Tales for Halloween: 10 most disturbing movie endings

The most memorable part of the film, more often than not, is the ending. It is the last thing you see before the end credits roll and the last thing you are left with. Sometimes the ending you see is truly shocking - because of the twist, because of how horrifying the events are, because it leaves things open ended. There are several endings out there that are so disturbing they are enough to cause nightmares. And who doesn't love scary stories with macabre twist just in time for Halloween?

(note: I left out truly horrendous stuff - A Serbian Film - and stuff that is just way too much to put in your mind - Megan is Missing)

10. Sleepaway Camp
Plot: The film opens in summer, with John Baker and his two children, Angela and Peter, out on a lake. After their boat flips, the family swims and a motorboat accidentally runs them over, killing John and Peter. Eight years later, Angela is now living with her eccentric aunt Dr. Martha Thomas and cousin Ricky Thomas. Angela and Ricky are sent to Camp Arawak. Due to her introverted nature, Angela is bullied. Soon kids in the camp are turning up dead.
The Ending: In a twist ending it turns out that Angela is really Peter, her thought-to-be-dead brother. The real Angela died in the accident and Peter survived. After Martha gained custody of him, she decided to raise Peter as the girl" The film suddenly ends with the nude and blood-covered "Angela", male genitalia in full view letting out an animalistic hissing sound.

9. Spoorloos
Plot: Rex and Saskia are on holiday in France. The couple's car runs out of petrol and they stop at a station to refuel and rest. A man, later identified as Raymond Lemorne, covertly observes them. Saskia enters the petrol station to purchase drinks and does not return, causing Rex to frantically search for her. A series of flashbacks introduces Raymond. A respectable family man with a wife and two daughters, Raymond has secretly been plotting the abduction of a woman. He buys an isolated house, experimenting with the use of chloroform, and rehearsing scenarios in which he attempts to entice a woman into his car.
The Ending: Raymond, fascinated by Rex's fanatical compulsion to know what happened to Saskia, confronts Rex and admits to kidnapping her. He tells Rex that he will reveal what happened to her if Rex comes with him. Raymond pours Rex a cup of sedated coffee. Rex is told that the only way to learn the truth about what happened to Saskia is to experience it himself. He frantically drinks the coffee. When he awakens, he discovers that he has been buried alive. Above ground, Raymond relaxes at his country home while a newspaper headline displays the strange coincidence of Rex's disappearance.

8. The Mist
Plot: A sudden invasion of dangerous creatures begins in the small town. The survivors hide in the mall where they try to stay alive. The main protagonist is David who has a small son called Billy.
The Ending:  While Billy is sleeping, the four remaining adults, including David, hear a monstrous sound and decide that there is no point in going on. With four bullets left in Amanda's gun and five people in the car, David shoots the other four rather than have them suffer from the beast where the sound is coming from. Distraught and determined to die, David gets out of the car. Out of the mist comes a self-propelled artillery vehicle, followed by a squad of soldiers equipped with NBC suits and flamethrowers to kill the monsters. The mist recedes and several trucks of soldiers and survivors pass David. Realizing that the sound they heard was from the trucks, that they were only moments from being rescued and had been driving away from help the entire time, David falls to his knees screaming while soldiers look on in confusion.

7. Don't Look Now
Plot:  Some time after the drowning of their young daughter, Christine, John and his wife, Laura, take a trip to Venice. Laura encounters two sisters, Heather and Wendy; Heather claims to be psychic and informs Laura she is able to 'see' her deceased daughter. John is sceptical. They go out to dinner where they get lost and briefly become separated. John catches a glimpse of what looks like a small child wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died. Laura departs for England after getting the news her son was injured. Under the assumption that Laura is in England, John is shocked when later that day he spots her on a barge that is part of a funeral cortege, accompanied by the two sisters. Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, he reports Laura's disappearance to the police.
The Ending:  John catches another glimpse of the mysterious figure in red as he is leaving Heather's hotel, and this time pursues it.John follows the elusive figure to a deserted palazzo, and having cornered it, realizes too late that the strange sightings he has been experiencing were premonitions of his own death. The figure turns out to be a dwarf woman in red cloak, who kills him with a knife - she is the serial killer that was terrorizing Venice.

