18 Horror Movies That Were Way Too Cruel

It might seem odd at first to complain about horror movies being too cruel. After all, this genre does specialise in darker movies, so surely this cruelty is kind of to the point? To an extent, absolutely, but it's arguable that there is an important balance when it comes to this. If a horror flick goes too far into mean spiritedness, the whole thing becomes a lot harder to enjoy. So how can a horror film avoid feeling too mean? Well, it can do it in a number of ways. Perhaps the two most important things are firstly making sure that the tragedy of the story feels logical and earned, and secondly allowing all of the darkness to really mean something. If an extra dark horror film uses its morbid material to say something interesting, that makes it much easier to swallow. The following movies are all examples of horror pictures that, in one way or another, were too cruel for their own good, and this has definitely turned many viewers off them. Had these dialled down on the nastiness, it's likely many of them would be regarded more fondly. I'm Sean Ferric for What Culture Horror, and here is our list of horror movies that were way too cruel. Final Destination Bloodlines Final Destination Bloodlines is an awesome horror sequel, perhaps the best Final Destination movie ever made, and easily one of the greatest horror films of the year. It's arguable that it wouldn't look too out of place in a list of the decade's best horror films so far, so this placement mustn't be misread as an attack on the overall film. Rather, it's a criticism of the ending, which was by far the worst part of a mostly strong narrative. Four out of the other five Final Destination movies concluded with everyone dying in some form, and to end the film with another gotcha moment where the last survivors die, after all, was so predictable, not to mention outright aggravating in this particular instance. First up, there was a poorly done twist. Siblings Stephanie and Charlie thought that they were safe because she'd supposedly drowned, and he'd revived her via CPR. As anyone with any basic medical knowledge would've been able to work out immediately, Stephanie didn't actually die. Secondly, this was particularly frustrating because these two siblings were genuinely likeable, well-played characters who'd been through absolute hell after they'd lost so many members of their family. They deserved a happy ending, and this end just felt a bit too mean. It was a bum note to conclude an otherwise triumphant return for one of horror's greatest franchises. Unfriended Dark Web Much like Final Destination Bloodlines, Unfriended Dark Web is a reminder that sometimes, we just need a happy ending. At this point, when a horror movie does end happily, it feels like a big twist in and of itself, and it's ever so refreshing in most cases. Interestingly enough, Unfriended Dark Web did have several different endings, which were sent to cinemas during its release, and one of them was more positive, as protagonist Matthias and his deaf girlfriend Amaya survived this version. However, all of the other endings conclude with Matthias, Amaya and Matthias' four friends who participate in the action either dead or close to it. They should've gone for the happy ending. Unfriended Dark Web is a very good screen-life horror that's been heavily underrated over the years. The main thing holding it back from greatness is that it was a bit too downbeat for its own good. Unlike the scumbag characters in the first film, these ones were genuinely likeable, while Matthias and Amaya's relationship was surprisingly moving. At least a couple of guys deserve to live, and it did get a little depressing watching them all snuff it, especially as the rest of them only got involved because Matthias unknowingly brought home a cyber criminal's computer. I'll say it now, happy endings are underrated. The House That Jack Built Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built is a good serial killer horror, maybe even a very good one. So then, why has it become so divisive and polarising over the years? That simple. This movie is absolutely sadistic and is going to be far too much for many viewers. Honestly, it's difficult not to wish this movie hadn't been quite so vicious. With its excellent philosophical dialogue, atmospheric visuals, and Matt Dillon's superb performance as the serial killer, this is an accomplished film in its own right, and more viewers would've been able to appreciate this had it not been so nasty. An interesting film to compare it to is Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. That one is also difficult to watch, but doesn't feel nearly as gratuitous, as it conveys more through atmosphere and leaves most of the violence offscreen. In contrast, this picture is sometimes excessive with its extended sequences of violence, and some of Jack's crimes are a bit over the top. House could've said all it needed to say without being so gruesome, and maybe then it would've spoken to a wider audience. Having said this, Lars von Trier has made a career out of making movies that upset everyone, and he probably smiled when 100 people walked out at the movie's Cannes premiere. Prom Night, 1980 Prom Night is one of the most influential films of the slasher genre's heyday. It opens with several children accidentally causing a little girl to fall to her death, and making a pact not to tell anyone. This story was probably the template for I Know What You Did Last Summer. Six years later, on Prom Night, a masked figure goes on a killing spree which appears to be targeting those responsible. Despite its iconic status, Prom Night is a pretty mediocre flick for most of its run. It's all fairly whatever stuff right up until the ending, where it becomes During the climax, protagonist Kim, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who