The other night, a friend of mine said I should've expected
SOMA ending grimly because "it's Horror." It bugs me when people talk
like that, because Horror doesn't have to end badly. It's actually dangerous to
the genre if the endings are predictable. That's why the best Twilight Zone
episodes challenge our expectations.
I've written before about not particularly liking either Happy or Sad endings. Sometimes an ending fits a particular story, and often
Happiness is a surprisingly good fit for Horror. They're natural compliments to
each other: go through the tumult of a scary story for the relief of an ending.
It reminds me of Jack McDevitt once yelling at a WorldCon, "I'm not
reading five hundred pages just to read the hero died at the end!"
Yet I love Horror, which feels more inclined every decade to
end with everyone dead, or at best, doomed. So join me for a few scary movies
that end well for the heroes. Maybe we'll learn something.
I'll even start with the most obvious entry so that if
you've clicked here by accident, you'll only have the end of a hundred-year-old
novel spoiled.
1. Bram Stoker's
Dracula (1897)
Not Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, which has
a runtime more decadent than its costume design. But the formative vampire
story for generations had the good guys triumph. It's an old-fashioned monster
story: we find a monster, it scares us, and then we win. Life expectancy was
lower in 1897, so endings went easier on us.
But seriously, read that ending. The evil sisters go down,
Quincey and Harker shank Dracula, and Mina and Jonathan have a baby and live
happily ever after. Stoker originally made their victory so overwhelming that
Dracula's own castle died and fell apart.
Ultimately, Stoker decided killing the evil real estate was too much.
Ultimately, Stoker decided killing the evil real estate was too much.
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