History DarknessInducedAudienceApathy / Films

* The war drama ''Film/{{Conspiracy|2001}}'' about the Wannsee Conference is a dramatization of a historical event that ended in the genocide of millions, which is [[ForegoneConclusion clear from the start]]. Every major character in the film is [[BlackAndBlackMorality a heinous war criminal so morally bankrupt]] that there's no one left to root for. The only one who somewhat maintains audience sympathy for [[EvenEvilHasStandards feeling they're crossing a line]] is blackmailed into submission by much scarier men. It concludes with the revelation that [[ShaggyDogStory the discussion was entirely pointless]] and Heydrich was going to carry out the Holocaust anyway. Finally, most of the Nazis [[KarmaHoudini never received any comeuppance]] and went on to live uneventful lives after the war.

** Inverted in ''Film/MarsAttacks''. All but a half dozen or so characters (and even they have pretty glaring flaws) are pompous, insensitive, immoral, or just plain stupid--but that's okay, because the whole point of the movie is [[ComedicSociopathy you get to see the Martians kill all these jerks in countless hilarious ways]]. The few characters that ''aren't'' assholes [[NiceGuy (Ritche,]] [[CoolOldLady his senile grandmother, [[BewareTheNiceOnes Byron Williams]] and his BadassFamily, [[AsHimself Tom Jones)]] all come together to save the day.

** Inverted in ''Film/MarsAttacks''. All but a half dozen or so characters (and even they have pretty glaring flaws) are pompous, insensitive, immoral, or just plain stupid--but that's okay, because the whole point of the movie is [[ComedicSociopathy you get to see the Martians kill all these jerks in countless hilarious ways]].

** ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'' has this problem for the opposite reason as most horror films: not because the characters are [[DevelopingDoomedCharacters poorly acted and boring]] so that [[EightDeadlyWords you don't care what happens to them]], but because they're a realistic and fairly sympathetic ordinary suburban family - which makes what happens to them even less fun to watch. For a ''significant'' number of people, the movie had already over this line after [[spoiler:a child gets ''decapitated'']] in a horrible car accident 45 minutes in, the fact that things only proceed to ''[[FromBadToWorse get worse]]'' from that point onward, culminating in [[spoiler:a complete KillEmAll DownerEnding]] can make it [[AngstAversion a hard film to enjoy.]]

** This is likely why the parts where [[spoiler:Jerry is killed by Rupert that was suggested by Jerry Lewis himself or Rupert being beaten up by the FBI that was in the original script]] were omitted, given how this film for a BlackComedy is bleak as these moments. Also, the film is dark deconstruction of celebrity life and fandom with no characters to really root for, with Rita being the only 100% sympathetic character. This issue is also one of the factors behind the the film's lackluster performance at its initial release.
* EpilepticTrees: Many commentators have interpreted the finale as a dream sequence, similar to the others we see before, noting its over-the-top nature and sheer unlikeliness.

* Creator/JohnSingleton's ''Film/HigherLearning'', his follow-up to the Oscar-winning ''Film/BoyzNTheHood'' and to ''Poetic Justice'', was not a great success because not only did it contain an embarrassing amount of {{Narm}}, but almost all the characters were hard to like. (Like ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation|1915}}'', to which it has occasionally been compared, this is a movie in which the black characters are bad and the white characters are worse.) In fact, the only two truly sympathetic characters were a college professor whose role is fairly minor and a female student-athlete who is killed by [[spoiler: being shot in the stomach]]--extremely unfair, since [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth she has not hurt or even acted rudely to a single person throughout the movie]]. Everyone else is at best a {{Jerkass}}, InnocentlyInsensitive, or just generally irresponsible. Then there's the girl's murderer, a VillainProtagonist of sorts, who is not heroic by any measure; however, we're led to understand how [[JerkassWoobie he became extremely frustrated and then enraged]] by his CrapsackWorld environment. Life at the college campus is so miserable, in fact, that in the end [[DesignatedHero the nominal hero of the story]] [[spoiler: just gives up and runs away]], which is hardly a heroic thing to do.

* Legendary's ''Monsterverse'':
** Discussed in [[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-monsters-are-more-important-than-the-humans-in-disaster-movies-2014-5 this article]] on ''Business Insider'' about ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}'' and other monster and disaster movies. Anne Billson notes that the reason Franchise/{{Godzilla}} is a more interesting character than most of the humans is because we don't really want to get emotionally attached to people who are going to be killed later in the midst of catastrophe. We're willing to accept uninteresting characters who are either BornLucky when it comes to surviving the violent events or who don't get much development before their demises because we prefer that to being genuinely heartbroken by all the misery, tragedy and death.
** Its sequel, ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', did not garner great critical reviews due to its bleakness and unrelenting tension (as well as not focusing enough on the humans, [[CriticalDissonance which most viewers]] [[JustHereForGodzilla aren't bothered by]]). The AnyoneCanDie card is played so hard that almost none of Monarch's soldiers survive, and the sheer number of casualties, intended for shock value, instead [[AMillionIsAStatistic makes it hard to care]].

