My candidate of the moment is SO LONG AT THE FAIR, a British film circa 1950. It's the story of a brother and sister (Jean Simmons) who arrive in Paris in 1889. The brother disappears early on and a local artist (Dirk Bogarde) steps in to lend her help. Everyone at the hotel claims the sister arrived alone; her brother's room has disappeared as well.
Well, I actually should spoil this to save you from watching it. But I better not. Suffice it to say, what seems like a thriller for 80 minutes turns out to be something else. You can't rip the atmosphere out from under a movie in the last five minutes and have it succeed. Yet viewers on IMDB seem satisfied with the film despite some salient questions that are never answered. Beats me
There are probably better choices for the worst ending ever, but this one was new for me.
What is your choice as worst ending ever?
44 comments:
It's not a movie, but the final episode of THE SOPRANOS has to be right up there.
I can't say this is the worst movie ending I ever saw, but COLLATERAL sure fell apart at the end. Mann had a nice tight, original thriller going, then went all Hollywood on us making things come out for the "happy" ending.
The one I always think about is a dichotomy. "The Mist" had an ending that was directly in line with the theme of the film. And, up until the ending, I thought it was one of the best horror movies of this decade. However, the emotional agony I experienced at the ending has so blighted the entire experience for me that I actually dislike the film. In fact, now, as I think about it, the pit in my stomach the ending created is opening up. Time to stop thinking about it.
If we're going to TV LAND, I vote for SEINFELD.
Never saw THE MIST and now I guess I won't.
As for TV, how about the ending of Nichols, the short-lived James Garner western. In the last episode, Nichols was killed, only to be replaced by his hitherto-unmentioned twin brother.
I remember an anecdote related to the "worst movie ending" question. Long ago, I had a friend who had gone to see GIANT (with Rock Hudson, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, et al), and was rather disappointed; he claimed that it ended rather oddly, and he could not makes heads or tails out of the ending. It turned out that he (not too sophisticated and not one who had been to many movies) left when the movie had reached the Intermission point (i.e., the movie was so long that it appeared in movie theaters with an intermission break); he did not know what "intermission" meant, so he got up and left (as did others who had gone to the lobby, the restrooms, etc.) and went home. As far as he was concerned, that was the strangest movie ending he had ever encountered. True story.
When they allowed Rambo to live at the end of First Blood instead of killing him off as in the novel
That is really funny except I have to admit something similar happened to me once. A small section of the middle of a movie was missing and nobody in the theater protested or even much noticed the strange jump in time until the curator came out and asked us if we wanted to come back when he had gotten his hands on a pristine reel. I don't think anyone said yes. It was a foreign film but still.
Yes endings are often changed. Rarely for the better.
If you're a dog lover, A BOY AND HIS DOG has a pretty bad ending, though it's true to Ellison's story. I didn't like the ending to BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA. The SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES was a pretty good movie, but the ending is problematic.
As for THE MIST, I thought the ending was surprising and powerful, so I sure do disagree with Scott on that one.
Love the story about GIANT. I guess the same thing could have happened with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, except of course the ending of that one was at the beginning of the film. Sort of.
I don't remember Nichols at all, but it seems to have picked up the twin brothers theme from Maverick. Didn't they use that there to bring in Roger Moore.
Now that you ask, of course I'm drawing a blank.
However, I just watched "Taken," with Liam Neeson. While I liked the movie, I was really p-o'd that he didn't slug his ex-wife at the end, because she kinda forced his hand to allow their 17-y-o daughter to go to Paris with only a friend and no supervision. I reallyreally wanted him to hit her -- or maybe just slap her. I could never do something like that myself, so I live vicariously through movies ;~)
...
Garner stood up to Warner Bros. during production of MAVERICK the first series, so the other Mavericks (including the British cousin, iirc, Moore's character) were introduced when Garner refused to play ball.
