Editorials
8 of the Most Satisfying Horror Movie Endings!
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Both Versions)
While it may be a bit of a cheat to include both Tobe Hooper’s and Marcus Nispel’s versions here, it doesn’t mean that the ending of each film is unsatisfying. First, finally seeing Sally (Marilyn Burns) escape the clutches of Leatherface after what seems like hours running away from him (well, it was hours for her, but just about 45 minutes for the audience). After making it to the street she jumps in the back of a pickup truck, just barely escaping Leatherface.
The remake, on the other hand, sees Sally’s counterpart Erin (Jessica Biel), hiding from Leatherface in the locker of a slaughterhouse, chopping off his arm and then running over Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey), who emerged as the true villain of the film. It’s no secret that I adore this remake, as it was one of the first R-rated movies I was able to see in a theater with my father, so I’m a little biased, but this is still an incredibly satisfying ending to this film. At least they opted to delete the bookend scenes with an elderly Erin in a mental asylum.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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