10 Best Slasher Horror Movie Fakeout Endings

The very finest fakeouts of the sinister slasher subgenre.

Edge of the Axe
Overseas FilmGroup

Ah, the humble slasher film...

A favourite subgenre of many a horror hound, the slasher is something whose roots can be traced back to 1974's Black Christmas and 1978's Halloween, with John Carpenter's film in particular responsible for launching a boom that would thrive and eventually fizzle out throughout the '80s and into the '90s. Even now, though, there's still a strong appetite for slashers, as shown by Scream VI currently screening in theaters worldwide.

With a slasher, so often a familiar formula is followed. There's the hulking masked killer, there's the slew of disposable teens, and there's the whodunnit mystery - and subsequent reveal - of who really is under the mask. One other thing this horror subgenre is famous for, of course, is delivering some absolutely belting fakeouts.

These fakeouts lead you in one direction, usually make you think that everything's going to be okay, before pulling the rug out from under audiences and shockingly zigging when you thought they were going to zag. Catching your off-guard, these swerves can be an utter gut-punch when delivered well.

With that in mind, then, here are ten of the very best slasher movie fakeouts seen throughout the past several decades.

10. Hell High

Edge of the Axe
JGM Enterprises

Released in 1989, Hell High is a slasher that takes its time to properly get going, and is likewise a film overflowing with the familiar tropes of the subgenre.

We've got a bunch of high schoolers played by actors who are approaching 30, we've got a cast of key players and supporting characters who are all mostly dislikeable, and we of course have a masked menace at the centre of this Douglas Grossman-helmed picture. There's also an ending sequence that is utterly bonkers and very much serves up a rather unique fakeout.

Plot-wise, Hell High centres on a group of cocksure teenagers who decide to stick it to their stern biology teacher, Miss Storm (Maureen Mooney). In particular, Christopher Stryker's Dickens really has it out for this teacher, to the point that he follows her home one night and creepily watches Miss Storm take a shower.

That's only the tip of the iceberg for the creepy actions of these kids, mind, for Dickens returns to Storm's house with his buddies, where they all don horror masks and torment the mentally-fragile teacher. You see, Miss Storm caused the death of two people when she was just a child, and she's forever troubled by this fact.

In an extremely dark turn - that's actually bizarrely played in a light manner - Dickens and his friends sexually assault the drugged Storm, who eventually manages to gain enough consciousness to throw herself out of her bedroom window. And with that, Hell High seems about ready to wrap up its runtime as poor Miss Storm lays dead on the floor.

Only the film doesn't end there, for in a left-field swerve, Mooney's character reanimates as some sort of murderous zombie who soon offs each of her attackers.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.