10 Horror Movie Endings That Leave You Speechless
1. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Right on the cusp of director Yorgos Lanthimos' big breakthrough - when he was stepping from absurdity to super-stardom, from arthouse indie flicks to Oscar-winners, from films shot in a single house and garden to globe-trotting sci-fi spectacles - came absurdist psychological horror The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
The film stars Colin Farrell as beleaguered Doctor Steven Murphy, a cardiovascular surgeon whose inability to save a man on his operating table comes back to bite him in the behind - in the form of the man's son, 16-year-old Martin Lang (Barry Keoghan). After wheedling his way into the doctor's life, Martin tells Steven that if he doesn't kill one of his own family - to balance out the loss of Martin's father - the entire Murphy clan will die from paralysis, an inability to eat and bleeding eyes.
Steven doesn't take the young upstart seriously at first, until his own son Bob (Sunny Suljic) begins displaying these symptoms. Like any great work of absurdism, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is short on explanations, but big on consequences. Thus, Steven begins a decision process to determine which family members are "best", while they vie for their own survival. This culminates in a harrowing climax that sees Steven stand between his wife, daughter and son, cover his face, spin around and fire a rifle at random, shooting Bob dead in the process...