Here, we are going to look at the most effective down endings ever. The ones that left a lasting effect on the viewer and had you not cheering but heart broken by the end of the film.
Heavy spoilers should go without saying
Best Horror Downer Endings
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#20
Honeymoon
Honeymoon is a film about a young couple whose honeymoon turns into a death sentence for their happiness…and more. Bea and Paul are a happy couple that are completely in synch with each other, but by the end, they are strangers. Such a sad ending for a happy couple ends with Bea tying an anchor to her husband Paul’s feet and drowns him. She then walks into the light saying she is no longer alone. Few explanations are given but the emotional impact is all you need with this film.
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#19
An American Werewolf in London
David and Jack are backpacking in Europe when they are attacked by what turns out to be a werewolf. Jack is killed and David becomes a werewolf. He falls into the bed of a local Nurse named Alex. David meets his end by being cornered in an alley by the police while in wolf form. Alex tries to get through to him and tells him she loves him. David makes an aggressive move towards her and is shot down. Alex cries as she stands over the now dead body of David in human form. David is such a likeable guy who has found true love. You can’t help but root for him and Alex to figure it out. When they don’t, you feel it.
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#18
Pet Sematary
A nice family moves to the country. Dr. Creed, his wife Rachel, son Gage, daughter Ellie, and cat Church. After Church is hit by a truck, they bury him in the pet sematary which has mythical powers. Well, things that come back from there don’t come back as they were. The dreaded ending has a half mad Dr. Creed having murdered his homicidal zombie child and buried his dead wife in the pet sematary. He sits on the kitchen floor and waits for his reborn wife to return. She does and death comes with her. Creed is a good man, so when he loses everything, you do right with him. Note: Sorry folks, Church was the most heartbreaking for me.
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#17
Ginger Snaps
Ginger Snaps is a coming of age story that centers on two sisters in a small town. One is bitten by a werewolf and it begins to destroy their tight sisterly bond. Once it was two of them against the world, but the film ends with werewolf Ginger attacking and cornering her sister. Brigitte is then forced to end the curse, and her sister’s life. It’s heartbreaking to see two people who had no one else loose each other. Not only that, but it is the weaker sister who must carry on.
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#16
Inside
A pregnant woman is home alone on Christmas Eve and will be delivering her baby in the morning. That is the plan anyway, until a crazed older woman breaks inside in an attempt to kill her or so she thinks. One of the most harrowing and visually disturbing films ends with our pregnant heroine dead and her crazed attacker cradling the new born baby that has been cut out of the womb. Unshakable. The unrelenting brutality never ceases and just when you think she will survive, the tables turn and crush you.
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#15
Session 9
An asbestos cleaning crew are doing a weekend job in an abandoned mental hospital when they begin to experience strange goings-on. The film ends with the realization that the gentle Gordon, who owns the company, has lost his mind due to the supernatural forces and killed his entire team including his own nephew. Session 9’s real fear comes from watching Gordon’s slow decent into insanity. The hard realization that Gordon has killed his wife, new child, and pet before the job even started is haunting. The pressures of life having driven him over the edge.
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#14
Rosemary's Baby
A happy young couple move into a dream apartment in a great part of town. The problem, their neighbors are Satanists! Rosemary suffers the ultimate betrayal. She is told that her baby died in child birth after finding out that her husband is part of a huge satanic cult. Hearing the crying of an infant, she uses a secret passageway into the neighbor’s apartment. There in a black bassinet, is her baby. He has the eyes of Satan and the crowd around convince her to raise the child. Broken, she cradles the child as the room chants “Hail Satan”. That feeling of being trapped and powerless is the worst feeling you can have. Even worse, in this film it comes from someone she loves.
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#13
Martyrs
This film is almost unwatchable from the beginning. A woman named Lucie slaughters a family at breakfast. We then learn that the family torture people to death to achieve that moment when they are martyred. Lucie kills herself, leaving Anna alone in the house. She is caught by the larger organization and flayed alive. She dies on display as others watch and discuss. No emotion. The sheer lack of humanity by the group still bothers me because let’s face it, indifference is the scariest emotion of all.
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#12
Pontypool
Grant Mazzy is a former shock Jock who is on his way to a shift as a regular announcer. His station manager, Sydney, finds his public persona annoying so there is not a lot of love there. A virus infects the human language and is creating zombiefied homicidal maniacs. In the end, we see these two people find understanding in each other, locked in a radio station and forced to speak in gibberish until the end. One word...bleak.
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#11
Don't Look Now
John and Christine Baxter suffer the death of their only child through drowning. After accepting a job to restore a church in Venice, John begins seeing a child in a red coat similar to his dead daughter. Christine tries to contact her dead daughter through a couple of Mediums. Neither parent can let it go. In the end, John sees the girl in the red dress again and finally catches up to her. She turns and slits his throat. We learn that what he has been seeing is a premonition of his own death. Guilt will always destroy you.
