of Terrifying 3 to Dawn of the Dead to John Carpenter’s The thingSome of the scariest horror movies ever ended on a hauntingly ambiguous note. A cliffhanger ending can serve several dramatic purposes. In the horror genre, the most common function of a cliffhanger is to leave the audience appropriately uncomfortable as they exit the theater. After finding out that Sarah is still trapped in the cave at the end of The descent Or David switched places with Walter at the end of Alien: CovenantThe crowd was deeply disturbed.
There is a sense of comfort and closure in a definitive ending as Sally escapes from Leatherface at the end of The Texas chain saw massacre Or Chris is saved by his best friend at the end of Get out. It’s much more uncomfortable to get any closure in an ambiguous ending than The Shining Or the birds. Cliffhanger endings can also serve other purposes; They can set a sequel, like Evil Dead IITime travel three or Terrifying 3s gate to hell. Some of the best horror movies end on a hair-raising cliffhanger.
10
Terrifying 3
The final act of Terrifying 3 See upcoming angel Sienna Shaw confront Art the Clown and his latest sidekick, Victoria. Sienna manages to decapitate Victoria, but it has a terrible ramification: Victoria’s blood burns through the floor and opens a portal to hell. Sienna’s younger cousin Gabby falls into the gate and takes Sienna’s magical sword with her. Before the end credits roll, Sienna vows to find her and save her.
This cliffhanger sets up an awesome story for the upcoming Terrifying 4. Sienna has always been a cross between a final girl and a full-blown superhero, and the cliffhanger ending of Terrifying 3 Set up your most daring adventure to date. Terrifying 4 Will see you battling Satan’s minions in hell on your way to save the cousin who looks up to you.
9
Alien: Covenant
Ridley Scott’s second Alien earlier, Alien: CovenantSee a space crew respond to a distress signal and get more than they bargained for. Very kind android, Walter, clashes with David, the malevolent AI of Prometheus Who wants to erase humanity. At the end of the movie, when the Xenomorphs are killed and David is seemingly defeated, Walter sees the survivors off to their cryosleep chambers. But just as they drift away, they realize it’s not really Walter – it’s David. He swaps places with Walter as part of his diabolical plan.
This set up a chilling storyline for a third Alien Prequel that, sadly, never got made. It’s a haunting twist on its own, with some truly terrifying implications, but Michael Fassbender really sells it with a creepy smile. Based on that smile alone, the audience figures out the sadness just as the surviving crew members do.
8
28 weeks later
28 weeks later Covers the zombie apocalypse on a much larger scale than its predecessor, 28 days later. 28 days later Show the apocalypse through one survivor’s eyes, and that survivor wasn’t even around for the initial outbreak. 28 weeks later Shows the zombie uprising from multiple different perspectives on a sprawling ensemble cast. The ending sets an even greater scale for the sequel, as the survivors escape across the English Channel and make it to France – only to find that the virus has spread there as well.
It’s an incredibly bleak and depressing ending. After London is destroyed due to zombie attacks and firebombing, the only shred of hope is that the rest of the world might be okay. When they arrive in France and find that the virus has reached continental Europe, hope is dashed. There is no escape from this virus.
7
It goes
David Robert Mitchell It goes is a poignant horror metaphor for the dangers of STDs. It revolves around a parasitic entity that inexplicably follows whoever it is attached to, they never give a second to rest, and it spreads between young people through sexual contact. At the end of the movie, Jay’s friend Paul offers to take out the parasite by having sex with her, then Paul is seen considering hiring a sex worker. But as Jay and Paul walk through town, holding hands, a mysterious figure is seen approaching behind them.
This could be a rather innocent ending. Maybe Paul passed the parasite on to a sex worker, he and Jay became a happy couple, and the man walking behind them is just a man walking behind them. But it is equally possible that Paul could not pass the parasite to another innocent soul and he just accepted his fate and let the entity get him.
