10 Horror Movies That Originally Had A Much Darker Ending
6. Hostel
The first Hostel movie is already an uncomfortable spectacle, with Eli Roth's tale of dismemberment, murder and suicide guaranteed to turn all but the most cast-iron of stomachs. But the original ending left audiences feeling queasy for reasons beyond simple violence, as it turned the movie's hero into just as much of a monster as the psychotic millionaires who murdered his friends.
The Hostel that was released in cinemas saw sole survivor Paxton track down and murder the businessman who killed his friend Josh in a brutal, but understandable, act of revenge. Roth's original ending, however, saw Paxton opt to emotionally torment his adversary by kidnapping his daughter. In the original script Paxton even went as far as to slit the girl's throat, but in the version that was filmed he merely absconds with her.
Test audiences hated this ending, feeling that Paxton's abduction of an innocent girl was a heel turn too far for the supposed hero of the movie and that it made the movie's villain too sympathetic. Having spent most of the movie firmly establishing the divide between the good guys and bad guys, Hostel's last-minute decision to blur the lines was an unnecessary wrinkle in the story, and one that felt wholly out of place with the knowingly straightforward, grindhouse nature of the film.