10 Most Disturbing Horror Movie Endings

When it comes to a killer ending, horror has a harder time sticking the landing than most movie genres. All an action flick needs is a decent explosion to eradicate the baddies, all a rom com needs is the perfect kiss—hell, all that a comedy has to do is leave the audience laughing.

But it’s a little more complicated in horror, where creators have to choose between the cathartic relief of killing of whatever evil has been plaguing the cast or doubling down on the preceding terror by ending on a dark, hopeless note. It’s such a difficult decision that even a lot of classic horrors have a hard time choosing a lane and end up filming a happy ending only for the monster to pop up for one more often inexplicable scare (sorry, A Nightmare on Elm Street).

However, sometimes directors are free to say stuff the studio notes and make as bleak and brutal an ending as they want. Some of the flicks on this list would never have worked without their iconic denouements, whereas some were scary enough already and the vicious ending was just a touch too much. In any case, here are the ten horror movie endings that disturbed us more than ever before.

We may praise this flick’s impressive sequel from Eli director Ciaran Foy later, but now it’s time to address the original film’s divisive ending. From the mind of recent Marvel exile Scott Derrickson, Sinister sees true crime author/washed up alcoholic Ethan Hawke relocate his family to a haunted house in order to uncover the truth behind a string of gruesome deaths attached to the place.

It’s not long before he discovers a box of vintage snuff reels in the attic, and so begins a sombre, moody psychological thriller as he grows more obsessed with the murders whilst also being haunted by shadowy children hiding throughout the dark house at night.

That is, until the last half hour or so, wherein we discover that Marilyn Manson lookalike/ demon Bughuul is the source of the many murders, and he’s been using kids as a conduit for his nefarious machinations. It’s hard to make a circle of sprogs look unsettling in any circumstances, but laugh at your peril—just when it seems like Hawke and family might escape unscathed, and even get a good book out of the experience, the entire family are drugged, tied up, and summarily killed by… his seven year old daughter, under Bughuul’s control.

Look, the image of a kid covering the walls of their house in their family’s blood is undeniably disturbing—no one said the endings wouldn’t also be illogical and unbelievably silly.