In some films, the script calls for a single person from the main cast to survive whatever monster/flood/earthquake/other person is harrowing them. Some films allow two to survive. Then there are those very few movies where fucking no one survives. In the survival horror genre, that's a pretty ballsy move. In any other genre, it's essentially box office suicide. Still, there are a select few films that laugh in the face of tradition and sadistically pick off the entire cast. This is a list of the 5 most awesomely sadistic full cast genocides. If you haven't figured it out yet, this list is 90% spoilers.
5. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Zack Snyder may not have had the balls to create the original film's intended and never recorded ending (At the ending scene where the helicopter is ready to take off, Romero's original script ended with Peter shooting himself in the head as the zombies approached, at which point Fran would follow suit and shove her own head into the fucking helicopter blades), at least he found it in his heart to kill everyone somehow. Running from a horde of zombies, a few humans finally reach a boat, and the movies ends with them escaping from the shore. Somewhat happy end, right?
Wrong.
Why? The closing credits show footage from a camcorder found on the boat of the group docking on another shore, only to be attacked by more zombies. While the footage does not show anyone actually dying, even if they got back in the boat at all, they'd probably die of starvation or run into more zombies.
4. Cloverfield (2008)
While Cloverfield was intensely overhyped and did not live up to everyone's expectations, it at least was able to earn a place in history as a super-sadistic monster flick. Sure, a good amount of movies think it's freaky enough to annihilate New York City.
See: Escape from New York, Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow
J.J. Abrams asks "What if all of New York City is destroyed and the couple who finally realize they love each other?" Cloverfield ends with the two survivors huddled under a bridge freaking out in an all-too-real manner. They hold each other close, and BOOM. The bridge collapses and the movie ends. That's it. Oh, and earlier a chick explodes and it's really awesome. So yeah.
I kind of cheated a bit on this one, since one person technically survives. He physically survives, but if this guy does not at least spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital over the shit he pulled, then he is one sick dude.
Let me explain.
You see, the movie's final scene consists of the survivors of this "mist" driving away in a car. Eventually, they run out of gas, and the four adults in the car accept their fate as the little boy, Billy, sleeps. David, the boys father, takes the gun they have to shoot the others, protecting them from a brutal and creature-induced death. The other adults allow him to shoot them, and then this guy shoots his own fucking son while he's sleeping. He then hysterically runs out of the car, only to find the military fully armed and ready to rescue his entire group. Tough luck, dude.
If you write a script around a character who recently lost her husband and daughter in a car accident, wouldn't you write it about how she struggles in everyday life and eventually finds love in an unlikely hero or something fluffy like that? Not Neil Marshall. He sent that poor woman spelunking in a horrifying cave filled with freaky-mutant-people things.
Nice guy.
As if this movie wasn't 'Holy-fucking-shit-I'm-never-sleeping-again' scary enough, they had to make the ending just as batshit crazy as the rest. Naomie Harris doesn't wave down a military jet. Jena Malone doesn't escape the ruins. Kate Winslet sure as hell doesn't float to safety on some wood. This movie ends with the leading lady sitting in the cave where all her friends recently died, hallucinating that her dead daughter is eating cake with her. Guess what's really happening? The freaky-mutant-people things are getting ready to fucking eat her.
See: Escape from New York, Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow
J.J. Abrams asks "What if all of New York City is destroyed and the couple who finally realize they love each other?" Cloverfield ends with the two survivors huddled under a bridge freaking out in an all-too-real manner. They hold each other close, and BOOM. The bridge collapses and the movie ends. That's it. Oh, and earlier a chick explodes and it's really awesome. So yeah.
3. The Mist (2007)
I kind of cheated a bit on this one, since one person technically survives. He physically survives, but if this guy does not at least spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital over the shit he pulled, then he is one sick dude.
Let me explain.