6. [REC]
Plot: Ángela Vidal and her cameraman, Pablo cover the night shift in one of Barcelona's local fire stations. The firehouse receives a call about a woman who is trapped in her apartment. The woman becomes extraordinarily aggressive and bites one of the policemen. More and more people in the building become infected, and Ángela and Pablo are forced to fight them off. Eventually they learn that there is a key to a door in the apartment building workshop, which leads to an exit via the sewer system.
The Ending: After finding the key, Ángela and Pablo appear to be the only human survivors, everyone else being dead or infected. They are forced upstairs to the penthouse by the remaining infected. They search the penthouse and discover that its owner was an agent of the Vatican who was charged with researching a virus believed to be the cause of demonic possession, which was later confirmed to exist in a girl named Tristana who was raped by a group of priests. The agent kidnapped the girl to conduct his research; during this time the possession managed to mutate and become contagious. He decided to seal her off, to let her die. A door to the attic opens and Pablo uses his camera to look inside. He turns on the night vision. Tristana, now a horribly emaciated figure, begins searching the penthouse, holding a hammer. Ángela and Pablo try to escape, but Pablo trips and is viciously attacked with the hammer by Tristana, causing him to drop the camera. Ángela picks it up and runs, only to fall and drop the camera as well. The camera continues to record as the cries and screams of the possessed Tristana are heard on the tape recorder, and Ángela is dragged into the darkness, screaming.

5. Psycho
Plot: Marion Crane and her boyfriend Sam talk about how they can barely afford to get married. Upon Marion's return to work at a realtor's office, a client comes in with $40,000 in cash. The money is entrusted to Marion, who decides to steal it and skip town. Driving during a rainy night, Marion pulls up to the Bates Motel. The proprietor Norman Bates invites her to a dinner. Norman discloses that his mother is mentally ill. Marion later takes a shower in her room, during which a shadowy figure comes and stabs her to death. Norman bursts into the bathroom and discovers Marion's dead body. Marion's sister Lila and Sam are concerned about her disappearance and begin to look for her.
The Ending:  Sam and Lila rent a room at the Bates Motel and discover the cabin Marion stayed in. Sam distracts Norman while Lila sneaks into the house, looking for Mrs. Bates. Norman subdues Sam and chases Lila. Seeing Norman approaching, Lila hides in the cellar and discovers Mrs. Bates sitting in a chair. The chair rotates to reveal a corpse, the preserved body of Mrs. Bates. Norman enters the basement, wearing a dress and wig while wielding a knife, revealing Norman to be the murderer all along. Sam enters and saves Lila. After Norman's arrest, a psychiatrist reveals that Norman had murdered his mother and her lover years ago, and later developed a split personality to erase the crime from his memory. Norman is now locked into his mother's identity permanently. Mrs. Bates, in a voice-over, talks about how harmless she is and how it was really Norman, not she, who committed the murders. Right before the shot of Marion's car being retrieved from the lake, camera zooms in on Norman's face that for a second blends in with the skeleton's head of his mother.

4. Blair Witch Project

Plot: In October 1994 film students Heather, Michael and Joshua set out to produce a documentary about the Blair Witch. They travel to Burkittsville, formerly Blair, and interview locals about the legend of the Blair Witch. The locals tell them of Rustin Parr, a hermit who kidnapped seven children in the 1940s and brought them to his house in the woods where he tortured and murdered them. Parr brought the children into his house's basement in pairs, forcing the first child to face the corner and listen to their companion's screams as he murdered the second child. Parr would then murder the first child. Eventually turning himself in to the police, Parr later pleaded insanity, saying that the spirit of Elly Kedward, a witch hanged in the 18th century, had been terrorizing him and promised to leave him alone if he murdered the children. The second day, the students begin to explore the woods in north Burkittsville to look for evidence to prove that the Blair Witch exists. Soon they become lost. Then Josh disappears. The next morning Heather finds a bundle of sticks and fabric outside their tent. Later inspection reveals it contains blood-soaked scraps of Josh's shirt, as well as teeth and hair.
The Ending: During the night Heather and Mike hear Josh's agonized cries for help. They follow them and discover an abandoned house in the woods. Mike races upstairs, following what sounds like Josh's voice, while Heather tries to follow. Mike then claims he hears Josh in the basement. He runs downstairs and after what seems to be a quick struggle goes silent and drops the camera. Heather shouts for Mike but gets no answer. She enters the basement screaming in fear while her camera catches a glimpse of Mike facing the corner, just as Parr's victims had been made to do. Heather then utters a final scream as she and her camera violently drop to the floor.

