20 Scariest Horror Movie Moments Of The 21st Century

Here’s the ending to Neil Marshall’s claustrophobic cave-dweller that not everyone may have seen. As the original climax, it was deemed too depressing for American audiences who had to make do with a relatively standard jump-scare following protagonist Sarah’s apparent escape from the cave as the ending to their theatrical cut.

The original ending is far more bleak: after teasing Sarah’s freedom from the hellish cave that claimed the lives of her friends and sanity, the film cuts back to near pitch-black to reveal that she never emerged from the depths at all.

Surrounded by suffocating darkness, she’s now hallucinating the smiling, tragic image of her deceased daughter. The light of birthday candles is revealed as nothing more than her own flickering torch, as a remnant of the world above ground lost forever. With the screeching sounds of the film’s cave-crawling monsters drawing ever closer, Sarah has hit a dead end, with doom fast approaching. Only now do we realise the inevitable horror: there’s no way out.

Not only is it completely depressing and hopeless, but it’s also thoroughly haunting. As a horror film, chances were slim from the beginning that any of main cast would ever see sunlight again. But the film dangles hope almost within Sarah’s grasp, before cruelly snatching it away. Her fate was sealed as soon as she made that descent under the earth.