6
Evil Dead II
Sam Raimi Evil Dead II is essentially a zanier remake of its predecessor with much more slapstick humor, but its cliffhanger ending introduces a more serialized element to the franchise. After attaching a chainsaw to his severed arm and sawing off his shotgun barrel, Ash Williams managed to defeat the dead from the cabin. And then he and his Oldsmobile Delta 88 get sucked into a time vortex and transported to the Middle Ages.
Like the cliffhanger ending of Terrifying 3 And Alien: CovenantThis one was intended to set up a sequel. It led in Army of DarknessThe Dryquel that saw Ash fighting demons in 1300 AD while trying to get back to his own time. Evil Dead IIThe time travel twist provided a fittingly bonkers ending to one of the most bonkers movies ever made.
5
the birds
After surviving the night, the characters of Alfred Hitchcock’s timeless gem the birds Decide to leave town and try their chances elsewhere. They heard on the radio that the birds had attacked other nearby communities and the military was considering an intervention. As they quietly walk out to their car and drive away, the birds—who have been attacking people all day and night—are quietly gathered around the property, looking down on them.
The lack of any kind of explanation in this cliffhanger ending makes it all the more disturbing. Somehow, birds that are not attacking anyone but look like they might at any second are much scarier than birds that are just randomly attacking people. It is unclear why the birds are so quiet – perhaps they are establishing their dominance over humanity as the humans cower in fear around them.
4
Game Dawn of the Dead
George A. Romero’s second zombie movie, Dawn of the Deadis a biting satire of consumerism about a group of survivors who hole up in an abandoned shopping mall. At the end of the movie, the remaining survivors fight their way to the roof of the mall, get into a helicopter, and take off. They made it out of the zombie-infested mall, but they’re low on fuel and their fate is uncertain.
The beauty of this cliffhanger ending is that whether it’s bleak or hopeful is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe they’ll run out of fuel and crash, or they’ll land somewhere similarly overrun with the undead and get promptly devoured. But it is just as likely that they will find a safe haven away from the threat of the zombies and start a new life.
3
The descent
American audiences got a much happier ending to Neil Marshall’s The descentIn which Sarah escapes from the cave and gets away from the bloodthirsty mutants who live inside. The original ending is much more ominous. Sarah makes it out of the cave, gets back to her car, and races out of the woods. But it turns out that this was all an extended hallucination. She didn’t really escape from the cave; She is still trapped there, surrounded by the terrible sounds of mutants trying to hunt her down.
The ending is similar to that of “An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge,” in which a character on the gallows is shocked to realize that he imagined his escape and journey home in the seconds before the noose broke his neck. In both cases, the happy ending was all in the protagonist’s head as they tried to mentally escape from their bleak reality. Suffice it to say, it’s not easy to fall asleep after watching this movie.
2
The Shining
There is a clear sense of closure at the end of Stanley Kubrick The Shining. Wendy and Danny manage to avoid Jack’s wrath and escape on the snowcat. As Jack flails around in the blizzard, he eventually tires, falls to the ground, and freezes to death. There seems to be a happy ending in which the heroes get away and the villain is punished. And then Kubrick pulls in an old black-and-white photo of a Fourth of July ball in 1921, with Jack standing at the front of a crowd of partygoers.
This calls the entire movie into question. The story of a frustrated suburban father losing his mind in extreme isolation and trying to kill his wife and son suddenly becomes much more complicated. Was Jack a reincarnation or was he haunting the hotel the whole time? The Shining It leaves the viewers with so many unanswered questions that it leaves them deeply disturbed.
1
The thing
At the end of John Carpenter’s The thingMacReady and Childs manage to kill the pesky alien entity by blowing up the station. But when they settle down, they realize the futility of their situation. They have no way of knowing if one of them has already been assimilated by the entity. And even if none of them are assimilated, they will likely freeze to death before being rescued. So, they decide to split a bottle of Scotch whiskey and wait to die.
The thing is a quintessentially nihilistic movie about how quickly humanity can be utterly doomed. The end of the cliffhanger hammers the nihilism as, even after triumphing over the alien, the characters still have no hope of survival. like Dawn of the DeadThe end of The thing Leave it to the audience to decide whether to be optimistic (but it requires a lot of mental gymnastics to be optimistic about the ending).