10 Best Slasher Horror Movie Fakeout Endings

9. House Of 1000 Corpses

Edge of the Axe
Lionsgate

With his 2003 feature film debut, Rob Zombie certainly marked himself out as having a very certain style and taste to his filmmaking. Gritty, grimy, gory and overflowing with choice cuss words, House of 1000 Corpses is the aesthetic and tonal blueprint for every one of Zombie's movies which has followed it.

Of course, this is the picture that introduced the world to the twisted terrors of the Firefly family, with the likes of Otis, Bay, Mother, Rufus and Tiny causing all kinds of creepy chaos for four innocent young adults curiously travelling the country to discover roadside attractions.

While her boyfriend Jerry and their friends Bill and Mary end up tortured and killed in a variety of gnarly ways, the end of House of 1000 Corpses sees Erin Daniels' Denise make a break for safety. Having outwitted the Fireflies, Denise escapes to the main road and grabs a ride with local convenience store owner Captain Spaulding; a character she had met earlier in the picture. With Spaulding doing his best to calm the girl and let her know that everything will be okay, she passes out from exhaustion, as the audience then sees Bill Moseley's Otis rise up from the backseat with a knife - as it's revealed that Spaulding is likewise a part of the nefarious Firefly can.

For poor Denise, she soon finds herself strapped to the operating table of the demented, believed-to-be-urban-legend figure of Dr. Satan as the end credits roll.

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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 day job, 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. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.