13 Scariest Movie Endings That Kept You Up All Night

Oh, come on now. Don't try to tell us this one didn't scar you for life.

Michael Jackson's Thriller may only be a 13 minute short film created as a promo for the unforgettable title track of the late music legend's 1982 album, but for many of us who saw it for the first time as children, it was our first exposure to a real horror movie.

And, no two ways about it, Thriller gives us a whole lot of horror. Jackson personally offered director John Landis the job, having loved his comedy horror masterpiece An American Werewolf in London the previous year. With that same film's make-up FX guru Rick Baker in tow, they set about creeping out a generation of young viewers.

Bear in mind, this was long before the later controversies that would derail Jackson's career. He was the biggest pop star in the world at the time, whole-heartedly loved by a mass audience, many of whom were kids. So to see this beloved, admired, inherently trusted man transform first into a werewolf, and then into a zombie... it's jumping behind the sofa time.

Then when that grand finale comes, Ola Ray's cornered in the creepy old house, bug-eyed zombie Michael and his walking dead entourage close in; pure pre-teen nightmare fuel. And even when we think it's all over and it was just a dream, Michael looks directly at us over his shoulder with lycanthropic yellow eyes, and Vincent Price's cackling laugh echoes in our very souls...

If you claim you slept soundly after seeing that for the first time, you're either a liar, or made of much stronger stuff than us.