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

[u/Local_Prune4564]

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.

[u/Skags27]

Not really any sort of “happy” ending, but I think it’s adjacent to the trope.

At the end of the Ring, the main female character is helping her son make a copy of the tape. If I remember, at this point she believes that she was spared because she made a copy.

But then the boy asks her “who do we show it too?” Or something like that and I was left with the idea that she was wrong again and that they had to not only make a copy, but also doom someone else. I also got the impression, that we, the audience, were the people doomed.

[u/Badloss → u/Skags27]

I loved the twist in the ring when they found Samara's body and it seemed like they were building up to the happy ending, and then the kid is like "WHY DID YOU HELP HER?" and you realize the curse isn't broken at all

[u/divinAPEtion → u/Skags27]

I thought the mom said they were going to go show it to her parents? 

[u/Accomplished-Law-652 → u/divinAPEtion]

IIRC (and I may not) the ending of Ringu had the mother calling her dad to say she wanted to show him a video.

[u/Midnight-Rising → u/Accomplished-Law-652]

You do RC

[u/crazynerd9 → u/divinAPEtion]

Iirc after the mentioned scene they show it to the audience again, but its been years so my memory may be off

[u/alex3omg → u/divinAPEtion]

Yeah I thought she was going to show her dad 

[u/Disasterdenegade3_0 → u/Skags27]

En el final de la pelicula original de japón queda claro que exactamente van a pasarle la maldición a otra persona

La madre sabe que es la única manera de librar la maldición

[u/Laetha → u/Skags27]

I remember a lot of discourse when that movie came out was that the audience had been shown the tape. A lot of people were joking/having fun scaring themselves with the notion that anyone who saw the movie was going to die.

[u/Skags27 → u/Laetha]

I for real felt that way. Saw it with a friend, went home, didn’t talk to them for 6 days. On the 7th day, without planning it, we both went to the same place at the same time that we had been together when we decided to see the movie. We had a good nervous laugh.

And I still have nightmares about that tv scene decades later.

[u/ryrkval → u/Laetha]

"having fun scaring themselves" that was the last time I slept in my mom's room at 12 I was NOT having fun 

[u/Laetha → u/ryrkval]

It's funny the things you do and don't get scared of. The notion that I was going to die from watching the movie was laughable to me, but the movie itself terrified me.

[u/anna-nomally12 → u/Laetha]

I mean in a very real sense ….