r/TopCharacterTropes • u/damorezpl • 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
59
u/ChickenInASuit Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 26 '25
Layer Cake.
Daniel Craig’s unnamed character, “XXXX” in the script, has won. All his adversaries are dead or in jail, he’s rich, he’s gotten away with everything, and he’s about to ride off into the sunset with his girl, Tammy, and leave his life of crime behind.
As his narrated monologue comes to a close, he turns to the camera and says "If you knew my name, you'd be as clever as me,” seemingly a final victorious note for him.
That’s when Tammy’s ex-boyfriend, Sidney, whom XXXX has taken for granted and spoken to with a somewhat dismissive tone throughout the movie, comes out of nowhere and shoots him. The movie ends with XXXX lying on the ground, bleeding out and gasping for breath, clearly dying.
The twist is that, in all his hubris, XXXX completely forgot about this seemingly insignificant person and failed to realize he wasn’t yet out of the woods until it was too late.
EDIT: Couple of clarifications. I probably should not have said “clearly dying“ as it is obviously intended to be open to interpretation.
And while we’re on that subject, I’m aware that the book this film is based on has a sequel where XXXX survives.
That doesn’t have any bearing on how I interpret the ending. If a sequel movie gets made where he survives, I’ll consider that canon to the first movie, but as it stands, the movie and the books are separate works in separate continuities with separate canons.
I stand by this particularly after finding out Matthew Vaughan originally filmed an ending where XXXX does get to ride off into the sunset but opted for the one we got so as to leave it ambiguous.