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#10
The Strangers
James proposes to his girlfriend Kristen at a friend’s wedding only to have it go south. They return to his family vacation home in awkwardness. As they attempt to mend their relationship, there is a knock at the door. A stranger asks “Is Tamara home?” This soul crushing ending has our couple tied to a chair after a night of horror. Kristen must watch as the three faceless killers stab James to death. They are also dressed in their clothes from the wedding, driving home the happiness and heartbreak from earlier. The film begins and ends on such a bum note. It’s a great film but makes me wonder if Nicolas Sparks had a hand in it.
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#9
Night of the Living Dead
We all know the story. People whole up in a farm house and try to escape a zombie outbreak. The problem is that they can’t stop fighting. Night of the living Dead ends with the group tearing itself apart and lone survivor Ben, hiding in the basement. When help comes, he is mistaken for a zombie and shot in the head. There is a sigh of relief when help comes so when the inevitable happens, the joy is choked from your throat, killing your elation with a resounding thud.
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#8
Them (Ils)
Clémentine and Lucas are having a quiet evening at their new isolated house when they hear music from outside. Soon they find that their home has been invaded as they fight to survive. The jaw dropper ending has Lucas dead and Clémentine escaping, only to be thwarted by bars on the ravine. Her torments, all children, pull her in, presumably to her death. The children can then be seen going off to catch the school bus like nothing ever happened. The message here: Children are the death of love. Hmmm.
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#7
Race with the Devil
Two couples are on their way to a much needed vacation in Colorado when they run a foul a satanic cult. Driving in an RV, they go head to head against several trucks and cars. After defeating them all, they take refuge in a field as the darkness falls. They wake to chanting as they find that the RV is surrounded by fire and several people they thought of as friends are actually cult members as well. Another film where the victory is short lived and the end is devastating. The '70s were not a nice place.
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#6
Funny Games
A family visits their lake house for a nice getaway weekend. After a couple of preppy kids from next door come over to borrow eggs, the family is taken hostage. They are then put through a series of torturous games by the preppy kids that ends with the dog, and young child killed. Near the end, the couple take control and shoot one of the preps. In a twist that literally robs victory away from the characters and the viewers, the surviving preppy kid grabs a remote and rewinds the events, allowing him to remove the threat. It then ends with them taking the wife out to the middle of the lake and dumping her, bound and gagged, in the water.
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#5
A Serbian Film
Perhaps the most disturbing film ever and one of my favorites is A Serbian Film. The movie is about an offer to an ex porn star to return to the industry for shadowy employers. He is promised an insane amount of money so, having a wife and child who want out of Serbia, he agrees. Disgusted with the practices which include murder at the point of climax, necrophilia, and new born porn (trust me), our hero Miloš rebels and refuses to continue. The climax of the film has him and an unknown man drugged and having sex with two unidentified recipients. Miloš soon realizes that the other man is his brother. The hood of his brother’s partner is removed, revealing that it is Miloš wife. Miloš looks down in horror as the hood is removed from his partner’s head to reveal that he is having sex with his six year old son. After killing everyone in a fit of rage, the family returns home, slightly comatose. They lay on the bed, their son in between them, and Miloš shoots the three of them not able to cope with what has happened. Don’t drink while watching this film.
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#4
The Mist
After a storm that causes some damage, artist David Drayton heads into town with his son to pick up supplies as a mysterious mist rolls in carrying strange creatures. Trapped inside, David fights to protect his son against treats outside and in. The most shocking scene in recent mainstream history has David and a car full of survivors on a road and feeling that they are about to die. David takes a revolver and kills everyone in the car including his young son. Out of bullets, he cries. Soon something emerges from the mist. It’s the military who have arrived and are killing the alien threats. He realizes that had they waited five minutes longer, they would have been saved.
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#3
The Wicker Man
Sergeant Howie is a Christian who arrives at the Island Summerisle to investigate a missing girl. What he finds is that the Island is full of strange occult practices that terrify him. Discovering that a weak harvest prompts a human sacrifice to ensure the success of the next, he tries to escape. This does not work out well. Howie is taken to the beach and locked inside a giant wicker man. He prays to his god as the islanders dance and chant, setting it on fire and burning him alive. His prayers fall on deaf ears.
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#2
Seven
Detective David Mills and his wife move to the big city after he gets a promotion. Ready to fight crime, he settles in. He takes on a new case with retiring partner Will Somerset. They are pulled into a twisted case where the killer is doing so using the seven deadly sins as a blueprint. This is an ending I had to rewind several times for it to sink in. David and Will catch the killer (rather he turns himself in). He makes a deal that has him taken out to a desert road at a specific time. A box is delivered which contains David’s wife’s head! The killer taunts him, telling him his wife was pregnant. Having lost everything, David kills the killer, condemning himself to death row. Nobody wins.
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#1
The Bride of Frankenstein
After suffering at the hands of humans, the Frankenstein monster forces Doctor Frankenstein to create a mate for him. She is beautiful and the monster is happy, but it is short lived. The bride hates him and screams. There is no love and the monster, tearful, kills them all. The impact of this entire film has never wavered. It is perhaps even more soul crushing when seen for the first time today. Countless imagery has the monster and his bride sitting together as the picture of perfect gothic love. With that image in mind, the actual end is almost unbearable for there is no happy ending for this sad and lonely soul.
