question, honey. Were you there too?"
Jude: "You sick bitch." (Dil shot Jude in the arm)
Dil: (To Jude) "You was there, wasn't you? You used those tits and that ass to get him, didn't you?!" (Dil shot Jude in the throat)

Dil's Vengeful Murder of Jude

It was an angry, vengeful murder - the shot in the throat decisively killed Jude. Dil then held the gun on Fergus, who had untied himself from the bed. Dil received confirmation from Fergus/Jimmy about Jude's presence:

"She was there, wasn't she?...And she used her tits and that cute little ass to get him, didn't she?...Tell me what she wore."

Fergus sighed and declared: "Can't remember."

In the following scene, Dil turned the gun on Fergus, but admitted: "I can't do it, Jimmy. He (Jody) won't let me." Fergus reassuringly took the gun away when Dil put the gun in his mouth to commit suicide, and asked him with deep love and caring to run away (and hide out until later) - promising Dil he would see him again.

After Dil fled, the police arrived on the street below. Fergus took the gun, wiped Dil's fingerprints from it (thereby replacing Dil's prints with his own), and spoke to Jody's smiling picture:

"You should have stayed at home."

He then sat down as he waited for the police to arrest him in Dil's place. Subsequently, Fergus (who took the fall for Dil) was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

Michael Mann's lush version of James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel was a melodramatic romantic adventure film set during the French and Indian Wars of the 1750s in the American colonies.

In the film's dueling climax, two Indians fought with each other:

• Chingachgook (Russell Means), a Mohican scout
• Magua (Wes Studi), a bloodthirsty Huron Indian warrior

Chingachgook was avenging the death of his son Uncas (Eric Schweig), the last of the Mohican tribe, who had just been killed during one-on-one combat with Magua (and had his body dumped off a sheer-rock cliff face).

Chingachgook then delivered a poignant eulogy for his son in the film's final lines of dialogue, calling himself the "last of the mohicans":

Great Spirit, Maker of All Life. A warrior goes to you swift and straight as an arrow shot into the sun. Welcome him and let him take his place at the council fire of my people. He is Uncas, my son. Tell them to be patient and ask death for speed; for they are all there but one - I, Chingachgook - Last of the Mohicans.

Like Water for Chocolate (1992, Mex.) (aka Como Agua Para Chocolate)

Earlier in this Mexican film directed by Alfonso Arau, Dr. John Brown (Mario Ivan Martinez) explained about how each person had an inner box of matches that could potentially be ignited by emotions. He warned that the flame that was in everyone might cause death if it went out or became too bright:

Of course, it's important to light the matches one at a time. Because if an intense burst of emotion were to ignite them all at once, they would produce such a strong brilliance that before our eyes there would appear a tunnel of such radiance showing us the path we forgot at birth, the same path that calls us back to our divine origins.

The two main lovers in the film, who were mostly denied fulfillment and the attainment of love, were:

• Tita (Lumi Cavazos), unfulfilled-in-love ranch cook, whose duty was to care for her mother Mama Elena (Regina Torné) until her death
• Pedro Muzquiz (Marco Leonardi), who married Tita's sister Rosaura (Yareli Arizmendi), in order to be close to Tita

At the end of the film, with everyone dead or married off, Tita and Pedro finally were able to make love without interruption (they had once consummated their love earlier) in a candle-filled bedroom, as lightning flashed outdoors.

As Pedro screamed out his love for Tita ("I love you!") during orgasm, his 'inner matches' exploded in passion and produced literal sparks and he promptly died.

Tita swallowed matches to regain the flame inside her, and set the entire house on fire in the process. Their bedroom erupted in flames - reuniting their souls in a radiant tunnel in the hereafter where they lived together in their "buried love" - without judgment by others.

Of Mice and Men (1992)

John Steinbeck's 1937 novel was the source for a Depression-Era story of two migrant-working drifters who were seeking to fulfill their dreams:

• Lennie Small (John Malkovich), a child-like, simple-minded brute giant
• George Milton (Gary Sinise), a fellow laborer, Lennie's best friend and guardian, intelligent but uneducated

Lennie accidentally killed a farmhouse wife (Sherilyn Fenn) by inadvertently crushing and breaking her neck when he tried to silence her screams after stroking her soft hair. Afterwards, Lennie picked up her rag-doll body and reprimanded her: "You done a bad thing" and then turned it back on himself: "I done a really bad thing" before running off.

She was married to the ranch boss' son Curley (Casey Siemaszko), who was hot-headed for revenge. George sensed it was an accidental death ("He's nuts. He never done this to be mean") but couldn't call off the vigilante lynch mob.

Before a tragic and tear-jerking mercy killing in the film's final scene, George promised his friend that they would finally have a place of their own - he distracted Lennie with the retelling of their dream of a ranch of their own:

George: We're gonna get a little place...We're gonna have a cow, and some pigs, and we're gonna have, maybe-maybe, a chicken. Down in the flat, we'll have a little field of...
Lennie: Field of alfalfa for the rabbits.
George: ...for the rabbits.
Lennie: And I get to tend the rabbits...

Lennie's last pitiful words were about his oft-repeated task.

Lennie was killed with a gunshot to the back of the head, to spare him from retaliatory wrath.

George: We're gonna have a little place...We're gonna have a cow, pigs and chickens. And then down on a flat, we're gonna have a field of alfafa.
Lennie: ...for the rabbits...and I get to tend the rabbits.
George: You tend the rabbits.
Lennie: And we could live off the fat of the land.
George: Just keep lookin' across that river. (He turned Lennie around) Like you can really see it.
Lennie: Where?
George: Right there. Can't you almost see 'em?
Lennie: Where, George?
George: Keep lookin'. Just keep hopin'.
Lennie: Aw, I'm lookin', George. Aw, I'm lookin'.
George: It's gonna be nice, Lennie. There ain't gonna be no trouble. No fights, there ain't gonna be nobody mean to nobody, steal from. Things are gonna be right.
Lennie (excitedly): Yeah, I can see it. Right over there. George, I can see it.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

# 23

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino's popular and influential cult independent film (his debut feature film) was about a code-named gang that executed a simple jewelry heist.

