10 Horror Movies That Fall Apart in the Third Act

When it comes to the perfect horror movie, we all want the story to work properly from beginning to end. Start on a soaring high note, then keep it going, perhaps even higher, in the second act, and have everything come together in a satisfying finale. That’s the ideal film, and we sure have had so many compelling horror films throughout the years, but, of course, that doesn’t always work out for all of them.

Sometimes, there are horror movies that start great, then keep up the momentum going, but then fumble in the third act, resulting in a disappointing whimper. The following are ten examples of this issue. They really do have great premises, perfect build-up, and are mostly fun throughout, but sadly, they can’t quite stick the landing after a great mid-section. None of these are totally awful, nor are they the worst in horror history, but they are just not the most perfect throughout and end on a pretty weak climax.

10

‘Beau Is Afraid’ (2023)

Directed by Ari Aster

Ari Aster‘s most recent horror effort, Beau Is Afraid, takes viewers on a psychedelic, anxiety-inducing journey as it follows Joaquin Phoenix‘s mild-mannered Beau on a wild mission to attend his overbearing mother’s funeral. Much of the first act establishes Beau’s personality, fears, and toxic, guilt-ridden relationship with his mother while at his apartment. Then, things kick up a notch in the second as he experiences one bizarre encounter after another on his way home. But then things take an even stranger turn as the third act becomes much more surreal.

The third act is by no means unsatisfying; it just takes things on a much more bizarre and dreamlike path, much more than in the first two. Some moments become jarring and more open to interpretation, and as a result, the story now feels a bit disjointed and harder to follow. Though it plays within the film’s themes of guilt and Beau’s self-destruction, Beau is Afraid‘s third act changes things up a little too much this far into the story, and it’s not fully understandable.

9

‘Cobweb’ (2023)

Directed by Samuel Bodin

The 2020s are going strong for horror, with a unique entry like Samuel Bodin‘s Cobweb becoming one of its most notable standouts. Starring Lizzy Caplan, Woody Norman, and The Boys‘ Antony Starr, it follows a sheltered young boy of two overprotective parents as he becomes more worried about his parents’ strange behavior when he starts to hear pleas for help from his long-lost sister locked somewhere in the house.

It’s a nail-biting horror mystery thriller, where some of the best moments of tension and dread come from Caplan’s and Starr’s compelling performances as the parents, and there’s a lot of great suspense for much of the first two acts. But, all that built up was ultimately thrown out near the end, as the parents were abruptly killed off and the plot introduced an unusual twist: the sister wasn’t really a guiding spirit for her brother, but a deformed, vengeful being who slowly manipulated her brother so she could eventually escape and kill him. This third act feels rushed, unfocused, and diminishes a lot of the build-up of the first two acts, ending a pretty tense story on a bit of an unsatisfying low note.

8

‘World War Z’ (2013)

Directed by Marc Forster

Zombies continue to be highly popular in the 21st century, thanks to box office hits like World War Z. This globetrotting zombie adventure sees Brad Pitt as a former UN investigator, who comes out of retirement to journey across the world looking for the source of the widespread zombie epidemic and hopefully discover a cure.

A pulse-pounding adventure, World War Z is a mostly non-stop thrill-ride full of action and takes audiences from one exciting location to the next. That is, until the story unfortunately slows things down in the third act, as the pace and story grind to a halt, replaced by quieter, talking moments and boring indoor sets. It then culminates in a rushed, happy ending that resolves things too quickly and doesn’t feel deserved or realistic. Its first two acts kept the audience on the edge of their seats, but it couldn’t keep up the momentum in the third, leading to a weak conclusion that was drastically different from what was originally planned.

7

‘The Forgotten’ (2004)

Directed by Joseph Ruben

An often overlooked mystery horror thriller from the early 2000s, Joseph Ruben’s The Forgotten is a pretty decent and compelling story that, unfortunately, couldn’t make the landing. It follows Julianne Moore‘s Telly Paretta as she grieves for the loss of her young son. But when others around her have no recollection of her son even existing and try to convince her to forget about him, a mystery ensues as she tries to figure out what is making people forget about him and if he is really even gone.

It’s a decent mystery that is quickly diminished when the plot switches genres, as it’s revealed that aliens were responsible for kidnapping her son as part of an experiment to see if she could be brainwashed into completely forgetting him to test the limits of the bond between a parent and their child. The first two acts were deeply psychological and perfectly suspenseful, but the third act flipped things around with a supernatural angle and became convoluted and absurd. Having the twist being that it was aliens felt inconsistent with what this whole story was leading up to.

6

‘Prometheus’ (2012)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Returning to the beloved horror franchise he started over thirty years ago, Ridley Scott‘s semi-prequel to Alien, Prometheus, takes things in a unique, thought-provoking direction that’s deep and philosophical, but still has plenty of terror. Starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender, it follows a crew of scientists who explore an unknown world that may hold the key to why humanity was created, but instead uncover a deadly secret they were never meant to find.