** In a manner very similar to ''Film/KickAss'' above, ''Film/RoboCop1987'' didn't shy away from having {{corrupt corporate executive}}s, [[DirtyCop corrupt law enforcement]], and [[AxeCrazy crazed psychopaths]], featured lots of violent deaths, and took place in a CrapsackWorld that seemed to have no limits. The [[Film/RoboCop2 sequel]], which Verhoeven did not direct, is even worse in this regard. The amount of darkness in it is one of the reasons Creator/PeterWeller didn't come back for ''Film/RoboCop3'', as it featured even more violence than the 1987 original, frequent explicit use of the fictional drug Nuke, scenes meant to show more of Murphy's humanity were cut, and one of the main villains, Hob, is a [[SirSwearsALot fouled-mouthed]] [[EnfantTerrible 12-year old]].

** Averted with ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}'', and one of the most controversial things about the film. It's been praised as one of the more accurate mob movies ever made because, unlike The Godfather, which was rather sentimental about the Mafia (or at least, Vito) as a force for order and honour in a corrupt world, there's very little honour in Goodfellas: the highest-ranking gangster in the film, Paulie, is only a middle-ranking caporegime who doesn't hesitate to cut his ties with Henry when it looks like Henry may be a liability, rewarding him for a lifetime's service with a measly few hundred bucks. One of the main characters is a violent, sadistic maniac, another is a violent, greedy and increasingly paranoid scumbag, and the main POV character is an arsonist thug who cheats on his wife and deals hard drugs behind his boss's back. In a way, it should be a hellish, hard-to-watch story about violence, secrecy and betrayal. But people love the film, because it makes this life seem like great fun...at least, up to a point. And Henry never expresses regret for all the harm he's caused; at the end of the film, the only thing he regrets is that he couldn't go on living like he used to, able to take whatever he wanted, live however he wanted, and above all, get away with it.

** ''Pirates Of the Caribbean'' series:

** ''Film/KillerJoe''. Save for Dottie, pretty much every character in the film is either a Jerkass, TooDumbtoLive or a monstrous sociopath like Joe is.

** ''Film/DayOftheDead''. The characters from the previous two films had their flaws, but some of them were still nice. In this third movie, we have the military, who are horrible people, racist, sociopaths and misogynists who only know how to answer everything on the basis of violence. And then we have the scientists, who are definitely not very interesting, and whose boss is a madman who is teaching zombies to be dociles and smarter, and feeds them with bits and pieces of their dead friends. Not surprisingly, many viewers hope that the zombies will kill them all.

** In it's follow-up, ''Film/LandOfTheDead'', HumansAreTheRealMonsters is taken to an extreme, and the alternative is to root for the zombies, who are quite obviously still dangerous undead predators that nobody sane would want to see receive anything other than bullets in the brain. However, the entire series was building up to this kind of setting.

** Notoriously averted with ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}'', and one of the most controversial things about the film. It's been praised as one of the more accurate mob movies ever made because, unlike The Godfather, which was rather sentimental about the Mafia (or at least, Vito) as a force for order and honour in a corrupt world, there's very little honour in Goodfellas: the highest-ranking gangster in the film, Paulie, is only a middle-ranking caporegime who doesn't hesitate to cut his ties with Henry when it looks like Henry may be a liability, rewarding him for a lifetime's service with a measly few hundred bucks. One of the main characters is a violent, sadistic maniac, another is a violent, greedy and increasingly paranoid scumbag, and the main POV character is an arsonist thug who cheats on his wife and deals hard drugs behind his boss's back. In a way, it should be a hellish, hard-to-watch story about violence, secrecy and betrayal. But people love the film, because it makes this life seem like great fun...at least, up to a point. And Henry never expresses regret for all the harm he's caused; at the end of the film, the only thing he regrets is that he couldn't go on living like he used to, able to take whatever he wanted, live however he wanted, and above all, get away with it.

* A common complaint about ''Film/AliensVsPredatorRequiem'' is that the film tries ''way'' too hard to be as disturbing and viscerally disgusting as possible. This manifests primarily in the form of uninteresting human characters (on top of them dropping dead like flies as collateral damage fodder in the extraterrestrials' conflict), the Xenomorphs being incredibly vile [[BodyHorror even by their standards]] (most notably with the Predalien turning ''pregnant women into Chestburster nests, having said bursters eating the child within''), and a heavy-handed DownerEnding with [[spoiler:the government nuking the city]] - a perfect example of the typical villainous "we do what we want and everybody else is expendable" mentality that is typical of the franchise (but is more unsettling than usual because it's happening on modern-day Earth). Additionally, the trope name becomes incredibly literal with a lighting direction so poor that it is almost impossible to see ''anything'' on the screen (especially the [[JustHereForGodzilla much-important titular conflict]]).

* ''Film/DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', as opposed to the previous movie, has practically no respite from the grim and gritty tone. The movie opens with the human race being wiped out by a pandemic and things only go downhill from there. Every barest hint of a HopeSpot in the movie is swiftly ruined, and the finale implies that everything is about to get much worse.
** And indeed, ''Film/WarForThePlanetOfTheApes'' made things very downbeat. It's DuringTheWar, and not only there's the expected casualties (one of whom, Caesar's son, drives the plot as it inspires him to seek revenge), but a prisoner camp for the apes is heavily featured. Given humans are the enemy, only the child Nova is played in a sympathetic light, with everyone else being cruel and vindicative. That being said, [[EarnYourHappyEnding the suffering protagonists manage to get an uplifting conclusion]].