It was notable for a very prolonged and realistic death scene, seen in repeated views, of Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) as he painfully bled to death from a bullet in the stomach. When the robbery went horribly wrong (Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) thought it was a possible police set-up), Mr. Orange was suffering from a "gut shot" when he was hit in the abdomen by a female driver (whose car he was trying to steal), and was brought back to the abandoned coffin warehouse rendezvous point. Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) reassured his dying partner:

"It takes days to die from your wound. Time is on your side."

Eventually, Mr. Orange revealed that he was an LAPD snitch named Freddy Newandyke. He shot Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), who was in the middle of torturing captured police officer Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz) - his right ear had been cut off and he was about to be set on fire with gasoline.

Fabricating a story ("I swear on my mother's eternal soul"), Orange then told other gang members that Mr. Blonde was going to double-cross and rip off everyone ("He was gonna kill us, take the satchel of diamonds and scram"). Enraged, Eddie shot and killed Marvin.

After a Mexican stand-off that finished off most of the heist group, badly-wounded Mr. Orange told one of the only surviving members, Mr. White, while cradled in his lap that he was a police informant ("I'm a cop").

The film ended with an enraged Mr. White pointing his gun at Mr. Orange's head and possibly killing him (off-screen), as police entered the warehouse, assaulted Mr. White, and ordered him to drop his gun.

The officers also (off-screen) forced Mr. Pink to give up outdoors as he was trying to escape with the diamonds.

Unforgiven (1992)

In Clint Eastwood's produced/directed Best Picture-winning western, aging killer/outlaw Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) rode into town to avenge the death of his friend Ned Morgan (Morgan Freeman), another retired gunfighter.

He saw Ned's corpse propped up and mounted inside a coffin on the front porch of Greely's, with a sign reading:

"THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO ASSASSINS AROUND HERE."

Fearlessly, he entered the bar with his raised shotgun, and cocked it. Following his own code of retribution and redemption, Will first asked: "Who's the fella owns this s--thole?" Unarmed Skinny Dubois (Anthony James) spoke up tentatively: "I-I own this establishment. Bought it from Greely for a thousand dollars" before he was shot dead. Munny added: "He should have armed himself if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend." Will identified himself as he had always been remembered, and conformed to his reputation as the meanest and most fearsome killer:

I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walked or crawled at one time or another, and I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned.

Will's grim mission of moral revenge, in loyalty to Ned, brought a tense stand-off between the cool-headed Sheriff and the "mangy scoundrel." When Will's gun misfired, he tossed his worthless shotgun at the Sheriff to distract him, and then fired at Little Bill and some of his deputies (Clyde, Andy, and Fatty) with the rifle. He wounded Little Bill and killed five of the others. With his pistol drawn, Will brutally warned the others who cowered before him: "Any man don't want to get killed better clear on out the back."

Entirely at Will's mercy after his gun was shot away, Little Bill pleaded and lamented that he wouldn't live long enough to enjoy his dream house in old age:

Little Bill: I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house.
Will: Deserve's got nothin' to do with it.
Little Bill: I'll see you in hell, William Munny.
Will: Yeah.

After an extended pause with the gun barrel floating above Little Bill's head, Munny blasted him - unforgiven.

Striding out of the saloon, he shot a moaning and wounded Clyde, and then crouched down and yelled a further warning to anyone on the street who dared to shoot at him as he left town:

Any son-of-a-bitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, I'm gonna kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down. Nobody better shoot.

He took one last look at Ned in the coffin. As he rode from town, he commanded further frontier justice for Ned and for the prostitutes:

You better bury Ned right. You better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores, or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.

Universal Soldier (1992)

Director Roland Emmerich's sci-fi action film, set partly during the Vietnam War era, concentrated on two major characters. They were both muscle-bound futuristic robots or UniSols (or "universal soldiers") - elite, semi-android, bionic anti-terrorists to be part of and serve in a special high-tech SWAT team of previously-dead soldiers:

• Pvt. Luc Deveraux / GR44 (Jean-Claude Van Damme)
• Sergeant Andrew Scott / GR13 (Dolph Lundgren), increasingly insane, brutal, vicious, blood-thirsty and aggressive

They killed each other during combat in the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, and then were reanimated by the military as highly-advanced, metallic fighters in a top-secret Army project in the 1990s, 25 years later. The memories of the combat robots were supposedly wiped clean, but they suffered flashbacks. They were also mostly pain-free, self-healing, emotionless, and extraordinarily strong.

At Deveraux's parents' farm in Louisiana, in driving rain and mud, in the film's climactic fight-to-the-death scene between the two arch-enemy combatants, both of the men injected themselves with muscle-enhancing super-serum to be even stronger and more invincible.

During their monumental struggle, Scott's hulking frame was kicked backwards and impaled on the spikes of a farm hay/wheat thresher, and he was thought to be dead. When Deveraux came close to him, Scott reached out and attempted to strangle him and pull his head into one of the spikes.

Deveraux snapped and broke Scott's arm, then activated the thresher that pulled Scott further inside and chopped him to pieces, as Deveraux commented: "You're discharged, Sarge!" Bits and pieces of his body were chewed up and thrown into the air from the chute. Later, when asked, "Where is he?" Deveraux simply answered: "Around."