The suspense and build-up are very much aligned with Scott’s direction with Alien, and it takes time for most of the film to establish the characters and tone. Then things really pick up in the second act as the plot goes deeper into the horror elements. But by the time the third act and climax roll around, things slowly unravel as the story doesn’t clearly resolve and doesn’t provide a connection to the Alien movies as its marketing suggested. Though there’s some decent action and horror in the third act, it’s an otherwise underwhelming climax that helped label it as one of the biggest disappointments of the century so far.

5

‘I Am Legend’ (2007)

Directed by Francis Lawrence

When it comes to infamous endings, a lot of people probably recognize the one from Francis Lawrence‘s 2007 action-horror film I Am Legend. This Will Smith-led retelling of Richard Matheson‘s iconic 1954 novel of the same name follows lone survivor Robert Neville’s struggle to survive and find a cure in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity is wiped out by a virus and some who’ve survived have turned into vampiric mutants.

The setup is excellent, and the first half feels quite compelling as it follows Neville as he traverses his bleak, desolate environment and copes with the loneliness of being one of the last humans on Earth. But, as mentioned before, its lackluster third act is what really drags this adaptation down, as it differs heavily from the true meaning of the book, and doesn’t serve the story justice. It’s an anticlimax that drastically deviates from its more compelling source material. Thankfully, there is a version that’s saved by an alternate conclusion that re-establishes the bleak tone of the book’s ending.

4

‘Secret Window’ (2004)

Directed by David Koepp

An often forgotten Stephen King mystery thriller, Secret Window takes audiences on a tense, mind-bending journey. It follows Johnny Depp as struggling writer Mort Rainey, who stays at a remote lake house to recover from a strenuous divorce. But things become sinister when his peaceful exile is interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious person, John Shooter (John Turturro), claiming that Mort plagiarized his work.

It’s a compelling mystery thriller with great suspense and complex performances, but unfortunately, it is ruined by a predictable third-act twist. In the finale, it’s revealed that Shooter was just a dark figment of Mort’s fractured mind, conjured up so he could convince himself to kill his cheating ex-wife. It’s not a terrible reveal; it’s just uninspired and was easy to see coming from a mile away. The twist of the protagonist having split identities has been done to death in these psychological-type films, and Secret Window unfortunately suffers from the fatigue of that tired trope. It’s great for the most part, but the finale certainly won’t knock anyone’s socks off.

3

‘Identity’ (2004)

Directed by James Mangold

A mind-blowing horror thriller where nothing is what it seems, James Mangold‘s Identity is a mostly stellar flick that’s unfortunately tarnished by a convoluted finale. Starring John Cusack, the late Ray Liotta, and Amanda Peet, it follows several strangers at a motel one dark and stormy night as they’re picked off one by one by a killer among them. A mystery ensues as the survivors try to figure out who the culprit is before it’s too late.

Much of the story follows a simple but effective murder-mystery premise. Alas, things take a drastic shift in the third act, when it’s revealed that the characters, the setting, and the whole take place within the mind of a troubled man (Pruitt Taylor Vince) with dissociative personality disorder. It was a part of an experiment by his psychiatrist (Alfred Molina) to weed out the dark personality within him that was violent; predictably, the violent personality wins in the end and takes over his mind. Identity started off strong but became bogged down by a convoluted twist that was trying too hard to be unique and creative, and instead complicated this rather intriguing premise.

2

‘The Village’ (2004)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Having one of the most iconic weak finales in movie history, M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Village is a mostly great and suspenseful horror drama, but of course, it is dragged down by one of the director’s infamous twists. Starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Joaquin Phoenix, it follows a closed-off, tight-knit community in 19th-century Pennsylvania that adheres to a strict code forbidding them from leaving, lest they be taken by sinister creatures lurking in the forest.

Its suspense is brilliant, and the setup and story-building are well-executed in the first half, but it takes the biggest plunge once the third act arrives, and we get to the legendary twist where it’s revealed there were no monsters and the story was set in contemporary times. The whole thing was a ruse constructed by the community’s elders who wanted to separate from modern society. It was a perfectly built-up story that could have gone in multiple directions, but was ruined by an underwhelming reveal that, in turn, makes it hard to come back to rewatch.

1

‘High Tension’ (2003)

Directed by Alexandre Aja

At number one is one of the most intense and shocking films ever, but also, sadly, one with the most disappointing third act in horror history. Alexandre Aja‘s High Tension is a gory slasher thriller starring Cécile de France and Maïwenn Nedjma as a pair of friends who venture into the countryside to visit one’s family but are encountered by a deranged bladed truck driver (Philippe Nahon).

The first act established tension and suspense, then things really took off once the killer arrived to terrorize the pair of friends, and there were some great, nail-biting hiding sequences. Then, just when the story seemed to have reached its peak and the killer was defeated, the plot unnecessarily pulls the rug right from under us, revealing that de France’s character Marie was the real killer and was suffering from a personality disorder. It’s one of the most baffling twists in horror. It not only makes no sense, but it wasn’t even set up to be like that. The first two parts of High Tension are masterclasses in suspense and splatter terror, but its legacy is stuck with a jarring, pointless twist ending that remains infamous today.

NEXT: 10 Horror Movies With the Most Convoluted Plots, Ranked