The whole reason we watch horror movies is to be, you know, horrified. Even if it’s just a little bit, like with a Tim Burton stop-motion musical or something. But while some scare flicks reward us for watching with endings that are cathartic and satisfying – with the baddies getting their comeuppance – others present us with finales that are so bleak and dismal that it’s an emotional – almost physical – blow to the gut that’s too much to bear.
Vote up the disturbing horror movie endings that are so upsetting, you had to spend the following day watching nothing but cartoons and funny cat videos.
In the final act of the 2007 film adaptation of the Stephen King novella The Mist, our hero David Drayton manages to escape the supermarket he and members of his town barricaded themselves in after overcoming monsters both human and extradimensional. He and a few compatriots make their way through the parking lot to David’s trusty Land Cruiser, where assistant manager Ollie (the real superstar of the film) meets his end at the claws of one of the larger abominations.
The crew creeps their way to the Drayton homestead, where David tragically finds his wife deceased and webbed-up on the front porch like a gruesome Halloween display. Mustering up the courage to carry on, he keeps driving his four passengers (somehow surviving an encounter with a Godzilla-sized Lovecraftian behemoth) but runs out of gas before finding the end of the mist. After making a nonverbal agreement with the three remaining adults while his son is sleeping, David uses his four remaining bullets to deliver what he thinks is mercy to everyone aside from himself.
After an obligatory freakout, he exits the vehicle to offer himself up to the nearest unspeakable eldritch beast to end his suffering. But the approaching noise he hears isn’t a creature from the beyond, but a military convoy, armed to the teeth and delivering a fiery end to anything remotely unearthly, taking survivors to a safe zone as the mist begins to clear.
While it may have been tempting, that particular moment may not have been best to subject David to a stern “never give up” lecture.
The Girl Next Door (not the 2004 rom-com about teens dating former adult entertainers) was based on a killing that actually happened, so you know going in that the conclusion isn’t going to be all bunnies and lollipops. Actually, it’s based on a novel (by Jack Ketchum) that’s based on a real-life case, so theoretically, you could hope for some fictional twist that provides some relief from the unsettling 1950s weirdness on the screen. The gist of the story is that a girl named Meg and her sister Susan, orphaned after a car wreck, are forced to go live with their bughouse-bonkers aunt (played by Blanche Baker), whose horrific behaviors (along with her three sons) would make a Disney stepmother cringe.
Aunt Ruth’s emotional torment gives way to the physical kind as her progeny treat Meg like a speedbag and finish things up with a little FGM (look it up if you must) for good measure. Meg’s trials seem like they might finally end in a late-night escape with the help of a sympathetic neighbor boy, but Meg succumbs to her accumulated suffering with her final words being, “It’s what you do last that counts.”
In 1997, Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke wrote and directed the psychological thriller Funny Games. Ten years later, he decided it wasn’t quite up to snuff, so he filmed it again, shot-for-shot, this time with more well-known actors like Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. Kind of insulting if you were a part of the first one, but whatever.
The plot revolves around a couple of affluent, white-glove-wearing young men named Peter and Paul, who have apparently decided to go on a pointless spree of torment with the aforementioned Roth and Watts as their current targets (along with their young son). After stopping by for the seemingly innocent request to borrow some eggs, the young men’s intentions become clear as they slay the family dog, take the family captive, and force them to engage in sadistic contests (now do you get the title?).
It seems like the perfect setup to watch the smarmy, mealy-mouthed dillweeds get their comeuppance. But alas, the filmmakers seem to enjoy being just as sadistic to the audience as they are to their onscreen targets as Peter and Paul dispatch of Watts by casually chucking her off a boat to drown in order to win one of the “games.” Before the credits roll, the movie shows us why it got a review calling it “art-house [torment]” when the men visit a neighbor’s house, ask for some eggs, then look at the camera with a sneer.
Before he was the wisecracking Merc with a Mouth in the Deadpool franchise (but slightly after bringing shame upon himself playing a farce of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Ryan Reynolds starred in a critically well-received psychological thriller about one of everyone’s most primal fears: being trapped underground.
Appropriately titled Buried, the film is about the unfortunate plight of a military contractor in Iraq named Paul Conroy, who finds himself interred in a wooden coffin by terrorists who are looking for ransom money. He does have a lighter and flashlight down there with him (it would be a pretty boring movie if it was just 95 minutes of a black screen), along with a cell phone, knife, and some other sundry items. Sure, the State Department has a “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” policy, but surely an exception could be made for the future star of, um, R.I.P.D.?
Tragically, nope. After various negotiations and desperate attempts, his rescue team winds up going to the wrong interment site, and Conroy must stoically accept his final, sandy destination as his air runs out. If it’s all too depressing, just watch him play a caveman in The Croods, and you’ll perk right up.
