15 Scary Movies Whose Twist Endings Left Viewers More Frustrated Than Thrilled

If the phrase “clothes maketh the man” was applied to movies, the ending would be the whole outfit, accessories, and all. Endings that fall flat can make a huge difference in the film and how we remember it. There have been a fair few movies that have been considered ruined by their ending, and it only gets worse with scary movies. All the tensions in a scary movie can be completely dissolved by a bad twist making everything before it null and void. Perhaps in a way to warn others of potential bad endings, users of a popular online forum shared 15 scary movies that were ruined by their twist endings.

Warning: There will be spoilers ahead!

1. High Tension (2003)

High Tension was a name that came up a lot in the forum from different frustrated movie lovers. The movie focuses on Marie, a young woman traveling with her friend Alex to visit her family. As they are there, a truck driver arrives and goes on a psychotic killing spree against Alex’s family and kidnaps the woman.

Marie tries to save her friend while avoiding the killer. Sounds pretty average for a horror movie, right? So what’s the twist? Well, it turns out that there never was a truck driver; it was all Marie. She killed her friend’s entire family and kidnapped her after having a psychotic break from her romantic feelings toward Alex. 

2. Spiral (2021)

If you know the Saw franchise, you know that there is always a twist. You will also know that the twists get more silly the later into the franchise we get. Spiral is no exception. Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks is the center of this “twisted” tale. He finds himself and his new partner Will Schenk, in the case of a Jigsaw Killer copycat. Will, and even Zeke’s father, eventually get ensnared in the killer’s game.

The twist? Well, not too long into the case, a body is found that resembles that of Zeke’s partner, but it has no head. Turns out that Will is alive and is the killer. 

3. 47 Meters Down (2017)

Lisa and Kate are two sisters on vacation in Mexico when they decide to go on a shark cage excursion. The cable holding the cage breaks, and they sink to the ocean floor. The rest of the film focuses on the sisters attempting to avoid hungry sharks and drowning. Eventually, the women can’t wait to be rescued anymore and try to swim to the surface, all while being chased and almost killed.

However, it turns out that the whole tense scene was nothing but a hallucination. Lisa’s still at the bottom of the ocean in the shark cage, and her sister Kate is actually dead. Lisa does get rescued by the coastguard, but it still has a feeling of it all being a dream which frustrates many moviegoers.

4. Barbarian (2022)

There are some instances where less is more, and it seems that many in the forum agree with that statement. Quite a few people shared the sentiment that the first half was far scarier than the second. It seems that the twist of the monster being a product of sexual assault was undoubtedly the wrong way to take the story, especially when they elaborated as much as they did. 

5. The Happening (2008)

Ah, M. Night Shyamalan, king of the plot twist. Many movie lovers know if it’s Shyamalan, it’s twisty, and The Happening is no different. In the movie, the apocalypse appears to have arrived when people suddenly begin to die in violent ways with no explanation. Well, it turns out that there is an explanation, it’s the plants.

Yep, plants have started to cause people to harm themselves as revenge for the harm caused by humans. While that alone is enough to be a pretty lousy twist, it’s not the twist at the end. Nope, the twist ending is that right when the main characters basically surrender to their fate and go outside, no longer caring what happens, and it just stops. The plants just stop their attack for no real reason.

6. Halloween Ends (2022)

A decent amount of discourse was in the online forum about whether or not it was just the ending of Halloween Ends that ruined the movie or the entire movie. Regardless, it is still here. Instead of Michael Myers, the majority of the film focuses on a new guy named Corey, who seems to be influenced by The Shape’s murderous nature.

The movie builds the idea that Corey will be taking the place of Michael as the monster of Haddonfield, Illinois. But in the last few minutes, Michael returns, and finishes Corey off, and the plot focuses back on the masked boogieman. Overall, it just feels really disjointed from the rest of the movie.

7. The Village (2004)

You didn’t think you’d get away from reading this with only one Shyamalan movie mentioned, did you? The Village is set in a small, colonial-style village where the people have a very sheltered existence. Each villager has been warned not to go into the woods surrounding their home lest they suffer the horrors within.

The movie has two main twists. First, the monsters that have been hunting the woods and tormenting the villagers are just the village elders in costumes. Second, the whole time the movie takes place in the modern day. The twists brought a lot of frustration to its viewers. 

