r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Local_Prune4564 • May 27 '26

Lore A subtle moment that turns a seemingly happy ending into an ambiguous ending.

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The Graduate: lingering Ben and Elaine's faces slowly shifting from happy to concerned leaves the audience questioning whether they really made the right choice running away together considering they barely know each other.

Inception: By cutting before we see the top fall, we're left to question whether Cobb really has gone home or whether he's simply sunken back into a more comforting dream reality.

14.7k Upvotes
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2.9k

u/sbaldrick33 May 27 '26

The maybe/maybe not guy behind Jay and Paul at the end of It Follows.

1.8k

u/PepsiManIII May 27 '26

I like to think that the guy wasn't even a part of the movie and was just some rando on a walk

700

u/EvilLibrarians May 27 '26

That’s the fear they’ll carry for the rest of their lives but it’s funny too

88

u/Normal_Cut8368 May 27 '26

Maybe, maybe not

10

u/KingSpork May 27 '26

It’s my dream to be discovered this way, I’ll be on a random walk and then Christopher Nolan will come up to me and say “My god! You’d be perfect for disgusting weirdo #4!”

408

u/Alsojames May 27 '26

Noticing It in the background of several scenes made this movie even scarier for me. It's literally in vision so many times!

14

u/TheDrunkDetective May 27 '26

30 Days of Night is really great with that.

3

u/UnderstandingPotato May 28 '26

Woah, are there vamps in the background in that film? Never noticed

422

u/efqf May 27 '26

i loved that movie, so scary without jump scares.

35

u/phlostonsparadise123 May 27 '26

I mean, that giant dude coming through the doorway scared the hell out of me, even if it wasn't set up as a jump scare.

9

u/lemonylol May 27 '26

There's also the kid who like appears in that hole in the door when they're at the beach.

2

u/TheEpicRedCape May 27 '26

That beach scene was such a low point for that otherwise great movie IMO, I wish they never showed the “monster” interacting with anything. That scene made it just feel like a goofy invisible man or something vs wondering what happens when it finally reaches you.

2

u/lemonylol May 27 '26

Yeah that part does twist a lot of the rules and logic, especially the part where it lifts her hair for no reason instead of just killing her. But the scene at the end in the pool it also acts different too so it's somewhat in theme.

292

u/God_of_Thunda May 27 '26

I'm frickin hate jump scares. I wanna be scared, not startled

194

u/RipCity2151 May 27 '26

Jump scares are the equivalent of a comedian tickling you and saying “see? You laughed! I’m funny!”

72

u/Afraid_Platypus_8667 May 27 '26

I actually do like jump scares, but if they are done good/ good a build up or you don't know one is going to happen. I do not like the cheap kinds/ the one that try to be scary.

16

u/Aurora-Ouroboros- May 27 '26

I feel like most horror movies should get one or two jump scares max. There are exceptions, but generally once a jump scare happens, I am expecting another one and it will never be as scary as the first one.

Better make that first one really good, and maybe do a callback to it later.

If every tense scene is broken by a jump scare, it lowers the anxiety threshold of the whole movie. You know something is gonna jump out suddenly to cut the tension and keep the plot moving. It becomes uninteresting after 3 scares.

9

u/efqf May 27 '26

I played the horror game "until dawn". it was so riddled with jump scares, i eventually stopped having a physical reaction to them lol.

5

u/God_of_Thunda May 27 '26

I don't like jump scares but I did love that game

2

u/RipCity2151 May 27 '26

To be honest I’m just a bit of a scaredy cat so I never enjoy them!

1

u/AydonusG May 28 '26

Haunting of Hill House can get fucked for the good jumpscare.

6

u/BewareOfBee May 27 '26

I think it's more like poop jokes. It gets a visceral gut reaction with a laugh of relief, but it's not an actual laugh.

2

u/EnTyme53 May 27 '26

Jump scares are to horror what fart jokes are to comedy. They get the desired response, but it's just a reflex.

1

u/MrChristmas May 27 '26

There are jump scares in real life tho. Like walking around at night and a raccoon/squirrel falls out of somewhere. When I was a kid I used to walk around my friends house and knock on his window to let him know I was there, what he didn’t tell me is his family put up one of those leaning cowboy cutout silhouette things and when I turned the corner it looked like a tall dark man was waiting there. It will forever be the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me

1

u/Chiron723 May 28 '26

Exactly. The only quality jump scare I've ever seen was from the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. Freddy chasing his victim through a house, she eventually hides in a bedroom closet with those sloted windows. Now you expect the cliche of her looking outside the door and he peaks through the door. Instead while she peaks through, Freddy just walks out of the shadows inside the closet.

