10 Horror Movies With Seriously Messed Up Endings
1. The Mist
The Plot
Based on a Stephen King novella, The Mist is set in a small Maine town under attack after a freak storm and a covert government project combine to accidentally unleash a hoard of human-eating Lovecraftian monsters from another dimension.
David Drayton and his young son Billy take shelter in a supermarket with a ragtag group of fellow survivors but the monsters start picking them off one by one. The survivors divide into two camps – one led by religious nut Mrs Carmody who’s hellbent on sacrificing young Billy – David decides it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge and escapes with his son and a few still sane people in tow.
The Ending
After escaping by car and witnessing the devastation wreaked by the monsters, David and his group eventually run out of gas. Rather than face horrific death at the hands of the monsters, the group enter a suicide pact. The only problem is there are five of them and only four bullets.
David bravely offers to face the monsters alone and mercy kills his fellow survivors and son before exiting the safety of the car to meet his fate. It’s just then that the military rocks up having eliminated the inter-dimensional monster threat and David is hit with the realisation that had he waited a few minutes his group and, more devastatingly, his son would still be alive.
It’s such a gut-punch ending that Stephen King, who ended his original novella on a slightly more hopeful tone, even preferred it to his own.