10 Horror Movie Endings That Will Leave You Needing Therapy

1. The Wicker Man (1973)

• Director: Robin Hardy
• Writer: Anthony Shaffer (based on the novel Ritual by David Pinner)
• Cast: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento
• Logline: A devout Christian police sergeant travels to a remote pagan island to investigate a missing girl, only to discover he's the key to a horrifying ritual.

The first time I saw this movie, I had to rewind and just start it again because I was in such disbelief. It has the best plant and payoffs in character, and it takes you all the way to the end, thinking something good might happen.

And then we see a human sacrifice and know it won't.

The reveal that our protagonist was brought there specifically for this purpose—a devout Christian virgin to be sacrificed for a good harvest—is a truly bleak moment. Couple that with the unwavering conviction of the islanders, and Sergeant Howie's horrifying realization of his fate, makes this ending unforgettable. His cries and the chilling folk song ("Sumer Is Icumen In") are seared into your memory as they burn him alive.

2. Se7en (1995)

• Director: David Fincher
• Writer: Andrew Kevin Walker
• Cast: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
• Logline: Two detectives, a jaded veteran and an idealistic rookie, hunt a meticulous serial killer using the seven deadly sins as his gruesome inspiration.

To this day, I am proud of the studio that let the movie end like this. It's such a bleak and angry ending, where we see evil win.

You'll hear "What's in the box?!" for the rest of your life.

Brad Pitt's raw, animalistic scream as Detective Mills discovers his wife's head, all while John Doe calmly explains his grand, horrifying design, psychologically torments the audience.

Doe forces Mills to become the sin of "Wrath," thus completing his grotesque masterpiece and leaving Somerset to conclude, "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."

3. The Mist (2007)

• Director: Frank Darabont
• Writer: Frank Darabont (based on the novella by Stephen King)
• Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones
• Logline: After a strange storm, a group of townspeople are trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious mist hiding bloodthirsty creatures, forcing them to battle both the monsters outside and the fanaticism within.

This ending is a brutal punch to the gut and is famously more hopeless than Stephen King's original story, which was already pretty sad!

The movie has us stuck in a hopeless place as monsters attack and close in on a claustrophobic grocery store. We see the pain that people who get eaten endure, and Thomas Jane's character decides he cannot let his family endure that.

After making an impossible decision to spare his son and three others from a monstrous death, David (Thomas Jane) uses his last four bullets on them. As he steps out to be killed, the mist recedes, revealing the U.S. Army and a line of rescue vehicles there to rescue him. Not sure how a guy moves on from that.

4. Hereditary (2018)

• Director: Ari Aster
• Writer: Ari Aster
• Cast: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne
• Logline: After their secretive grandmother passes away, a grieving family is haunted by a series of tragic and increasingly sinister events as they unravel a terrifying ancestral secret.

I mean, I can't look at a telephone pole the same way after seeing this movie, so I am not surprised this is on the list. It rocked me.

But the ending of Hereditary is a relentless assault on the senses and the soul. We get this lingering, dreadful shot of Peter, now fully possessed, kneeling before the coven's horrifying tableau as they chant "Hail, Paimon!" In that moment, we know his family was destined to die and that all this had to happen, no matter what.

5. Martyrs (2008)

• Director: Pascal Laugier
• Writer: Pascal Laugier
• Cast: Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï
• Logline: A young woman and her childhood friend seek revenge on the people who tortured her as a child, only to be drawn into a depraved cult obsessed with discovering the secrets of the afterlife through systematic torment.

I came to this movie later in life, and at times, I wish I never had. It's a film that pushes boundaries and its audience to the brink.

After Anna endures unimaginable torture and is flayed alive, she allegedly reaches a state of "transcendence" and sees the afterlife. She whispers what she saw to the cult's leader, who, upon hearing it, calmly walks into a bathroom and takes her own life.