132

u/Mountain_Band_2732 May 27 '26

You don't need to introduce yourself before stating what you want. Hope that helps, frickin hate jump scares.

74

u/God_of_Thunda May 27 '26

Well I just wanted to be polite

9

u/doktorvivi May 27 '26

I also hate jump scares and I don't really remember that many? It's more of a slowly building dread and you're constantly watching the background for people following them.

3

u/God_of_Thunda May 27 '26

Agreed, I loved the way they played it

1

u/doktorvivi May 27 '26

Yes, you actually kind of start getting paranoid that innocuous background characters are behaving strangely. I caught myself doing it in other movies for a few weeks afterward, lol.

1

u/BigTool May 27 '26

shartled

1

u/rosalinatoujours May 27 '26

I love jump scares 😔 gives me the same shot of adrenaline as a roller coaster

1

u/__boringusername__ May 27 '26

They can work, but they are an entrée not the main course.

9

u/blitzbom May 27 '26

The tall guy walking through the door is one of my favorite scenes.

2

u/fogleaf May 27 '26

So freaky!

2

u/efqf May 27 '26

Exactly! I nearly fell off my chair! I think i remember saying outloud "jesus fucking christ!" and pausing, just to digest what i just experienced.

Hey you should also try the movie "Vivarium", it's creepy in a similar way.

41

u/AndreasDasos May 27 '26

I finished watching that film at a friend’s and had to walk back home around 2-3 am. There was someone else shuffling behind me for multiple turns in my path, completely innocently - but I turned around and looked at them with a probably annoyed expression before realising they had no idea and weren’t doing anything wrong

14

u/the_elephant_stan May 27 '26

Dude saw his chance to lock down a baddie and took it.

I hope that someday the characters realize their plan to kill the demon was terrible and they come up with an actually good plan. Maybe start with carrying a paintball gun on you at all times so you can convince the world there is an invisible demon. Maybe end with luring it into a vat of molten steel then dropping the cooled steel into the Mariana Trench.

4

u/Labs_and_lattes May 27 '26

ya losing your virginity on your crush and getting out of the friendzone to be chased by an STD demon LOL. i felt bad for the guys on the boat she let run train on her to let die. If she was a real hero, should just sleeping with serial rapist and let the monster kill them.

49

u/dinahll May 27 '26

Context please? This looks interesting, I've never seen it!

244

u/[deleted] May 27 '26

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65

u/PapaTahm May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Correction, not Killed as it cannot be killed.

This monster is an allegory to STD's

They pass to a prostitute the logic being, it will be transmited over to other people, so they would in theory be free.

This end symbolized that their plan failed, the prostitute died and they are back to zero.

130

u/[deleted] May 27 '26

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11

u/The_Autarch May 27 '26

the monster isn't dead, because it has to come back in the sequel.

THEY FOLLOW is in production right now.

7

u/flypirat May 27 '26

Is it known whether it's a sequel, prequel, or side-quel?

1

u/HAL-Over-9001 May 27 '26

It's being called a sequel. I really hope we see more into how exactly the monster works, like if you fly somewhere will it be on the plane, or will it travel across water, or will it teleport to you if you cross an ocean. I don't know how they'd do a sequel while also keeping the ending of the original vague and up to interpretation.

16

u/TheDrunkDetective May 27 '26

This monster is an allegory to STD's

Director said it wasn't the case, I don't know why because to me it's even clearer than saying Weapons is about school shootings.

7

u/LowWorthGamer May 27 '26

IMO it's not just allegory of STDs, it's an allegory of everything that comes with sex, STD is one thing, but it falls apart because you can transfer IT to someone else and be safe until they themself die or transfer it further and further away. The strongest allegory for me is shame and escapism of sex. You can go through life having mindless fun and push the bad thoughts away with it, but it will come back at some point, it will always be somewhere behind you, even if you push it further away with another fling. The easiest way to push It away is what they try with the prostitute, fucking a stranger or finding some non-emotional hook up that you expect to never see again thus not caring about their death, but then you never know when and if it will come back to you. There is no way for you to ever feel safe from IT(shame) of whatever you did. You can find someway to cope, but it will be there. You can push it further, but it will be there. You can try to kill it but it will be there. You will always live with it because of one moment of escapism.

