Poll of the Day > Why do some horror movies end with the main character(s) dying.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like wtf is the point of the movie then?

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It turns them into parables/cautionary tales, etc.

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sabin017 posted...

It turns them into parables/cautionary tales, etc.

That's dumb.

No one gives a shit about any "subtle" messages in movies or TV shows.

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Carter-A259 posted...

Like wtf is the point of the movie then?

Depends on the individual movie. Some of them are making social commentary, for example, like Night of the Living Dead. Really obvious example, where the black hero survives the zombies only to be gunned down by a bunch of trigger happy white people.

There's cautionary tales, as mentioned. Frankenstein isn't killed on-screen, but it's implied he's going to die going after his creation by the end as I recall, and the whole story of Frankenstein is a sort of sci-fi cautionary tale.

There's also playing into the ideas of either a twist ending (lots of slashers) or using the theme of powerlessness/hopelessness/fate/etc (Hereditary), or genre tradition, even.

But it's like... you have to choose the tone of your ending. You want it hopeful? Hopeless? Bittersweet? Ambiguous? Shocking? Whether or not your protag survives/escapes and how they survive/die/escape (and also, whether or not they are corrupted by the end) is useful for setting the final tone of the piece.

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What is the point of anything?
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Gaawa_chan posted...

Depends on the individual movie. Some of them are making social commentary, for example, like Night of the Living Dead. Really obvious example, where the black hero survives the zombies only to be gunned down by a bunch of trigger happy white people.

The irony is, that wasn't even the original intention. His character basically dies in the end as a sort of cynical "Hah hah, fuck you" ending to show off the futility of it all.

As originally written, the character was supposed to be a dumb white guy and NONE of the subtext existed. It wasn't until they cast a black man in the role - and he rewrote his dialogue to better represent his own natural intelligence/education - that it kind of took on the additional meaning.

It's been mentioned that Romero himself didn't really intend for the film to have any social commentary or implications, but after the actor himself pointed out how his performance was going to be interpreted, Romero loved the idea.
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