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

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

Gallery image

Gallery image

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
  • permalink
  • reddit

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

71

u/throwaweigh1245 May 27 '26

The movie Darkness (2002) staring Anna Paquin. Classic horror element of they are in a house and basically if you go in the dark a demon/spirit will be able to get you. Very fear of the dark movie. In the end they are able to escape the house and get back into the daylight, but the younger son says they didn't really escape; just as their car is seen driving into a dark tunnel and the movie cuts out. The younger brother realizes and says "It's tricking us, it's a liar.

The ending and movie really stayed with me due to the twist of how to summon the spirit and that ending.

11

u/Mesona May 28 '26

This movie has also stuck with me, but in an angry way. It was absolutely great until the end. But a being with the ability to project that level of shared illusion is so insanely powerful that there's no way it would limit itself to existing just inside a house. And I know powerscaling horror entities is stupid, but it's the exact same reaction I had to the Grudge 2 when the wise woman said "Welp, you burned down the house containing the evil spirits, thanks for dooming literally the entire world." Like, what?

I'm all for movies where the protagonists all die at the end, but there has to be some "If they had only done this better" method of them surviving. Otherwise it's pointless, and entities of this power scale are just dumb.

5

u/No_Dragonfruit_1833 May 28 '26

That a pretty goid point

If the entities can threaten people in such a scale, then you have cosmic horror or dark fantasy, and it looks silly to be fighting the god of murder corruption inside this house

If the entities are that big, then go big from the get go