8. Us (2019)

Personally, I found the ending of Us to be an interesting twist. The reveal that our main character is actually one of the murderous clones, and our main villain is the original Adelaide seeking to get her life back. Judging by the discussions, it seems like the main issue with the twist is that it showed too much. 

9. Identity (2003)

So people thought that the ending twist of 47 Meters Deep was frustrating. Well, that was only a few minutes at the end of the film that were not real. How about a majority of a movie no longer being relevant because of its twist? Ten people are now trapped in a desolate motel as a storm roars outside, all while being hunted down one by one.

Elsewhere, a serial killer is awaiting execution after killing a group of people in a motel. Sounds like the twist is that our current group was actually the ones murdered, right? Wrong! The twist is that the motel is in the killer’s mind, and he has dissociative identity disorder. All of the people are the killer’s different alters. 

10. The Night House (2020)

Mixing genres can work incredibly well, so long as they are correctly executed. According to quite a few forum users, The Night House did not execute it well. The first half follows Beth as she finds hints that her recently deceased husband was not who she thought he was.

At first, it implies that he could perhaps be a serial killer whose victims all resemble her. However, it is revealed that she is actually being hunted by the embodiment of the nothingness that comes after death. Many believe that the supernatural twist was unneeded, and the movie suffers for it. 

11. The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015)

The twist for this movie seems to only be a problem because of the choice of actresses. There are two supposedly different storylines at the center of this movie. The first is of two young girls at a prep school who stay over winter break. Trouble soon arises as one of them grows darker as an evil force takes more and more control over her. The second is that of a young woman making her way to the school for unknown reasons.

We soon find out that the young woman, going by Joan, is actually the girl who was possessed nine years previously, Katherine, now taking someone else’s identity and trying to get the demon back after it was exorcized from her. The main problem here is that the choices for the younger and older Katherine look to be relatively the same age (despite one being almost ten years older than the other), making it difficult to accept the two as being the same character. 

12. Lamb (2021)

Lamb feels like a fairy tale straight from the Brothers Grimm, only without much of an ending. A young couple struggling with the loss of their daughter finds comfort in adopting a half-human half lamb child. In the end, what is technically the child’s father, a giant goat man, returns and steals back the lamb girl. That’s really about it for the ending; the lamb is taken away, and the wife is left to find her husband shot by the goat man, staring off into the camera.

I suppose it’s this lack of closure that makes the twist all the more unsatisfying. ”

13. Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

A little bit of odd trivia about me: I am fascinated by mortuary practices and witchcraft. So, it kinda goes without saying that I actually quite like this movie. I also see its ending as a tragic one and not so bad, placing me in the minority, I suppose. A coroner and his son must do an autopsy on a mysterious Jane Doe.

As they look deeper into the body’s secrets, things get stranger and stranger for the father and son. It turns out the woman is a victim of witch trials from centuries ago, and through the rituals believed to stop her, she was turned into a supernatural being. At first, it seems that she only acted out because she was, in fact, able to feel every part of the autopsy, but then it appears that she is now just a vengeful spirit due to the hatred she has for those who did this to her. Again, I am in the minority here, apparently, but it seems to be a sticking point for some.

14. Ghosts of War (2020)

The ending of Ghosts of War could have gone in a much simpler direction, and it probably should have, too. Focusing on five American soldiers who are assigned to a French Chateau during WWII, it is soon discovered that the house is haunted by the family that used to live there. In the end, it turns out that all five soldiers were in the war in Afghanistan, put into a simulation to help their minds recover from the trauma they had gained. Though the twist doesn’t come entirely out of left field, there are hints throughout, but it still feels a bit too much. Others even say that they thought the movie was great up until the end.

15. Signs (2002)

Yes, it is time for another M. Night Shyamalan movie. We will never escape him and his twisty stories. If you know lousy twist endings, then you know Signs. Aliens begin to invade Earth, and everyone goes into a panic. After the family that we follow gets into a fight with one, it is discovered that the aliens’ weakness is water. Y’know, that thing that makes up 71% of our planet.

It certainly is a twist, but now we are sitting here wondering why these supposedly superior beings that have come to invade our world didn’t realize that their weakness made up a majority of the area they wish to invade.

Source: (Reddit).