is the older sister of the girl who died in the beginning, is attacked by the killer alongside her prom date, Nick. She manages to fatally wound the killer before they murder Nick, and then the attacker is unmasked as her brother, Alex. As the movie ends, Kim cradles Alex's body and weeps. Kim had already lost one sibling, and now she's accidentally killed her other surviving sibling, too. Thanks to this oddly melodramatic ending, the movie ends on a sour note, contrasting with what was otherwise fairly light-hearted horror fare in the worst kind of way. Black Christmas, 2019. Another slasher flick, another off-putting ending that'll rub everyone the wrong way, it's time to talk about 2019's Black Christmas, the second remake of the wonderful 1974 slasher flick of the same name, albeit a remake in name only. It's got almost nothing in common with the original, a criminally underrated gem that you should most definitely watch instead of this. This one sees a group of sorority sisters being stalked by various masked attackers, and the movie goes in a pretty crazy direction by the end. It turns out that the attackers are the college's fraternity brothers, who've been possessed by the spirit of the college's misogynistic founder. Working with the villainous Professor Gelson, they've been murdering women they deem unruly. This largely underwhelming, if admirably audacious, redo drops the ball at the very end, just like the aforementioned prom night. It's got one of those endings that's presented as happy, despite having some horrible implications. Specifically, while most of the heroic characters escape and Gelson is killed, the previously-possessed frat brothers are left to die in a burning building, even though they'd clearly been possessed and weren't really in control of their actions. That's exactly the wrong kind of disturbing, and this ranks among the least happy happy endings in recent history. Alien 3, Newt and Hicks, enough said. 1992's Alien 3 eventually kills off everyone who survived 1986's Aliens, and it's just depressing to watch. Newt and Hicks are killed off when their escape pod crashes, and Ripley later sacrifices herself to destroy the alien that's growing inside her. The deaths of Newt and Hicks were immeasurably awful, as they were great characters, and Newt was the heart of the previous film, so them both dying off-screen like that was beyond insulting. Furthermore, even if Ripley's death was a heroic one, after how much she'd suffered throughout Alien 3 and the previous two movies, she deserved a happier ending than this. A clone of her appears in the next film, but this is the final end for the original version of Ellen Ripley, one of the greatest female characters in the history of the silver screen. If a sequel ever gives her a new ending, that could end up being one of those rare retcons that audiences actually like. It's arguable that Alien 3 is actually an alright prequel in many ways, and I do genuinely enjoy it. And yet, having said this, it's easy to why so many fans still struggle with this one. It really is far too bleak for its own good, and it's a harder film to revisit as a result. The Wolf Creek Films These Australian horror films, in which various tourists are hunted down by the psychopathic serial killer Mick Taylor, are pretty good in a lot of ways, but there's a strong argument to be made that they are far too cruel. Granted, these movies revolve around one of the evilest killers in horror history, and it seems they were designed to be particularly brutal works, and yet, as mentioned before, brutality needs to feel earned. In these movies, it doesn't. Despite an award-worthy performance from John Jarrett, Mick Taylor isn't the most credible of characters, as he's ridiculously overpowered. Whenever his victims escape from him, he always manages to catch them, even after they've been going for hours through the vast wilderness of the Australian outback. Every time, he magically turns up exactly where the plot needs him to be. In both Wolf Creek films, he murders many innocent people, and the sole survivor in each case is left psychologically destroyed beyond measure. In neither case did this feel truly warranted due to all of these head-scratching logic gaps. As such, these movies leave a bitter aftertaste, despite their many positive qualities. Army of the Dead Army of the Dead is an infuriating mess across the board, and one of its very worst problems is just how weirdly mean-spirited it was, which was especially jarring as it's quite a light, silly film in other ways. Regardless of the picture's flaws, the heist crew that goes into a zombie-infested Las Vegas to retrieve some money were generally likeable characters, and it was so infuriating how all of them kept dying in the most avoidable ways thanks to a never-ending stream of dumb decisions. As a result, much like the Wolf Creek films, these deaths are difficult to accept because they never feel earned. A tonally discombobulated flick, Army also veers misguidedly into melodramatic territory with some of its deaths, and even these occasions felt manipulative and exasperating instead of being moving. For example, there's a particular moment where a character tells protagonist Scott that she has feelings for him, and then she's abruptly killed by the zombies out of nowhere. And just when you think it couldn't get any worse, Army gives viewers the finger by making its least likeable character, Katie, Scott's whiny daughter who gets everyone else killed through her stupidity, the only one to survive. Sick. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 Most seemed to be on the same page with this one. 