So, what did Anna see? And how insane was it that it led someone to kill themselves? We are left only with the horror of the unknown and the idea that whatever it is, maybe it's better or far worse than here?

6. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

• Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
• Writers: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
• Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard
• Logline: Three student filmmakers hike into a remote Maryland forest to investigate a local legend and disappear, leaving behind only their terrifying found footage.

People think this movie really happened. It was like a prevailing myth this was a documentary, and that realism drove audiences nuts when the movie finally ended.

By the end of this movie, we never see the Blair Witch. But we've seen what she can supposedly do to people. Her terror is purely psychological, and it culminates in Heather's frantic camera work as she runs through a derelict house, only to find Mike standing in the corner, facing the wall (just as the local legend described).

Her scream and the camera dropping implies something truly ancient and terrifying has claimed them. And we are helpless to stop it.

7. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

• Director: Roman Polanski
• Writer: Roman Polanski (based on the novel by Ira Levin)
• Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer
• Logline: A young, isolated New York wife becomes increasingly paranoid that her eccentric neighbors are part of a satanic cult with sinister plans for her unborn child.

An all-time scary movie that I probably should not have watched while my wife is nine months pregnant.

At the end of the movie, Rosemary actually realizes that her son is the spawn of Satan. But instead of screaming or going nuts, it's way worse to see that she is resigned to it.

She has a maternal acceptance as she gazes into the black-draped crib—her initial horror melting away as she slowly rocks her demon baby—is a truly sinister and unforgettable final image in all of film history.

8. Cabin in the Woods (2012)

• Director: Drew Goddard
• Writers: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard
• Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford
• Logline: Five college friends arrive at a remote cabin for a weekend getaway, only to discover they are pawns in a terrifying game controlled by technicians in an underground facility.

This is one of the funniest movies on here, but that does not mean it can't have an ending that really messes with you.

The decision by the final two survivors (the "Virgin" and the "Fool") to let humanity be destroyed by ancient gods, rather than sacrificing one more for a futile and cruel system, is a surprisingly nihilistic conclusion. And as the giant, ancient hand crushes the cabin, we know humans may deserve it, even if they don't know what's coming for them.

9. The Descent (2005) - UK Ending

• Director: Neil Marshall
• Writer: Neil Marshall
• Cast: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, MyAnna Buring, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone
• Logline: Six women on a caving expedition become trapped in an uncharted cave system, where they are relentlessly hunted by a pack of vicious, subterranean predators.

I guess people think we in the United States can't handle some messed-up stuff, because the US cut offered a slightly more ambiguous, survival-oriented ending, the original UK ending is far more brutal.

In the UK end, Sarah thinks she escaped, and then imagines seeing her dead friend Juno in the car with her, only to wake up still trapped in the cave and surrounded by monsters. The sight of her dead daughter smiling at her, as the crawlers close in, is a truly crushing blow as we realize no one will make it out alive.

10. The Vanishing (Spoorloos) (1988)

• Director: George Sluizer
• Writers: George Sluizer, Tim Krabbé (based on his novel The Golden Egg)
• Cast: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege
• Logline: A man's obsessive three-year search for his girlfriend, who vanished at a gas station, leads him to the sociopathic abductor, who offers him the one thing he wants: to know what happened to her.

You have to travel the world and look at some bleak endings all over. And I feel like the Dutch as dark enough to disturb us in epic fashion. So, the heart of this movie is a guy who desperately wants answers, so why not give him the worst ones possible?

Rex's desperate, years-long search for his vanished girlfriend finally leads him to the very man who abducted her. The sociopath, Raymond, offers Rex a choice: walk away forever, or experience her fate himself. Driven by the need to know, Rex drinks the drugged coffee and wakes up in a coffin, buried alive. The methodical, almost banal nature of the evil is what makes it so terrifying. He has his answers, but he will now lose his life.

Summing It All Up 

These are the movies I chose to torture myself with, but I bet you know a bunch that are even worse and more disturbing.

What horror endings have kept you up at night?