After years of languishing in the depths of Development Hell, next to Beetlejuice 2, Justice League 2, and The Simpsons Movie sequel, The Sandman, has finally been released courtesy of Netflix. The TV series is a triumph, perfectly capturing the spirit of Neil Gaiman’s original text.
Of course, you don’t have to take our word for it. Just take a look at its Rotten Tomatoes score. It scored an impressive 86%, and that’s not the stuffy critic’s opinion. That’s the audience score. The Netflix series follows Dream, a member of The Endless, who’s basically the living embodiment of imagination and dreams.
The show opens with Dream (Tom Sturridge) being imprisoned by a greedy wizard and spending decades in captivity. When he finally frees himself, Dream finds his kingdom in ruins with his tools scattered to the four corners of the globe and nightmares from across his realm on the loose. With dreams, good and bad free to cause chaos, it’s no surprise that The Sandman has quite the body count, but one death sticks out as the worst.
The poor security guard who’s watching over John Dee (David Thewlis), who is literally turned inside out by a magical amulet, has the most traumatic death in the whole series. It’s not his fault he died; he just didn’t know that John had just inherited his mother’s amulet. Worst of all, he was only trying to keep the world safe from a known killer.
That said, as awful as his death is, at least he didn’t meet John when he reclaimed the Dream Stone. In episode 5, we see what Dee is capable of when empowered by the stone. He traps people in a diner, tormenting the restaurant’s patrons by warping their perception of reality until they start dying one by one.
Still, as far as grisly deaths go, we don’t think anything can top being peeled like a banana made of gore, and the sheer spectacle of seeing turned inside out makes the security guy (may he rest in peace) our pick for the worst death in Sandman.
If you’ve enjoyed Gaiman’s twisted world check out our guide to The Sandman season 2, or you may enjoy our list of the best fantasy movies.