This opening scene from VERTICAL LIMIT (2000) will never stop haunting me. The genius of it — from a storytelling perspective — is that the father doesn't have a knife, which would've been the most economical way for him to go out like a hero. We would've all cried as he said goodbye, cut the rope himself, and fell in slow-mo as he kids cried out. Instead, the responsibility for cutting the father loose is put on the son. A devastating twist that, from a character-perspective, propels the rest of the film.