Badmovies.org Forum

To put this in other words, let's say you are watching a film and you are enjoying it.  It's good for whatever genre it is, but then you reach the ending of the film.  After it is all over, you think the ending worked and was effective, but it just didn't sit with you well.  You didn't like it or you hated it, ruining the movie in some sense for you.

The biggest example of this for me was Final Desination.  The ending was fine and it worked since you can never escape death, but it just didn't seem right to me.  I think the big problem was that it seemed rushed and stupid in comparission to the original ending in mind.  It's like they thought, "Hey!  We can make this a series so let's forget the ending we had and throw something together."  I like the original ending, because it seemed like the escape death, for now at least.  You know they'll die at some point, but not right then.

I'm also not a fan of the endings where the killers win even if it is a 'good' and alright ending.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm fine perfectly fine with bad endings and all, like the original Halloween (You know, Mike has escaped and he'll be back sooner or later to finish the job) or The Cave.  It's just that I don't enjoyed or like the main hero characters getting killed off at the end since I spent a majority of the film getting to know them or learning about them (No matter how paper thin their backstory is) and then seeing them get slaughtered.  It always leaves me feeling like, 'that's it?  They're dead?  Does this mean a crappy sequel sooner or later?' (*coughoriginalStepfordWivescough*)

That's just my feelings and stuff... anyways, what about all of you?  You know movies that had endings that you didn't like despite them being effective, clever, or good?

The ending of the Coen Brothers latest movie, A SERIOUS MAN.  It's kind of... abrupt (I won't spoil it).  There's a good thematic reason for it and the final image is clever, I just wasn't prepared for the movie to end all of the sudden and felt cheated.

I don't like endings that leave me feeling a need for closure.  Like the good guy kills the bad guy and then the credits start rolling... well I wanna know what happens next! Or when some dude saves a girl that he loves from some jerk bad guy and it takes a long time and its a big deal and in the end they just waddle off together.. NO!!  I wanna see them get married and the bad guy looking sad in jail!

Monster A-Go go, need to say more?

Dark Waters - There are killer sharks on the loose, because the Navy is conducting experiments with them onboard a huge sub.  In the end, the "good guys" blow up the sub, and Lorenzo Lamas makes a speech about what a great man the guy was who blew it up.  Um, he was a mass murderer.  He killed at least 100 people who had nothing to do with the research, they were just keeping the submarine running.  Actually I didn't like anything about that movie, so it probably doesn't fit your criteria.  But the ending was awful.

Chupacabra Terror - A chupacabra is loose on a cruise ship, and people do all sorts of things to try and kill it.  In the end, they just do some more stuff to it, but this time it works!  Sorry, but if all that other stuff didn't kill it, neither would that.

Doomed - People are being chased around an island by zombies.  In the end, one guy survives, and makes his escape on a boat.  But the boat is full of zombies!  Predictable, and it was just like any other 10 minutes of the movie.

The end of DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY p**sed me off. They hit a train! AGH!
VANISHING POINT-Kowalski did hari Kari! GAK!
THELMA AND LOUISE-yeah-It was Gena Rowlands--She looks like my old girlfreind back in the 80's-and scumbags drove her offa cliff! F#CK!

Fer yer lookin' enjoyment-DIRTY MARY-CRAZY LARRY trailer-!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10qd_Oz4Xy0

Cripes! How did i ferget the end of EASY RIDER?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMc-T6z0YyM

dam hillbilly scumbags! Killed Billy and Capt.America!

Gone in 60 seconds (1974) the remix with Nick Cage is much better.

Wha? How?  :question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-TlxADdA4

I apologize-yer a Bad Movie fan-and that is an awful remake.

That was the only way Vanishing Point could have ended.  I thought it was perfect.

Agree! But it was dam sad anyhow. Gee...he was a polack-he had more glumpskis and pierogs in his future! He had so much to live for!

no, the ENDING with the guy driving away with the other Mach 1 that the lady had. and it shows that he drives away then the credits roll, it doesn't show him giving the car to the bad guys.

I apologize. Yer right. That was a bad ending.








I regess. That was a bad endin

tis okay

I really, REALLY wish that Two Lane Blacktop had ended the same way.  I would have laughed my butt off   :teddyr:

another is the Italian Job original. the end with the bus teeter-tautering over the cliff is...bad. the remake is MUCH better.

Maybe I belong in Europe or something, but I typically don't enjoy films that tie everything up for me in a neat package and deliver it on a silver platter. Films that end in ambiguity or some lack of closure usually stimulate me more. I prefer to let my brain provide my own ending, since most movie endings disappoint me. Rev brought up a Cohen Brothers film, and they have a tendency to do that alot. And I like most Cohen Brothers movies. Now, in the sequel setting that's different. Films that leave ambiguity or a lead-in to a sequel is not the same things as what I'm talking about. I'm talking about stand-alone films that are somewhat open-ended. In the old days many films were originally meant as stand-alone films and, because of their success, a sequel was made. In the sequel, they try to answer the ambiguity in the first film that made it work, or they try to say "what if this happened later?" It kills the original film. An example of this is Silence of the Lambs. I much prefer to not know every little detail about Hannibal Lechter. The rest of the films killed the charm of Silence by answering everything.

My opinion, and I don't much care if anyone agrees with it or not.

I actually agree with Flick James for the most part. I like movies that have endings without complete closure. I ALSO like movies with ambiguous, open-to-interpretation endings, and movies with really bleak, downbeat endings. That said, they don't always work. I thought the ending to The Mist ruined what was an otherwise damn good movie. As far movies with endings of this sort that work in the context of the movie, but nevertheless don't quite gel with me, the two that immediately pop into my mind are The Departed and The Wrestler. I love love LOVE both of those movies, and I think their endings feel mostly right within the flow, structure, tone, and theme of the films, but something about the both of them just don't feel right to ME. In The Departed, I felt like Leo's character should have survived. As it is now, it's a good ending, and I like it, but that one element bugs some part of my psyche. Likewise, in The Wrestler, I though the open ending worked... but felt a little like it was thrown in JUST to have an open ending. The way my mind works, the way I see the story going in my head, I think it should've gone on... and Randy The Ram should've had the heart attack in the ring, woken up in a hospital, having NARROWLY survived another cardiac arrest, with his daughter and Marisa Tomei's stripper character at his bedside, THEN the credits. I think perhaps that sound a teeny bit saccharine, and I normally don't go in for "sweet" endings, but in the case of The Wrestler I just think it would have been more appropriate than what the actual ending was. As it stands, mind you, I'd still give The Wrestler 5 out of 5 stars (although I'd probably give The Departed more like 4 out of 5).

Concerning The Mist, I thought it was an decent film (except for some weak CGI elements), but yes, that ending p**sed me off immensely to the point that I will never give it a second screening. I never read the book, but I understand it didn't end like that. The ending was open-ended, but it was hopeful, they end up hearing a civilian radio station broadcasting the information about how the military was taking care of the situation, and they end up continuing into the mist not knowing if they're going to survive and make it out or not. No shootings. I figure they didn't know how to make that ending work in a film, so they tried to slap on a bleak edgy ending and it ended up making no sense and p**sing me off. I didn't want to kill that guy, I wanted to torture him slowly for several days.

To me, it felt like a bad joke. Like, I half-expected to hear a drumroll-and-rimshot after those military guys rolled out of the fog.