10 Horror Movie Moments Nobody Understands

WhatCulture

Years of discussion and still no answers!

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00:00The scariest thing in the horror genre is the unknown, and the very best horror movies

00:04know that the audience's lack of control is a tool to be used to disarm them and, yes,

00:10absolutely scare the willies out of them as well.

00:13For good or bad then, all of the following horror movie moments left the audience scratching

00:17their heads.

00:18I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 8 Horror Movie Moments Nobody Understands.

00:238.

00:24What does the ending mean?

00:26Martyrs.

00:27Martyrs is one of those classic horror movies that's been talked about to death, which

00:30is why it's even more impressive that nobody has been able to come down conclusively on

00:36its ending one way or another.

00:38Though the film starts off relatively simple with a woman invading a house to murder the

00:42people responsible for keeping her captive as a young girl, it quickly moves into the

00:47surreal as the woman is killed off and her friend Anna is recaptured and subjected to

00:52torture.

00:53Her captors have a pretty nuts goal behind her suffering too, to figure out once and

00:59for all whether there is life after death.

01:02In order to achieve this answer, they need to create a martyr, someone who is tortured

01:07so extremely that they essentially become a being caught between two worlds, in a frightening

01:13liminal space of being not quite dead, not quite alive.

01:18After being gruesomely flayed then, Anna achieves this liminal state and whispers the secret

01:23of the afterlife she discovers into the ear of the organisation's leader, who then promptly

01:30kills herself.

01:31Without being privy to what that secret actually was though, audiences are left to ponder what

01:36does come after death, if anything.

01:397.

01:40What does the picture mean?

01:42The Shining.

01:43A classic of the genre, The Shining's ending will be debated for all time.

01:47We know the story of this movie by now.

01:49In a snowed-in old hotel in the mountains, family man Jack Torrance torments his wife

01:54and son with an axe, driven mad by the spirits, both the drinking kind and the ghostly kind,

02:01housed within the building's walls.

02:03Eventually outsmarted by the quick thinking of a five-year-old boy, Jack freezes to death

02:08after becoming lost in the hotel's garden maze.

02:11That's not the end though, as we then cut back into the building and zoom in on a particularly

02:16e-reframed photograph hanging on the wall.

02:20As we get a close-up of what turns out to be a photograph of a dinner party, we see

02:23that Jack is actually there in the image, front and centre.

02:28The only issue is, well, this picture was taken in 1929 and the movie takes place 50

02:35years later and Jack hasn't aged a day.

02:38So what's the deal here?

02:40Was Jack reincarnated?

02:41Was he a ghost the whole time?

02:43Was he assimilated by the hotel after dying?

02:46It's an ambiguous note that's been hotly debated for years, with no official answer

02:51coming either way.

02:536.

02:54What is The Doppelganger Annihilation?

02:56Annihilation is a truly underrated sci-fi horror film from Alex Garland.

03:00A pretty dense flick, all things told, it follows a group of scientists as they venture

03:06into the Shimmer, an alien environment-changing phenomenon that causes a break in reality

03:12itself.

03:13Inside the Shimmer, pretty much anything can happen, as the world mutates and births some

03:18terrifying creatures, with one bear in particular guaranteed to keep you lying awake for weeks

03:24on end.

03:25While there are concrete explanations for virtually everything in the novel that the

03:30movie is based on, Garland actually decided to pretty much rip those details up for the

03:35movie and opted for a more metaphorical film rather than hard sci-fi.

03:41As a result, the ending has left anyone who's seen it scratching their heads.

03:45And that ending sees the only scientist who hasn't succumbed to the Shimmer, Natalie

03:49Portman's Lena, encountering a shimmering humanoid in a lighthouse.

03:55This being mimics every move Lena makes, before she ultimately manages to escape after hitting

04:01it with a grenade.

04:03Exploding it with a grenade!

04:04Whichever one works, and they tell me I'm a writer apparently.

04:08Anyway, back at the base, it's unclear what has actually happened to Lena, who has now

04:12taken on characteristics of the other scientists she was with.

04:16Exactly what the Doppelganger was and how Lena had been changed by her experience is

04:21never truly explained.

04:27The first, but certainly not last, Nicolas Cage movie on this list is a solid HP Lovecraft

04:32adaptation.

04:33Leaving the colour out of space, a family becomes tormented by a strange otherworldly

04:38purple light that infects and mutates their bodies, with each passing day birthing increasingly

04:44strange sights.

04:46With this being based on a HP Lovecraft story though, an author who was famous for using

04:51the Get Out Of Jail Free horror card of just describing monsters as being so scary the

04:55human mind can't even comprehend them and then just letting the readers do all the legwork.

05:01Though much of the story is left intentionally ambiguous.

05:05As a result, audiences leave the film none the wiser about what the titular colour actually

05:10was or how it really works.

05:12Hell, the wiki for the story quite literally describes it as a quote, force of unknowable.

