10 Movies You Never Expected To Have A Happy Ending
2. As Above, So Below
A found-footage film that features six characters and concludes with three of them unambiguously surviving and escaping their predicament... that is a rare thing indeed.
Not-too-bad found-footage horror As Above, So below sees Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) and five others descending into the Paris Catacombs to search for the Philosopher's Stone (yes, the same legendary MacGuffin that inspired the first Harry Potter book). This was a fantastic idea for a horror movie, and though it doesn't live up to its full potential by any means, it's still an entertaining enough excursion that uses its sinister central locale to provide some solid scares.
The most satisfying thing about As Above, So Below is that it actually ends positively for a change, with half the cast being allowed to escape the catacombs and (presumably) live happily ever after. There's no sequel-bait final jump scare or anything, it's just a well-judged full-stop on a story that had reached its natural endpoint - hot damn, was this refreshing.
Far, far too many horror films insist on a downbeat, open-ended conclusion in order to leave room for a sequel, and so, regardless of As Above, So Below's artistic flaws, it at least avoided this common problem.