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre legacy sequel was generally underwhelming, if technically solid, a fare that stood out thanks to its jarringly ugly tone. Nearly all of the young people in the movie, who are corrupt entrepreneurs trying to redevelop a mostly-abandoned Texan town, are exaggeratedly unlikable, and it's almost as if the filmmakers are encouraging audiences to egg Leatherface, here played by Mark Burnham, on, which is pretty disturbing to put it mildly. In a horror comedy, this could have worked better, but this is a straight-faced, dark movie, and the tone is just angry, not satirical, so this left a bad taste behind for many viewers. To make matters worse, the movie brings back original survivor Sally Hardesty, Alwyn Ferreri, replacing the late Marilyn Burns, only to kill her off in the most avoidable way possible, and there's also an ill-judged revelation that protagonist Lila is a school shooting survivor? It was already pretty off to throw in such a sensitive topic and then not really address it, and it also makes the film even more unpleasant. Lila survives, but she's re-traumatized by these events, which culminate in her own sister being decapitated by Leatherface right in front of her. Antebellum. Too much torture, not enough plot. That's the best way to sum this one up. Antebellum was a thoroughly disappointing horror film which took an amazing premise, a modern-day African-American sociologist named Veronica finds herself in a 19th-century southern slave plantation and tragically wasted it on a soulless bit of torture porn. As if completely bungling its big twist, that Veronica has been taken to a present day re-enactment of the past, by as good as giving it away halfway through wasn't bad enough, but also a completely gratuitous slice of ugliness. There was a potential here for a trippy, thought-provoking look at the dark side of American history. Instead, this devotes nearly all of its runtime to Veronica and the other captives being brutalized in every way imaginable. Really, this felt more like a torture porn horror in disguise, and as such, just like its protagonist, Antebellum was stuck in the wrong time. The torture horror boom died out in the late noughties, and this came out in 2020. Piranha 3D. It might have got inexplicably generous reviews from critics back when it was released, but Piranha 3D is a pretty bad movie for the most part, one which relies unexclusively on gore and female nudity while failing to ever come up with a good script. Furthermore, while it was meant to be a horror comedy, it's got a weirdly nasty tone. There was something excessively sadistic about the elongated scenes of the Piranha violently killing hundreds of innocent partygoers, and the sexualized overtones make it even more uncomfortable. In one scene, two Piranha fight over a man's severed penis. In the same moment, two breast implants are seen floating away from a recently devoured woman. If the characters killed by the fish had all been total scumbags, then there would have been mileage for some good black comedy here. But Piranha 3D ultimately plays everything weirdly straight for the most part, and never really provides any laughs, even though it was supposedly a comedy. Essentially, you're better off watching the far superior 1978 original from director Joe Dante, which also features plenty of brutal mayhem, but captures the right vibe and never feels as unpleasant as this remake does. Eden Lake. This British hoodie horror has always been severely overrated. Alongside its offensive portrayal of the working class – if Jeremy Kyle ever made a movie, it'd look like this – it's another one of those movies where nothing that happens feels earned. Why? Because every bad thing that happens is down to an improbable coincidence or an unrealistically stupid decision. Main characters Steve and Jenny, who are being stalked by a group of murderous teenagers led by Brett, repeatedly make silly choices, such as initially leaving their valuables unattended even though these dangerous kids were nearby, and failing to fight back or just, y'know, leave. As for those pesky coincidences, there are a lot. The initial thing that sets everything off is the death of Brett's dog, who conveniently lands on a knife Steve and two teens are fighting over when it goes to attack Steve. In another moment, the movie uses the tiresome accidental murder trope when Jenny unintentionally kills one of the kids. At the end, Jenny finally escapes into a nearby house, and of course, it's Brett's home, and she's presumably killed by his parents. The Green Inferno. And you thought hostile was bad. Even by Eli Roth's grisly standards, cannibal horror film The Green Inferno is a brutal affair. It pays homage to the Italian cannibal boom, most notably Cannibal Holocaust, one of Eli Roth's favourite horror films, and much like that film, this one leaves a horrible aftertaste. The various cannibalistic death scenes are exhaustingly horrid and disgusting, with the death of Jonah, the nicest character in the movie, no less, being one of the most unpleasant horror deaths you're ever likely to see. And, as with many of the most excessive horror films, it would have worked better with a more unpleasant group of characters. These ones, a group of naive eco-activists, were idiotic at worst. Furthermore, Roth gives viewers the finger by allowing the only genuine douchebag in the movie to survive, while sole escapee Justine ultimately loses all audience sympathy by telling the authorities that the tribe was friendly, even though they murdered her friends and tried to mutilate her. Saw III The Saw movies have always been brutal as hell, sure, but the better ones toe the line properly by making the various grisly deaths the result of the characters' mistakes, thus allowing these movies to work as stories of karma. The lesser ones, on the other hand, indulge in too much unwarranted cruelty, none more so than 2006's Saw III. The biggest issue is with the movie's central game. In this case, a