05:17So when it takes the characters in the film away towards the end, nobody has any idea

05:22where they're actually going.

05:25The ending of The Thing is another classic, and leaves viewers with a question that nobody

05:31has been able to concretely answer one way or another.

05:34That of course being, is Childs the Thing?

05:37But okay, let's back up for a second.

05:39After being terrorised by an alien shapeshifter at a research base in Antarctica, only two

05:44survivors remain by the end of The Thing, Childs and MacReady.

05:49The latter has assumedly just blown the alien creature to kingdom come, destroying the whole

05:54base in the process.

05:56Sitting by the fire and slowly freezing to death, he's then greeted by Childs, who

06:00has miraculously survived and somehow caught up to him.

06:05Both understanding that they're totally done for either way, they tentatively offer

06:08each other a drink, uncertain whether one of them is The Thing.

06:12Now there have been a ridiculous amount of theories attempting to get to the bottom of

06:16this mystery over the years, analysing everything from the visibility of the actor's breath

06:21to the subtitles, but none have ever provided a real answer.

06:25That of course is kinda the point though.

06:28At this point in the story, it doesn't really matter either way if one of them is The Thing,

06:32they're both dead meat once that fire goes out.

06:36What Happened to the World?

06:37Resident Evil

06:38Paul W.S.

06:39Anderson's Resident Evil movie franchise did not care for such things as continuity

06:44or story or characters, and it laughed in the faces of everyone who assumed that it

06:50would.

06:51It had a big throaty laugh as well, like the one the Grinch does where he goes, HA!

06:55As a result, the franchise played fast and loose with coherency and made a laughingstock

06:59of anyone trying to piece together a proper timeline or a stable mythology for the whole

07:03story.

07:05The biggest headache in the series though regards the state of the world.

07:09While the zombie outbreaks initially started small in the first two movies, the third movie

07:14establishes that the T-Virus responsible for that has somehow gone airborne and devastated

07:19the entire world.

07:21Not only has most of the population been killed, but the virus has actually dried up the oceans

07:26and transformed the world into a Mad Max style desert wasteland.

07:31Which is all well and good, that is a very cool aesthetic, but then the fourth movie

07:36reins all of that back and transports our characters to locations with lush environments,

07:42huge bodies of water and nary a speck of sand in sight.

07:46So what gives?

07:48Well, nobody knows, this is just the beauty of this franchise I guess, continuity does

07:53not matter.

07:54The change is actually never even directly addressed in the movie, so audiences are just

07:59supposed to rely on their own imagination to fill in the blanks as to why the world

08:04changes states so dramatically.

08:062.

08:07Is it just a drug trip, Mandy?

08:10Mandy was a big part of the Nick Cage resurgence, and you can totally see why.

08:15It plays to the actor's madcap memeable strengths without falling into total parody,

08:20and straddles the line between being an art house horror and a batched bit insane dark

08:25comedy.

08:26Essentially, the general thrust of the narrative sees Cage attempting to avenge the death of

08:31his wife at the hands of a sinister cult.

08:34It's easier said than done though, as Cage's character is forced to fight against demonic

08:39bikers and later suffers through apocalyptic visions, with his sanity well and truly slipping.

08:46The film is quite upfront as well, with the fact that drugs play a heavy part in what

08:51audiences see on screen.

08:53Hell, much of the story hinges on characters being dosed up on LSD, so surely the wider

08:58moments can be chalked up to that right?

09:00It's all just one bad trip.

09:02Well, it's not really clear.

09:05The movie goes so mad and blurs the line between characters tripping and full-on supernatural

09:10shenanigans that nobody can really parse what's going on.

09:141.

09:15Were the Bugs Real?

09:16Bug

09:17Bug is a horror movie all about delusions and paranoia, so it's no surprise that it keeps

09:22the reality of its story closely guarded.

09:25Ostensibly, it's about two troubled lovers, one of whom is convinced that he's been

09:29infested with microscopic bugs by the military.

09:33He claims that during his time in the service, he was experimented on and is now being monitored

09:38by some unforeseen force, and that the motel room he's staying in is littered with these

09:44creepy crawlies.

09:46The only issue is though, the audience never actually sees any of the bugs in question.

09:52In fact, his lover initially doesn't see them either, until she also starts to buy

09:56into his story and starts to spiral into paranoia with him.

10:00Interestingly, while the movie pushes you into thinking that this dude's story is

10:04clearly nuts, it does also make you second guess whether or not he might actually be

10:10onto something.

10:11There's some confirmation bias purposefully left in there, some coincidences that do line

10:16up, which makes you leave the movie wondering, were they actually right, or have I been sucked

10:21into their conspiracy as well?

10:23So that's our list.

10:24I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.

10:26Which other horror movie moments are you totally confused by, and do you think you

10:30know the answer to any of these?

10:32Let us know, and while you're down there, could you also please give us a like, share,

10:36subscribe, and head over to WhatCultureHorror for more lists like this on the regular.

10:40Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see

10:43you soon.

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