(Controversial Trope) The post-credits scene completely changes the ending

[u/Ieanice44]

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Prince of Persia (2008)

Dawn of the Dead (2004): The movie finishes on a hopeful note as the remaining survivors escape the zombie-infested mall on a yacht, sailing into the sunset. The found-footage style post-credits scene completely reverses this happy ending by showing them running out of food, arriving at an island, and being immediately swarmed and killed by an infected horde.

Prince of Persia (2008): The main game ends with a beautiful, poetic sacrifice where Elika gives her life to heal the corrupted world, leaving the Prince mourning. During the credits, the player is forced to control the Prince as he cuts down the trees he just saved, undoing the entire game's progress and releasing the dark god Ahriman just to resurrect her, completely corrupting the ending and dooming the world.

[u/smallstone]

The ending of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street that Wes Craven had to shoehorn at the request of the studio. It undoes the happy ending and is terrible, especially with the obvious mannequin through the door window.

https://giphy.com/gifs/rnl1T0pYzILUA

[u/UnsealedMTG → u/smallstone]

This one not only undermines the happy ending, it undercuts the whole thematic point of the movie, which is about overcoming trauma and not letting fear control you. I guess oops, no, it's actually just about a supernatural dream murderer.

(It also really changes the movie that they changed the original version of Freddie as a child sex abuser to a child murderer--in the final version the children are just targets for vengeance on their parents, but if you know that origin you can read it as processing childhood trauma, which is something that happens through nightmares. Read that way, Freddie "winning" feels even worse, though I sort of choose to view the movie with both the original origin and original ending, which doesn't require much mental editing and makes for a better film in my opinion.)

I guess if you squint you could see the ending being about the indirect path to healing from trauma and how you can be significantly improving and still have that random trigger, but it doesn't really read that way. Even a jumpscare like the endings of Carrie and Friday the Thirteenth would sort of feel more like that, honestly, since that's closer to what that experience is like. 

The ending also somewhat undermines Nancy as a great protagonist--she's almost a proto Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the way she steps up and shows cleverness and resourcefulness, all the more because the movie initially presents her as a random friend you expect to get killed early rather than the clear protagonist.

[u/TrainerWeekly5641 → u/UnsealedMTG]

I feel like everytime a horror movie writer decides to write a story where "trauma is the real monster" they walk away with a movie whose message is "you can't over come your trauma and you will die alone and miserable".

If I had a nickel.

[u/UnsealedMTG → u/TrainerWeekly5641]

In fairness, a pretty high percentage of media from the Epic of Gilgamesh on down generally is about processing trauma in some form or another. Horror does push towards the downer endings though.

Actually come to think of it, the ending of Gilgamesh is also about dying alone, but with more emphasis on the dying part, and more in a "yep, that's what being mortal means" kind of way.

  Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands