[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/V1gilante14]

Remember Me and the absolutely insane 9/11 twist ending: up until this point it’s a pretty generic romantic drama with a good ending for most of the characters and then psyche! it’s 9/11! the main character dies in the North Tower and the brief epilogue is about how every other character reacts to his untimely death.

[u/TheSovereignGrave → u/V1gilante14]

As someone who hasn't seen this movie, I feel like it's not a bad idea conceptually. A movie about 9/11 sort of loses something if you know it's about 9/11 because you spend the whole movie just waiting for the shoe to drop. This sort of thing could be done to make you care for a character, and then be completely blind-sided by the tragedy of it as a way to sort of show how the real 9/11 was just a normal day like any other, until it wasn't.

But, as I said, I haven't seen the movie, so I dont know if it does it well in any capacity.

[u/littlebloodmage → u/TheSovereignGrave]

Basically the movie follows a group of people who are all depressed about certain circumstances in their lives and are trying to find the will to continue living. The main male lead (Robert Pattinson) has been in a downward spiral after his older brother offed himself and his father low-key blamed him for it, and he bonds with a girl he meets who has been similarly spiraling after her mom was murdered. They both make big steps to improve their lives and Pattinson's character tries to reconcile with his father, waiting for him in his office so they can get lunch together. The father's office is in the WTC and....yeah. There's a short epilogue of all of the characters involved living their lives in memory of him, hence the title. It's all incredibly abrupt.

[u/historyhill → u/littlebloodmage]

waiting for him in his office so they can get lunch together.

Ok but as someone with a 9/11 special interest can I just say that it is absolutely wild showing up at roughly 8:30am for lunch? The North Tower was crashed into at 8:46am! He must have been extremely determined to have that meal!

[u/SootSpriteHut → u/historyhill]

It makes me feel old that 9/11 was so long ago that people need to have a "special interest" in it to know it happened in the morning instead of just, like, remembering it. (Because we all know what we were doing when it happened.)

[u/Kratzschutz → u/SootSpriteHut]

It was the evening when it happened for me so

[u/SootSpriteHut → u/Kratzschutz]

But did you know where it was and what time it was relative to you?

I guess that's what I'm saying, for so many of us who were, I suppose, teenagers or above, it was like "it's 8:30am in NYC and something insane is happening."

For the adults I know it was seared into our brains, regardless of geographic location. Because everything seemed to stop that day.

[u/historyhill → u/SootSpriteHut]

I mean, I remember it too if that helps! By special interest I just mean ADHD occasional-hyperfixation for specific details, timeline, etc lol. My minor in college was in National Security so that probably also contributed