The 5 Bleakest Horror Movie Endings From The Past 5 Years (& 5 That Give Us Hope) – Screen Rant

Horror in the last 5 years has ended either bleakly or hopefully. These picks fit the bill, for sure.

The 2010s gave rise to a modern horror movie renaissance, wherein a sea of new directors were able to get their unconventional and macabre features distributed to wide audiences. Names like Jordan Peele, Ari Asher, and Robert Eggers have become synonymous with this movement but these three men represent just a few of the people making grittier, weirder horror movies.

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Many of thesenew horror films play on audience expectations for a happy ending. Sometimes, the resolution is drawn out to the last jittery second. Other times, viewers are left with hopelessness and despair. While some of these featureshave followedthe more optimistic path with their climaxes, others have takenviewers on a grim, shocking journey that concludes on an utterly bleak note.

There's no denying that while Ari Asher'sHereditary managed to take the mainstream by storm thanks in large part to stellar marketing, the chilling film's narrative plunges headfirst into total misery. Toni Collette received infinite praise for her portrayal of Annie Graham, a woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her estranged, secretive mother.

As one tragedy after another unfolds around Annie, the woman concludes her mother, Ellen, may be to blame. Ellen's involvement in a Pagan cult comes to light, a cult Annie believeswants to destroy her family.

Andy Muschietti's two-part re-imagining of Stephen King's classic novelIt is a tale of intergenerational trauma, heartwrenching loss, and survival. As a group of outcastswho call themselves the Losers Club band together to defeat the monster killing the kids in their town, they come to realize the value of sticking together no matter what.

Bill Skarsgard's portrayal of the creature Pennywise, a shapeshifter who appears every 27 years to feast on the weak and young, is spot on.It breams with terror, bothphysical and psychological, while giving its main characters a just finale.

Simply put, It Comes at Night is a 90-minute long emotional gut punch. Set in a dystopian future wherein a highly contagious disease is destroying the planet, the film stars Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo as a couple keeping themselves safe in a fortified, isolated home deep in the woods.

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When a young couple, played by Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough, seek refuge with the family, all hell breaks loose. What plays out is a raw, unrelenting examination of the ways human beings fail each other during hard times.

Leigh Whannell breathes new life into Universal's classicmonster the Invisible Man in his feature film starring Elisabeth Moss. Moss plays Cecilia, the emotionally abused girlfriend of optics engineer Adrian Griffin.

Cecilia hatches a plot to abscond from the controlling Adrian in the night, but her ex fakes his own death and relies on an invisibility suit to terrorize Cecilia. No one believes Cecilia's claims about Adrian's attacks, leaving herto fight alone andboy does she fight.

Brutal and grisly,The Blackcoat's Daughter is a unique tale of Satanic possession set at a private Catholic school for teenage girls. Kiernan Shipka and Emma Roberts co-star as two young women with dark, violent ties to the aforementioned school.

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The film moves between quiet, slow-burn sequences and insane bloodbaths. Set against a wintry backdrop,The Blackcoat's Daughter'sarrives at a shocking, shivery conclusion.

John Krasinski earned some serious genre cred directing, scripting, and starring inA Quiet Place, which tells the story of a family surviving in a nightmare alternate Earth occupied by alien creatures who hunt by sound. In order to live, the family must remain silent at all times.

Krasinki co-stars with his wife Emily Blunt inA Quiet Place, which isfull of calamitous, tearjerking scenes. Ultimately, though, the film is a testament to persevering no matter what and its forthcoming sequel A Quiet Place 2will explore this theme even more.

Yorgos Lanthimos's films exist outside genre classifications, butThe Killing of a Sacred Deer is rife with horror. Colin Farrell playsDr. Steven Murphy, a cardiovascular surgeon who lives a cush existence with his wife and two children. Barry Keoghan plays Martin, a fatherless teen who begins to implicate himself into Dr. Murphy's life in ominous ways.

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The film evolves into a bizarre family psychodrama that rips any notion of the ideal suburban life to shreds. The devastating climax pours even more salt into the wound.

A low-budget exercise in eliciting scares without relying on excess gore and jump scares,Hushis a home invasion film directed by Mike Flanagan. Kate Siegel stars as Maddie Young, a mute and deaf author who is stalked by a masked intruder.

The trespasser believes Maddie to be an easy target, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Maddie engages in an epic battle against the prowler, once that showcasesthe protagonist'sability to defend herself and endure.

Another horror film that taps into familial trauma,Relic isthefeature film debutfrom Australian directorNatalie Erika James. Emily Mortimer, Robin Nevin, and Bella Heathcote co-star as three generations of women who are connected by much more than DNA.

After Nevin's character Edna, who is the matriarch, goes missing, Mortimer's character Barry and her daughter, Heathcote's Sam, go searching for her. What they discover is a mysterious presence taking control of their legacy.

Jennifer Kent's follow-up toThe Babadook is a period drama marked by scenes of ghastly abuse, extreme racism, and violent retribution. Set in the 19th-century Tasmania, the film starsAisling Franciosi as an Irish convict named Claire who is brutalized by the British soldiersshe is forced to serve.

After her husband and daughter are killed, Claire hires anAboriginal tracker named Billy, played byBaykali Ganambarr, to help herfind the detachment responsible for the murders. Claire and Billy traverse a lawless wilderness inhabited by self-serving colonizers, and the pair forge a powerful, uplifting emotional bond that keeps them alive.

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Megan is a public librarian by trade obsessed with the intersections between art, culture, and society. She's a nerd for horror, obscure memes, weird history, graphic novels, and binge-worthy science fiction series.

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The 5 Bleakest Horror Movie Endings From The Past 5 Years (& 5 That Give Us Hope) - Screen Rant