History Main / CruelTwistEnding

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'': "The Queen is Dead": Snow and Charming spend the whole episode searching for Rumple's Dagger before Regina and Cora Find it. They do, but then Regina and Cora appear with Snow's maid, Johanna, captive, demanding they hand over the dagger or Regina will crush Johanna's Heart. Snow gives them the dagger, and Regina puts Johanna's heart back into her body. but then Cora throws Johanna out the window, killing her anyway. Is it any wonder why Snow finally retaliated and cursed Cora's Heart and tricked Regina into putting it back in, thus killing her the very next episode?
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' was so fond of this ending that the viewer could assume any given episode would end this way--and be right more often than not. It was the original TropeNamer because of how often it was used. Some notable examples:

* ''Literature/IAmTheCheese'' revolves around a teenage boy on a bike ride to see his father in another city. The ending reveals that there was no cross-country adventure, and that the trauma from watching [[GovernmentConspiracy federal agents]] murder his parents broke him and trapped him in a mental GroundhogDayTimeLoop, where he relives the same bike ride around the mental hospital grounds over and over while [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness envisioning it as a grand trip]]. And to take it [[KickTheDog even farther]], the ending strongly implies that the GovernmentConspiracy feels he's [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlasted his usefulness]].

* ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' stories made heavy usage of cruel twist endings, while ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' were more prone to the KarmicTwistEnding. It is perhaps the reason why the former is considered to be scarier. A notable exception is the ''AYAOTD'' episode "The Tale of the Chameleon", featuring Tia and Tamera Mowry as the protagonist and her evil clone. The episode ends with the girl's friend being forced to decide [[SpotTheImposter which one is the real person]] - and choosing wrongly. The clone keeps her human body, while the girl is changed into a chameleon and left to drown at the bottom of a well. This episode always rates highly in fan polls.

* ''VideoGame/CyberLip'', a UsefulNotes/NeoGeo sidescrolling shooter, has the time honored plotline of 'Humanity builds super-computer to fight evil aliens, super-computer itself turns evil and destroys Earth, one/two guy(s) must shoot everything including berserk computer.' In the rather sparse ending, it turns out that the super-computer was NOT evil, just reprogrammed. As the heroes fly back to their home base, their leader congratulates them on a job well done - and mentions how there are no more obstacles in their way just as he gives a nasty smirk while his eyes glow red. That's when it hits you that you've done just as the aliens wanted...

* Just like most of the ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' books in the main series, ''Goosebumps [=HorrorLand=]'' ends this way. Just as everything seems to work out fine, what with your character, their friend, and the little girl they rescued managing to escape the titular AmusementParkOfDoom to freedom against all odds, the last moments of the game reveal that [[spoiler:the little girl, Gigi, is The Great Gargantua, and now that she's free, she plans to trun the whole world into her own personal [=HorrorLand=]]].

* ''Anime/ParanoiaAgent''. Just one example: was it really necessary to ''kill'' Kozuka just to prove he wasn't [[{{Woolseyism}} Shonen Bat/Lil' Slugger]]? Maybe, maybe not. But he would've committed suicide anyway. Have a nice day!
%%* Nia and Simon's wedding at the end of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann''.
* Many episodes of ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'' follow this.
** One episode where Kino helps a stranded group of people survive a harsh winter, we found out they were slave traders who had eaten their previous haul and look to enslave Kino to make up for it.
** Another episode has Kino visiting neighboring countries who used to constantly be at war. When Kino asks how they achieved peace, she finds the opposing countries have made their battles into a game in which both countries see who can slaughter the most inhabitants of an adjacent defenseless village. And just to twist the knife further, the "innocent victims" in that village have taken to senselessly murdering travelers, simply as a means of venting their frustration.
** In another episode, Kino finds a country so likable that Kino nearly breaks the three day rule of staying in one place, yet the townsfolk mysteriously refuse to let her stay longer. When Kino leaves, the next day she wakes up to find the country destroyed by a nearby erupted volcano.

