Good bad endings

[Turbo Kid]

Not every story gets a happy ending. Sometimes though, it feels like the only right way to end a story. Sometimes a bad ending is a good ending. What are some bad endings that you really like? There's probably going to be a lot of horror movies in this thread I would imagine, but there are some movies and shows from other genres with not so happy endings too.

This thread by its very nature will have spoilers. I'll try to use some spoiler text though, but you're still entering the thread at your own risk. It's a thread about endings after all. If you see the name of a show or movie you haven't seen, don't keep reading. One last thing, I like happy endings too. It's typically what I prefer actually, but it really depends on the story.

Cabin in the Woods - I can't imagine a more memorable way to end the movie

Spoiler: ending spoiler

Army of Darkness - Original ending

The alternate, theatrical ending is a lot of fun and seems to be the canon ending, but the movie's original ending is also great and feels more in line with Evil Dead 2's ending.

Spoiler: ending spoiler

Angel - a.k.a. the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff

Angel's ending is technically more of a cliffhanger than a bad ending (although someone does die in the episode), but it leaves things looking grim for the cast so I think it fits here. This ending pissed off some viewers at the time. For hardcore fans, the "After the Fall" comic books revealed what actually did happen after the cliffhanger.

Anyway, the show's ending felt like a statement on multiple levels (considering it had gotten canceled) and truly sums up the nature of any battle between good and evil. It never ends, and sometimes the evil side seems to be holding all the cards...but the good guys still keep fighting anyway because that's what good guys do. They don't give up as long as they are still breathing.

All of season 5 seemed to focus thematically on just how all encompassing and thoroughly woven into the fabric of everything evil is. Throughout the season it seemed like our heroes themselves were in danger of being corrupted by it. It kind of fits well thematically with Buffy's final season, where she was fighting the very source of evil, an ancient and primordial thing that should theoretically be unstoppable. Both show's final seasons were pretty dark, but as was usually the case Angel's show went darker and its ending reflects that.

Spoiler: ending spoiler

SPL : Sha Po Lang a.k.a. Kill Zone - Didn't see this one coming

Spoiler: ending spoiler

Righting Wrongs/Above the Law - This one is fascinating as it has multiple endings, one is definitely the darkest one. Couldn't find any good youtube video clips and the ones I did find had the shitty English dub

The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

This is me cheating a bit as this movie technically has a happy ending, but by the time they reached the end credits kids had watched multiple favorite characters brutally murdered (including some off screen) along with the death of the face of the franchise Optimus Prime. It's one of the things that makes the movie so epic and memorable, but there were a lot of upset kids and parents at the time. Even though the movie ends on a happy scene, many kids just felt empty inside LOL. Almost everything they knew and loved got wiped out in this movie. I was one of the weird kids who fucking loved it. The movie was so damn bold for its time.

 

[Stare best girl]

Devilman comes in mind although...

Spoiler

Devilman's story actually ends with a happy ending in Violence Jack

 

[Frickinfrik]

Wario World - seeing Wario really pissed off after getting a shitty fort is hilarious.

Persona 5 - seeing the outcome is just crazy.

Final Destination movies - Let’s you know that death is always lurking nearby.

Scarface (1983) - Amazingly tells the story of the rise and fall of a drug kingpin.

Better Call Saul - that ending was depressing.

 

[Pinballbuzzbro]

Jaleco's Chimera Beast is interesting in the sense it actually has a literal good bad ending. The entire game you play as a parasitic entity ripping through the ecosystem and slowly growing in size, starting off as a microscopic bacteria before ripping through an entire city in the last stage. Because of all this, beating the game nets you an ending in which your species drains the entire universe of it's thriving planets, ending all life as we know it.

BUT, if you get a game over, you get an alternative ending, in which your species fails in it's invasion, goes extinct, and the earth is saved!

It's such a bizarre way of going about an ending system and I honestly wish more games got experimental with it like that.



