Top 20 Greatest Modern Horror Movie Endings
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 20 Greatest Modern Horror Movie Endings. For this list, we’ll be looking at the most impactful and memorable endings in horror movies released in or after the year 2000. As we’ll be discussing endings in great detail, a major spoiler warning is in effect. Which of these endings scared you the most? Let us know in the comments below!
#20: “The Ring” (2002)
Top 10 Greatest Modern Horror Movie Endings
This classic horror film pulls a fast one on the audience. Rachel and Noah seemingly end the videotape curse by recovering Samara’s body and giving it a proper burial. But this story doesn’t play by the old “break the curse, get a happy ending” rules. Instead, Noah is killed by Samara and Rachel has her son Aidan make a copy of the tape to spare him from the vengeful ghost. So, not only did Samara not care about getting buried, but Rachel knowingly dooms more people and allows the curse to continue in order to save her son. It’s a wonderful ending that cleverly subverts expectations and introduces an exciting aspect of moral ambiguity to the story and its protagonist.
#19: “Ready or Not” (2019)
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Samara Weaving stars as Grace le Domas, a woman who becomes hunted by her husband’s extended family in a brutal game of hide and seek. The family has been cursed, and if they don’t find and kill Grace before sunrise, then they will all die. Sure enough, they do all die, and in the most ridiculous way possible. Grace escapes the ritual and wins the game, causing the entire le Domas family to explode. It’s an expertly directed sequence that effortlessly toes the line between horror and dark comedy, and it ends the movie with buckets upon buckets of blood. What more can you ask for in a horror flick?
#18: “Sinister” (2012)
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This movie has, suitably, a very sinister ending. Ellison’s daughter Ashley falls under the control of a demon named Bughuul, who makes children kill their own family. Well, the poor Oswalts are next on the list. Ashley slaughters her entire family with an ax and is subsequently taken away by Bughuul to live with the rest of the killer kids. The snuff film that Ashley shot then sits in the attic, waiting for the next hapless victim to watch it and become cursed. So, the Oswalts die, Ashley is taken by Bughuul, and the demon lives on to continue its killing spree. It’s a vicious ending without a semblance of happiness.
#17: “A Quiet Place” (2018)
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John Krasinski’s popular horror film has a great ending that deftly mixes tragedy with triumph. It’s a delicate balancing act that works flawlessly thanks to Krasinski’s confident direction. The family suffers a great loss, as Lee sacrifices himself to save his children. But this sacrifice helps save the world. Maybe. It allows Regan to survive, and she goes on to discover the creature’s weakness. Regan and Evelyn then use this knowledge to fight off the approaching monsters and hopefully give humanity a shot at survival. After 90 minutes of pure tension and submissive fear, it was nice to see the humans fighting back.
#16: “Final Destination” (2000)
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If we have to attribute a “deeper meaning” to “Final Destination,” we’d say that it’s an extended metaphor about the certainty of death. You can only avoid and delay it for so long before it eventually comes for you. This is proven in the film’s dour ending. It seems like Alex, Clear, and Carter have successfully escaped Death, but the omniscient force has other plans. Carter saves Alex from a falling sign, but the sign swings back around and kills Carter. This seems to imply that none of the three “survivors” will actually survive for long. If there was any doubt, this theory was clarified in the sequel, as Alex dies off-screen and Clear is killed in an explosion.
#15: “The Invisible Man” (2020)
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Screenwriter Leigh Whannell of “Saw” fame updated H. G. Wells’ iconic novel with many fun and creative revisions. Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays villain Adrian Griffin, a scientist who makes a bodysuit that allows him to become invisible. Adrian is the toxic ex of Cecilia Kass, who finally gets her revenge in the movie’s surprising climax. Cecilia uses Adrian’s bodysuit against him and violently takes his life. But because she was wearing the suit, she successfully frames Adrian’s death as an act of self-harm and is allowed to walk free. It’s a triumphant ending that intelligently incorporates the story’s technology and provides some much-needed closure for its protagonist.