3. Eden Lake
Plot: Jenny and her boyfriend, Steve, escape their everyday life to an idyllic remote lake in English countryside. Along the way, they meet Adam, a boy who is reluctant to talk with them. Attempting to relax near a beach, their trip is disrupted by the presence of delinquent teenagers and their dog. Soon Steve realizes their beach bag containing his car keys, phone and wallet have gone missing. The car is gone too. Returning to town on foot, they avoid collision with the car that is being driven by the gang, only stopping for gang leader, Brett, to smirk at them. During a confrontation with the gang, scuffle ensues leading to Steve mortally wounding Brett's dog in the heated situation. Brett and his gang proceed to go after the couple, smashing their car windshield and headlights with rocks. The car crashes into a tree branch. Steve, stuck in the branch that came through the windscreen, urges Jenny to run for help. The next morning, a horrified Jenny finds Steve tied up in barbed wire. The gang is torturing Steve with their knives. To save Steve from his demise, Jenny uses her GPS to connect with Steve's phone. Brett orders the gang after her. Jenny finds Steve and takes him away. She goes off on her own, leaving Steve concealed under leaves. Coming across Adam, she pleads to him for help, but he leads her to the gang who knock her out. Jenny awakens to find herself and Steve, who has died, restrained and about to be set on fire by the gang. While Brett forces Adam to set the fire, Jenny is able to escape. She watches terrified as Adam is left to burn alive for his disobedience. Jenny continues to evade the gang, killing Cooper, another one of them who appeared helpful, in the process. Reaching a road, Jenny manages to hitchhike. She tells the driver she had been attacked. The driver explains he is looking for his brother, Ricky, another gang member who is also in the woods. The driver stops the van and exits, leaving the keys in. Jenny steals the van, speeding off towards town and running over Paige, Brett's girlfriend, in the process.
The Ending: She makes it to town. Jenny sees a party in progress in the backyard where she pleads for help and collapses. Awaking, she finds herself inside the house. After observing, she discovers she is in Brett's house and heads to the washroom. At this point, Brett's father notices the van on his lawn. Finding no escape, Jenny arms herself with a razor. Commotion begins to build in the house and the washroom door in kicked open, as Jenny is confronted by Brett, his father, and party guests (some of who are seemingly parents of other gang members) Jenny realizes that the gang's parents are just as murderous as their kids and they hide and protect them from prosecution. Brett's father orders Brett to his room violently, as he and another parent subdue Jenny and push her back into the bathroom. Upstairs, Brett shuts the door of his room and the sounds of Jenny's screams are blocked. He slips on Steve's sunglasses to look into his mirror with a tough guy impersonation before he removes the shades, looks into the mirror, then looks directly at the camera.

2. Triangle
Plot: The film opens with Jess comforting her autistic son, Tommy, after a bad dream. As she goes through her morning routine, the doorbell rings, though no one is there when she answers. She then packs up for a boat trip with with a group of friends. Soon the boat approaches large cruise ship. Jess and the group get aboard, as the wind died and the ship is their only way to get home. Soon a mysterious hooded figure starts killing people in the group. Jess flees and finds a room filled with clothing and shotguns the killer used earlier, as well as notes covering the floor that say to kill everyone who boards, which she realizes were written by other versions of herself. Realizing that the time loop repeats itself after everyone is killed, and desperate to prevent them from boarding the ship, she directs Sally and Downey to the theater before she dons the killer's clothing and kills Greg and them. Jess chases after and confronts her past self until she is disarmed and falls over the side of the ship. She awakens washed onto a beach and hitchhikes home, only to find herself returned to the morning of the boat trip. She watches her other self, only this time it is revealed that she abuses Tommy. She rings the doorbell and goes around the house to grab a hammer, and then beats her other self to death with it. This is seen by Tommy, and Jess assures her son that he just had a bad dream, echoing the first scene of the film. She puts the body into a black bag, loads the bag and Tommy into the car, and starts driving toward the harbor. As she promises Tommy that she won't be abusive anymore, a seagull slams into the windshield. She pulls over and retrieves the dead bird, intent on throwing it over the edge of the embankment, and finds multiple dead seagulls in the exact spot she planned on tossing it.
The Ending: Realizing she's still trapped in the time loop, Jess drives away, but Tommy panics over the blood on the windshield; as she tries to calm him down, she drives into the traffic and is hit by a truck. In the aftermath, as Jess watches several people gather around her body and Tommy's, a taxi driver approaches her and says that nothing can be done for either of them. Jess asks for a ride to the harbor.  She then joins the others as they prepare to set sail, intent on preventing her son's death.

1. Perfect Sense
Plot: An odd epidemic appears across the globe: people suddenly lose one of their senses. At first, it's an outbreak of loss of smell. It's often presaged by a destructive temper tantrum. In this mix are a scientist and a chef - she's Susan, one of a team trying to understand the epidemic; he's Michael, charming and engaging. Susan and Michael begin a relationship in the middle of increasing chaos, as the loss of other senses plagues more people and as civil authorities try to maintain order. After the loss of smell, the loss of taste follows. Then people lose their hearing. Michael and Susan drift apart, unwilling to cope both with their relationship and the fear of impending doom.
The Ending: After a while of separation, Michael and Susan finally decide to be together. As they walk towards each other, they begin to lose they sight. Just as they reach their arms to touch each other, the screen goes black. They are together now - but they are blind, deaf and soon they will lose the ability to touch too. They are left in darkness and cold to wait for death.

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