History DiabolusExMachina / LiveActionFilms

* In ''Film/TheBlueLagoon'', a movie based primarily around emotional and physical self-discovery, Diabolus is personified in the form of a three-year-old boy. Richard is exploring one of the islands in the archipelago while Emmeline is watching over their son. Emmeline nods off to sleep in their rowboat and while doing so, their son Paddy throws one of the oars overboard. Richard swims out from the island and retrieves the oar, but is spotted by a shark. Emmeline throws the other oar at the shark to distract it and Richard is forced to abandon the other one to escape, and their boat is swept out to sea. To make matters worse, Paddy has gotten his hands on a bunch of poisonous berries, apparently swallowing a handful before his parents stop him. With a dying baby and no hope of rescue, Richard and Emmeline eat the remaining berries...[[ShootTheShaggyDog barely hours before a ship with Richard's father (Emmeline's uncle), who had been searching for them for several years, happens upon their boat]].

* A variation happens at the end of ''Film/CabinInTheWoods''. [[spoiler: Every sacrificial ritual in the world is thwarted (hell, in the Japanese scenario [[EverybodyLives nobody dies]].) Unfortunately, because at least ''one'' ritual needs to succeed to stop the Ancient Ones from destroying the world, [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt exactly that happens]]. From the viewer's perspective there's way more context, and the surviving main characters ''choose'' to let the world end, but from the perspective of every other failed ritual, they succeeded at stopping the main threat only to get flattened by an out-of-nowhere OutsideContextVillain.]]
* ''Film/CarlitosWay''. The producers and bigwigs [[spoiler:actually allow the main character Charlie Brigante to die as he's about to escape to paradise]]. In the commentary, the filmmakers joke about whether or not to shoot the "Bullet Proof Vest Scene" before even showing the current cut to their higher-ups for approval.
* ''Film/CityOfAngels''. Less than a day after a fallen angel has given up his immortality to be with the mortal woman he's fallen in love with, she's inexplicably run over by a truck driven by the Diabolus Ex Machina. One might suspect his fellow angels of having summoned it in order to teach him a lesson...
* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}''. [[spoiler:The three surviving protagonists get on an evac helicopter headed out of New York before a massive bombing run to obliterate the beastie, but Clovie takes down the copter, eats Hud, and forces the last two to take shelter under a bridge, awaiting annihilation in the impending bombing run.]]
* The Canadian ''Film/{{Cube}}'' horror film series:

* ''The Aurora Encounter'' is a 1986 film that is for the most part ''[[Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial ET]]'' in [[WeirdWest the Old West]] (the film was loosely inspired by the 1897 UFO sighting in Aurora, Texas)… up until the last five minutes of the movie where the innocent alien gets fatally shot by a U.S. Marshall dispatched by the Governor to find out about the mysterious sightings and the plot tries to set up a BittersweetEnding (with a minor slice of [[GeckoEnding Gecko]]) by having the Aurora residents agree that the alien deserves a proper burial.

* Even Film/JamesBond is not safe from this demonic influence -- in ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'', Blofeld drops by to ensure that Bond's marriage [[CartwrightCurse becomes a SHORT one]]. Director Peter Hunt said that originally the film was to end with the wedding and then the next would start with the assassination and follow from there. However since Creator/GeorgeLazenby gave up doing the sequels, it wound up in ''OHMSS''. The following movie, ''Film/DiamondsAreForever'', opens with Bond searching for Blofeld, [[ContinuityNod presumably to avenge the ruined marriage]]. At the beginning of ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'', Bond is visiting his wife's grave, complete with "We have all the time in the world." [=MI6=] pick him up by helicopter, except it's remote controlled by... a bald man with a cat, who tortures Bond the way he tortured Blofeld in ''Film/DiamondsAreForever''. Fortunately, Bond turns the tables and manages to use the helicopter to drop the man down a smokestack. If that man was Blofeld, now he's dead for good.

* The action movie, ''Film/TianDi'' ends with Cheung, the film's hero and SoleSurvivor of the detective crew, finally exposing the main villain, Paul Tai, as a drug baron and crime lord to the local military general, at the cost of most of his friends and his pregnant wife dying. The general congratulates Cheung, before suddenly shooting him - it turns out the military is under Paul's payroll as well, and a subsequent scene states that Cheung committed suicide out of guilt. The film ends with Paul remaining a powerful drug baron and unpunished for his crimes.

* One particular death ([[spoiler:Book]]'s) in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' is a downer, especially since [[spoiler:we never ''do'' get to learn what the hell his deal was (at least until the comic book)]], but another [[spoiler:Wash]]'s death falls right into this. He successfully manages to [[spoiler:land ''Serenity'' from what is essentially a dead fall, and once he does and pauses to celebrate, his chest is pierced by a random Reaver harpoon]]. Creator/JossWhedon mentions that he wanted to break the appearance of]] PlotArmor on the rest of the characters for the finale, and that [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome the cockpit is the only place the Reavers could effectively shoot.]] In fact, the next shot missed Mal and Zoe by a few inches. So many fans will never forgive Joss for this.

* One particular death ([[spoiler:Book]]'s) in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' is a downer, especially since [[spoiler:we never ''do'' get to learn what the hell his deal was (at least until the comic book)]], but another [[spoiler:Wash]]'s death falls right into this. He successfully manages to [[spoiler:land ''Serenity'' from what is essentially a dead fall, and once he does and pauses to celebrate, his chest is pierced by a random Reaver harpoon]]. Creator/JossWhedon mentions that [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome he wanted to break the appearance of]] PlotArmor [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome on the rest of the characters for the finale, and that the cockpit is the only place the Reavers could effectively shoot. In fact, the next shot missed Mal and Zoe by a few inches. So many fans will never forgive Joss for this.]]