Game itself sucks tho lmfao

 

[bjork]

It's not the ending of the arc, but in Kraven's Last Hunt when Kraven is finally at peace. For lack of a better term, it blew me away. Ten might've been too young to be reading that kind of stuff, but it has really stayed with me over the years.

This is me cheating a bit as this movie technically has a happy ending, but by the time they reached the end credits kids had watched multiple favorite characters brutally murdered (including some off screen) along with the death of the face of the franchise Optimus Prime. It's one of the things that makes the movie so epic and memorable, but there were a lot of upset kids and parents at the time. Even though the movie ends on a happy scene, many kids just felt empty inside LOL. Almost everything they knew and loved got wiped out in this movie. I was one of the weird kids who fucking loved it. The movie was so damn bold for its time.

I'll count it as a bad ending because Rodimus is a weenie and this is fully on display in season 3

 

[Pinballbuzzbro]

It's not the ending of the arc, but in Kraven's Last Hunt when Kraven is finally at peace. For lack of a better term, it blew me away. Ten might've been too young to be reading that kind of stuff, but it has really stayed with me over the years.


I'll count it as a bad ending because Rodimus is a weenie and this is fully on display in season 3

Spider-Man villains piss me off sm cause in the comics they're always these super fascinating characters who grow and change with Peter himself and even star in their own solo stories, and then you look at their on-screen adaptations and they're *almost* always just mindless dumb jobbers that exist purely to inconvenience him and get beaten up

Rhino is one of the most nuanced interesting rogues in his entire gallery and the only time we've ever seen him in movie form is showing up in a Battlefield mech for 2 seconds in TASM2 and being a glorified Green Goblin ripoff in that awful Kraven film

Speaking of Kraven, gotta love how Insomniac just casually have him kill off 70% of Peter's rogue lineup in the second game:D! really makin good use of his iconic characters yup mhm totally

 

[bjork]

Spider-Man villains piss me off sm cause in the comics they're always these super fascinating characters who grow and change with Peter himself and even star in their own solo stories, and then you look at their on-screen adaptations and they're *almost* always just mindless dumb jobbers that exist purely to inconvenience him and get beaten up

Rhino is one of the most nuanced interesting rogues in his entire gallery and the only time we've ever seen him in movie form is showing up in a Battlefield mech for 2 seconds in TASM2 and being a glorified Green Goblin ripoff in that awful Kraven film

Speaking of Kraven, gotta love how Insomniac just casually have him kill off 70% of Peter's rogue lineup in the second game:D! really makin good use of his iconic characters yup mhm totally

I'm not familiar with any of this, the last new Spider-Man comic I read was literally like 1994. But it sure sounds like these things could've all been done better.

 

[Adrastia]

The Mist is a classic. While the novella ends on a hopeful note the movie isn't quite so optimistic. If you have seen the movie then I encourage you to read the novella. It's in Skeleton Crew along with three of my favorite Stephen King stories, Nona, The Raft and Survivor Type.

The ending for The Mist movie is one of the many scenarios that the main character plays out in his head when he's trying to figure out what they should do.

Spoiler

David decides that since there is no escape that murder/suicide is better than being eaten by the monsters from the mist. And then seconds later as he decides to let the monsters kill him, the military arrives to rescue everyone.
In the novella David finds a hotel with a working radio and they get a transmission from other survivors. It took balls to go with the movie ending they did.

Nona is a real trip. A college dropout meets a girl named Nona at a truck stop. They go on a murder spree together.

Spoiler: And at the end....

It's revealed that Nona does not exist and the main character was alone on the entire spree. There's some weird supernatural stuff with a rat lady. But it might just be in MC's head. The line "Do you love?" comes up in a few other King stories.

The Raft is like The Color Out of Space but it's a lake. The short story does a better job of this than the Creepshow 2 segment. I could have sworn there was a second film adaption. But I think I Mandela'd myself. Anyway, it ends much the way you imagine. Next time check for "No swimming" signs.

Survivor type has an animated adaption on Shudder. A man gets shipwrecked on a rocky island with no food. You can imagine what he resorts to eating...