Color of Night (1994)

In this psychological thriller by director Richard Rush, distraught New York City psychoanalyst Dr. Bill Capa (Bruce Willis) with stress-induced, psychosomatic color blindness, quit his practice and traveled to LA. He was staying with analyst/author friend Dr. Bob Moore (Scott Bakula), who was in the midst of counseling a collection of disturbed patients in Monday night group therapy. He was receiving various death threats, possibly from one of his patients.

In a very bloody scene, Moore was brutally stabbed to death in his Los Angeles office late one night. He was tackled, mercilessly stabbed 38 times with a blade extending from the killer's gloved fist, and then pushed backwards through a glass door, with jagged shards of glass impaling his abdomen. The assailant was black-clad and unidentified.

[Note: By film's end, one of the male patients, sexually-confused "Richie" Dexter (Jane March) was also revealed to be sexy and provocative female Rose. Her overprotective deranged brother Dale (Andrew Lowery) had committed the murder, fearing that Rose's identity would be revealed. He had forced his pretty sister Rose to play-act the role of their deceased brother "Richie."]

The Crow (1994)

In Alex Proyas' archetypal revenge killer action story (based on a comic book), star Brandon Lee (as character Eric Draven) tragically died, when shot in the chest during the filming of a scene in which he confronted street thug Funboy (Michael Massee).

The shell came from an improperly-cleaned gun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks. It was falsely rumored that the tragic scene was left in the final cut of the film.

Undead Eric Draven (with Kiss-like makeup) was resurrected by a crow "to put the wrong things right." He sought vengeance against his own murderers - now that he was immune to physical harm. One of the local thugs was morphine-addicted Funboy. He placed his hand on Funboy's gunbarrel and dared him to shoot:

"Take your shot, Funboy. You got me dead bang."

After a hole was blown through his palm, Funboy was thrilled ("Bingo! He shoots, he scores!"), but Draven healed immediately, then taunted Funboy with a joke:

Draven: Jesus Christ? Stop me if you heard this one: Jesus Christ walks into a hotel. (Draven was shot again) Ow! He hands the innkeeper three nails, and he asks... (He was shot again)
Funboy: Don't you ever f--kin' die?
Draven: Can you put me up for the night?

He then disarmed Funboy and shot him in the leg ("Look what you've done to my sheets!"), then stabbed Funboy in the heart with drug-filled syringe needles - a spectacular death scene in its own right.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

This Coen Brothers' screwball comedy, similar to Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), was about a NYC firm named Hudsucker Industries. Dim-witted business college graduate Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) from Muncie, Indiana had just obtained a job there in the mailroom in late 1958.

As the film opened, the company's founder and president Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning) was meeting with his board of directors, hearing a favorable financial report: "In short, we're loaded." Hudsucker laid his pocketwatch (set for 12 noon) on the table, cleared his throat, stood up, and stepped up onto the table. Uncharacteristically, he made a long ambling run down the boardroom's shiny table toward a set of windows at the far end of the room.

Hudsucker's Self-Defenestration

As the clock struck twelve (synchronized with his own watch), he committed suicide, by diving through the skyscraper window and propelling himself into mid-air (an act known as defenestration). His fall (45 floors "counting the mezzanine") was followed by the camera all the way down to the ground in a drawn-out plummet, seen from above and from below.

As he approached the ground, he wiped his sweaty eye, and signaled for a clear place to land. His fall ended with a splat (off-screen) and an overweight woman screaming down at the body. A few of the board members commented: "He could've opened the window," and "Waring Hudsucker never did anything the easy way."

Killing Zoe (1994, US/Fr.)

This Parisian bank caper film from director Roger Avary (his feature film directorial debut) was from the creators of Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994). In the film's conclusion, there was a violent and blood confrontation in the basement vault area after the robbery went awry.

The heist's strung-out (HIV-infected), long-haired, unpredictable, psychopathic mastermind Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) threatened to shoot safecracker Zed (Eric Stoltz) and hostage/bank teller Zoe (Julie Delpy) lying on the floor below him.

When his gun clicked empty, he was repeatedly shot by French police in a blazing volley of gunfire.

The officers were wearing assault gear, gas masks and armed with machine-guns.

His body quivered from the bullets (imitative The Wild Bunch-style, described as a "scarecrow dance" in the script), and blood splattered onto Zed and Zoe - before he stood still for a few stark moments and then slowly collapsed dead.

The Last Seduction (1994)

John Dahl's modern-day dark noir featured lethal, sexy, amoral, cold-blooded and brainy femme fatale Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino). She used her sexual wiles to manipulate a dumb, love-struck boyfriend, a gullible stud named Mike Swale (Peter Berg), to murder her husband Clay (Bill Pullman).

The murder plan (an "unpleasant chore") to stab Clay in his NYC apartment went awry when Mike turned chicken and yelled: "I can't do it, Wendy, I can't do it" - and then he saw their wedding picture. He realized that the victim was not 'Cahill' but Wendy's husband, and that he had been seduced into committing her husband's murder.

Wendy entered the apartment to check on the killing, where she found both Clay and Mike had teamed up, and Mike knew of her deception ("So you were gonna have me kill your husband").

In a clever double-cross, Bridget killed her own husband by spraying Mace down his throat, after kissing him, and then calmly told her naive, cuckolded boyfriend:

"Now we have a future."

Then to complete the deception, she aggravated 'intruder' Mike to rape her by first removing her pants and displaying old fashioned men's underwear, reinforcing Mike's intense fears of being homosexual. She then taunted him:

"You should have told me you never slept with a man before. Must have been some wild night, you getting married so fast."