#14: “Orphan” (2009)
Isabelle Fuhrman gives a commanding performance as young Esther, a little girl who may not be such a little girl after all. Nine-year-old Esther is adopted by Kate and John Coleman, but she begins displaying some troubling behavior and comes equipped with a disturbing past filled with violence and death. Kate eventually learns that her adoptive daughter is actually a fully-grown Estonian serial killer suffering from a hormonal disorder that gives her a youthful appearance. The twist is mindblowing and encourages viewers to watch the entire film again to catch the clues that they missed. It proceeds to end on a bittersweet note, with Kate killing Esther but losing her husband in the process.
#13: “Drag Me to Hell” (2009)
If you’ve seen any of his “Evil Dead” series, you know Sam Raimi likes his horror with a generous helping of tongue-in-cheek humor. “Drag Me to Hell” is no exception, delivering the absurd horror you’d expect from Raimi. The film culminates with Alison Lohman’s Christine realizing she failed to break the curse placed on her before falling onto a set of train tracks. A portal to hell opens beneath her, with spectral arms dragging her in and fulfilling the film’s title. Her boyfriend, played by Justin Long, can only watch in horror as Christine cries for help.
#12: “The Others” (2001)
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Alejandro Amenábar’s 2001 ghost story stars Nicole Kidman as Grace, the mother of two children, living on an island off the coast of Normandy following World War II. Grace and her children begin to believe their house is haunted as the film goes on, but the real shocker comes near the film’s end. It’s revealed that Grace murdered her children before killing herself, and they’ve been the ghosts in the house ever since. Crazy, right? Eventually, Grace and her kids come to terms with their status as ghosts, and decide to happily and peacefully inhabit, or haunt, the house together.
#11: “The Babadook” (2014)
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Like many of the best horror films, “The Babadook” works both as a straightforward monster movie and as a prolonged metaphor. In this case, the Babadook itself represents Amelia Vanek’s grief, depression, and anxiety following the death of her husband, Oskar. In a richly thematic climax, Amelia regains her confidence and banishes the creature to the basement of the house. While she continues to acknowledge the monster, she finally seems content with her life and shows both love and attention to her son, Sam. It’s an optimistic ending that provides encouragement and reinforces the idea that personal demons can be banished and imprisoned.
#10: “It Follows” (2015)
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Director David Robert Mitchell’s low-budget horror flick came out of seemingly nowhere when it shocked audiences back in 2015. The film deals with a sexually transmitted supernatural force that follows and kills its victims along a chain of sexual partners. The only way to avoid death? You guessed it. Pass “It” along via sex. At the film’s conclusion, when Jay and Paul believe they’ve gotten rid of the force during the bloody pool showdown, the film hints that they may not be so safe after all. While walking peacefully down their suburban block, we see a figure slowly walking behind them in the distance. It’s a perfectly ambiguous horror ending that left audiences terrified.
#9: “Paranormal Activity” (2007)
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There are about twelve endings to “Paranormal Activity” (ok, three, but whatever), and they picked the one that allowed the series to continue. It was probably the right call, financially speaking of course. In both alternate endings, Katie dies a violent death. But the theatrical version plays out a little differently. Katie kills her boyfriend Micah and then lunges at the camera before a text epilogue reveals that she is missing. This ending generates intense feelings of paranoia, indicating that a murderous woman possessed by a demonic presence is on the loose. It works great as a standalone conclusion, but it also perfectly sets up the many sequels to come.
#8: “The Descent” (2005)
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This movie also has an alternate ending, and in this case, the alternate version is way better. Or, at least much darker. In the original American release, Sarah escapes from the cave and its violent inhabitants. Her vision of the dead Juno indicates that she will be traumatized by the experience, but she survives. Turns out, this is only part of the original British ending. In it, the escape is revealed to be a hallucination, and Sarah is presumably killed by the creatures inhabiting the cave. It’s a fantastic reveal that skilfully gets one over on the audience, providing a false sense of hope and security before cruelly ripping it away. Now that’s how you do horror.
