10 Horror Movie Characters Who Died In The Final Shot

There are many, many ways to end a horror movie, but it's certainly more common in horror than any other genre for the terror to continue past the end credits.

As such, we've often witnessed heroes and villains alike get killed off in the very last scene or, in extreme cases, even the final shot of the movie entirely.

It's a tactic that can come off as cheap and manipulative if it's not executed with due care, but when it hits, it really hits.

Following up our recent article on general movie characters who died in the final shot, here's a horror-specific take focusing on those doomed characters who just barely failed to survive the film.

If things had gone just a little differently, some of these characters might've lived to see another day, while others evidently had their fates sealed from the jump, and the filmmakers simply delayed the moment until the last possible second - literally.

If nothing else, these closing horror movie deaths sent audiences home with one final scary, violent jolt, before cutting to the credits the second it was all said and done...

Adam Wingard's You're Next is a film wholly concerned with toying with audience expectations - something it continues to do right up to its very final shot.

After survivalist Erin (Sharni Vinson) has killed her turncoat boyfriend Crispin (A. J. Bowen), she's shot in the shoulder by a police officer, Officer Trubiano (Calvin Reeder), who arrives on the scene and understandably believes her to be a murderer rather than a victim.

Trubiano then calls for backup and goes to enter the property to deal with the situation, only for Erin to scream, "No, don't!," realising that he's about to inadvertently trigger a trap that she set to take out the real killers.

But alas, she's too late to save poor Officer Trubiano, as the rigged axe falls from the ceiling and speeds towards his face, before Wingard cuts to the movie's titles which have been splashed with what's presumably Trubiano's blood.

While it's not out of the ordinary for the main killer or Final Girl to die in the final second of a horror movie, a basically random, innocent character we've never met before? Wild.