30 Horror Movie Survivors Who Probably Wished They'd Died

6. Dead Of Night - Walter Craig

Dead of Night 1945
Universal Pictures

It's now time to talk about another unforgettable British horror anthology, one which also leaves its protagonist in a terrible way by the end. In this particular anthology, Dead of Night, the framing device is Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) going to a social gathering at a cottage in Kent, where the various guests each tell a different supernatural story. 

At the film's conclusion, just after the final story is told - the movie's most famous segment, featuring a malevolent ventriloquist dummy - Craig strangles one of the other guests and then has a terrifying hallucination combining events from the various different stories... before waking up in bed earlier that day and being invited to the same social gathering he was just at. 

Intelligently, the movie leaves the exact nature of Craig's predicament ambiguous. Is he trapped in a time loop? Or is he actually in an asylum and hallucinating? Well, whatever exactly was going on here, it's one hell of a frightening conclusion. Ironically, Dead of Night is actually made by comedy superstars Ealing Studios - who'd have known they'd ever do something this bleak, eh? 

 
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Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.