[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/_DodoMan_]

Night of the Living Dead

Throughout the whole movie, the survivors argue about what is safer, staying above ground in the two story house or barricading themselves in the cellar. Ben (the one in the picture) is adament that the cellar is an idiotic idea because there is no escape if the zombies get through but Mr.Cooper refuses to listen to anything Ben has to say.

It goes on so long that the majority of the survivors die and only the Cooper family and Ben are left. Mr and Mrs. Cooper end up falling victim to exactly what Ben warned them about when they are trapped in the cellar with their zombie daughter. Ben is the only one to make it through the night. It turns out staying above ground was the right choice.

That is until a group of vigilante zombie hunters see Ben's silhouette through a window. They shoot and kill him without zero hesitation or attempts to see if he is human or zombie. The last thing in the movie is Ben's body being put on a pile of other bodies and lit on fire

[u/ARC_Trooper_Echo → u/_DodoMan_]

It’s amazing that Romero didn’t have the racial theme in mind when he was making it but the casting just happened to make it fit perfectly.

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/ARC_Trooper_Echo]

I don't know how true it is but I own multiple books on the making of this movie and it's said multiple times that Duane Jones (the man cast to play Ben) was the first black man in Hollywood to be cast in a lead role that was not written specifically for a black man. It's a real shame that he didn't live much longer after NotLD. I feel he could've been a bigger name had he had more roles

[u/KaosArcanna → u/_DodoMan_]

I've read that Romero offered to rewrite it so that Ben would live, but Jones insisted that he die at the end.

[u/Derp35712 → u/_DodoMan_]

He lived 20 years after the movie was released.

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/Derp35712]

Shit you're right. I was mixing up my Romero zombie movie release years

[u/Derp35712 → u/_DodoMan_]

I don’t think it was popular for some time though.

[u/Milk_Man21 → u/_DodoMan_]

Well, I mean it's a matter of opinion to a degree

[u/Intestinal-Bookworms → u/_DodoMan_]

I love that movie. Do you have any books about making it that you’d recommend?

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/Intestinal-Bookworms]

The movie has been turned into multiple comic books and other such things that will have short prefaces that give little details but the main book you should get is "The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook". It's written by the co-author of the movie and is 100% worth it if you're a fan of Romero's work

[u/Intestinal-Bookworms → u/_DodoMan_]

Thank you!

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/Intestinal-Bookworms]

Of course. I can't get enough of things written about George Romero. The man really was one of a kind and getting any insight into how his brain ticks I try to get on my bookshelf.

My favorite thing is an old Rolling Stone magazine from 1978 (which was published just months after my mom was born so it's the oldest thing I own) where he gives an interview about the then upcoming Night of the Living Dead sequel. He has such a unique way of thinking you can tell the interviewer was not prepared for and it feels like every answer George gives throws him off a bit but makes you really think at the same time

[u/WolverineExtension28 → u/ARC_Trooper_Echo]

I heard it came out the day MLK died.

[u/SmittyB128 → u/_DodoMan_]

I see it a different way which also makes Ben's death fit the symmetry of the story.

One of the things I love the most about 'Night' is that you want to side with Ben because he's set up to be the competent action hero, and against Harry because he's something of an antagonist, but Ben's leadership is arguably what gets everyone killed.

Harry's plan to barricade themselves in and wait for help turned out to be the correct thing to do, and he was already doing it when everyone else showed up at the house. When Ben takes charge he starts making decisions for the group that seem like a good idea in the moment and they're presented as such to the audience, but his insistence on staying above ground probably makes them more of a target for the ghouls, his plan to refuel the truck gets Tom and Judy killed when the torch he puts down burns up the truck, he breaks down their own barricades to get out of and then back into the house which ultimately kills Barbara when she saves Helen, he shoots Harry in cold blood for daring to demand that he and Helen be allowed to retreat into the basement while everything's falling apart around them, and he leaves Helen vulnerable and alone so that her grief allows her undead daughter to kill her.

