10 MORE Horror Movies Where The Hero ALMOST Won

10. Terrifier

Love it or hate it, one thing is certain about the Terrifier series: it’s apparently here to stay, at least for one more movie, with Art the Clown gorily etching his spot alongside classic boogeymen. The series is determined to cater to the slasher audience, whilst crudely subverting expectations of the formulaic genre. Things like the Final Girl surviving, and people getting offed swiftly and offscreen, are not on the order of the day. When Art catches up with his victim, get ready for an extensive (and gross) death scene.

While later entries were more polished, there’s no better example for this list than the grimy original, as director Damien Leone manages to have our fleeting heroine(s) fail - not once, but twice.

Tara (Jenna Kanell), who earned her Final Girl spot as she escaped and fought for survival against Art while locked up in an abandoned building, gets unceremoniously shot by the clown midway through the film, with her shock death further accented by him emptying a full clip into her lifeless corpse - just to drive the point home for good measure.

The narrative lets another protagonist take the lead at that point - Tara’s sister Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) - who picks up the mantle without missing a beat and makes it to the final moments, even escaping the building and police in tow, only for Art to surprise attack and mutilate her beyond recognition in the process. 

Uplifting stuff, huh?