10 More Horror Movies With Seriously Messed Up Endings

3. The Vanishing

The Dark and the Wicked
Argos Films

No, thankfully not the awful 1993 remake, but George Sluizer's 1988 The Vanishing, aka Spoorloos.

The main problem with said remake, of course, is that Sluizer - who returned to direct - decided to give the film a happy ending. For fans of Spoorloos, a major part of what made that movie stand out was that it had a soul-crushing finale.

Based on Tim Krabbé's The Golden Egg, Spoorloos finds Gene Bervoets' Rex desperate to find out what happened to his missing girlfriend. After his beau Saskia disappears when the two stop at a service station during a trip through France, Rex spends three years trying to solve this mystery.

The person behind Saskia's vanishing is Raymond, who has offered to meet Rex several times. When the two finally do connect towards the film's close, Raymond promises to reveal what happened to Saskia.

In order for Rex to find out the truth, the catch is that he has to drink some drugged coffee. As Raymond explains, that's the only way to know (and experience) what really happened to Saskia.

Having debated whether or not to sup the brew, Rex decides to drink back the coffee and discover Saskia's fate. Unfortunately for him, though, Rex then wakes up in a makeshift coffin and realises he's been buried alive - and realises this is what happened to Saskia.

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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.