Inside
Praised by many to be the best slasher and/or home invasion thriller of the new millennium, Inside is a rollicking roller coaster ride of depravity. It’s a total sucker punch when Sarah (Alysson Paradis) goes into labor after having had her pregnant belly mistakenly beaten by a police officer (it makes sense if you watch it). After seeing Sarah in labor, La Femme (Béatrice Dalle) sees that the baby is also stuck, so she uses her scissors to perform an impromptu C-section on Sarah, killing her in the process. The film ends with La Femme cradling the baby in her arms next to Sarah’s lifeless body. It’s just such a bummer after everything that Sarah went through. Seriously, that woman went through some shit.
The Host
A common thread in most of the endings mentioned on this list is that the characters who suffer such horrible fates have all been through so much throughout the course of their respective films. This aspect is the most prevalent in Bong Joon-ho’s monster movie The Host, in which Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung) is taken captive by the amphibious creature. She spends the majority of the film trying to escape the creature’s lair while her family continuously tries to rescue her while dealing with a government quarantine of the city. Hyun-seo eventually escapes the creature’s lair, only to be captured and swallowed by it again as it goes on another rampage through the city. By the time her father Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is finally able to subdue the creature, he pulls her out of the creature’s mouth only to realize that she is already dead. The film goes on to see the rest of the family kill the creature and Gang-du adopt the boy that was inside the creature with Hyun-seo, so it has a sort of happy ending. While the family’s entire mission to rescue Hyun-seo ended in failure, at least they get to kick the crap out of the creature.
What are some other really bleak endings to horror movies that you love? Let us know in the comments below!
