10 Horror Movie Endings That Leave You Speechless

The final act; the conclusion; the climax; the point in a movie when everything we have been watching either comes together harmoniously, shatters into a thousand pieces, leaves us feeling good and whole, or tears apart everything we think we know. It will come as no surprise that a good many horror movies traffic in the latter, as for many of the genre's directors this is the whole point of the endeavour - to shock and spoil.

After all, who hasn't sat in stunned silence as the credits for Requiem for a Dream roll on by? Who hasn't spent the next half hour scratching their head after Don't Look Now? And who hasn't tried to scrub Hereditary from their brain with an hour's doom-scrolling?

There is a whole canon of horror movies that use their final scenes to smite the viewer any which way they can. Some are tangibly harrowing, some leave us perplexed, others contain unspeakable twists, and others yet still simply defy the spoken word, or our ability to utter it. 

These 10 horror film endings are guaranteed to make you lose your appetite for both popcorn and conversation. 

Last year, It's What's Inside presented us with one of the more original horror sci-fi outings in years, taking the basic premise of Bodies Bodies Bodies and folding it over a few times. 

In the film, old college friends use experimental body swap technology brought along by group outcast Forbes (David Thompson), to play a game in which they have to guess who is in their body. But once the bodies are swapped, nobody can seem to behave themselves, and it's anyone's guess who is responsible when the game turns deadly and several of the group die in each others bodies.

Director Greg Jardin uses colour filters to try and keep us upright throughout the film, navigating the head-scratching switches with glimpses into who is really behind the eyes and faces. But in this big old mish-mash of happenings, we fail to notice there is one character who is never focused on in their other forms - Forbes. And that's because Forbes, from the very beginning, has actually been body-swapped with his younger sister Beatrice (Madison Davenport), who the group drove insane years before and has come to exact her revenge. 

The conclusion shows us the disastrous effects of the final swap, with innocent characters blamed for the deaths, some characters stuck in the wrong bodies, Forbes locked in Beatrice's body, and Beatrice on the run with the body-swapping machine.