20 Perfect Scenes In Otherwise Terrible Horror Movies

2. Pandorum - The Dynamite Double-Twist

When it comes to great endings for otherwise underwhelming horror films, they don't get much more striking than Pandorum. 

This sci-fi horror unfolds on an afflicted interstellar ark carrying the remains of humanity to a new home. Two crew members - Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) - try to save the ship while battling strange creatures and also Captain Gallo, the ship's insane captain. Pandorum is a mostly disappointing affair that shamelessly borrows from many superior movies, so it was the mother of all shocks when it delivered a fantastic ending complete with not one, but two fabulous plot twists. 

Firstly, it's revealed that Payton is Gallo and that the figure we'd been seeing was just a hallucination. Gallo has been driven insane by Pandorum, a form of space-related madness, and while many plot twists involving hallucinations fall totally flat - looking at you, Secret Window - this one worked beautifully and was a genuine shock, one that levelled up the entire film as it evolved into a showdown between Bowers and his deranged captain. 

And then, once Bowers has finally defeated Gallo, it's revealed that the ship landed centuries ago and has been underwater all along. And so, Bowers and the remaining colonists head to the surface to start humanity anew, ending a dark story on a surprisingly hopeful note. It's still shocking that such an awesome ending came from what was otherwise such a dreary movie, but no-one's complaining.