* Discussed in [[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-monsters-are-more-important-than-the-humans-in-disaster-movies-2014-5 this article]] on ''Business Insider'' about ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}'' and other monster and disaster movies. Anne Billson notes that the reason Franchise/{{Godzilla}} is a more interesting character than most of the humans is because we don't really want to get emotionally attached to people who are going to be killed later in the midst of catastrophe. We're willing to accept uninteresting characters who are either BornLucky when it comes to surviving the violent events or who don't get much development before their demises because we prefer that to being genuinely heartbroken by all the misery, tragedy and death.
* Its sequel, ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', did not garner great critical reviews due to its bleakness and unrelenting tension (as well as not focusing enough on the humans, [[CriticalDissonance which most viewers]] [[JustHereForGodzilla aren't bothered by]]). The AnyoneCanDie card is played so hard that almost none of Monarch's soldiers survive, and the sheer number of casualties, intended for shock value, instead [[AMillionIsAStatistic makes it hard to care]].
* ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'':
** The franchise in general can stir up this feeling after a while. With each film, regardless of which timeline you're watching, it seems like [[TheBadGuyWins Michael always wins in some way]]. Be that he [[BreakTheCutie traumatizes his victims severely]], spreads his influence, or just simply won't stay dead. And that's not even getting into the fact that anyone who survives one film will very likely die in the next or so, making it difficult to grow attached to any of them.

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'' had this problem for some viewers, with ''everyone'' backstabbing each other and shifting alliances on a whim that it got hard to root for anyone by the end, unless you cared about their motivations. Of course, such a thing should be expected, given that the protagonists are all pirates by this point, even Will and Elizabeth. Even so, the climax of the film had them cheer about how pirates represent freedom and such... when they pillage and murder. Hardly heroic.
* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides'' suffers even more from this, as without Will and Elizabeth every major character in the film is basically a self-serving criminal.
* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMenTellNoTales'' cranks this up even ''more'', with the entire cast of self-serving criminals having taken a ''massive'' [[TookALevelInJerkAss level in jerk ass]] (even ''Gibbs''), making the movie honestly quite unpleasant to watch. The closest it gets to likeable characters are newcomers Henry and Carina, who are [[BaseBreakingCharacter Base Breakers]] at best and essentially carbon-copies of Phillip and Syrena, who were essentially carbon-copies of Will and Elizabeth. Really, the only character keeping the movie [[IncrediblyLamePun afloat]] is the CreepyAwesome Salazar and his ship that ''eats other ships''... and we're supposed to root against him.

** His ''Halloween''[[Film/{{Halloween2007}} remake]] and [[Film/HalloweenII2009 its sequel]] suffer from making almost every character an unlikeable {{Jerkass}}, even [[UpToEleven more so than the average slasher film]]. The few characters who aren't Jerkasses at the start either become one by the second film or disappear from the plot as quickly as possible.

** His [[Film/{{Halloween2007}} remake]] and [[Film/HalloweenII2009 its sequel]] suffer from making almost every character an unlikeable {{Jerkass}}, even [[UpToEleven more so than the average slasher film]]. The few characters who aren't Jerkasses at the start either become one by the second film or disappear from the plot as quickly as possible.

** ''Film/Magnolia''. The rather self centered behavior displayed by many characters in the cast, made it hard for some viewers to sympathize with them. With the exception of hospice nurse Phil Parma and Officer Jim Kurring, who’s quite possibly the one genuinely good character in the film.

** ''Film/ThreeHundred'' (like ''Sin City'', based on Creator/FrankMiller). The narrator described the Spartans as [[AlwaysLawfulGood the ultimate good guys]]. Because of his {{unreliab|leNarrator}}ility, though, it turns out the Spartans were just as [[AxCrazy insane]] and {{blood|Knight}}thirsty as their Persian enemies (the prologue spells out how the Spartans actually kill any infant that don't match their standards of health). Because of that, while the narrator described the battles between the Spartans and Persians as "good vs. evil" (or "order vs. chaos" if you prefer), to audience members, it seemed more like "[[EvilVersusEvil bad guys vs.]] [[BlackAndGrayMorality worse guys]]."

* ''Film/LandOfTheDead''. HumansAreTheRealMonsters is taken to an extreme, and the alternative is to root for the zombies, who are quite obviously still dangerous undead predators that nobody sane would want to see receive anything other than bullets in the brain. However, the entire series was building up to this kind of setting.

* The film ''Film/ThereWillBeBlood'', can fall into this for some given its lack of sympathetic characters (HW being the few exceptions). The main character, [[VillainProtagonist Daniel Plainview]], is a vicious, amoral, stop-at-nothing [[TheSociopath sociopath]]. The main villain, Eli Sunday, is a smug, cowardly, hypocritical, religious zealot. Any background characters introduced, such as Henry, are shown to be no saints themselves. With so many unpleasant characters, it can be very difficult to find someone to root for.

