10 More Horror Characters We All Foolishly Thought Had Got Away

2. Ben (Night Of The Living Dead)

Final Destination 3 ending
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George Romero's 1968 masterpiece is iconic for so many reasons. Not only did it mark the beginning of the zombie film genre we know today, but it also contains one of the earliest, most famous examples of a gut-punch horror movie ending.

With our hero, Ben, having spent the entire movie fighting off the walking dead while protecting a group of locals, we're rooting for him to pull through and make it to the credits. When his night of horrors is over and the morning sun begins to shine, it seems as though he's going to do just that, especially when we see that most of the zombies are being dispatched by a small army of gun-toting cops and civilians.

All Ben has to do is emerge from the house he's barricaded himself in, and join in with the cleanup effort. Only, when he tries to do that, those trigger-happy civilians spot him through a window, and a bullet gets fired right between his eyes.

Gunned down by the very people you were thinking would actually help him... it's a truly harsh twist of fate, one that will leave you in disbelief as the credits roll over some disturbing images of Ben's body being burned on a pile of zombie corpses.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.