"The Mist" was such a clumsy piece of writing that it was one of the works that led me to dislike Stephen King's work generally, so I had no desire to see the Darabont-directed film, particularly when consiering his syrupy previous adaptations of King works. So, I doubt I'd find the new ending much worse than the rest.
Worst film ending include MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, with Bela Lugosi and directed by the overly-praised Tod Browning...and I'm having difficulty thinking of another film with such a bad and self-contradictory ending. THE GHOST SHIP is another "classic" with an ending that manages to be even worst than what had gone before...easily the worst film from the RKO Lewton unit string which included such true, brilliant classics as CAT PEOPLE and THE BODY SNATCHERS (the one with Lugosi and Boris Karloff, based loosely on Robert Louis Stevenson's story).
They wrecked the whole second half of I AM LEGEND, but I guess I was talking about the absolute end more than the last half.
NICHOLS was on for only one season, and I ba-a-arely remember seeing it as a child (my mother is/was a Stone Garner fan). (Me, too, but I think my response is less, shall we write, visceral.)
I was riveted by the first 3/4ths of Spielberg's War of the Worlds but the ending absolutely ruined what preceded it. The son just walking out of the house at the end, with no explanation how he made it there, was just awful.
JACOB'S LADDER, the early-'90s horror flick with Tim Robbins, had the worst ending of any recentish film that comes to mind...clumsy use of an icredibly hoary cliche compounded by use of McC. Culkin with glycerin all over his mouth as a visual metaphor, which I'm sure was a hit with the molester demographic.
I don't know if it's the worst ending of a movie, but THE NINTH GATE with Johnny Depp really disappointed me with its ending. Up to that point, it was a very compelling movie: rare books, satanic cults, spooky events.
Nice Francois Ozon movie called "Swimming Pool" with Charlotte Rampling from about 5-6 years ago. Really nice until the last two or three minutes when the movie almost literally disappears up its own ass.
I can't really think of one with a bad ending right offhand. Of course, I have got up and walked out of a few bad movies. I don't know how they ended, but the fact that they were going pretty badly presupposes that they didn't end well I guess.
The comments thus far--for some unfathomable reason--remind me of an experience in a film theory and criticism class I had in college. We were shown Un chien andalou (a creation from the minds of Bunel and Dali, if I recall), and I recall--during the twenty minutes of the film--being so completely baffled that when it was over I had little or no idea of what I had just witnessed (except that I recall being more than a little put off by straight razors after the experience). This may not count as "bad endings," but it counts for me as my weirdest experience "at the movies."
I'd vote for A.I. Spielberg has, in recent years, lost the ability to end a film. Munich was great but then it kept going and going long after the true ending. Minority Report has about four endings. But A.I. is the worst. I hated the whole movie but an absolutely inept end.
Swimming Pool was very enigmatic. I can remember discussing it afterward but I can't remember what we decided.
Todd, Gary & Kitty-Haven't seen these and now I won't.
Jacob/Eric-I agree. Yes, SS has trouble ending movies.
Did Ninth gate have that guy from THE CRYING GAME or was that something else.
I think sci-fi movies are particularly difficult to end.
I'll agree SWIMMING POOL was contrived, but I didn't hate it (my own visceral reactions to the co-leads might've had something to do with it). While THE GHOST SHIP is at least good for bad laughs...it was "lost" for a number of years--perhaps Not by chance, and it's narrated by a mute character (his inner monologue).
It's not That hard to end an sf film well, if only so many folks weren't trying with all their might to make an Instructive Essay out of the work...certainly that happens, almost as an aspect of the nature of the form, in prose, but it's endemic in the film sector. And rarely to the benefit of the work. Note that 2001 and most of the other best-beloved sf films by people with enough taste not to take the Spielberg gang seriously have rather more artistically shaped, rather than hortatory, endings. (Spielberg and his crew, among other bad things, cannot think of a film as other than an essay.)
RT--your befuddlement was indeed what UN CHIEN ANDALOU was reaching for. I haven't investigated yet to find out how they faked the eye-slitting.
Ah, the eye-slitting scene.
