10 Saddest Horror Movie Moments
Do you want me to scream or do you want me to cry? Pick one!
The best horror carves into your chest and scoops out your heart, leaving you feeling utterly empty inside, so why wouldn't sadness be one of the many tools in the horror writer's toolkit?
While many horror movies - even the really good ones - are merely content to scare you and leave it at that - other horror movies love to add in a few sucker punches to the gut to drive home the point. We all know the usual suspects here: The Mist, Cronenberg's The Fly, Ari Aster's entire career, etc. - but there are many others out there that prefer permanent emotional devastation to cheap jumpscares.
Sure a lot of them come in the form of someone dying a suitably grisly death, but others find different - somehow more horrific ways - to leave the audience preferring the monsters to the reality the characters have trapped themselves in.
Whether individual scenes or the thematic spine of the entire piece, these horror movies took it a step further from typical horror, thus ensuring that you will never forget them, no matter how much you may want to. Be forewarned that there are MAJOR SPOILERS around every corner ahead.
10. Mother/Son Hybrid - Color Out Of Space
Back in 2019, The Color Out of Space - one of Lovecraft's more underrated works - was adapted into a movie starring everyone's favourite actor, Nicolas Cage. The story tells of a strange light that falls from the heavens onto a small farmhouse, and proceeds to drive the poor family living on that farm hopelessly mad. And if driving them mad isn't quite doing the trick, the light can get... creative.
When the youngest son, Jack gets too close to the light during one of its freakouts, his mother, Theresa, rushes to save him. She's just in time to grab onto her son when the light reaches them, fusing them into a single, horrifying being.
This scene is both nightmarish and emotionally devastating, as you can hear their groans and cries both during and after the transformation. And while you never get a really good look at what the Color did to them, you see enough that your brain fills in the blanks.
Theresa just did what any mother would do in this situation, and her reward for it was a fate so much worse than death, both for her and her son.