10 Horror Movies That Stick The Landing
It's easy to mess up a movie's ending, but these movies absolutely nailed it.
The expression "stick the landing" comes from the world of gymnastics, as there's no point in doing a flawless routine only to fall flat on one's face during the final seconds.
In movies, an ending is one of the hardest things to nail, as a good finale needs to accomplish a lot. It must tie all of the story elements together whilst also providing a satisfying end for all the characters, without being too predictable or nonsensical. It's not an easy feat, as evidenced by the dozens of great films that fluff it right at the end. Not the following horror movies though, for they absolutely nailed their final scenes.
Big twists, major deaths, iconic images, these films have them all and left a big impression right before the end credits rolled. It helps that the build to these endings were all fantastic, so there was a lot of audience goodwill heading into the final stretch.
Major spoilers lie ahead, so if you want to keep these endings a surprise, you should probably watch all of these films first.
10. Talk To Me
Australian horror movie Talk to Me shocked the world in 2022 when it turned a $4.5 million budget into almost $100 million at the box office.
The premise was incredibly simple. A bunch of teenagers come across a severed hand that grants them the ability to speak to dead people, but what begins as some creepy fun soon devolves into a hellish situation. Oh those teens, will they ever learn?
Protagonist Mia (Sophie Wilde) is the one who causes all the trouble, as she leaves the door to the spirit realm open for too long while trying to contact her deceased mother. The end of the film deals with this perfectly, as Mia is left to deal with the consequences of her actions for all eternity.
After Mia kills herself in order to save her possessed friend Riley, she is transformed into a spirit and watches Riley and her dad (whom she stabbed in a fit of rage) leave hospital together. Just when it seems like there's a happy ending, Mia is dragged back into the land of the living by a different group of teens in Greece.
She is now trapped inside the hand, forced to stay there forevermore.