10 Film Heroes Who Totally Failed In Their Quest

1. Dr. Matthew Bennell - Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)

The Quest

Prevent the relentless invasion of extraterrestrial creatures, who are covertly seeking to overrun Earth by replacing every last human being with an emotionless duplicate.

What Happens?

Health inspector Dr. Matthew Bennell (a brilliant Donald Sutherland) gets caught in the epicentre of the alien invasion, as primarily investigated by himself and lab employee Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams).

However, with each passing day the aliens' assimilation of their friends and neighbours becomes more pervasive, leaving them scrambling to evade the pod people at any cost, and consequently avoid being duplicated in their sleep.

Why Did He Fail?

The movie's famously nihilistic ending - counter to the more optimistic finale of the 1956 original - sees Matthew among the few remaining humans in the city, while the pod people are plotting to expand their invasion to other American cities.

Poor Elizabeth has since been duplicated, and in the film's final scene, Matthew is hailed by Nancy (Veronica Cartwright), a fellow survivor of the invasion.

At that moment, Matthew opens his mouth wide and shrieks, signalling that he too has become assimilated.

Granted, you can't really blame Matthew for losing here, and he certainly made a gallant effort by staying awake for so damn long. But in the end, it seems that the entire human race lost, so he's certainly in good company.

Still, given that audiences expected the hero to prevail, Matthew's last-minute demise remains brilliantly shocking to this day.