DEATH BECOMES HER Raises a Terrifying Question That Still Haunts Me

Last year, I included 1992’s Death Becomes Her on our list of funniest horror-comedies ever. It was an obvious and correct inclusion. Just as it seemed too obvious and correct to omit it from our list of scariest horror-comedies ever. But maybe I should have, because something about that movie has haunted me for more than 30 years. Robert Zemeckis’ film raises a terrifying question, one I’ve never stopped thinking about because it’s unanswerable. And that’s what really makes it scary, because no one can tell me what would happen to Madeline and Helen if they tried escaping their eternal nightmare by having themselves cremated in Death Becomes Her.

Death Becomes Her works as a truly great horror-comedy because while it’s incredibly funny and creative, it is anchored by a truly scary premise. Two competitive vanity monsters, each terrified of growing old, turn to a dark sorceress. She can help them overcome “natural law” with a magical elixir. It “stops the aging process dead in its tracks and forces it into retreat,” ensuring those who drink it won’t age “even one day older again.”

It’s only after they take that cursed potion when the warning comes. They’re told “take care of yourself” because “you and your body are going to be together a long time.” Not just a long time. Forever.

Madeline and Helen’s hatred for one another results in the destruction of their bodies. Their violence leaves them twisted, broken beings caught between life and death. The movie ends with a reminder of their dark fate, as the foes forced to become eternal allies attend the funeral of Ernest, who refused to drink the ageless elixir. They will never get what he did, the gift of a good death. They will never be free of pain and worry. Madeline and Helen are damned to live forever fully conscious of the very monstrosities they feared.

It’s both genuinely chilling and funny, the perfect ending for a black horror-comedy. But from the first time I saw it as a kid, I’ve obsessed over a possibility. I’ve wondered if there was anyway for the two of them to escape their own damnation. The only possible freedom would be freedom of consciousness. That’s what causes their suffering, not any kind of physical pain. So while they might never know the quiet peace of death, what if they could know the quiet peace of not knowing anything? What if they burned their bodies so that no one could ever piece them—specifically their brains—back together?

Cremation seems like a possible solution. Maybe their only escape. The problem is obvious, though: what if it’s not? What if cremating themselves doesn’t change their consciousness? What if it merely dooms them be conscious dirt, thinking specks unable to even choose how to spend their own nightmare? The only thing worse than eternal life as a sentient undead Frankenstein-esque amalgamation of malformations is an eternal life as a sentient collection of ash.

With, literally, forever to thin about how they could rid themselves of their own self-imposed curse, Madeline and Helen surely considered cremation at some point. They also surely dismissed it for all the reasons I listed. They could never try it because they would never know for certain it wouldn’t be even worse than their current nightmare existence.

Death Becomes Her deserves its spot as one of the funniest horror-comedies ever made. But after three decades thinking about the horrific fate of its two “hers” it’s clear it’s also one of the scariest, too.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. Obviously he thinks way too much, and way too deeply, about Death Becomes Her. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.