The Problem with Ending Horror Movies...

Horror movies have a tedious habit of ruining everything in the last half hour. Over the last 12 months alone, Insidious succeeded in setting itself up as one of the scary movie greats, only to descend into madness for the final chapter and ruined everything! Similarly, Sinister did an amazing job and, despite the ending, still deserves to be cemented in the horror hall of fame. But still, it wasn't even a half an hour chunk that dragged Sinister down, but rather the final 10 seconds, in which they forced in one last cheap scare.



There seems to be an attitude amongst some in the horror community that a movie can be measured by the number of scares it produces. Many producers and directors would do better to embrace a philosophy of quality over quantity. A few have, and it's always refreshing to see the likes of The Woman in Black, Mama and Dark Skies holding back in the scares department.

Yet once again, the endings are an issue. The Woman in Black too the ending of the play and threw it out of the window. The ending wasn't bad, but once again, it was weird. And that seems to be the thing. Horror films seem to be afraid to leave it hanging, and feel then need for closure. That either involves killing the protagonist or confronting the threat, and that's what can ruin things. Mama fell down on this count. Seeing what was a terrifying movie monster in full basically distracted from the terror and became slightly silly. A similar issue to Insidious.

So has any horror movie done the right thing lately? Dark Skies comes the closest, with the scares few and far between, but effective when they do come. And the ending, well, there isn't one. They took the brave option, and left it just hanging there...