10 More Bleakest Endings In Horror Movies

Anybody looking to spend an evening rocking to-and-fro in abject despair could do far worse than Scott Derrickson's Sinister - acclaimed by many as one of the most terrifying horror films of all time.

The 2012 outing follows Ethan Hawke's Ellison Oswalt, a once successful true-crime writer down on his luck. Intending to write a biography on an unsolved murder case, Oswalt moves his family into the property where the killings took place in the hope of gaining inspiration.

Unfortunately, Hawke's protagonist gets more than he bargained for after discovering a box of snuff films. The Super 8 tapes depict an array of blood-chilling murders perpetrated against entire families in Oswalt's new home. This development duly unveils the involvement of Bughuul - an ancient demonic entity that murdered entire families with the exception of one child, which the terrifying being would then claim for itself.

Further research reveals for each murder that took place, a child disappeared from the family in question. Sinister's desolating ending reveals that the murders were actually the work of the missing children under the demon's influence - a realisation that Oswalt makes far too late when he imbibes coffee drugged by his own young daughter Ashley.

In Bughuul's thrall, Ashley butchers her helpless family with an axe and paints the walls with their blood before being claimed by the entity in one of horror's most ghoulishly macabre conclusions.