FromTerrifier 3toDawn of the Deadto John Carpenter’sThe Thing , some ofthe scary repugnance movies ever madeend on a hauntingly ambiguous promissory note . A cliffhanger ending can dish a few spectacular purposes . In the horror genre , the most common function of a cliffhanger is to leave the audience appropriately changeable as they exit the house . After find out that Sarah is still trapped in the cave at the end ofThe Descentor David has throw places with Walter at the end ofAlien : Covenant , the audience is left deeply disturbed .

There ’s a sense of comfort and closure in a unequivocal ending like Sally escape from Leatherface at the end ofThe Texas Chain Saw Massacreor Chris being economize by his respectable supporter at the final stage ofGet Out . It ’s much more discomforting to get no closure whatsoever inan ambiguous ending likeThe ShiningorThe Birds . Cliffhanger ending can serve other purposes , too ; they can go under up a continuation , likeEvil Dead II ’s clip locomotion twist orTerrifier 3 ’s portal to Hell . Some of the best horror movies terminate on a hair - raising cliffhanger .

10Terrifier 3

The net bit ofTerrifier 3seesavenging saint Sienna Shawconfronting Art the Clown and his latest chum , Victoria . Sienna manage to decollate Victoria , but it has a dire branch : Victoria ’s blood cauterise through the floor and opens up a portal to Hell . Sienna ’s younger cousin Gabbie falls into the portal and takes Sienna ’s magical steel with her . Before the end credits peal , Sienna vows to find her and lay aside her .

This cliffhanger sets up an amazing taradiddle forthe upcomingTerrifier 4 . Sienna has always been a crossbreeding between a last lady friend and a full - blow superhero , andthe cliffhanger finish ofTerrifier 3sets up her most daring adventure to date . Terrifier 4will see her battle Satan ’s minion in Hell on her way to deliver the cousin who calculate up to her .

9Alien: Covenant

Ridley Scott ’s secondAlienprequel , Alien : Covenant , see a place crew do a suffering sign and getting more than they bargained for . Their benevolent humanoid , Walter , crash with David , the malicious A.I. fromPrometheuswho wants to wipe out humanity . At the end of the movie , when the xenomorphs have been killed and David has seemingly been get the better of , Walter sees the survivors off to their cryosleep chambers . But just as they ’re drifting off , they see it ’s not really Walter — it ’s David . He swapped seat with Walter as part of his diabolical plan .

This set up a shuddery plot line fora thirdAlienprequel that , woefully , never got made . It ’s a haunting twist on its own , with some really dread entailment , but Michael Fassbender really sells it with a creepy smile . Based on that smile alone , the audience figure out the ruse just as the survive crew member do .

828 Weeks Later

28 workweek Latercovers the zombi apocalypse on a much large ordered series than its predecessor,28 mean solar day Later.28 Days Latershowed the apocalypse through one survivor ’s eyes , and that survivor was n’t even around for the initial outbreak.28 Weeks Latershows the zombie rebellion from multiple different perspectives across a sprawling ensemble cast . The termination sets up an even larger scale for the subsequence , as the survivor run away across the English Channel and make it to France — only to determine that the computer virus has spread there , too .

This is an incredibly bleak and uncheerful ending . After London has been destruct due to snake god attacks and firebomb , the only shred of hope is that the rest of the cosmos might be all right . When they get to France and find that the computer virus has reached continental Europe , that hope is crushed . There ’s no escaping this computer virus .

This could be a totally innocuous termination . possibly Paul passed on the parasite to a sex worker , he and Jay became a happy couple , and the person walk behind them is just a someone walk behind them . But it ’s every bit potential that Paul could n’t go through with passing on the parasite to another clean-handed soul and he ’s just accepting his grim fate and allow the entity to get him .

Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett looking scared in Jurassic World Rebirth.

6Evil Dead II

Sam Raimi’sEvil Dead IIis essentially a zanier remake of its predecessor with a lot more slapstick sense of humour , but its cliffhanger end stick in a more serialized element to the dealership . After attaching a chainsaw to his cut off arm and saw off his shotgun drum , Ash Williams manages to vanquish the deadites from the cabin . And then he and his Oldsmobile Delta 88 are sucked through a time convolution and transported to the Middle Ages .

Like the cliffhanger endings ofTerrifier 3andAlien : Covenant , this one was destine to set up a sequel . It leave intoArmy of Darkness , the threequel that see Ash battle demons in 1300 A.D. while trying to get back to his own time . Evil Dead II ’s time travel twist supply a suitably bonkers terminate to one of the most bonkers picture ever made .

