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Daniel is a 27-year-old List Writer for Collider living in the south suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. As an avid film buff, he watches and analyzes many films and TV shows, especially in the horror genre, and regularly attends movie screenings.
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Endings are key to any story, but sometimes they can be so intense. Throughout its century of existence, cinema has blessed us with some of the most iconic and significant movie endings. Many are inspiring and hopeful, and there are also the bad ones that aren't satisfying or worth the wait. Then there's the devastating endings, the ones that shocked us, and stood out for how raw and brutal they were.
Cinema doesn't always have the most cheerful endings, as evidenced by the heart-pounding, violent, or bleak finales listed below. From emotionally devastating closers to bloody, horrific last hurrahs, these ten movie endings here are not for the faint of heart and are so incredibly dark. Some would say these cross the line; others call them necessary to the story, but one thing is for sure: no one is going to forget these.
10 'Day of the Dead' (1985)
Image via United Film Distribution CompanyOf course, the horror genre is teeming with brutal finales, as not all of these films end well for many of the characters. Least of all zombie movies, as evident by the spectacularly bloody finale to the late George Romero's splatter masterpiece, Day of the Dead. Though it technically does end well for the three last heroes of the story, it's a gory conclusion for the sinister Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) and his men as they're devoured by a horde of flesh-eaters in a bunker.
The way Rhodes and his unhinged soldiers cruelly mistreat the overworked civilian scientists and their inhuman taunting of the zombies almost makes their gory deaths at the end almost justified, but man, it is so intense. It is truly one of the best and spectacularly bloody conclusions to a zombie film, one that looks painful, dark, and certainly enough to satisfy any zombie lover out there.
9 'Drag Me to Hell' (2009)
Image via Universal PicturesWhen it comes to downer twist endings, Sam Raimi got others beat as he achieved this in the most horrifying way imaginable in his supernatural horror cult classic, Drag Me to Hell. It's an eerie film with some dark and intense scares, about a woman struggling to lift a curse of eternal damnation. But in the end, just when we think the main character, Christine (Alison Lohman), has finally lifted this curse and is about to have her happy ending, one last surprise scares her off onto a set of train tracks, where she's then violently pulled into hell.
The title literally tells the audience what's going to happen, and yet it still feels like a major punch to the gut. Christine's sudden demise is such a shocking and cynical way to end. It's incredibly bleak and tragic, not to mention bone-chillingly terrifying to watch as we, the audience, are left stunned and helpless to see her get pulled down through a fiery portal.
8 'Dead Alive' (1992)
Image via Trimark PicturesArguably the most gore-spectacular zombie movie in history, Sir Peter Jackson's Dead Alive is a zombie classic filled with brilliant dark humor and tons of blood. If its main premise about an elderly woman turning into a zombie and eating her entire neighborhood doesn't sound like it would be gory enough, its ending will surely drive home just how gruesome this film is, as the main character, Lionel (Timothy Balme), finishes his mother and her undead victims with a lawnmower weapon.
Talk about overkill. Lionel finishes this zombie horde and then his mother off in the most grisly way possible. Limbs are sliced off, heads roll, and there is just so much blood splattering all over the place. Dead Alive's ending is shocking and darkly funny at the same time, just like the rest of the story, and is truly the only way a wonderful splatter flick such as this can go out on.
7 'Scarface' (1983)
Image via Universal PicturesBrian De Palma's Scarface is one of the gangster genre's most celebrated classics today simply for how balls-to-the-wall and intense it is. From Al Pacino's highly quotable performance as Tony Montana, to the constant swearing and heavy drug use, to the bloody violence, Scarface is certainly one of the more hardcore crime flicks ever. No better does this intensity shine more than in the explosive finale, where Tony goes out in a blaze of glory against an armed hit squad at his mansion.
It's truly one of the most epic last stands in action movie history. Watching Tony blast through waves of assassins is incredibly intense and captivating to see, especially as this scene goes on for a considerable time before one last hitman gives him the killing blow. It's very bloody, very loud, and so chaotic that it can take anyone's breath away, but then again, that's exactly how Tony would like it.
6 'The Substance' (2024)
Image via MUBICoralie Fargeat's 2024 film The Substance is a fascinatingly creative body horror drama that grips us with its compelling acting and terrifies us with its gory premise. Starring Demi Moore as fading celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle, it follows her as she takes a mysterious new drug that creates a younger body for herself, but her new form, Sue (Margaret Qualley), fights for full control. This has disastrous results for both forms, as their abuse of the drug leads them to become an unstable mutant, which falls apart in a bloody mess on stage at a New Year's Eve show.