* Ask a person who was around in UsefulNotes/TheEighties about this trope, odds are their answer will be ''Film/ToLiveAndDieInLA'' [[SociopathicHero Richard Chance]] is really not that different on the morality scale from his quarry, Rick Masters, and many of the characters are slimy or apathetic. John Vukovich is seemingly the only guy with some normal standards of goodness, but by the time the film's DownerEnding comes around, [[spoiler: he's become just as bad, if not ''worse'', than Chance himself.]] Moreover, the violent amorality clashes rather awkwardly with the glossy, ''Series/MiamiVice''-esque visual aesthetic, to the point of one reviewer describing the film as "a fetid movie hybrid: Miami Vile."

* Some entries in the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' series can run headlong into this:
** Many fans of the series have criticized ''[[Film/{{Alien 3}} Alien³]]'' for being unrelentingly grim and nihilistic. The film ''starts'' by killing off the entire supporting cast of ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', rendering the time Ripley spent rescuing Newt from the atmosphere processor on LV-426 as a [[HappyEndingOverride colossal waste of effort]]. In their place are a group of violent inmates on a backwater prison planet who sport shaved heads (making it difficult to tell them apart) and are almost all interchangeable. The few sympathetic supporting characters are killed off very early in the film or die en masse in the tunnel scene just before the ending. The audience has no reason to root for any of the inmates besides Dillon, despite the film's attempt to claim otherwise. It ends with [[spoiler:the lead character (Ripley) sacrificing herself to stop Weyland-Yutani from getting their hands on the xenomorph]], and the only people alive at the end are a group of W-Y commandos and a single prisoner. However, it is noteworthy that the film's ending is actually a BittersweetEnding, not a DownerEnding- [[spoiler: Ripley dies, but ''she [[TakingYouWithMe takes the last Xenomorph with her.]]'' The fight is over, and humanity won, at the cost of a relative few lives.]]
** ''Film/AlienCovenant'': [[spoiler:The hopeful tone at the end of ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' is rendered null and void in the first half-hour, as the Engineer home planet is completely wiped out and Elizabeth Shaw dies ([[DeathByCameo off-screen, no less]]) via experimentation by David. The crew of the ''Covenant'' are killed off in increasingly-messy ways, and the film ends with the only overt [[TheBadGuyWins "bad guy wins" ending]] in the series -- David has taken Walter's place aboard the ''Covenant'', has Daniels and Tennessee at his mercy, and plans to infect some[=/=]all of the colonists in cryosleep with facehugger embryos he's smuggled onboard. Not to mention that David (the villain) always seems to have the upper hand on the protagonists. Some viewers have claimed that some of the plot points are {{Ass Pull}}s just to make sure that David wins.]]
* A common complaint about ''Film/AliensVsPredatorRequiem'' is that the film tries ''way'' too hard to be as disturbing and viscerally disgusting as possible. This manifests primarily in the form of uninteresting human characters (on top of them dropping dead like flies as collateral damage fodder in the extraterrestrials' conflict), the Xenomorphs being incredibly vile [[BodyHorror even by their standards]] (most notably with the Predalien turning ''pregnant women into Chestburster nests, having said bursters eating the child within''), and a heavy-handed DownerEnding with [[spoiler:the government nuking the city]] - a perfect example of the typical villainous "we do what we want and everybody else is expendable" mentality that is typical of the franchise (but is more unsettling than usual because it's happening on modern-day Earth). Additionally, the trope name becomes incredibly literal with a lighting direction so poor that it is almost impossible to see ''anything'' on the screen (especially the [[JustHereForGodzilla much-important titular conflict]]).
* Some critics said ''Film/AmericasSweethearts'' had this problem. Among the main characters in the title, Eddie is a ticking time bomb ([[JerkassWoobie although it's understandable, given the headline-making breakup]]) and Gwen is an unapproachable, manipulative RichBitch [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking who can't even put ankle boots on right]]. Among the side characters, the agent played by Billy Crystal is mining all the drama for his own benefit. The only likable character is Gwen's sister mainly because she has to put up with Gwen and is just beginning to grow a backbone after losing a bunch of weight but her goal is to get together with Eddie so it doesn't really matter.

