The second one has some really nice moments, and I actually really liked the ending for throwing in some quirky humor and answering the question “How do these things survive… wait, these things hunt *deer*? No effing way.” It takes it from a pretty good darwinian adventure movie much like Aliens compared to Alien (unlike the first flick, I really wouldn’t call The Descent 2 horror. It just wasn’t a particularly scary movie) and gives it a quirky almost lovecraftian subplot.

Which isn’t to say that the entire thing couldn’t have been improved by having a director willing to gut-punch you all teh way into the credits like in The Mist…but the endings do provide a bit of brain candy to chew on later.

Respectfully,
Russ in Texas

There’s a version of The Descent where they snipped off the ending? That’s completely daft. No wonder you were disappointed. You are SUPPOSED to think “what the hell?” during that penultimate section and leaving out the ending is a MASSIVE cheat.

But yeah, it kinda misled me when you said you didn’t like the ending. What you actually meant was that you’d never seen the ending.

Best Horror Ending: John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. Once again, no self-congratulatory ending like “Aliens” or even a quiet reflective ending with the character staring at the aftermath like “Predator”. No, “The Thing” leaves the audience with the same creepy atmosphere that worked so well earlier in the film. What’s more this isn’t even in order to set up for a sequel, it’s just the best way to end the movie.

Worst Horror Ending: I’m going to go with “Carrie”. That made no sense to me. During the film it seemed pretty clear that Carrie wasn’t supposed to be evil. Events leading up to climactic scene (rather annoyingly found on the cover of the DVD box) were both tragic and inevitable because of bullies in school and her puritanical mother. Yet the ending seemed to completely betray all of that just for the sake of a quick jump-scare. Meh.

Night will always be the better of the two, just because it was bleak. I think bleak endings work better in horror movies.

Although, some of the worst endings are the ones where, “Yes, everything is just fine… OR IS IT?” You know what I mean, the ones where the perky female heroine and the rugged male hero bury the monster/serial killer/whatever and walk away into the sunset… then BAM, we see the hand rising out of the grave! I hate those endings, because they just come across like either A: We aren’t finished hosing you for money yet. or B: In hoping to please everyone, we come across like waffling wienies. I know in truth, it’s A, but I can’t help feeling like B is in their too.

Also, I’ll again point out my running pet peeve with this site: attention to detail. The couple from PA aren’t married, Descent is British (not Australian), just little crap like that… it’s a little anal of me, but it’s hard to enjoy a review or introspection when glaring mistakes are made. Usually it’s Paul criticizing a video game with a comment that makes you say “wait… did he actually play it? Did he skip all the dialogue/cinematics?” This wasn’t that bad, but I still kept on saying “wait… that’s not right” one too many times.

It’s like finding yourself counting the verbal pauses in speech, and then realize you can’t recall what was actually said.

For me it’s not about the diversity of the endings, rather the ending has to fit the overall theme of the movie.

Case in point: Crank

Yes, I know it’s not a horror, but it’s a perfect example. The movie is so ridiculously over the top tha the only possible outcome of him falling down from the sky is that he survives. With everything that has happened in that film, the logical conclusion is that he can survive even falling down from the sky.

When it comes to horror, the obvious and the best example is Saw. Unlike The 6th Sense, Saw doesn’t depend on the ending, it would be a great film even if it ended without that OMG! scene, but this way is just so much better, because it compliments the movie perfectly.

I have never felt so cheated in my whole horror watching life. The first half of the movie is a briliant revenge slasher tale. And then it takes a turn into a pseudo metaphysical nonsense. It’s like the completely different films were stitched together.

As far as The Descent is concerned, I consider it to be quite possibly one of the greatest horror films ever made. I am not sure which version I’ve watched several time, but I clearly remember her only thinking she made it out, and it was brilliant, as the author suggests. I am so glad I didn’t see the US version then.

One of the things that draw me to Horror films and to a lesser extent Thrillers is that victory is not assured, absolute victory even less so. As such I’m drawn in more, investing much more in the film. So when a film has a (relatively) positive outcome, I feel more relieved than I would from other films. But it’s a treat, not a given or else it may be diminished.