10 Great Horror Films Ruined By Terrible Endings

The Descent is one of the best British horror outputs we've had in the past two decades. Serving up a slice of claustrophobic terror as a group of spelunkers are trapped in an unfamiliar cave system, the women must find a way back to the surface as subterranean monsters hungry for flesh hunt them down in their home.

It's both tightly written and perfectly shot, paralleling protagonist Sarah's struggle with her failing mental health against a very real, physical threat - but if you were watching in the US, then it's sharp veer into supernatural jumpscares at the end was a disappointing cop out like no other.

Sarah manages to escape, jump into a car, and has a sudden vision of her dead friend Juno haunting her from the passenger seat before waking up still on the floor of the cave. From there, she sees her dead daughter as the camera pans out and reveals her surrounded by Crawlers.

But the American version stops as Juno appears, trimming the important return back to the cave and Sarah's inevitable death in service of a sub-par gap that a sequel could jump into. It's weak, disorienting, and lacks all the compelling bleakness that fits the tone of the rest of the movie. That they made it canon remains one of cinema's biggest frustrations.