“Controversial” and “polarizing” are but two words that are good for explaining Martyrs (others are “cruel,” “sad,” and “barf-tastic”), the extreme 2008 French film about how one might achieve physical transcendence through torment. The “martyrs” in this circumstance are people who are systematically subjected to horrendous acts, from garden-variety beatings to being skinned alive as if they got on the wrong side of Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones, all in the name of putting them into a state by which their tormentors may gain insights into the afterlife.
The lead characters, Lucie and Anna, are two such martyrs who are under the control of “Mademoiselle,” the ringleader of the operation. After Lucie offs herself as a result of all the unceasing torment, one might hold out hope that Anna might make it through. You’d be totally wrong, though, as she gets the flaying treatment, goes catatonic, and starts whispering some “secrets” to her masters. Not even “Mademoiselle” gets satisfaction, as after she hears what Anna has to say, she promptly ends her own life.
Unless you’re the type who enjoys Austrian horror movies with subtitles, you may have missed the 2012 exercise in psychological torment (for both the protagonist and the audience) called Goodnight Mommy. “Mommy,” in this story, is a woman who returns home to her nine-year-old twin boys covered in bandages after getting a facelift, and she starts acting weird.
How weird? Not that much, really. But it’s enough to make the boys suspect she’s an imposter, and they tie her to her bed until she admits the truth. To keep her quiet, they seal her mouth shut with glue, then realize she can’t eat. So, they open her mouth back up with scissors in a scene that’s harder to watch than an educational series featuring Mark Wahlberg reading the collected works of Shakespeare.
Sadly, there is no moment of clarity after which the family unit comes together in an “it was all a big, wacky mixup” moment. Instead, things get bizarre as “Mommy,” after getting glued again (this time, to the floor), reveals that only one of the twins is actually alive, that the other perished earlier in a mishap and is only a grief-created hallucination of the other, who is now mentally unstable from a condition called Capgras syndrome. In return for this information, the surviving twin, Elias, sets “Mommy” on fire and wanders away, into the loving embrace of his “real” mother. Who is apparently another hallucination. As a lesson on Capgras syndrome, the film is certainly effective. As a Mother’s Day gift, not so much.
Most people would agree that deep spelunking in unknown Appalachian cave systems is a surefire recipe for running into a pack of skittering, cannibalistic humanoids, and the women in the 2005 British adventure/horror movie The Descent found this out the hard way. After a group of six cavern-diving pals find themselves lost and pursued by such pale abominations, one-by-one they get eaten alive and clawed to bits until only the main character Sarah remains.
Bloody but unbowed, she does the prudent thing and sacrifices a (former) friend to distract the monster for a chance to escape, makes it to her vehicle, and drives off, pausing only to quickly barf and hallucinate that the friend she just threw under the bus is handing her a birthday cake. But that’s a happy ending, sort of! So, let’s go with the UK version, which pans out to reveal that Sarah just dreamed she escaped, is actually still in a cave system filled with the fanged fiends, and will soon be torn apart like a Christmas goose. There, that’s better.
When Ellison Oswalt, Ethan Hawke’s novelist character in Sinister, moves into a house with a dark history for research, he knows he’s going to run into some trouble right off the bat because he lied to his wife about it (not telling her that their family would be living in the actual death house). Minor complications to his marital bliss are the least of his worries, however, when he comes to find that he’s dealing with a lot more than some gruesome slayings caught on Super 8 film, and is in fact meddling in the affairs of a bloodthirsty demon named Bughuul who awakes whenever a new family takes up residence.
After getting this information from a professor who “specializes in the occult” (during a scene featuring an odd cameo from Vincent D’Onofrio), Oswalt tries to do away with the presence by burning the films, but you pretty much know that Bughuul is going to tear him a new one. But it’s worse than that. It’s his own young daughter Ashley who gives him the business after falling under the demon’s sway, murdering him along with the rest of the family with an ax after saying, “Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll make you famous again.” That might have seemed like a stretch for those who thought the Dead Poets Society actor was past his prime, but the following year, Hawke starred in The Purge, and the cute little fiend was proven right!
For fans of horror, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a holy relic, revered for both pioneering the zombie genre and simply being one of the best movies of all time. The film was also groundbreaking in that it featured a strong and likable African American man in the lead, which was pretty much unheard of back in 1968.
When Ben (played by Duane Jones) was gunned down by a trigger-happy posse, then burned in a pile of zombies, it was a shocking and heartbreaking conclusion to an already gut-wrenching 96 minutes – especially for the young, unsuspecting children in the Pittsburgh theater where the movie premiered (there was no ratings system in place yet to warn them). The poor kids thought they were sitting down to watch a run-of-the-mill afternoon matinee creature feature and were instead well and truly petrified by a very adult tale about people rising from the dead with the sole purpose of eating humanity’s brains (and everything else).
To this day, you can probably walk down a crowded street in Pittsburgh, say, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra,” and watch as a few of the older citizens run home to load up their shotguns.
