20 Horror Movie Endings That Are Practically Perfect
The best endings horror has to offer...
Horror movie endings are a tricky business. When an entire feature film builds up all that fear and tension, it can be challenging to pay all of that off in a satisfying way, and sure enough, so many horror flicks out there have been let down by unsatisfying conclusions - even ones which are otherwise great, such as It Follows or Insidious.
That's the main reason why conclusions such as the following 20 are so joyous to watch... well, 'joyous' might be the wrong word, as most of them are very dark, but you'll still love them because they are absolutely fantastic endings that finished their stories in exactly the right way. That isn't always guaranteed in this genre.
While by no means an exhaustive list, these 20 movies have some of the best horror finales out there. They range from cracking needle-drops to bruising plot twists, from haunting cliff-hangers to nerve-shredding outbreaks of violence; what they all have in common is that they are cinematic gelignite, and totally avoid the genre's common issue with unsatisfying anti-climaxes.
Kicking off with a trip down memory lane to one of horror's earliest works...
20. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari - The First Twist Ending
The 1920 German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is often regarded as the first true horror film, and it's also noteworthy for having what has often been described as cinema's first twist ending - and it's a great one at that.
For most of its runtime, this fantastic piece of cinema appears to be about Francis (Friedrich Feher) investigating a series of murders. These are being committed by a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt), who's under the control of a wicked showman named Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss).
The majority of it is a gripping murder mystery, then the rug is pulled out from underneath at the very end: none of it is real.
The final scene shows Francis, his love interest, and even Cesare as inmates in an asylum, while Dr. Caligari is actually the asylum's director. It would appear everything that just unfolded was imaginary, a result of Francis' delusions.
Usually, the "It was all a dream" ending is a cardinal storytelling sin, but here? It actually works really well and adds a gripping new layer to the story. Furthermore, with its unusual visuals and expressionistic design, this whole movie plays like a dream, so it's actually fitting in this particular case.