You see, the movie's final scene consists of the survivors of this "mist" driving away in a car. Eventually, they run out of gas, and the four adults in the car accept their fate as the little boy, Billy, sleeps. David, the boys father, takes the gun they have to shoot the others, protecting them from a brutal and creature-induced death. The other adults allow him to shoot them, and then this guy shoots his own fucking son while he's sleeping. He then hysterically runs out of the car, only to find the military fully armed and ready to rescue his entire group. Tough luck, dude.
2. The Descent (2005)
If you write a script around a character who recently lost her husband and daughter in a car accident, wouldn't you write it about how she struggles in everyday life and eventually finds love in an unlikely hero or something fluffy like that? Not Neil Marshall. He sent that poor woman spelunking in a horrifying cave filled with freaky-mutant-people things.
Nice guy.
As if this movie wasn't 'Holy-fucking-shit-I'm-never-sleeping-again' scary enough, they had to make the ending just as batshit crazy as the rest. Naomie Harris doesn't wave down a military jet. Jena Malone doesn't escape the ruins. Kate Winslet sure as hell doesn't float to safety on some wood. This movie ends with the leading lady sitting in the cave where all her friends recently died, hallucinating that her dead daughter is eating cake with her. Guess what's really happening? The freaky-mutant-people things are getting ready to fucking eat her.
1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers wins top honors on this list. No contest. Why? Well, not just the main cast dies in this one.
Everyone in the fucking world dies.
They don't even die in any sort of normal way. Their soul dies. As they get cloned by horrible space plants, their bodies disintegrate and they are replaced by these identical replicas. They're mindless, emotionless, and heartless, and the people who haven't been taken over can't tell who's who. You could always save someone in the cloning process if you find them quick enough. A lot of people try that. But if they ever, ever fall asleep again, those bastard space plants will start cloning them all over again no matter where they are. The movie ends on Donald Sutherland walking down the street. Since the survivors learned to trick the clones, it seems as though he's perfectly fine. One of the last humans left sees him and excitedly calls to him. He turns to her and lets out a horrifying, inhuman screech, and the movie fades to black as you stare at the distressed face of the last human about to be snatched.
28 Weeks Later is another good example, even if the characters aren't technically dead. Not only does everyone "die," but the heroes turn out to be responsible for spreading the plague beyond England to the mainland of Europe, and presumably the rest of the world. That's pretty harsh.
ReplyDeleteThe original Night of the Living Dead is a pretty ferocious punch to the balls in the "everyone dies" genre as well, of course.
What else? On the Beach is pretty depressing on this front, what with the futility and the certain approaching dead and things of that nature.
John Carpenter's The Thing, of course.
One of the original drafts of Alien's script had the creature killing Ripley at the end and radioing home to Earth in her voice.
Alien 3 comes damn close.
The Wild Bunch slaughters all the main characters in the final gunfight.
Do any of the lead characters survive Glory? I don't think they do.
Reservoir Dogs, maybe. Depends on what you think happens to Mr. Pink when he runs out of the building.
Dr. Strangelove pretty much implies that no one survives.
Sunshine.
The Perfect Storm. (Yeah, Karen Allen and the families survive, but they're not vital characters.)
Dark Star.
Silent Running.
The Knowing.
ReplyDeleteFirst a subway derails and runs over and/or flattens other people, slams through a staircase and smashes other people then stops. Later, a plane falls out of the sky and slams into the middle of a long line of cats stopped at a highway, and lands a few yards away, several survivors come out of the plane only to be incinerated as the engine explodes, a few other people (In flames) run by the main character (Nicholas Cage), and end up burning alive. It was raining and the people must have been too stupid to stop drop and roll. At the end, a solar flare sweeps across the earth and incinerates the entire planet. Any survivors probably would starve to death, or die of dehydration, or burn up if they were to come into open air.
i want to know the name of the movie....it's about some people who boarded a lost ship and kept dying one after another....but a girl survives...but when she comes back to the deck..the story is repeated....kindly help me with the name of the movie...
ReplyDeleteGhost ship, decent movie
DeleteThe Triangle has a plot like that. One of the best horror movies ive ever seen.
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