* Part of the reason the Creator/JamesCameron[=/=]Creator/GuillermoDelToro film of ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' was canceled (the other part was an out-of-control-budget)--it's an R-rated horror film about two races of fighting {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who pay no mind to the doomed humans, and, unlike, ''Underworld'' there isn't even a romantic plotline to root for. It's also possible the execs thought it was just ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' [[RecycledInSpace with tentacles and penguins.]] Besides, with the mentioned war between two alien species, the black semiliquid polyvalent stuff that shoggoths are made of, and a group of human scientists exploring eldritch ancient ruins, Del Toro thought ''{{Film/Prometheus}}'' did his idea already, anyways.
* ''WesternAnimation/BebesKids'' features the protagonist, Robin Harris (based on the real life comedian who passed away just two years before the film's release), who proves to be more often than not an irresponsible adult who would even go as far to abandon the children in an attempt to escape the ruckus of an amusement park. The titular trio themselves also cause lord knows how much money worth of destruction of said amusement park and are, in general, very misbehaved. Leon, the only sympathetic character, still takes a lot of crap from the titular trio. Really, there's hardly a single character in the whole film worth rooting for.
* ''Film/BeingJohnMalkovich'' suffers from this; all the main characters are, at the very least, horrifically selfish human beings who don't really care who gets hurt in pursuit of their various wants. The only remotely sympathetic character in the movie is Creator/JohnMalkovich himself, and that's mostly because he's more of a plot device than an actual character. For the uninitiated, [[spoiler: Creator/CharlieSheen(!) has, by the end of the movie, very likely learned that John Malkovich is trapped in his own head while other people dominate him, and he is likely going to follow the puppetmasters who are possessing Malkovich into the next host, an adorable and harmless seven year old girl.]]
* This goes back all the way to the beginning of feature-length cinema--[[ValuesDissonance for modern viewers]], [[SocietyMarchesOn anyway]]--with ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation|1915}}'' (1915). Admit it: you don't want ''anyone'' to triumph, because the conflict is between white supremacists who want to keep blacks from voting and ''[[NotSoDifferent black]]'' [[NotSoDifferent supremacists who want to keep]] ''[[NotSoDifferent whites]]'' [[NotSoDifferent from voting]].
* ''Film/BodyOfEvidence'': As Ken Begg points out in his [[http://www.jabootu.com/boe.htm review]] "It finally just hit me that a major problem with this picture is that there isn’t a single vaguely likeable character in the whole deal. Frank is a [[YourCheatingHeart colossal, adulterous jerk.]] Rebecca is at [[EthicalSlut best a slutty weirdo]], at worst a [[TheVamp cold blooded killer]]. Garrett is a [[TheDitz doofus who prosecutes people under the most retarded rationales imaginable, and does so poorly.]] Even the victim was an [[DirtyOldMan old pervert]]. Now, this isn't necessarily fatal, but for it not to be, the film must be extremely well made. Needless to say, this is not the case here."
* Believe it or not, ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'' can have this effect on more cynical viewers. The {{crap|sackWorld}}piness of Shermer, Illinois, pretty much goes from being PlayedForLaughs (as in ''Film/SixteenCandles'') to being PlayedForDrama. Every adult (barring the janitor Carl) is a viciously selfish scumbag of some sort, abusing the kids for their own benefit. The kids themselves, [[BlackAndGrayMorality while morally]] [[AntiHero better people]], are so deeply dysfunctional that one can't help but feel a bit nihilistic. "When you grow old, your heart dies" sums it all up '''perfectly.'''

* This was a common criticism leveled against ''Film/TheButterflyEffect'', with many reviewers claiming that it was so oppressively dark that it almost became [[{{Narm}} hard to take seriously]]. The entire first half-hour of the movie is a nonstop TraumaCongaLine for the main character, where he's nearly strangled by his institutionalized father, gets molested by his neighbor, accidentally murders a woman and her baby with dynamite, watches his dog get tied up in a sack and burned to death, sees his best friend lose his mind, and receives news that the love of his life has committed suicide. The rest of the movie follows his attempts to make everything better with time-travel...[[FromBadToWorse which end up making it]] ''[[FromBadToWorse worse]]''.
* ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' has an InUniverse example. [[spoiler:At the end of the film, it is well in the ability of the surviving characters to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt by way of HeroicSacrifice. It's just that they've gone through so much trauma that they simply ''don't care anymore'' and let the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s destroy everything by refusing to satisfy them with death.]]
* ''Film/CannibalHolocaust'': On the one hand, you have a team of psychopathic, narcissistic documentarians who are willing to stage horrible atrocities in order to make their film more "interesting". On the other hand, the Yanomami tribesmen don't come off much better in spite of the film's attempts to portray them in a sympathetic light, being depicted as vicious cannibals and gang-rapists. [[OnlySaneMan Faye]] and [[IgnoredExpert Dr. Monroe]] are pretty much the only remotely decent characters in the entire film, and even so, the former still participates in the team's crimes - albeit reluctantly - and in the end [[spoiler:suffers a brutal and protracted demise despite being the least guilty of the four]]. The relentlessly oppressive, nihilistic tone and [[{{Gorn}} graphic gore]] (including scenes of real-life animal slaughter) don't help, either. As Dr. Monroe so eloquently puts it: [[NotSoDifferent "I wonder who the real cannibals are."]]
* ''Film/{{Casino}}'' is basically ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}'' without the humor or likeable characters, and with even more extreme violence and a whole lot of portentous symbolism. Consequently, it's much more divisive than its predecessor.
* You can tell ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'' was trying (and failed, considering the company the film was released by) to emulate Creator/{{Dreamworks|Animation}}' then-huge brand of snarky, in-your-face "edgy" humor by just how cynical it is, from how the main character is bullied by his entire town, his father being openly ashamed of him and passively having one character be [[MindRape mind raped]]. It doesn't help that the film was conceived out of [[ExecutiveMeddling Michael Eisner]]'s hatred of [=DreamWorks=] founder/Disney Renaissance alumnus Jeffrey Katzenberg, and this was his attempt to beat [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame at his own game]]. However, these factors make the film too mean-spirited in tone for most people to really enjoy.