As memorable as Nicolas Cage’s multiple bee sting-assisted histrionics were in the 2006 remake, the original 1973 version of The Wicker Man was the one that was truly chilling. When Police Sergeant Neil Howie (played by Edward Woodward), an upstanding Christian man, arrives on a remote island to investigate the case of a missing girl, he’s disgusted to find that the inhabitants have strayed from the path of the Lord and embraced Paganism.
The locals aren’t particularly perturbed by Howie’s attitude towards their chosen lifestyle, however. After all, he’s their chosen one. That is, he fits all the criteria needed to make him that season’s perfect human sacrifice to offer up to the old Celtic gods. There is no thrilling escape for Howie, as he discovers that the missing girl is an accomplice to the whole thing and that his destiny is to be placed in a giant figure made out of sticks and set alight (along with some animals for good measure).
Things wrap up in a jolly fashion as the terrified police officer is charbroiled alive while reciting/screeching a psalm and the townsfolk sing the folk song “Sumer Is Icumen In.” Which was admittedly more tasteful than if they had kicked off a rousing rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’s famous toe-tapper, “Great Balls of Fire.”
Ari Aster’s debut film actually has a pretty happy ending, if you happen to be a follower of Lucifer’s good pal, King Paimon. Unfortunately, most people aren’t. The film company, A24, even monitored the elevated pulses of terrified theatergoers during their heart rate challenge.
The dread ramps up exponentially at the end, increasing in awfulness and tempo, even after Peter, the 16-year-old son of the story’s family (played by Alex Wolff), has to deal with the vehicular decapitation of his little sister, the indoor immolation of his father, and the fact that his mother has transformed into a homicidal, wall-crawling self-mutilator. Before she can get to him, however, a trio of the aforementioned nudists/cultists scare poor Peter so badly that he jumps from an upstairs window.
He arises from the fall, but it’s not because he survived – the fall actually took his life, allowing his body to be taken over by a powerful, infernal being whose rebirth was the entire point of all the ghastly goings-on. So long, Peter, but all hail Paimon!
As far as the jump scare hierarchy goes, having what you think is a cute little girl turn around and actually be an elderly, diabolical-looking fiend with a large knife is definitely way up there. This wicked contribution to the world of horror comes to us via Don’t Look Now, the 1973 film that may have been, even more so than Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Donald Sutherland’s scariest movie.
While many might not be familiar with it, this film is considered a highly influential classic and has only grown in stature in the years since its release. As a reflection on the grief over losing a child, the story follows Sutherland’s character of John Baxter as he starts seeing a little girl in a red coat who looks like his dead daughter after he’s given the task to restore an ancient British church. As a subplot involving a slayer is presented, we start to wonder (as do the authorities) if John is involved. Meanwhile, he’s getting ever closer to the mysterious little girl.
When he finally gets close enough to reveal her identity, cornering her and preventing any escape, the little girl turns out to be a homicidal little person who slashes John’s throat. As he lays dying, he realizes that all the sightings of the little girl were foreshadowing of his own slaying, while the audience goes home and immediately exchanges all their children’s red clothing for something in yellow. Maybe green.
In 2009, Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell taught us all an important lesson about workplace etiquette. Namely, when making the hard decisions on the climb up the corporate ladder, be sure to factor in the possibility that you may have offended an elderly Eastern European woman who has the ability to call down the forces of the underworld upon you.
While it seemed that Christine Brown (played by Alison Lohman) narrowly avoided falling to the Lamia (who was set upon her by that equally demonic old lady we just mentioned as revenge for not granting a third extension on her mortgage), a happy ending just wasn’t in the cards. Despite all the talking goats and dead kitten barfing, Christine’s plans went awry after a simple mixup over coins and buttons led to her curse still being very much in place, even after she went to all the trouble of digging up her tormentor’s grave.
The finale is swift, and Christine’s fate is sealed when the clock runs out and the Lamia claims her after she falls onto the tracks in front of a passing train. Her fiancé (played by Justin Long) can only watch as she’s, um, what’s a good way to put it? How about “pulled forcibly downwards to… H-E-double hockey sticks”?
In 1968, back when she was just a young, fresh-faced Hollywood ingénue, Mia Farrow starred in Roman Polanski’s 1968 Satanic horror classic (deemed good enough to deserve preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress), Rosemary’s Baby.
It turns out that, unbeknownst to her, Farrow’s character, Rosemary, has a womb which is heavy with Beelzebub’s seed. After giving birth, the cultists behind the rebirth of Old Scratch take away her devilish bundle of joylessness and tell her it was stillborn. However, grief turns to terror as Rosemary finds a secret passage that leads to a neighbor’s apartment, where she discovers a party underway with her very-much-alive baby as the guest of honor.
The final moments are pretty freaky, especially with Ruth Gordon (normally known for playing kindly old ladies) chanting “Hail Satan!” along with other seemingly normal urbanites, with Rosemary realizing her lady-parts were the gateway for a goat-eyed Hellspawn. Considering her reaction, we can assume she didn’t wind up becoming its loving caretaker and would become the Beast’s first target at its earliest opportunity.