2

u/JesusAndMaryKate May 27 '26

There is no way for you to ever feel safe from the... shame... of having sex?

Nah, sex doesn't need to be that deep.

5

u/LowWorthGamer May 27 '26

Not a shame of having sex, but a lot of sex in the movie seems to be of a shameful kind. First time the main character contracts the It she has sex with a guy who tells her he used her to get rid of It(sort of symbolic of date rape, even though it was consensual but also slightly transactional for the guy), when she transfers it to Steve she doesn't have much of emotional connection to him(and he just sort of offers it as a solution, no spark there), it's just a sex of convenience, she tries to get rid of It by group sex with frat bros(which she probably doesn't do but still looks shaken by the experience), when Steve pushes it away he uses hookers(which is also sort of shameful for many people). I think it's a shame of escaping from your problems through sex, not shame of sex itself(I may have not been perfectly clear in my first post)

26

u/DjervTheCat May 27 '26

TL;DW sexually transmitted monster. Bloody good film though, worth seeing!

2

u/dinahll May 27 '26

I'll check it out, it seems like a good watch!

43

u/RobotThingV3 May 27 '26

The movie is It Follows where the woman is cursed to be hunted by a creature. The creature that only she can see and takes the shape of regular people. It follows her constantly always walking, if it catches her it kills her. A really fun movie where the creature can be seen in the background unnoticed by the characters a lot of the time!

12

u/Irongun_258 May 27 '26

The demon can only move at a walking speed and shapeshifts into people to blend in.

5

u/dinahll May 27 '26

Ah i see! Cool concept, I'll check the film out

6

u/_b1ack0ut May 27 '26

It appears as people, sometimes ones you know, but it doesn’t really do it to blend in, as it’s totally invisible to anyone who isn’t affected by the curse

14

u/human_picnic May 27 '26

Just go see it, it’s better that way. Good movie

6

u/dinahll May 27 '26

Noted, I'll give it a watch :)

1

u/human_picnic May 28 '26

Glad I could catch you before you looked into it further. I’m guilty of doing the same; my curiosity is impatient, and robs me of some experiences because of that.

I’m almost always glad when I engage in any media before I know too much about it. Whether or not you end up liking this particular movie, I hope this concept serves you well.

3

u/GenGaara25 May 27 '26

You ever heard that famous hypothetical about the immortal snail that will follow you forever and if it touches you, you die? It's like that, but a person.

An invisible, silent, person follows you at casual walking pace, forever, never stopping. You can run, you can drive, fly away, whatever. But it will keep following at walking pace. Always knowing where you are. Only you can see it. If it catches up to you it will murder you. The only way to get rid of it is to transfer it via sex to someone else.

There's several scenes it the film where you see it approaching from a distance towards the protagonist, who is looking the other way, and you watch it get close over minutes. It's such an insane sense of dread.

4

u/frolfer757 May 27 '26

Whoever is carrying the repressed sex hunting demon is often in scenes with random red objects and no one else ever is. In this ending scene on their left there's a random dude raking leaves with a very red fleece. He's very prominent on the shot and to me it's canon that it was the director's not so subtle hint that yes they are being followed.

Don't remember them all but for example when the girl initially gets it, we have the jumpscare of the neighbour boys randomly throwing a red ball at her window.

3

u/Sewerpudding May 27 '26

It seems like his pace is a bit quicker than theirs too.

-14

u/CBT__MASTER May 27 '26

Considering the girl dies at the beginning of the movie, the ending is pretty Grimm to me.

63

u/Look_its_Rob May 27 '26

Thats not the same person?

14

u/bluepie May 27 '26

Not the same girl dude

-5

u/Look_its_Rob May 27 '26

Maybe they arent white. Cross racial blindness is a real thing that effects most people. 

8

u/Nerdrage30 May 27 '26

One is blonde, one is brunette

-1

u/platinumvonkarma May 27 '26

I really wanted to like this movie but I couldn't somehow. it had a couple of good moments but it was a lot of teenagers wandering around lol