* The indie war drama ''Film/CombatShock'' is a particularly extreme example of this trope. Lacking the masterful cinematic technique and interesting characters of similar [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam War]] films such as ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', ''Film/TheDeerHunter'', ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', and ''Film/{{Platoon}}'', it instead presents the audience with a remorseless march into the dark as the protagonist, a veteran living in total poverty and in a broken household with a [[BodyHorror deformed child]], slowly loses his grip on sanity. It all culminates in [[spoiler:the protagonist murdering his entire family and then [[DrivenToSuicide committing suicide]].]] Many in the audience probably wished he'd done so earlier, thus sparing them the torment of watching him suffer.
* ''Film/TheConIsOn'': It is hard to summon up much sympathy for Harry and Peter, the {{Villain Protagonist}}s. Unlike most ConMan movies, they are not {{Lovable Rogue}}s, but amoral thieves who dabble in drug dealing, and who are in their current predicament due to their own greed and stupidity. They people they rip off are horrible people, and the gangsters chasing them are worse, but they remain unsympathetic.
* The war drama ''Film/{{Conspiracy|2001}}'' about the Wannsee Conference is a dramatization of a historical event that ended in the genocide of millions, which is [[ForegoneConclusion clear from the start]]. Every major character in the film is [[BlackAndBlackMorality a heinous war criminal so morally bankrupt]] that there's no one left to root for. The only one who somewhat maintains audience sympathy for [[EvenEvilHasStandards feeling they're crossing a line]] is blackmailed into submission by much scarier men. It concludes with the revelation that [[ShaggyDogStory the discussion was entirely pointless]] and Heydrich was going to carry out the Holocaust anyway. Finally, most of the Nazis [[KarmaHoudini never received any comeuppance]] and went on to live uneventful lives after the war.
* One possible reason why ''Film/TheCounselor'' received many mediocre reviews; There aren't many people to root for. Most of the characters are bad guys/girls, and the titular character is somewhat naive and foolish.

* ''Film/TheDevilsRejects'' [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools is a deliberate example of this trope]]. Music/RobZombie makes it clear that there is no true good guy to root for. Only the flawed ([[HeroAntagonist Sheriff Wydell]]) vs. the worst of humanity ([[VillainProtagonist the Firefly family]]), making it one of the rare occasions where many enjoy the movie for its unrelenting bleakness.
** Though some audiences have felt that he played that idea ''too'' well and that it ultimately made the film less fun to watch.

** For specific examples, Music/RobZombie's [[Film/{{Halloween2007}} remake]] and [[Film/HalloweenII2009 its sequel]] suffer from making almost every character an unlikeable {{Jerkass}}, even [[UpToEleven more so than the average slasher film]]. The few characters who aren't Jerkasses at the start either become one by the second film or disappear from the plot as quickly as possible.

* ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'' has this problem for the opposite reason as most horror films: not because the characters are [[DevelopingDoomedCharacters poorly acted and boring]] so that [[EightDeadlyWords you don't care what happens to them]], but because they're a realistic and fairly sympathetic ordinary suburban family - which makes what happens to them even less fun to watch. For a ''significant'' number of people, the movie had already over this line after [[spoiler:a child gets ''decapitated'']] in a horrible car accident 45 minutes in, the fact that things only proceed to ''[[FromBadToWorse get worse]]'' from that point onward, culminating in [[spoiler:a complete KillEmAll DownerEnding]] can make it [[AngstAversion a hard film to enjoy.]]

* ''{{Film/Melancholia}}''. There's no point to the plot. Or the characterization. Or the dialogue. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Or anything else.]] Everyone just dies, after living a sad life. But it's okay; the film assures you that they were all complete {{Jerkass}}es. We never see anything happy in the movie or anything that implies their world is anything other than apathetic and depressing. TrueArtIsAngsty taken to its logical extreme.
** It’s possible to enjoy the film if you emphasize with Justine instead of her sister. The film is at first shown from her perspective, documenting how she’s getting progressively more depressed and apathetic towards her surroundings. This eventually reaches a point where she is not even able to complete simple tasks (like taking a bath) or get any enjoyment out of anything (“It tastes like ashes!”). Her sister, in contrast, is trying to drag her out of her funk. Their roles reverse when it becomes apparent that Earth and Melancholia ''will'' crash — Justine’s mood becomes vigorous and lasts in anticipation until the point of impact.
** Actually, not only ''Melancholia'', but almost any film by Creator/LarsVonTrier can easily result in Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy due to the excessive cynicism on them, which quickly overcome the plots and the characters.

* ''Film/{{Midsommar}}'' has a cast full of either jerks or AffablyEvil, with a notable exception from the protagonist who is very apathetic after life and manipulations took their toll on her mental health. Add heavy doses of shock horror, and the movie has been quite the turn off to a not-insignificant portion of the film's audience.