I understand that they did a quick cut (no pun intended) to cutting a sheep's (or was it a goat's) eye; it was done so quickly, and the audience reaction was calculated so well, that audiences did not notice the cut-and-splice. Well, as far as I'm concerned, better the sheep (or goat) than the woman. However, as I recall from watching the film, my immediate reaction was to go as quickly as possible to Sepesi's Tavern (in the campus town) and drown (as best as possible) all visual memories of the film (or at least that scene).
And the good Lugosi/Karloff film is THE BODY SNATCHER, singular. As opposed to the four and counting adaptation of Jack Finney's THE BODY SNATCHERS. (The second one has a somewhat goofy ending.)
Damn, I am gonna skip that movie. Memo: got to netflix and remove it from my queue.
The worst movie and ending both, ever, was Monster a go go. I rest my case.
Charles, you are very close to being objectively correct...though MAKR OF THE VAMPIRE is a competent movie, with about as incompetent an ending as the non-ending that HG Lewis slapped on that home-movie he entitled MONSTER A-GO-GO...again, a great source of bad laughs all the way through, even w/o the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 treatment.
RT--thanks...I think I had read that, years and years ago. At least the critter was already dead. But it's as jarring as anything in cinema, that sequence, even given it's obviously not the woman's eye.
Patti--what's off your Netflix queue?
Rick, I loved A BOY AND HIS DOG. The ending made me laugh so hard I almost fell off the sofa. But I admit to a twisted sense of humor.
UN CHIEN ANDALOU. No eye-slitting for me. Also no movies where people's ears are cut off or eyes pinned open. Or insects set loose in ears. I have my limits.
Patti, does this mean you would not enjoy Vincent Price in THE TINGLER?
I remember the coming attractions for THE TINGLER. I stayed away. Didn't like the AH one where the spider crawled into ears.
Horror is not my favorite genre.
Todd-Canceling Karen Cisco was a crying shame. Will try Royal Pains.
I agree with Dana- Collateral's ending was terribly disappointing.
THE PRESTIGE had a remarkably stupid ending, but it carried that over from the novel. So, I suppose that supplements JACOB'S LADDER as a more-recent example.
(And COLLATERAL and THE MIST, which I haven't had the misfortune of sitting through.)
An office-mate notes that her least favorite would be Kate Winslet prying Leonardo di Caprio's cold, dead fingers from the rescue craft in TITANIC, another experience I've not actually undergone...though a joke by her about THE CRYING GAME did remind me of other one-punch films, such as M. Night Shyamalan's jokes in cinematic form, for me most painfully SIGNS (aliens can get here and wreak massive havoc but it doesn't occur to them to wear protective clothing on a water-planet).
Kitty,
I have to say the end of TAKEN really bugged me too. The girl seems just fine, after having been kidnapped, drugged and sold as a sex slave.
Nice to see her bounce right back.
For me,
Maybe 8mm? Oh wait, everything about the film was the worst.
Black Dahlia had a freakin' Scooby Doo ending! The last ten minutes saw the "villains" quickly explain the whole damn plot. The only thing missing was "And I would have gotten away with it, if it was not for those kids and that dog!"
Now I have about 3 dozen films racing to the fore-front of my mind.
Of course, THE BLACK DAHLIA was even worse all the way through than 8MM, quite a trick.
8mm had a serial killer, living with his mother, fighting the hero in the middle of a rain storm, in the dead of night, in a cemetary. The cemetary, of course, is right next to the home of said killer and mommy.
Plus, the wretched level of failed audience manipulation reaches new levels of crap.
But BD does indeed blow.
I hated the ending in THE BODYGUARD with Kevin Costner. Totally unrealistic.
"Blowout," the DePalma version. I don't hate it as much as I did then, but to invest so much into Nancy Allen's character and not have Travolta save her...ugh.
I can't remember the ending. I do remember the beginning though.
*SPOILER ALERT*...
...Travolta doesn't save the damsel in distress, even though DePalma made it seem that he would just get there in time.
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