The 5 Most Baffling Explosions in Movie History

5 Van Helsing's Exploding Wagon

Here we have Van Helsing, a film that took one of the defining novels of the 19th century, tore it to pieces like a ravenous hound, buried it somewhere and produced a vehicle for Hugh Jackman. In the novel, Van Helsing is a 60-year-old Dutch man who embodies everything about 19th century sexual repression, in this movie, he carries an automatic crossbow and leaps from a burning carriage to fire two pistols in slow motion.

You can argue whether or not those are improvements, but there's no arguing about this:

Why It's Ridiculous:

That's right, a wooden horse-drawn carriage ran off a cliff, then exploded like it was crafted entirely from sticks of TNT stuck together with C4.

Not only is the concept laughable on paper, but the film actually shows you there's nothing particularly explosive inside (just a bunch of stakes, as the superbly-acted Vampiress so kindly points out).

They do gain points, however, for using it as a device to introduce the world's first Holy Nail Bomb.

If It Really Worked That Way:

If horse-drawn carriages could explode like this, well, for one thing Oregon Trail would've looked a whole lot more like Grand Theft Auto.

For another, action movies would never have been invented at all, because kick-ass historical documentaries would have pretty much dominated the box office from the beginning.

4 Jaws: The Revenge (of the Exploding Shark)

OK, a real nitpicker could point out that the oxygen tank explosion in the first Jaws wasn't exactly realistic (ask the MythBusters guys), but we'll let that one go. That's the sort of thing that seems like it would work, and by Hollywood standards, that's more than good enough.

But by the time the fourth Jaws movie rolled around, things had gotten silly enough that we were surprised the shark didn't fly. To cap the whole thing off, this happens:

Why It's Ridiculous:

Yes, this clip can only be described as a travesty to God and man alike. It laughs in the face of the laws of nature by having a roaring shark (a roaring shark?) that, contrary to everything mankind knows about physics and biology, explodes after it gets pierced with a piece of wood.

Continuing its orgy of disregard for everything that is good in the world, the film goes on to cut to grainy sepia "flashbacks" to the original Jaws, as if to say "Hey, remember this? We weren't always this bad! You know what, I'm gonna load up the trunk, and we're gonna go out and have a picnic--just like when we were first going out. How about that, honey? How about that?"

Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect, with Spielberg's defining work making this movie look that much more retarded by contrast. An attempt at a tasteful homage ends up having the same effect as Brett Ratner sticking clips of Citizen Kane in the middle of Rush Hour 2.

If It Really Worked That Way:

For one, the roaring shark thing might actually be beneficial, we'd be able to hear them coming and they may be less likely to eat humans who had already crapped their pants at the sound (that is, all of them).

As for the exploding shark phenomenon, you'd have to think that would ensure they'd never go extinct, but on the other hand, we may be wrong considering the number of accidental detonations that would surely happen during mating season.

3 Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 Prompts a Vehicle Recall

This of course if the film that produced the legendary: Garbage Day clip. But not as many of us have experienced the incident that occurs just moments later, and earns the film a spot in the Stupid Explosion Hall of Fame:

Why It's Ridiculous:

Remember the Ford Pinto? The most dangerous car ever to enter mass-production due to its easily-ruptured gas tank? Imagine one of those, multiply it by murder and you have a car approaching the one seen in this clip.

First our bad guy shoots the radiator, which apparently causes the driver to steer toward the conveniently positioned ramp. This causes the car to go sailing to within an inch of the bad guy (we're guessing much to the surprise of both the actor and the stunt coordinator). It then rolls onto its roof, somehow managing to land on its wheels again.

There is a brief moment when the driver no doubt felt the rush of relief, having survived both the shooting and the crash, vowing to live life to its fullest after having cheated death. At this point the car erupts like a fucking volcano.

If It Really Worked That Way:

For one, if cars exploded as the result of the minor force with which this one hits the ground, you'd be shitting yourself every time you brushed a curb.

Even worse, the impact somehow causes passenger compartment to detonate.

So what little chance you already had of surviving even a short trip in this death trap is reduced to zero.

Unless of course this means the driver was wearing a bomb belt, which would then mean that Garbage Day Guy foiled a fucking suicide bombing, saving countless lives.

Silent Night Deadly Night 2: A film that requires multiple viewings due to its rich tapestry of moral complexity.

2 Casino Royale Teaches a Lesson in Welding Safety

After skepticism surrounding the appointment of Daniel Craig as agent 007, Casino Royale proceeded to impress even the harshest of Craig-detractors with its tough, gritty and invisible car-free rebooting of the Bond franchise. So imagine our shock when, in the middle of an expertly choreographed Parkour chase sequence, we're treated to this:

Yes, one of the construction workers decides to intervene by flailing at Bond with his cutting torch. He is kicked down several floors, surviving only to have his gas canisters fall on top of him and create a fireball the size of a city block.

Why It's Ridiculous:

Look, we understand that this is still Bond and that fans still expect the occasional explosion. But give the bad guy a bomb or a grenade or something and let that explode. Then you don't have to introduce this dumbass and his ludicrously volatile oxyacetylene gas cylinders. We're going to give the tank manufacturers enough credit to assume that the things can get knocked around a bit before they unleash a fireball big enough to clear most of a forest.

We like to think the shoddy performance of the tanks was probably the reason they were seemingly the only props in the film not sporting the Sony logo.

If It Really Worked That Way:

"I'm very sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, but Timmy happened to cough loudly while standing near one of the gas cylinders outside the lab. I'm afraid he didn't make it."

"Oh my God! Timmy ... "

"And I'm afraid there's the matter of the $100,000 of damage the explosion did to the building. Yes, it's the third department we've lost this semester."

1 Waterworld and the Death Traps That Are Jet Skis

Kevin Costner's stardom began in earnest when he played Capone-busting Elliot Ness in The Untouchables. The film was praised for its hard-hitting and gritty depictions of 1930s Chicago, with Costner himself gaining much repute for his role as the man against a corrupt system.

Just seven years later, he spent the gross domestic product of several nations to make Waterworld. And man, you can really see the money up on screen in the epic climax:

Why It's Ridiculous:

Holy crap. What exactly was the bad guys' plan there? Even if the hero had done nothing, their jet skis would still have collided, Stooges-style. Kevin Costner's ridiculous bungee rescue did nothing to cause it.

Maybe the bad guys were just thinking that a head-on jet ski collision would cause nothing more than a loud thunk and maybe knock a couple of guys into the water. Little did they know that their vehicles were apparently packed with ex-Soviet 1980s nuclear fuel cells (check out the mushroom cloud).

If It Really Worked That Way:

We don't need to explain how much less popular jet skis would be if they were, as portrayed here, basically live torpedoes that you can ride around.

Or, maybe we're wrong, maybe real jet skis do, in fact react this way, but only when three of them collide perfectly at the same moment. That's probably never happened before and we're guessing the manufacturers never tested for it. Or, maybe the child Kevin Costner rescued was special to him specifically because she had the ability to shit sea mines.

Or, more likely, by this point in the nightmarish Waterworld production everybody involved just said, "Fuck it, make the bad guys explode so we can go home."

When Tom Black isn't doing stuff like this, he's making aimless sketches and movies that can be seen HERE.