This ending is shocking, heartbreaking, and incredibly bloody, especially as ridiculous amounts of blood spray all over the crowd when the mutant's head is cut off. The Substance has established itself as one of the most powerfully unique horror movies in recent years, and this wild, grotesque conclusion helped push how fascinating and grossly creative it truly is.
5 'Night of the Living Dead' (1968)
Image via Continental DistributingZombie movies just continue to have the most brutal finales. Next is the granddaddy of modern zombie films, Night of the Living Dead, the 1968 groundbreaking classic by the late George A. Romero. With revolutionary ideas, a frightening tone, and mounting dread, this masterpiece is simply perfect from start to finish. Its ending, in particular, is a true standout in the most heartbreaking way possible as it finishes with the last survivor, Ben (Duane Jones), being mistaken for a zombie and shot just moments away from being rescued.
It subverts the audience's expectations by making them think that at least one survivor will make it out in the end, then smashes those hopes literally at the last minute, leaving you with a sense of emptiness and dread. Night of the Living Dead ends on a brutal heartbreaker that nobody expected, and as a result, it's one of the most legendary endings in horror history that has often been imitated but never quite matched.
4 'The Wild Bunch' (1969)
Image via Warner Bros.Sam Peckinpah's revisionist masterpiece The Wild Bunch truly marked the end of an era for traditional Westerns and ushered in a new breed of more violent, bloody classics. Packed with horrific shoot-outs, shocking deaths, raw performances, and no clear heroes, it follows a professional band of outlaws as their days become numbered after a robbery turns into a massacre. By its bloody conclusion, the survivors meet their grisly end at an abandoned Mexican winery after engaging in a gunfight with countless soldiers.
There's a brilliantly tense and slow build-up to this final fight as the gang approaches the soldiers. Once the first blood is drawn, when one of their own is killed right in front of them, all hell breaks loose as the outlaws and the Mexican soldiers battle to the last man. It's loud and incredibly chaotic, and most of the main characters are completely wiped out at that moment. It's a shocker and brutal finale that completely subverts those more traditional happy endings in other Westerns where the main characters make it out in the end.
3 'Oldboy' (2003)
Image via Show EastPark Chan-wook's Oldboy shows the brutal reality of seeking revenge. Throughout the story, we followed Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) on his bloody quest to find and kill Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), the man responsible for imprisoning him for fifteen years and then just letting him go. But, just when it seemed Dae-su was finally about to get his vengeance in the end, Lee Woo-jin gave one last shocking reveal to Dae-su that his new lover, Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), is actually his lost daughter.
This ending and its blindsiding twist are emotionally devastating, truly one of the most unexpected and harsh ways a film can ever go out on. It gets even more intense after the reveal, as Dae-su becomes distraught and cuts out his own tongue as penance, and Lee Woo-jin ends his life once his years-long revenge scheme has finally come to a close. It goes to show that Park had grit when creating this incredibly tense action thriller masterpiece.
2 'Se7en' (1995)
Image via New Line CinemaDavid Fincher's Se7en follows Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as detectives Somerset and Mills as they try to stop a mysterious killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), from murdering victims in ways that connect to the seven deadly sins. But, as John is finally captured and in their custody, the killer takes them out to the middle of a field where he completes his supposed divine plan by revealing to Mills that he killed his pregnant wife out of envy, leading Mills to kill John and become wrath.
Considered one of the most intense films of the 1990s, Se7en is a mind-blowing and eerie masterpiece, and it's still a shocking finale that further cements its place in movie history. It's truly an earth-shattering and bleak conclusion as John fulfilled his plan, and the detectives were powerless to stop it. It comes straight out of left field and has left audiences stunned ever since 1995.
1 'The Mist' (2007)
Image via Dimension FilmsFinally, there was truly no other movie ending more brutal than the one in Frank Darabont's 2008 horror masterpiece, The Mist. In a story of lovecraftian monsters, we'd hope for a triumphant ending for the characters who survive, but that's not the case here, as just after the last survivor, David (Thomas Jane), mercy kills his son and several others to escape gruesome fates in the mist, the fog mysteriously clears and David is left devastated as the military comes to his aid.
It's raw, bleak, and unforgiving, much like the rest of the story. Almost twenty years later, there's still nothing that can match the gut-punching, heart-wrenching feeling when watching this finale for the first time. It's this bold and shockingly harsh ending that's made The Mist a legendary heartbreaker, one that no viewer will ever forget.
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