#7: “Rec” (2007)
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This Spanish found footage film details the plight of journalist Ángela Vidal and her cameraman Pablo as they find themselves trapped in an apartment building overrun with some sort of demonic possession virus. The film is scary throughout, but its ending is truly intense. Angela and Pablo in a darkened apartment, lit only with their night vision camera, when one of the possessed becomes aware of them. We see Pablo’s brutal death, as Ángela struggles to get ahold of the camera so she can see in the darkness. After finding but then dropping the camera, the audience sees Angela crawl towards it before she’s abruptly pulled into the darkness.
#6: “The Mist” (2007)
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This Stephen King adaptation is notorious for its downer ending. After being trapped in a supermarket for the entire film, David Drayton and his group of survivors make their escape into the monster-ridden mist in an attempt to find rescue. After hours of driving, finding no survivors, the group’s car runs out of gas, with David using the last of his ammunition to put all the other survivors out of their misery, including his very young son, before they can be consumed by monsters. With nothing left to kill himself with, David prepares to be killed, only to be rescued by the military just moments after mercy killing 4 people.
#5: “The Witch” (2015)
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This slow burn supernatural tale may not have been the type of horror movie many were expecting, but by the film’s end, all hell breaks loose and we’re paid a visit by the devil himself. After the family is plagued by strange goings-on and disappearances, things finally come to a head when the witch finally makes her move, creating chaos on the farm that ends with only young Thomasin left alive. Thomasin makes a pact with the devil in the form of the family’s goat before she joins a coven of witches in the midst of some sort of ceremony. It’s a creepy ending that serves as a perfect payoff to the film’s churning pace.
#4: “The Cabin in the Woods” (2012)
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This clever twist on a classic horror motif is a sharp and scary thrill ride that ends in a way that manages to be hilarious, frightening, and entertaining all at the same time. With Dana and Marty being the only survivors after uncovering the underground facility that caused the night’s chaos, the pair release the rest of the monsters, deciding to bring the facility down. They soon discover that they are part of a sacrificial ritual meant to stop the end of the world. Dana must kill Marty in order to prevent Armageddon, but decides that it isn’t worth it, leaving the pair to sit and watch the world come to an end.
#3: “Hereditary” (2018)
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Most people weren’t too sure what to expect heading into “Hereditary.” It’s safe to say we got more than we bargained for. After a tangled plot involving a coven, a demon, and a tragic accident, 16-year-old Peter was penciled in as the new host for the demon Paimon. After a terrifying scene depicting an attack by his possessed mother, Peter is drawn into the backyard treehouse that belonged to his deceased sister Charlie. Charlie’s soul is transferred into Peter, fulfilling a prophecy that we can imagine is going to have some pretty dire consequences for the rest of the world. Ari Aster would continue his trend for violent endings in “Midsommar,” which sees a paralyzed Christian being burned alive.
#2: “Saw” (2004)
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The year 2004 saw director James Wan break onto the scene with his horror hit “Saw.” The film shows the struggle of several victims of the serial killer known as Jigsaw as they attempt to solve his puzzle and escape with their lives. The film’s twisting and turning plot comes to a head when it’s revealed that the seemingly dead body lying in the room through the whole film was actually the Jigsaw killer himself. Every other character in the film was essentially a pawn for his game, and there are no winners in this one.
#1: “Get Out” (2017)
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2017’s massive horror hit “Get Out” drew both popular and critical acclaim for its frank analysis of race in America today. After Chris uncovers the full conspiracy at play and has nearly escaped from Rose’s family farm, she confronts him one last time in the driveway. As Chris tries to stop the bleeding, half-dead Rose from killing him, a police car approaches. With the added cultural context of police violence against black men, the scene immediately takes on a new feeling of dread before it is revealed that the driver of the car is Chris’ TSA agent friend Rod. Talk about the biggest sigh of relief. Peele would go in a far more pessimistic direction with his follow-up “Us,” which sees the Tethered killing their surface counterparts and taking over the world.