She angered him over his quick yet damaged marriage to a transvestite named Trish, causing him to angrily rape her ("You married a man, you farm faggot!...I'm Trish. Rape me").

She also self-incriminated Mike by surreptitiously recording their conversation and the crime/rape confessional role-play on a 911 call. It included the accusation that she repeatedly screamed out: "You killed my husband." Mike was arrested, jailed and obviously out-maneuvered and set-up for the crime, and he was destined for the electric chair.

Legends of the Fall (1994)

Director Edward Zwick's melodramatic epic drama, the winner of the Best Cinematography Academy Award, was about a pioneering family living in the wilds of Montana in the early 1900s:

• Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins), retired military officer and patriarch, with three sons
• Alfred (Aidan Quinn), the eldest, with beautiful fiancée Susannah (Julia Ormond)
• Tristan (Brad Pitt), wild, rebellious and impulsive, the favored son, and knowledge about Native-American ways
• Samuel (Henry Thomas), the youngest and most naive

In the film's closing was the mystical, shuttered freeze-framed death of wild, reckless, now-elderly middle son Tristan. He grappled with the great brown grizzly bear he had wounded (by cutting off a claw) as a teenager.

Native American One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis) narrated the film's last lines:

I remember when he was a boy. I thought Tristan would never live to be an old man. I was wrong about that. I was wrong about many things. It was those who loved him most who died young. He was a rock they broke themselves against however much he tried to protect them. But he had his honor and a long life and he saw his children grow and raise their own families.

Tristan died in 1963 in the moon of the popping trees. He was last seen up in the north country, hunting. His grave is unmarked, but it does not matter. He had always lived in the borderland, anyway, somewhere between this world and the other. It was a good death.

The Lion King (1994)

Disney's acclaimed animated feature film (considered an interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet) was about the lethal struggle between two brothers:

• "Lion King" ruler Mufasa, father of young "Lion Prince" Simba
• Uncle Scar

When Simba was born in Africa to father Mufasa (the king), his younger brother (Uncle) Scar was made the second in line to the throne. Scar was jealously angry and envious of his nephew Simba, and plotted with three spotted hyenas (Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed) to kill Mufasa and Prince Simba, take over the Pride Lands, and make himself king.

Mufasa died a cruel and extremely sad death after rescuing young son Simba from a large stampeding herd of wildebeests in a narrow gorge. The disastrous stampede of panicked wildebeests was engineered by Mufasa's wicked, power-hungry, dark-maned brother Scar and the hyenas.

After heroically grabbing Simba and safely placing him on a small outcropping, Mufasa fell back into the chaos of the stampede, but then struggled to climb up a steep rock cliff. On the ledge at the top of the cliff, Scar refused to assist and help him up, but instead pierced Mufasa's paws with his own claws. He sarcastically exclaimed: "Long live the king" before he tossed him off. Simba screamed: "NO!!" as he saw his father plunging down in mid-air.

Mufasa fell to his death from the rock cliff to the valley floor far below.

After the herd passed by, young Simba scampered down, called out: "Dad!", and finally located his father's dead body. He vainly attempted to awaken his father by nudging him and tugging on his ear:

"Dad? Come on. You got to get up. Dad? We got to go home."

He called out: "HELP! Somebody! Anybody," but only heard his own echo. He shed some tears, and then cuddled up next to his father, underneath his massive paw.

The evil Scar came up to Simba and asked: "Simba, what have you done?" Scar falsely comforted Simba after the cub began to take the blame for the accident: "There were wildebeests and he tried to save me. It was an accident. I didn't mean for it to happen." Scar replied: "Of course, of course you didn't. No one ever means for these things to happen but the king is dead. And if it weren't for you, he'd still be alive. What will your mother think?" Simba sniffled: "What am I gonna do?"

Scar suggested that the careless Simba run away and never return. As the shamed Simba ran off, Scar then cruelly ordered his three spotted hyena cohorts to pursue the fleeing cub and "kill him," so that he could ascend to the throne.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director Oliver Stone's controversial and violent crime film, inspired by Bonnie and Clyde (1967), told about two serial killers on a rampage.

After the film's pre-title credits introduction in which Mallory (Juliette Lewis) and Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) slaughtered most of the patrons in a diner, the couple fled into the desert where Mallory had a disturbing flashback of her home life when the two first met.

In Mallory's home, she lived with sexually abusive, unemployed father Ed Wilson (Rodney Dangerfield) who often threatened molestation, called her a "stupid bitch," and grabbed her butt ("If your ass is in this house, it's my ass"). Her neglectful "old bag" mother (Edie McClurg) was also constantly intimidated by Ed. Mallory instantly fell in love with Mickey when he came to the door, delivering a 50-lb. package of beef. They went on a joy-ride after stealing Ed's car.

The family was introduced as part of a sitcom fantasy (similar to All in the Family or Married With Children) about a dysfunctional family, called "I Love Mallory," complete with a laugh track of canned guffaws.

Soon after, Mickey returned to rescue Mallory, and there was a dual death scene of them both murdering Mallory's parents. Mickey struck Ed in the face with a crowbar, dunked his head into a fish-tank to drown him, and struck him unconscious.

Fiery Murder of Mallory's Mother

Then they gagged and bound Mallory's mother in her bed, and burned her alive after dousing her with charcoal lighter fluid and setting her on fire.