
The idiosyncrasies piled up if the key to a good ending was a feeling, we’d surrender to impulse. We began with an absolute morass of nominations, hundreds of finales that stuck in at least one Vulture staff member’s maw.
#The hit list movie ending movie#
Our goal from the jump was never to determine a set formula for the Great Movie Ending. (Dark, uncertain, marked by a significant amount of human flailing.) Sometimes, we did go for the cathartic, bring-happy-tears-to-your-face finale, but we frequently found ourselves opining the sorts of stories that lack that release. Maybe that was a reflection of the times we were living. In compiling a list of the greatest endings in movie history, we had many arguments over many months about this very dynamic, and found ourselves drawn to certain types we deemed successful more than others: Ambiguous, dark endings endings that purported to explain something but secretly did not endings that denied us (and the characters) closure endings that featured people dancing, but not always in joyous, triumphant fashion. It is, arguably, the most important part of any film - how a filmmaker wants you to feel when the lights go up is often the key to what that picture was really about. The reverse is also true: We’ve all had that experience of watching a ho-hum flick that became instantly unforgettable thanks to an awesome conclusion ( famously, or more recently). Not every great movie has a great ending.

There are no consequences to his actions, "even after admitting this." The movie ends as Bateman says: "there is no catharsis.Clockwise from left to right: Lust, Caution Moonlight Some Like it Hot The Last Days of Disco Beau Travail The Searchers Losing Ground Big Night Grave of the Fireflies The Thin Blue Line. By the end, the question of whether Bateman's murders really happened is irrelevant-no one would have noticed either way. Either he's done nothing, or his crimes have been of so little interest to his peers that they haven't caused a single ripple.
#The hit list movie ending full#
His apartment full of corpses has been cleaned up. (The ATM that says FEED ME A STRAY CAT and the shootout with police that follows, for example.) An air of "did that really happen?" hangs over the entire story, until the only thing that's truly clear is that Bateman is utterly insane.įollowing a night of murder, a police manhunt, and a confession to his lawyer, Bateman attends a social occasion to find that nothing's changed. His body count is called into question as the story progresses and Bateman frequently experiences things that aren't real. As he told Vulture, "It allows people to make up their own mind of what it means."Įveryone around Bateman is as horrible as he is, save for the murderous tendencies-and Bateman may not even be a real murderer. As for the ambiguity of that last shot? Totally intentional. As he's said in multiple interviews, he was originally inspired by a nightmare in which he knew he was being followed, knew he couldn't get away, and knew the people with him in the nightmare weren't able to help him.

Mitchell has only hinted at his personal point of view on the scene depicting the spirit's possible "death," but he's made it clear that he never set out to make a movie with a literal meaning, or one whose antagonist's motives were ever explained. Like plenty of thought-provoking cinema, much of It Follows is open to interpretation. In the film's final shot, the duo walk down a street while someone (or some thing?) follows behind. After the climactic conflict, Jay and her friend Paul (Keir Gilchrist) have sex.and later, Paul's seen driving past a group of prostitutes.

One thing leads to another, and ultimately, she and her friends try killing it, with generally unpleasant (not to mention ambiguous) results. Jay's told the only way she can escape the evil spirit (which haunts her in some truly terrifying ways) is by sleeping with someone else to pass it on.

But Mitchell uses it as the setup for a pretty devilish little film. If that sounds ridiculous, well, it kinda is on its face.
