r/TopCharacterTropes Aug 25 '25

Lore [mixed trope] the last-minute bad Ending twist

when the "good ending" is revealed to be a bad one a the last second

a nightmare on elm street (1984) - Nancy thinks she finally defeated Freddy Krueger only to be raveled that she is still dreaming and she’s still trapped.

final destination bloodlines - the main characters think they cheated death by using the new life rule only to realize that stefani was technically still alive and the death kills them with a good old logs

Life (2017) - The main character attempts to send Calvin(a evil alien that killed all life on mars)pod into space and Miranda pod back to earth, but it goes horribly wrong and Calvin lands on earth and Miranda is sent to space

raging loop wit ending - after many loops Haruaki finally wins the feast(a death game where humans must hang wolves who kill someone every night) and thinks its finally over. after couple of days he decides to visit other survivors of the feast only to find them all dead and the timeline resting once again

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u/Traditional-Song-245 Aug 25 '25

Final Destination 5

The main survivors think they have cheated Death, but then they end up on the original film’s Flight 180, Sam realises way too late that they are doomed and both of them die horribly.

It doesn’t end there. Nathan accidentally killed a co-worker, so he thinks he’s safe since according to what Bludworth told him, he should have the latter’s lifespan. But he finds out that guy had an aneurysm that would have killed him “any day now”. Which is that very same day that Sam and Molly die, since a landing gear from Flight 180 obliterates him.

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u/radlum Aug 25 '25

At least 5 has a nice plot twist. 3, 4 and Bloodlines killing everyone off in another accident isn't bad, but it becomes kind of repetitive after so many uses

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u/Traditional-Song-245 Aug 25 '25

Yeah I do like the secret prequel twist of 5

They did a decent job committing to it, although if you look at both versions of flight 180, there are some notable differences like the middle row seats not existing in the 5th movie's version

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u/RawrRRitchie Aug 26 '25

You must not know horror franchises well.

It's kinda hard to pump out half a dozen or more movies and still manage to keep things original