10 Movie Endings Way Darker Than You Realise
King Kong's struggle didn't end with death.
Who among us doesn't love a happy ending? As long as it feels earned and appropriate for the story, it's great to see the heroes triumph over the villain, which in turn sends popcorn-gobbling audiences home with a smile on their faces.
But sometimes things aren't quite that simple, and what's framed as a happy ending with jaunty music and a fanfare celebration is actually anything but.
If you peek below the surface, often there are far darker implications of the real future awaiting the central characters and perhaps even the rest of the world.
That's absolutely true of these 10 movies, each of which served up superficially happy - or at least, closed-off - endings which nevertheless suggested something far more discomforting, awkward, and downright horrible occurring off-screen.
While it's easy enough to take these endings at face value, dig a little deeper and you'll find something considerably more unnerving percolating beneath, regardless of whether the filmmakers actually intended it or not.
In any event, the stories of these movies continue long after the end credits roll, and with these darker consequences in mind, you'll probably never think about them quite the same way again...
10. Valentine's Signal Killed Millions Worldwide - Kingsman: The Secret Service
The villain of the first Kingsman movie, Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), plans to control the world by giving free SIM cards to every human being on Earth.
The catch? He can transmit a signal which turns anyone with one of the SIM cards murderously violent, all in an attempt to control overpopulation and prevent global warming.
And indeed, Valentine activates the signal for a brief period during the movie's third act, with director Matthew Vaughn briefly showing scenes of chaos unfolding around the world as people suddenly start killing each other.
Hell, even Eggsy's (Taron Egerton) own mother (Samantha Womack) very nearly kills her own daughter due to the signal's activation.
Yet after Valentine is killed at film's end, the masses of human carnage which unfolded while the signal was active are oddly glossed over.
It's reasonable to assume that millions of people - especially the young, elderly, and physically vulnerable - would've died in droves, severely impacting the population of the next generation in particular.
And this is without even considering that numerous world leaders in Valentine's employ had their heads exploded in the climax, likely creating at least a couple of power vacuums in countries around the world.
Yet sequel The Golden Circle makes no attempt at all to address what happened, likely because Vaughn appreciates more than anyone that it would've had a seriously tectonic impact on humanity.
A sequel focused around the fallout of the signal - namely the many traumatised folk who unknowingly murdered their own families - could've been fascinating, if also not something any studio would've ever wanted to bankroll with a blockbuster budget.