10 Recent Horror Movie Fates Worse Than Death
Life-changing injuries, underground incest, and a comedown that would kill Keith Richards.
When we arrive at the cinema, beady-eyed and bushy-tailed, dead keen to find out which horror movie character is going to go splat and which will drag their mangled body over the finish line (paving the way for potential sequels, requels and spin-offs), we don't often expect to see characters caught in the middle ground.
And yet, there's a certain subsection of directors and screenwriters whose mission it seems to be to leave their characters short of actually dying, but wishing they were dead all the same. Over the years, a host of movies have bestowed fates upon favourite and feared characters alike that are far from appealing, and that slightly niche trend doesn't seem to be going away.
Some of said characters are already jammed in their predicament from their movie's opening sequence, others we are left merely to imagine the many ways in which they suffer for the days, months and years beyond the credits. Because some things truly are worse than death. Sitting scared in the slammer for the rest of your days? Shooting your beloved dead? Rotting away inside someone's head? All way worse than the silky embrace of a definitive, pain-ending demise.
Because what's the point in living a life that's, well, not worth living anymore? Let's ask this lot.
10. Comedown Bear - Cocaine Bear (2023)
Cocaine Bear promised to be the loosest, wildest creature feature this side of Snakes on a Plane, yet somehow got left in the dust.
Nonetheless, this year's entry into the intoxicated Ursidae canon delivered just enough thrills and spills to keep us watching. Based on a true story in as much as there once was a bear who ate a few grams (and died), the film takes artistic license with the story of a drug smuggler who died mid-job and left packages of the other white stuff strewn around the Chattahoochee–Oconee National Forest for a big ol' black bear to chow down on.
Limbs are torn, cartel kingpins are killed, and the bear at the heart of the whole caper gets a taste for blow that could put Charlie Sheen to shame, consuming entire bricks of the stuff in single helpings. But what goes up must come down.
A bear who has spent several days on the trot binging millions of dollars of coke is in for a shocker when the nose candy runs dry. We've all had rough mornings where death seems a small mercy compared to our splitting headaches, dry throats and mounting regrets, but not like this. Not only will it be the comedown from hell, the bear will be all on its lonesome facing addiction, withdrawal and whatever permanent gut issues eating such quantities of the stuff will give you.
Maybe the real bear got off lightly.