Horror films with no happy ending (spoilers)... (1 Viewer)

[Keith Paynter]

Not exactly a horror movie, but true, an ending that sucker punched you in the gut, and laid it on thick with the Quincy Jones/James Ingram classic "Just Once".

 

[Kate*H]

Return to Slaughter High does not have a happy ending. I remember watching that late at night on tv when I was 12 and being absolutely shocked.

 

[Amy Mormino]

"The Omen" had a decidedly downbeat ending, as does another evil child movie, "The Bad Seed". "The Haunting" (original, although the terrible remake also had a somewhat less despairing but still down ending) also had a sad ending. Almost all zombie films have unhappy endings with "Day of the Dead" and "28 Days Later" being two exceptions. I'd add "Zombie" and "Return of the Living Dead" to the list of horror films with unhappy endings.

Actually, the horror genre has so many unhappy endings that you could easily make a thread on the films that do have upbeat finales.

 

[Eddy-C]

House On Haunted Hill remake had a somewhat unhappy ending. They were alive but stuck all the way on the top of that huge tower and had no way of getting off so they probably starved to death up there.

 

[JohnMor]

The Innocents (1961):

The boy that Deborah Kerr tries to save from possession by ghosts ends up dead.

 

[Phil Florian]

Did Prince of Darkness have a happy ending? I remember it having a downbeat ending, too. I agree, I think another unique thread would involve horror movies with a happy ending! I think that is far more rare. At best, most horror movies end with a sigh and melancholy tone (like the end of the original The Haunting ) and at worst they end with a promise of more bad things to come (almost all else). I think directors and writers of horror movies can't resist the "last stab" they get at the end of a movie, especially when all seems to be getting better. Even Scream , which made fun of horror movie conventions ended with the "not dead yet" ending. Granted, the very end of it was quiet and hopeful...a real rarity.

How about twist endings? Good or bad? Like the movie April Fool's Day that ended with the whole murder story being one, long elaborate joke played on a friend. If I remember that correctly.
or the camp classic Vamp with the hero surviving along with his buddy-turned-vampire who comments on his survival with the line, "Formica, go figure." Fun.

 

[Holadem]

Lynda-marie, the book Pet Sematary's ending was definitely a downer:
The guy was clearly nuts - had he not dug his wife's grave with his bare hands or somesuch? And how could her return end up a happy event? We know she is a zombie at this point - no ambiguity whatsoever.
That book is evil. Never saw the movie. Not sure I want to either, they turned an extremely creepy ending into something much less subtle .

--
H

 

[Brook K]

The Wicker Man, though I suppose you could say the ending was happy depending on how you look at it/who you were rooting for.

Edward Woodward is sacrificed to a pagan god by being roasted alive in a traditional wicker man statue thingy

 

[Andy Sheets]

The Devil Rides Out has one of the happiest endings of any movie I've ever seen. It's happier than most romantic comedies

Not a horror film, but The Great Silence has an extremely downbeat ending.

 

[Chris Stainton]

I agree 100%.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Just to comment on unhappy endings, I really don't mind them as long as they fit into the context of the film.

For instance the ending of the Dawn of the Dead remake, it satisfied me because the situation in which the survivors found themselves in was a hopeless one, no matter what they did. The world had gone mad around them and their brave struggles were akin to a spider being flushed down a toilet, it struggles valiantly, but is ultimatly doomed.

In the case of Jeepers Creepers, it took me some time to warm up to the ending because I liked Derry and Trish, but ultimatly came to like the ending a great deal because it succeeded in making me care about a charactor and I felt really bad when he bought the farm at the hands of the Creeper.

I love it when horror films make me feel that way because it's, well...horrible.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre didn't really have a happy ending in my mind even though the girl gets away. That poor girl will be fucked up for life after what she went through, not exactly a cheery thought. The Family may have failed to slaughter her, but they succeeded in slaughtering her mind and probably her sanity.

I guess my point with that example is that even though on the surface, the film does "technically" have a happy ending, but if you consider the long term effects the terror has on the charactor, you realize it isn't a happy ending at all.

Same thing with Halloween, even though Laurie survives her run-in with Michael, she'll never be the same ever again, as shown in Halloween H2O where she is now a paranoid, traumatized drunk.

BTW, the original ending for Army of Darkness is still one of the funniest damn things i've ever seen! Poor Ash miscounted the drops...damn shame!

 

[Beau]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. It also works the other way around sometimes, I think, when a movie has a seemingly sad ending, but when you think about it it's really a happy ending. Can't think of any examples off the top of my head though.

 

[Mark Wielgosz]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned The Thing:

The entire research base has been destroyed and there are only two survivors with no way of escaping or calling for help. Also there's a strong possibility that the other survivor (who hasn't been seen for a while) is another assimilated being.

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

isn't the ending of the original dawn a happy ending the two remaining survivors get on the helicopter

 

[Colton]

Ryan -

Not really a good ending.

Their helicopter was already low on fuel and they won't make it very far.


- Colton

 

[Andy Sheets]

Dawn has a happy ending, AFAIC. The odds are long but it's essentially hopeful. The originally proposed ending... Ken Foree gives up and blows his brains out
...is much grimmer.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

While I agree 'Dawn' has a happy ending FROM WHAT WE THE AUDIENCE CAN SEE, but what happened to them after the escape from the mall?

I tend to always think outside of the confines of the visual celluloid and on to what happens next. Just because they escaped from the mall
doesn't mean they're safe. I mean for all we know they lift off from the mall roof, only to crash land in a field just beyond it and are immediatly surrounded by zombies and eaten!

The chances are extremely good that they won't survive for very long, given the rapid explosion in the zombie population and the fact that they were lucky, but it won't last.

Hell, if you really think about it, the 'Dead' films aren't very good examples because the whole premise is an unhappy ending, an unhappy ending for the world and mankind.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.... But i guess its not really a horror film.

Dagon

The main character discovers hes the grandson of the Cthulhu/Dagon revivalist Cap'n Combarro, the half brother to squid lady, so he sets himself on fire, but before he dies gets pulled underwater where he gets to live forever as a mutant fishy thingy with 3rd degree burns and an incestual relationship.

Darkness

The seventh child (Dad) is sacrificied by his daughter, and everybody gos to Hell

Event Horizon

Destroying the haunted spaceship fails to svae the crew, as they continue to be haunted by hell-spirits even in their escape craft

Asylum of the Damned

The medical resident kills the demon worshiping doctor, only to be placed in the "care" of another demon worshiping doctor!

Below

The ghosts are from the friendly ship that the captain destroyed and tried to cover up. The captain goes insane and scuttles the ship ontop of the first ship

In The Mouth of Madness

The book turns everyone crazy, the movie adaption of the book turns more people crazy. Enough people are crazy to allow the Lovecraftian take-over of earth by nameless being of horror. Sam Neill eats popcorn

Return of the Living Dead

The zombies, being immune to traditional zombie killing methods, kill everyone. Burning the zombies only make sit worse by re-spreading the zombie toxins, and the Govt's nuking the town only releases zombie toxin into somewhere elses ecosystem.

 

[Steve Phillips]

So THAT's what happened at the end of DARKNESS......!

 

[Garrett Lundy]

That, and people vomit from the vertigo instilled by the "shakey camera" used for the last 20 minutes of the movie.