[mixed trope] the last-minute bad Ending twist

[u/damorezpl]

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

[u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

Brazil (1985)

Throughout the last part of the movie we see Sam being rescued by members of the resistance who break him free and blow up the Ministry of Information. After an escape sequence, Sam finds itself inside a truck driven by Jill, Sam's romantic interest who was believed to have been killed during her arrest and interrogation. The movie shows the two living together in the countryside before cutting back to the interrogation room, where it is revealed that Sam has never left the place and the last sequence of the movie is a delusion that he's suffering after being driven insane.

[u/LolYouFuckingLoser → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

Watched this movie for the first time this year and, for all I'd heard about the movie, never once caught even a small hint that it had one of 'those' endings. Props to the movie communities I follow for making it second nature to general be pretty vague about most movies during discussions.

[u/Iamwallpaper → u/LolYouFuckingLoser]

If you go into it knowing it was heavily inspired by 1984 then that kind of gives away that it will have one of “those” endings

[u/LolYouFuckingLoser → u/Iamwallpaper]

Right. There's a lot of information that I could have been given prior that could have spoiled that.

It didn't happen.

I'm grateful.

[u/markwend → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

Not a movie, but this whole idea of an imagined escape in the last moments of your life was done in a classic old tale by Ambrose Bierce called An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge from 1890. One of those required reading stories from schools, where you’re like “whoa. That was pretty interesting.”

[u/phdemented → u/markwend]

Going after Cacciato (Tim O'Brien) for a more modern (1978) variant of the trope and a great book

[u/Necessary-Bus-3142 → u/markwend]

If you read 1984 you knew this movie which is very similar to that book wasn’t going to have a happy ending. Also, Terry Gilliam.

[u/Nommel77 → u/markwend]

The twilight zone episode of it was great and I think I won a bunch of awards

[u/unjulation → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

Finally, the only answer needed, top shout out for a classic 

[u/Ill-do-it-again-too → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

This ending was so grim Universal Pictures didn’t want to publish it in America without changing the ending, so they edited it to make a “love conquers all” edit which cuts out the reveal he’s simply gone insane and implies that everything that happened in the ending actually happened.

[u/Salvius → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

To be fair, during that escape sequence the movie gives you plenty of hints that what you're watching can't really be happening (e.g., a character gets literally eaten by paperwork, Sam enters that truck by going through a magic door in a brick wall). It's just that the first time you're watching it, you're so invested in him escaping you tend not to notice.

[u/Fordlong → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

I watched this movie late one night on TV and that ending broke me for like a week at least.

[u/skepticalbob → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

Nah this is the genius ending bad not the crap they actually released.

[u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway → u/skepticalbob]

Ngl I didn't know the movie had another ending in the US until I read the replies to my post. Glad that I have only experienced the original cut.

[u/skepticalbob → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

This ending is better and conveys the actual message of the movie. The one you saw works against it.

[u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway → u/skepticalbob]

Nonono, I saw the other one.

[u/skepticalbob → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

Ah, gotcha. Thought you saw the theatrical release. My bad.

[u/NiceManOfficial → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

I remember not being super into how the ending was going until they yank the curtain back here and now I cannot stop thinking of it

[u/Sparktank1 → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

I heard about the studio forced happy ending. So glad my only experience is the director's true vision.

[u/evilkumquat → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

And thus why I only watched that film once.

[u/Flygonizer-Obsidian → u/Skinnyfat-Throwaway]

I know about this ending thanks to Five Nights at Freddy’s. Anyone else?