man named Jeff is being tested, as Jigsaw feels he's allowed himself to be overcome by feelings of revenge following the hit-and-run death of his young child. First up, Jeff did not deserve to be tested at all, as he was traumatised, a man facing the death of a child, perhaps the worst pain anyone can experience. Secondly, there's the horrible ending. He's put through a series of tests designed to teach him to forgive, and then, at the end, he murders Jigsaw, thus learning nothing whatsoever, and unintentionally kills his completely innocent wife, too. It's the most sour, infuriating conclusion imaginable. Everyone loses, both Jigsaw and Amanda Young are killed off way too early in the franchise's run, and it's ultimately nothing more than a load of shallow, gory nihilism. Also, we can't forget The Rack. That was unwatchable even by Saw standards. Lesson of the Evil. Time for an obscure one now. Lesson of the Evil is a serial killer flick from Japanese director Takashi Miike, director of films such as Ichi the Killer and Audition. You thought those were nasty? Well, brace yourself for Lesson of the Evil. For any first-time viewers, Lesson of the Evil, which revolves around high school teacher and serial killer Saiji Hasumi, might not seem worthy of being on this list at first, as it's quite a slow burn. Well, in 1999's Audition, Miike fooled audiences by making much of it a fairly chill watch before suddenly unleashing a climax of harrowing violence, and in Lesson of the Evil, he's at it again. This time, however, it all went too far. Much of the second half of this movie consists of Hasumi carrying out a school shooting in order to remove witnesses to a crime. This entire sequence is horrendously disturbing, and, in an era where school shootings are so common, this was all about as tasteless as it gets. Japanese horror movies do often do things that many Western horror flicks would never get away with, and as Lesson of the Evil shows, that isn't always a good thing. The line in the sand is there for a reason, after all. The Terrifier Films This entry might raise a few eyebrows. Some might argue that the whole point of the Terrifier Films is that they're meant to be extreme, which wouldn't be unreasonable. It does, unfortunately, mean that a lot of viewers will struggle to engage with them. While many slasher pictures afford most of the victims quick deaths, Art the Clown subjects his victims to drawn-out, excruciatingly painful demises in which he sadistically tortures them to death, while they are in audible agony the entire time. The most infamous example is probably the ridiculously vicious murder of Ali, a likeable and innocent character, although a particular shower murder scene in the recent third film probably made many viewers feel physically unwell. Ultimately, this brutality is a double-edged sword. It has allowed these movies to become notorious, but all of that overwhelming nastiness would be too much for many viewers to take. Furthermore, though fans deign to admit it, these are actually pretty forgettable bog-standard slasher films when the brutality is removed, so those who don't enjoy the gross-out violence will find little to appreciate. Would You Rather It's movies like this that make one feel grateful the torture horror film boom was so short-lived. Would You Rather is one of the ugliest American horror films of the century within a shadow of a doubt. It revolves around a woman named Iris who ends up participating in a deadly game of Would You Rather in order to win money to fund her brother's cancer treatment. This was a terrific premise, and it is engaging at first, but after a while, the relentlessly painful games just become exhausting, making this a miserable viewing experience. To make matters worse, once Iris wins the money by murdering one of the other players, an act that absolutely destroys her, and gets home, one last uber-cruel plot twist reveals that her brother died by suicide before she left to play the game, meaning that it was all for nothing. Therefore, there wasn't even a point. Often, it's important for extreme movies such as this to reward viewers for their endurance by provoking thought and giving them something to take away. To give some positive counterexamples, movies such as A Clockwork Orange, Irreversible, Natural Born Killers, and also the aforementioned The House That Jack Built, as excessive as that movie was at times, use their horrifying violence to say something meaningful. Here, there's nothing. There's no reward for the viewers or the characters. Megan Is Missing And finally, we have Megan Is Missing, a found footage film so effed up it went viral on TikTok during the pandemic. This is a frustrating case, as this one did have a lot going for it, yet it undermined itself by taking a radical left turn into gratuitous cruelty by the end. Megan Is Missing revolves around a high schooler named Amy who's trying to find out what happened to her best friend Megan, who vanished after an internet date. The first hour of this is absolutely solid and it does a good job of establishing these two girls and their genuine heartwarming friendship. And then the movie just goes too far. The final 20 minutes consist of footage showing Amy being kidnapped, brutalized by the predator who kidnapped Megan. Finally, Amy is buried alive in a barrel containing Megan's corpse. This was just too much. Everything about this felt exploitative, especially the scenes of assault. Writer-director Michel Goy stated that this movie was intended to raise awareness about the dangers of young people meeting strangers online. This is a good message, so it's a damn shame that the final film undermined this by being so excessive and sleazy. Sometimes being too dark can derail an otherwise promising horror film, and Megan Is Missing remains one of the epitomizing examples of this.