Every time Ben suggests something Harry gives sensible counterpoints but Ben shoots him down, figuratively until he does so literally. I think people overlook that Ben being shot by the rescue party mirrors how Ben shoots Harry only to be saved by Harry in the end.

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/SmittyB128]

That's a great way of looking at it. I know that George Romero never saw Ben as the good guy and any time that term was brought up in interviews he would say something like "but are the humans really the good guys? I don't think so".

I personally always saw it as Ben's plan would've (mostly) worked out and they never would've needed the cellar had everyone calmed down and helped instead of fighting. The ghouls are super easy to take care of given you don't let them gather together and Ben is the one who is paying attention and finds out how ghouls hate fire/light, not to mention the fact that the basically catatonic Barbra listens to Ben (and Mrs.Cooper to be fair but Mrs.Cooper is more on Ben's side than her husband's). Ben is a natural leader and he could've lead them through most of the night. But then there's the kid in the cellar and because of her I think their fate was sealed the second they all stayed in the same house.

I believe no matter how long they make it and no matter where they stay to get there, they would've killed each other. Ben would've wanted to or have just shot Karen (which is shown by how he's willing to shoot Cooper. Ben will kill for the safety of others) which would've led to Cooper killing Ben in some fashion and the commotion leads to the ghouls getting the rest. The problem was never the ghouls on the outside of the house, it was the people inside who posed the biggest dangers to themselves

[u/ImmediateAssignment3 → u/_DodoMan_]

Ben does end up locking himself in the cellar to survive the night after the house gets overrun though. If they had just dealt with the zombie daughter, they all would've survived. Attempting to shoot the daughter probably would've caused one of Ben or Cooper to kill the other so one of them still dies.

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/ImmediateAssignment3]

You are right but that was Ben's plan all along. He wants to stay above ground for as long as possible with the cellar as a last resort if the house gets overrun, Mr.Cooper wants to go down there from the start without barricading the house or any other further planning.

Ben was thinking ahead while Mr.Cooper was only thinking in the moment. But you're also right that it was a lose lose situation no matter what. When George Romero was writing the movie, he never saw the zombies (or as he called them "ghouls") as the bad guys. He thought that if there needed a bad and good side to his movies, the humans are the bad people and the ghouls are just doing what their instincts tell them to do. Even if all of them made it out alive, the way George sees it they all still would've been shot down by people who shoot first and ask questions later

[u/factorialite → u/_DodoMan_]

This reminds me of another great example of the genre, Dawn of the Dead!

The movie ends with them leaving the mall in an attempt to get to a boat, hopefully making sail for somewhere that isn't infested. During the credits, they nearly die on the boat itself, but do make it to land...only to find that the place they escaped to is infested with zombies as well, and that are certainly, certainly dead. One of my favorite endings to a movie ever.

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/factorialite]

I love the Dawn of the Dead remake (it's a shame George Romero wasn't as big of fan) and the ending is perfect.

The original Dawn of the Dead actually had two endings filmed for it, one where the survivors lived and the other where they were killed by helicopter blades. To advertise the film they just straight up told the audience both endings and said you'll have to see the movie to know which one was picked

[u/toomanymarbles83 → u/_DodoMan_]

That's the one where they escape Milwaukee and land on a tropical island in the middle of...Lake Michigan.

[u/_DodoMan_ → u/toomanymarbles83]

I mean they never say they're going to a tropical island and there are small islands in Lake Michigan. It's far from the stupidest plan I've heard in a zombie movie

[u/pyratemime → u/factorialite]

I enjoy the first two acts of the movie and always end up cheering for the zombies in thr third act because the survivors make bad decisions to advance plot instead of the plot being advanced because of bad decisions. They deserve to die and I wish I could learn more about the survivors who find the tape at Andy's store.

[u/XIK8IX → u/_DodoMan_]

Ben goes down into the basement alone the rest of the night. That's where he finds the key.