Hanged

Actor: Eve Best

The Honourable Woman is a BBC drama that concluded an 8-episode run of its first season in August 2014. This scene is at the tail end of the last episode.

Eve Best stars as Monica Chatwin, an assassin who’s attempt to kill Ness Stein (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is thwarted. As a result of her failure, Eve is taken out with an absolutely fantastic board hanging by a group of masked men who quietly get her into position while she sleeps. During the struggle, we’re treated to excellent shots of her feet as she kicks the board, and the little twitches they make before going limp are exquisite.

Words cannot express how fucking genius I think this hanging method is. It is so completely far removed from any conceivable idea I’ve ever had for the kind of hanging I would want to see that I am compelled to bask in its creative glory. What’s more, there are no camera cuts.

Hanging fans, if you’re as tired of traditional drop-hangings as I am, and also share my opinion that nooses are terribly overrated, you do not want to pass on this.

Edits

In the episode, there’s a glaring closeup of a male reporter’s mouth on a TV screen as he offers his final comments about the nightly news right after Eve dies. I replaced the shot of his mouth with a black overlay so we only hear him.

As a bonus, I added a screenshot of Eve’s corpse hanging from her hotel room door.

Actress: Ciya Batten

After talking to another character about a film production issue, Ciya Batten leaves and briskly walks down the hallway of the school they’re shooting in. She finds something on the floor in front of a maintenance door and examines it. Realizing it belongs to someone she’s looking for, she enters the room and finds an entire makeshift control booth with monitors set up showing views from various security cameras. As she watches playback of some footage, she starts thinking it’s a practical joke by a reality TV show she thought was canceled, and calls out to the host with a laugh. She gets no response, and suddenly realizes she’s now watching someone being murdered. Humor turns to horror, and she keeps watching as the killer sneaks up behind her with a chain.

The killer deftly slips the chain over her head and starts pulling her back toward a pulley affixed to the ceiling. He gives the chain several good yanks, pulling Ciya up in the process. At this point, we’re treated to an excellent closeup of her stiletto-clad feet kicking furiously as she’s lifted high above the floor. The camera stays on her feet during the rest of the hanging. Then, Ciya exhales one last gasp before dying, and her lifeless feet quickly come to rest. The killer checks the rigging and, satisfied Ciya is dead, leaves her body to be found later. The scene ends with an equally great, full-body shot of her corpse.

Comments

My favorite types of scenarios involve professional women in peril. I’m also a foot fetishist. Put the two together and you can understand why this scene absolutely rocked my world.

Actor: Elsa Kikoïne

Elsa plays a Cultural Liaison and for a General in the French military who’s been selling weapons to Pakistan. Something went wrong during a recent exchange, so the General recruited a former combat pilot, who went blind after a crash, to serve as a Hitman to take out everyone involved. Elsa was his first contract.

Her murder is the opening scene in the movie. It starts with her and her bodyguard arriving at her apartment on a rainy night. After getting out of the car, she asks him to come up because she’s afraid. He reluctantly agrees. When they enter, he casually examines the first floor, and then goes upstairs where he checks the closet. He notices the light won’t come on, but thinks nothing of it, and goes back downstairs. He then tells her there’s no one in the apartment. She offers him a drink, and he politely declines. A brief pause later, and he leaves. She locks the door behind him. As she proceeds back into her living room, she’s lassoed from above with a wire, and lifted a few inches off the floor.

During the struggle, the movie cuts between her, and the bodyguard waiting for the elevator outside the door. He hears glass shatter inside her apartment the moment she’s attacked, and returns to the door to listen for any other commotion, but can’t hear anything above the din of the elevator. We’re treated to several terrific shots of her stiletto-clad feet kicking, and equally impressive headshots as she gasps for air, trying in vain to get her fingers between the wire and her neck. Her death ends with one last kick of her feet as they come to rest. The bodyguard is then shown leaving the building. The clip ends with a nice shot of Elsa’s death stare and the wire used to hang her with now draped loosely over her head and laying on the ground next to her.

Comments

This scene is something I’ve fantasized about for as long as I can remember. It has everything I’ve ever imagined about this type of scenario:

• Well-dressed, professional woman
• Surprise attack from above by unseen killer
• Thin wire used so she can’t pull herself up
• Reaction shot right before she’s pulled up off the floor
• Hands clawing at the wire around her neck throughout the attack.
• Plenty of heel-clad foot shots

It’s as if the filmmakers read my mind and shot exactly the kind hanging I’ve dreamed of all my life.

Edits

After Elsa’s attacked, there are a few cuts to her bodyguard waiting for the service elevator to come back up. I removed all of them after the point where she locks her door.

Actor: Unknown

A panicked woman is reading a bible when she gets on the floor and cautiously approaches her music box. A moment later, an unseen force grabs her necklace and hangs her with it.

60 Seconds to Die 3 is the third installment of a collection of 1-minute-long death scenes by various directors. This is the second scene in this collection and the only one I liked.

I’m including two versions of this clip. You can decide which one you like more. The first version is the full scene. It’s my least favorite because there’s a brief shot of her struggling with her necklace that’s devoid of any tension in her performance. It’s like the director got so focused on pulling off the effect of inverting her necklace that he forgot to remind her to keep acting like she’s in fear for her life, so she’s just casually picking at it while looking mildly concerned. Consequently, I removed that shot from the edited version. Comparitively speaking, her initial reaction upon being yanked up (pictured bottom-left) is superb. I wish she’d maintained that level of tension during the closeup on her struggle.