* ''Film/SinCity''. Hartigan is the only guy who's close to good, Nancy is a NeutralFemale, and all the other characters alternate between "amoral bastards" (Marv, Dwight, The Girls of Old Town) to "amoral monsters" (the people they're up against).
** And by the time ''Film/SinCityADameToKillFor'' comes around, Nancy has [[TookALevelInBadass taken an]] [[TookALevelInJerkass upgrade to]] another example of "amoral bastard" (one that is borderline insane, at that).
* This could be the reason why the films of Creator/ToddSolondz, most notably ''Film/WelcomeToTheDollhouse'', have never gotten much mainstream attention. Everyone, seemingly without exception, is profoundly miserable, solipsistic, or sociopathic. Sometimes, they are ''all three''.

* ''Film/ThreeHundred'' (like ''Sin City'', based on Creator/FrankMiller). The narrator described the Spartans as [[AlwaysLawfulGood the ultimate good guys]]. Because of his {{unreliab|leNarrator}}ility, though, it turns out the Spartans were just as [[AxCrazy insane]] and {{blood|Knight}}thirsty as their Persian enemies (the prologue spells out how the Spartans actually kill any infant that don't match their standards of health). Because of that, while the narrator described the battles between the Spartans and Persians as "good vs. evil" (or "order vs. chaos" if you prefer), to audience members, it seemed more like "[[EvilVersusEvil bad guys vs.]] [[BlackAndGrayMorality worse guys]]."

* The films of Creator/PaulVerhoeven almost always tend to suffer from this trope. Virtually everyone is a complete and utter sleazebag, and the so-called "[[DesignatedHero heroes]]" tend to be apathetic at best and borderline [[SociopathicHero sociopathic]] at worst. The frequent {{Gorn}} and explicit sex don't help matters either. Specific examples:
** In a manner very similar to ''Film/KickAss'' above, ''Film/RoboCop1987'' didn't shy away from having {{corrupt corporate executive}}s, [[DirtyCop corrupt law enforcement]], and [[AxeCrazy crazed psychopaths]], featured lots of violent deaths, and took place in a CrapsackWorld that seemed to have no limits. The [[Film/RoboCop2 sequel]], which Verhoeven did not direct, is even worse in this regard. The amount of darkness in it is one of the reasons Creator/PeterWeller didn't come back for ''Film/RoboCop3'', as it featured even more violence than the 1987 original, frequent explicit use of the fictional drug Nuke, scenes meant to show more of Murphy's humanity were cut, and one of the main villains, Hob, is a [[SirSwearsALot fouled-mouthed]] [[EnfantTerrible 12-year old]].
** ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'': Las Vegas may not be all glitz and glamor, but it's really hard to root for the main character when she and everybody else act like terrible people, swear constantly, and have an overall cynical view. The only character that makes a positive effort is Molly and even she can't escape the bleak underbelly of Vegas since [[spoiler:she gets raped]].
** Although ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' is partly a comedy, it is very dark comedy that suggests that [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans are as animalistic as any other creature in outer space]]. Although the genocidal alien bugs are clearly the bad guys (although there are some hints that they're actually just scapegoats for human propaganda), [[HeWhoFightsMonsters the humans have become arrogant and brutal in the course of fighting them]]. Condemned criminals are executed on live TV, computer websites pump users full of [[PatrioticFervor overbearing propaganda reminiscent of World War II newsreels]], schoolchildren are encouraged to gleefully stomp on helpless insects in a form of FantasticRacism, people are denied citizenship rights if they do not serve in the military, the {{drill sergeant|Nasty}} at the infantry boot camp is a bully (okay, sometimes a JerkWithAHeartOfGold) who seems to enjoy [[EqualOpportunityEvil physically humiliating both male and female recruits]], [[DisproportionateRetribution soldiers are punched in the face for uttering mildly rude remarks]], and the protagonist is at one point stripped to the waist and [[ATasteOfTheLash receives 10 lashes across his bare back]] in full view of the entire camp as punishment for ''accidentally'' causing a comrade's death (though the poorly designed, incredibly unsafe training area was just a disaster waiting to happen). It should be noted that the film is an inversion of [[Literature/StarshipTroopers the original novel]], in which the only executed criminal is a deserter who murdered a little girl, the drill sergeant uses a baton on the recruits sometimes but prefers to verbally dress them down, and the protagonist was whipped for actions that could have caused the death of a comrade through his negligence (violating established safety regulations to cut corners and make his job easier), if it had been actual combat rather than a training exercise.
*** ''Starship Troopers'' is this only for those viewers who want it to be heroic. For viewers who accept it as a satire, it's hilarious.

* ''Film/TheDayAfter'' and its [[TransAtlanticEquivalent British counterpart]] ''Film/{{Threads}}'' both suffer heavily from this trope. The whole point of both films is to demonstrate that in the event of a nuclear war, there will be no happy ending in the aftermath. As such, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to root for any of the characters since they're all fated to die horribly. And even if that weren't the case, there's barely any world left for them to inhabit. This is especially true in ''Threads'', where a full-scale war breaks out as opposed to the limited exchange seen in ''The Day After'', with society subsequently crumbling to the point that the post-war generation is mentally incapable of ever rebuilding civilization. While it is certainly true that SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped, it's generally not a good idea to drop them '''that''' hard [[DontShootTheMessage if you want to get your message across]].

