Dangerous movie jobs

In the real world, the most dangerous jobs are fairly obvious. Lion tamers, skyscraper window cleaners, Naomi Campbell’s personal assistants: All these employees live with the constant threat of physical distress and mental anguish hanging over them.

However, in movies, things aren’t quite as black and white. What might seem like a tame job in reality can actually be a life-threatening role on the big screen.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the most perilous vacancies in the celluloid employment world. If we've missed any, let us know with a comment.

(Pic credit: All star, Rex)

Babysitters

For such a poorly-paid gig, on-screen babysitting can be extremely hazardous work. Gory horrors such as Halloween, The House of the Devil and When a Stranger Calls all find innocent teenage child-minders having to contend with blade-wielding psychopaths in order to earn their paltry $6.50 per hour. And there are no prizes for guessing what happens to the babysitter in zany 1991 black comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. (Spoiler: the babysitter dies).

Eccentric/Shady Billionaires

If you’re lucky enough to land a job as a billionaire businessman in a film, then for pity’s sake make sure you’re a nice, normal guy. Because if you're in any way odd or under-handed, you’re more than likely to perish before the credits roll. From Auric Goldfinger to Blade Runner's Dr Eldon Tyrell (via Contact's SR Hadden and even Jabba the Hut), if you’re a mega-rich individual with a muddy conscience or mad habits, you’re almost certain to wind up in a body bag. Or, in the case of Weekend at Bernie’s, end up having your corpse puppeteered by a pair of hapless imbeciles.

Wise-ass computer geniuses

No-one likes a smart-ass. However, Hollywood screenwriters seem to loathe them more than most. Jurassic Park’s wise-cracking whizz kid, Dennis, meets his maker during a mud-soaked dinosaur attack and Goldeneye’s pen-clicking motormouth, Boris Grishenko, disproves his constant claims of “I am invincible!” by being fatally frozen in liquid nitrogen. The moral of these stories? If you’re good with computers, then keep your mouth firmly shut and you may just make it through the film alive.

Cheerleaders

The following are all titles of real movies: Die Cheerleader Die, Death of a Cheerleader (starring Tori Spelling, right), Cheerleader Massacre, All Cheerleaders Must Die. You’re unlikely to find any films out there called Cheerleaders Live Happily Ever After or Cheerleaders Enjoy an Eventful and Slaughter-Free Youth.

Mountain Climbers

Obviously, even in real life, mountain climbing is hardly the safest profession around. But, in real life, the large majority of mountain climbing expeditions tend to end without gunfire, death, urine consumption and/or hacking your own arm off with a small knife. Unfortunately for celluloid cliff-clingers, however, directors are unlikely to make a film about a climbing expedition that unfolds smoothly and without incident, as is proved by the blood-spattered likes of Cliffhanger, Vertical Limit and 127 Hours (which we know is real).

Bartenders/Restauranteurs

In reality, pulling pints and bussing tables is about as tame as employment gets. On the silver screen, however, it's a very different story. In movies as diverse as Dogma, From Dusk Til Dawn, Goodfellas and many more, celluloid bartenders and restauranteurs are routinely shot at, glassed and abused, while their establishments are entertainingly trashed by inebriated punters. Even fast food waiters aren't safe from gun-waving lunatics, as Michael Douglas proves in Falling Down.