10 Worst Fates Suffered By Heroes In Horror Movies

The Stephen King source material here ended on a quaint, somewhat hopeful note for the surviving protagonists. Director Frank Darabont had other ideas when he decided to go back to the King well that had served him so well with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

David Drayton, his son Billy, and three additional survivors of an apocalyptic, monster invasion are driving aimlessly through the titular mist. Lost, scared and sensing the impending doom of being eaten by goodness-knows-what, the grown-ups in the car decide to call it quits. The gun they have handy has enough bullets for all but one of them to end their lives with. Taking the enormous weight of the decision on his shoulders, David shoots his own son and everyone else before bursting out of his car in despair, demanding the nearing monster he can hear kill him.

In one of the nastiest bait-and-switches in cinematic history, the monster turns out to be the US Army as the dreaded mist gradually clears up. David and co. had been driving away from their rescue this whole time and gave up mere moments before they would've been saved. For David Drayton, that's something he will have to live with for the rest of his life. In a cherry atop his tragic cake, David spots a woman who'd ventured into the mist early in the film to save her kids alive and well where he thought it'd be a suicide mission.

Just a brilliantly awful ending.