When considering unforgettable movie deaths, you might recall Gollum’s demise in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, or Mufasa’s heart-wrenching fall in The Lion King.
These are the ones that come to my mind. Although they were emotional, they left a lasting impression. The writers of Jurassic World seemed to aim for a similar impact with a particular character’s death scene.
Jurassic World serves as a soft reboot for the Jurassic Park series. While the original 1993 film featured a notably inglorious death—where a lawyer is devoured by a T-rex while sitting on an outdoor toilet—the 2015 movie delivered a death that some viewers found excessively brutal.
Let’s get into it: chaos erupts at the theme park on Isla Nublar, with dinosaurs escaping and panic ensuing. Amidst the turmoil, Zara, portrayed by Katie McGrath, is grabbed by a pterodactyl. As she is lifted away, she yells, “don’t just stand there,” to the two boys she’s supervising.
After a struggle, the pterodactyl drops her into a pool. Zara tries to swim to safety as the creature repeatedly dives to attack. Just when it seems she’s doomed, a mosasaurus leaps from the water and consumes both Zara and the pterodactyl.
This intense scene lasts a full 37 seconds, a considerable length for a film.
The sequence left a lasting impression on audiences, even sparking discussions on Twitter years later. Some viewers could not believe such a grisly scene was included in the film.
“Her death was unnecessarily gruesome,” one person noted.
Another user remarked, “This is one of the most iconic scenes of the entire movie, gave me the chills,” while someone else commented, “10 year old me was mortified.”
A fourth added, “I need to see the behind-the-scenes of this script. Who wrote this masterpiece?”
Interestingly, Katie McGrath seemed thrilled by her character’s dramatic end.
In behind-the-scenes footage, McGrath expressed her excitement shortly before filming the scene, saying, “I’m about to die, die in like a very cool way. They’re gonna pull me up on that crane straight up in the air.”
She jokingly added, “There’s like eight people around me, it’s so that I don’t really die because that’s a possibility—my mom would be upset.”
McGrath performed all the stunts herself, explaining, “I’ve been pulled on a harness, dropped from a crane, I’ve been dropped in the water, I’ve been held underwater, I’ve been pulled out of the water, dropped in the water again, held out of the water… and then finally eaten by a giant, giant underwater dinosaur.”
Just another day on set.