* ''Film/{{Logan}}'' is already a bleak and harsh movie on its own, but taken as part of the Film/XMenFilmSeries, it basically turns the whole series as a ShaggyDogStory with moments of YankTheDogsChain, as [[spoiler:despite fighting for a better future for mutants in ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'', ''Logan'' opens with mutants dying out thanks to modified crops. Additionally, both the title character and Professor Xavier are miserable with Xavier going senile, which has caused him to lost control of his powers and [[DroppedABridgeOnHim accidentally kill most of the X-Men as a result]] and Wolverine's HealingFactor giving out and as a result his adamantium on his bones is starting to kill him--and both die over the course of the movie.]] The only bright spot is [[spoiler:the ComicBook/{{X 23}} children escaping to Canada for safe haven.]]

* You can tell ''Disney/ChickenLittle'' was trying (and failed, considering the company the film was released by) to emulate Creator/{{Dreamworks|Animation}}' then-huge brand of snarky, in-your-face "edgy" humor by just how cynical it is, from how the main character is bullied by his entire town, his father being openly ashamed of him and passively having one character be [[MindRape mind raped]]. It doesn't help that the film was conceived out of [[ExecutiveMeddling Michael Eisner]]'s hatred of [=DreamWorks=] founder/Disney Renaissance alumnus Jeffrey Katzenberg, and this was his attempt to beat [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame at his own game]]. However, these factors make the film too mean-spirited in tone for most people to really enjoy.

* Similar to the ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'' example listed below, ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' nearly suffered from this. Jeffery Katzenberg [[ExecutiveMeddling urged the employees at PIXAR to make the film "more adult" and "edgier"]]. The result was an early screening in which Woody and the other toys (aside from Buzz) were constantly-angry [[{{Jerkass}} Jerkasses]]. In this version, Woody grabs Buzz and throws him out the window, then he and the other toys start yelling at each other, and the other toys attack him and throw him out the window too. Jeffery Katzenberg, Roy Disney, and Peter Schneider were appalled by it, and PIXAR was given two weeks to rewrite the film as they saw fit and make Woody and the other toys more likable.

* An early draft (and by that, we mean "''was worked on for about four years''") of ''{{Disney/Zootopia}}'' was discarded for this reaction. It focused on the ConMan [[FantasticFoxes Nick Wilde]] as a primary protagonist and involved open anti-predator prejudice as exemplified by laws requiring all predators to wear {{shock collar}}s. It was felt that doing this made Zootopia resemble a police state and combining that with an already cynical point-of-view character made the film so dark that viewers would rather want Nick to escape Zootopia than to fix it. The solution was to shift focus towards WideEyedIdealist Judy Hopps, and the eventual story and setting became more viewer-friendly as whole.

%% * ''Film/MuppetsMostWanted'', despite being a comedy and fairly well-received, can fall into this for some due to the villains, Constantine and Dominic, having the lion's share of screentime, the Muppets (aside from Kermit, Walter and Animal) being derailed into [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic incredibly unsympathetic]] [[TookALevelInJerkass selfish]] [[TookALevelInDumbass morons]] incapable of doing anything right without Kermit vetoing their suggestions, and the happy ending of ''Film/TheMuppets'' being thrown out the window in favor of keeping up the "nobody still cares about the Muppets" plotline.

* ''Film/MuppetsMostWanted'', despite being a comedy and fairly well-received, can fall into this for some due to the villains, Constantine and Dominic, having the lion's share of screentime, the Muppets (aside from Kermit, Walter and Animal) being derailed into [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic incredibly unsympathetic]] [[TookALevelInJerkass selfish]] [[TookALevelInDumbass morons]] incapable of doing anything right without Kermit vetoing their suggestions, and the happy ending of ''Film/TheMuppets'' being thrown out the window in favor of keeping up the "nobody still cares about the Muppets" plotline.

* This is why the 4th movie in the Creator/SamRaimi ''[[Film/SpiderManTrilogy Spider-Man series]]'' got cancelled. The script had Peter and MJ divorced after he had an [[YourCheatingHeart affair]] with ComicBook/BlackCat. He had also was a deadbeat dad to their son. Raimi felt like Peter was such a {{Jerkass}} that the audience would be put off and refused to shoot it. Sony ultimately just decided to [[Film/TheAmazingSpiderManSeries reboot the series for good.]]

* ''Film/IronSky'': Okay, so on one side of the conflict we have [[StupidJetpackHitler Moon Nazis]] who want to either conquer or perhaps destroy the Earth (the movie isn't quite clear which). On the other side you have the people of Earth, a collection of {{Jerkass}}es and [[TheDitz Dumbasses]] so universally horrible they actually come close to making [[AcceptableTargets the Nazis]] look like good guys by comparison. The whole thing is so bad the fact that the movies ending with [[spoiler: both the Nazis' moonbase and most life on Earth being destroyed]] can be considered a happy ending.