5. The Mist
This is the second time a Stephen King story has made this list (here, it's the adaptation of his novella of the same name). This time, it's a highly efficient chiller that wears it's B-movie roots on its sleeve. Local artist takes son to local mart for supplies, then becomes stranded by a creepy mist enveloping the town and surrounding area. Survivors split into two factions: the pragmatists, intent on sitting things out, and the zealots - bible-beating doom-mongers who believe God has created the mist to filter out the Heathen. From the mist comes forth many a horror: winged monsters, bug-eyed insectoids and tentacled goliaths. Death is frequent and, for the dwindling survivors, seemingly inevitable. Matters degenerate. People turn on each other. The artist decides to make a break for it - and succeeds in doing so. They drive off into the unknown, certain the route leads out of the mist and back into normality. People would be unhappy if the film ended there. But what follows is astonishing - possibly unrivalled in terms of 'WTF?' movie endings. A great many people believe (in retrospect, straight after watching the film) that it would have been better to have left the survivors in the mist. Suffice to say,
that ending - out of gas, the hero decides to shoot his fellow survivors in a mercy killing, son included - is too much to bear for many, especially when the last shot of the film reveals a US military rescue underway. Once seen, a huge chunk of the audience wish they could just erase that last two minutes like it never happened.