5The Birds

After surviving the nighttime , the persona ofAlfred Hitchcock ’s timeless gemThe Birdsdecide to leave townsfolk and assay their probability elsewhere . They ’ve heard over the radio that the doll have attack other nearby communities and the armed services is considering an intervention . As they quietly walk out to their car and labour aside , the shuttle — which have been senselessly assault people all twenty-four hours and night — are sedately congregated all around the property , ominously face down at them .

The deficiency of any kind of account in this cliffhanger ending prepare it all the more unsettling . Somehow , snort that are n’t attacking anyone but look like they could at any second are much scarier than skirt that are just randomly attacking people . It ’s unclear why the birds are so still — maybe they ’re make their dominance over humanity as the humans crawl in awe around them .

4Dawn Of The Dead

George A. Romero ’s second zombi pic , Dawn of the Dead , is a bite caustic remark of consumerism about a grouping of survivors who hole up in an abandoned shopping mall . At the end of the motion picture , the remaining survivors contend their way to the roof of the promenade , get in a helicopter , and take off . They made it away from the zombi - infest mall , but they ’re low on fuel and their fate is uncertain .

The smasher of this cliffhanger ending is that whether it ’s stark or hopeful is in the eye of the observer . peradventure they ’ll run out of fuel and clank , or they ’ll land somewhere that ’s similarly overrun with the undead and get promptly devoured . But it ’s just as likely that they ’ll find a safe harbour away from the threat of the zombies and start a new life .

3The Descent

American audiences beget a much happier ending to Neil Marshall’sThe Descent , in which Sarah escapes from the cave and catch forth from the bloodthirsty mutants lie in within . The original ending is much more ominous . Sarah makes it out of the cave , gets back to her car , and race out of the Wood . But it turn out this was all an extended hallucination . She did n’t really get away from the cave ; she ’s still trapped in there , surrounded by the terrific sounds of mutants taste to sniffle her out .

This ending is exchangeable to that of “ An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , ” in which a character on the gallows is shock to realize that he ideate his escape and travel home in the indorsement before the running noose wear out his neck opening . In both event , the glad conclusion was all in the protagonist ’s head as they prove to mentally escape from their bleak reality . Suffice to say , it ’s not easy to log Z’s after watching this movie .

2The Shining

There ’s an apparent sense of shutdown atthe end of Stanley Kubrick’sThe Shining . Wendy and Danny manage to avoid Jack ’s anger and elude on the snowcat . As Jack flails around in the blizzard , he eventually gets tired , falls to the ground , and freezes to death . It seems to be a happy termination in which the heroes get away and the villain is punished . And then Kubrick extract in on an erstwhile disastrous - and - ashen exposure from a Fourth of July formal in 1921 , with Jack standing at the front of a crowd of partygoers .

This cry the entire movie into interrogation . The tale of a discomfited suburban dad lose his mind in utmost closing off and trying to murder his wife and Word suddenly becomes a lot more complicated . Was Jack a reincarnation or has he been haunting this hotel the whole time?The Shiningleaves spectator with so many unanswered inquiry that it leaves them profoundly disturbed .

1The Thing

At the end of John Carpenter’sThe Thing , MacReady and Childs manage to vote down the bothersome foreign entity by shoot a line up the post . But as they locate down , they realise the futility of their position . They have no style of knowing if either of them have already been assimilated by the entity . And even if neither of them got assimilate , they ’ll likely freeze to dying before being rescue . So , they decide to just divide a bottle of Scotch whisky and await to die .

The Thingis a quintessentially nihilistic movie about how quickly humanity could be all doomed . This cliffhanger ending cock home the nihilism as , even after triumphing over the alien , the grapheme still have no hope of survival . LikeDawn of the Dead , the ending ofThe Thingleaves it up to the consultation to decide whether to be optimistic ( but it require a lot of genial gymnastic exercise to be optimistic about this ending ) .

Stitch pointing a soda gun at Lilo in the 2025 Lilo and Stitch

Collage of Jack in The Shining, Art in Terrifier 3, and Jay and Paul in It Follows

Art the Clown has both hands covered in blood in Terrifier 3.

Radius-TWC

David smiling at the end of Alien Covenant

The Infected running through Paris in 28 Weeks Later

Jay and Paul walking together at the end of It Follows

Radius-TWC

Ash in the woods in Evil Dead II

The birds watching the car leave at the end of The Birds

The helicopter flying away in Dawn of the Dead

Shauna Macdonald as Sarah covered in blood and screaming in the cave in The Descent.

The black and white photo labeled from 1921 full of a crowd of guests that appears in The Shining ending

MacReady freezing at the end of The Thing

Movies

Terrifier 3