9 Horror Movies That Were Ahead Of Their Time

It’s not too uncommon for a film to be dismissed upon release only to rise in status, though rarely to the extent of John Carpenter’s The Thing. The horror maestro’s reboot of the 1951 feature was positively reviled on release, with critics taking shots at every aspect.

They hated the plot, the characters, the structure. Even the special effects, which were impossible not to praise, took flak for being simply too horrible. Most detrimental to its success at the box office, though, was the boldly, brilliantly bleak ending.

Without spoiling, our protagonists find themselves picked off in an Antarctic base by a shapeshifting, assimilating monster. We’re left in the dark, with the survivors - and audience - completely unable to tell who’s human and who’s a Thing.

In the era of E.T., this was a level of intergalactic paranoia we couldn’t handle, a conclusion too bleak for mass consumption. Since then, the Utter Disaster ending has grown in popularity, with the likes of [REC] and The Mist two films with miserable - but totally appropriate - conclusions. If such bleakness rarely turns a big buck, it certainly makes for a memorable movie.