Movies have good, bad, and or odd endings. Sometimes, however, there are movies that just end all of a sudden when there is still plenty of things left to talk about or wrap up. These movies just come to a blinding hault and leave the audience confused, angry, or just stunned.
The topic was inspired just recently after my dad and me finished watching Blood Waters of Dr. Z, aka. Zaat! (The MST3K verison of course). The ending just left us baffled and confused about what just happened and the fact that the movie just sort of peters out. It's like they ran out of script or things to explain in the film (Which I believe).
Other things I feel are good examples of that are Barb Wire, Cool as Ice (Both endings just sort of appear out of nowhere), Rock a Doodle (The movie fades out the main character singing, not telling us if the boy is dreaming or is really experiencing what is happening to him), Clones of Bruce Lee (The police take away the evil doctor and the film just cuts to a blacks screen), and Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (Yeah, a video game, but it ends pretty abrutly when there are still things left to dicuss).
So, my question to all of you, what other movies have you seen where the film just sort of peters out or ends pretty suddenly?
The Grandaddy of all sudden endings . . .
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL!
Did they find the Grail? Did the nasty French knights ever get their proper comeuppance? Did the Communist peasants ever realize what a repressive failure socialism is? Did they bring out ALL the dead? Was Sir Galahad the Pure ever allowed to face "just a little" temptation? Did the Knights ever get their second shrubbery?
Man, they really left us hanging!
Birdie (1984)
If you're allowing tv shows, how about the ending of The Sopranos?
"Bog"
So the town's people have been trying to kill the murderous swamp monster by blowing it up, or poisoning it. None of the methods work, and so they taunt the monster out of the water, and inexplicably some mysterious flaming car smashes the monster against a tree. The monster bursts aflame and then the movie ends.
Quote from: Flick James on July 14, 2010, 03:45:02 PM
If you're allowing tv shows, how about the ending of The Sopranos?
While this topic is more towards films, yeah, TV shows can be as long as they end very abruptly. The Sopranos is a real good choice for this.
Ultracop 2000 though I'm not sure if that film ever really began for me.
Colossus: The Forbin Project
no actual ending or resolution at all
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
ends with the main character calling TV stations trying to convince them to stop playing the flashing pumpkin which will cause all the children who bought halloween masks to die. Ends with him begging the third station to stop playing the commercial as the pumpkin flashes faster and louder. Ends with that annoying freaking theme song which I was barely able to hear over my flashing-light induced epilepsy. Never find out if he was able to stop the commercial if all the kids died. :question:
MONSTER A GO-GO. Nevermind, this movie didn't happen. Go back about your business.
No Country For Old Men has a rather abrupt ending, but I think I like it better that way.
I think Eyes Wide Shut has a sudden ending, and it left some things unexplained, or missing from the storyline.
Andrew Davis' The Package: two sudden gunshots, black screen, credits roll. :question:
Most notorious: the ending in City Of The Living Dead (1980).
Quote from: Monster Jungle X-Ray on July 14, 2010, 10:13:09 PM
No Country For Old Men has a rather abrupt ending, but I think I like it better that way.
good call. haven't read the book, perhaps the book ends like that too, maybe.
THE ITALIAN JOB - the end is not exactly the place I thought it would end...a bit of a cliffhanger in fact :teddyr:
Ozzymandias speaks: Hell Is For Heroes. McQueen dies and then Fess Parker, Bob Newhart and Bobby Darin charge a battery as the credits roll. We don't really know what happened. I think Newhart said on David Letterman's show that the studio pulled the plug because it was over budget.
Ozzymandias has spoken!!!
COLOSSUS SPOILER WARNING: I thougt Colossus was pretty clear - the computers Colossus and Guardian have taken over, for the "good" of humanity enforcing "peace" and if you don't like it, they'll blow you out of existence.
This one spider movie (can't recall the title) it ends with the survivors (who have barricaded themselves in a building) looking outside only to discover the entire town is coated in a spider web.
From my MST3K collection;
I thought Sidehackers just abroubtly ends. Yeah, you can figure out what happens, Rommel dies and the bad guy is arrested by the approaching cops (the movie's old, I don't care about posting spoiler warnings for it)
But all we see in the film is Rommel being shot in the back.
A SERIOUS MAN bothered me in the theater because it ended so abruptly without resolution, but the more I think about it the less it bothers me.
WingedSerpent: The MST3K movies are often cut for time and content, so it may have made more sense in the original version.
Quote from: BTM on July 15, 2010, 08:55:30 PM
This one spider movie (can't recall the title) it ends with the survivors (who have barricaded themselves in a building) looking outside only to discover the entire town is coated in a spider web.
That would be Kingdom of the Spiders, but I didn't really feel the way about the film.
Quote from: WingedSerpent on July 15, 2010, 09:13:40 PM
From my MST3K collection;
I thought Sidehackers just abroubtly ends. Yeah, you can figure out what happens, Rommel dies and the bad guy is arrested by the approaching cops (the movie's old, I don't care about posting spoiler warnings for it)
But all we see in the film is Rommel being shot in the back.
Sidehackers was another film I thought about, but didn't bring up. The film's ending blows.
Quote from: DCA on July 15, 2010, 08:09:15 AM
Quote from: Monster Jungle X-Ray on July 14, 2010, 10:13:09 PM
No Country For Old Men has a rather abrupt ending, but I think I like it better that way.
good call. haven't read the book, perhaps the book ends like that too, maybe.
THE ITALIAN JOB - the end is not exactly the place I thought it would end...a bit of a cliffhanger in fact :teddyr:
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the book, does end essentially the same, although the time-frames are a bit different.
Since we're comparing Coen brother films, A SERIOUS MAN, ends the same way.
But I think it was integral, especially in the case of A SERIOUS MAN, for those movies to end that way.
Dracula 3000 has one of the biggest WTF? endings ever. It's just Erika Eleniak and Tiny Lister on a spaceship, cut to exterior view, spaceship explodes, roll credits.
Cafe' Flesh ends in mid-bang.
The first Evil Dead movie. The motorcycle from hell :teddyr: approaches Ash and.. the end!
Quote from: Jack on July 16, 2010, 06:18:53 AM
Dracula 3000 has one of the biggest WTF? endings ever. It's just Erika Eleniak and Tiny Lister on a spaceship, cut to exterior view, spaceship explodes, roll credits.
They had to fly into the sun or something to kill the vampire strain, right? Lord that movie was stupid.
I came in to post A Serious Man but I see a couple people beat me to it. I'll add Barton Fink (kind of a theme with the Coens, isn't it?) and There Will Be Blood.
Cujo, seriously it just ends. What happened about the cheating wife and the violent lover who wrecked the house???? It resolves nothing brought up in the story.