10 More Horror Movies With Seriously Messed Up Endings

9. Buried

The Dark and the Wicked
Lionsgate

In terms of minimalist movies, Rodrigo Cortés' Buried is something of a modern-day masterpiece.

With 99% on the attention on Ryan Reynolds' Paul Conroy, Buried finds Reynolds' character trapped in a coffin buried underground in the middle of Iraq. A US truck driver stationed in the country, Paul and his colleagues are attacked. By the time Paul regains consciousness, he finds himself buried alive with only a select few items - such as a cell phone, lighter and knife - to hand.

The crux of this claustrophobia-inducing effort sees Paul using his BlackBerry to contact 911, the FBI, the State Department and have several back-and-forths with Dan Brenner of the Hostage Working Group.

Brenner eventually has details on where to find Paul's coffin, and audiences get a pulsating, tense final few minutes as a rescue team frantically dig while Brenner assures Paul via phone that he's going to be okay as sand piles into his casket.

In an utter gut punch of a finale, it's revealed how Brenner and his team had been led to the site of another buried coffin. From there, Paul's coffin is fully engulfed by sand as he suffocates to death.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.