* The ''Manga/ShadowStar'' manga ends with Shiina's mother being killed, her best friend killing herself, her boyfriend dying of cancer, her monster partner dying, and then Shiina fully realizes her God powers and decides to destroy the entire planet and reboot the world with her and another girl's children. And this is AFTER they've defeated the BigBad.
* Most chapters of ''Manga/NightmareInspector'' generally seem like they'll end happily, with the client apparently getting over their nightmare's troubles, until some reveal or twist comes out of nowhere and sends things into a DownerEnding, or a [[BitterSweetEnding bittersweet one at best]].
* The three-chapter manga ''Manga/SchoolMermaid'' ends with the protagonist watching in horror as her best friend eats their mermaid-ified classmate, and is then coolly informed that she, the protagonist, will be turned into a mindless mermaid herself, and is dragged screaming by the other mermaids through the floor--her last sight being her best friend smiling cruelly at her with blood dripping out the corner of her mouth. The final few pages, focusing on the best friend, reveal that in a few days time, she'll kill and eat the protagonist too.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Luffy ran a "rescue Ace" mission for several dozen chapters to save his brother from being executed, sacrificing years of his life and culminating in his arrival at Marineford during the Paramount War, where he was out of his league and sustained even more injuries. And after everything Luffy went through to save him--after he'd ''successfully freed him''--Ace was goaded into a fight and died anyway, becoming [[DeadSerious the first named character in the series to die onscreen outside of a flashback]].

* The ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' OVA ''Legend of Kenshiro'' ends with this. The BigBad who was thought to be dead turns out to be CrazyPrepared [[TakingYouWithMe and in his last breath]] destroys the city Kenshiro was trying to save. In the final moments of the movie, Kenshiro is [[KillEmAll the only survivor]] and can't do much but [[ManlyTears cry]] and [[FreakOut scream]] into the ruins. The only thing that saves the ending from complete despair is the sequence that comes after, which has him making his way to a certain village, home to a certain pair of adorable kids and menaced by a certain mohawked scumlord, while [[AwesomeMusic/FistOfTheNorthStar "The Road of Lords"]] plays.
* {{Shoujo}} horror anthology ''Manga/ZekkyouGakkyuu'' makes heavy use of these as well.
** One of the earlier examples being ''The Kind Mama's House'', in which the child protagonist discovers her online friend, "Mama", is apparently stalking her and plans to kill her mother so she can be the protagonist's "real" mother. She manages to rescue her mother and demands Mama go away, and she does...only to show up in the protagonist's house days later, having decided simply to ''kidnap'' the girl, just like she did numerous others before her.
** One of the special chapters ''Guard of the Mountain'' has a small group of camping-trip students getting lost with their teacher. They make it to a little camping ground and the owners merely ask them all to be 'on their best behavior' while staying. People begin to disappear and the owners turn out to kill people, who do not treat nature well, by littering or other means. After running away and falling, protagonist Hitomi finds herself taken in by a young couple and she realizes that she's managed to get away, only for the couple to bring her to the previous, dangerous camping grounds. And an extra page shows that the murdering owners opened up a beach house, implied to continue their little 'test' on people.
** The ''Girls and Boys'' story has Yuuki think that boys have it easier, as they don't bully each other or gossip a lot and wishes that she'd be a boy and promptly finds herself in a parallel world, where she is 'Yuuki-kun'. But she soon realizes that boys are just as likely to bully and gossip about each other, sometimes worse than [[StockShoujoBullyingTactics girls]] do. To top it off, Yuuki realizes that she still feels like a girl, even in a boy's body, and falls for 'his' best friend, Inoue. During a confession, turns out that this world's male Yuuki had a crush on Kaho, but then the entire class begins to tease Yuuki over being gay for Inoue and Yuuki ends up beating his tormentors to death with a chair. Wishing for things to go back to normal, Yuuki finds herself back as a girl and is intent on just being happy with the person she is...only to learn that the same thing happened here (with the original male Yuuki having confessed to Kaho and being teased as lesbos) and Yuuki has killed several of her classmates with a pair of scissors.

* Viewers of ''Manga/{{Saikano}}'' often comment that if you want a happy ending to the series you should stop after Shuji and Chise skip town and go on the run from the military, because the final three episodes go quickly, horribly and tragically downhill after that.

* Almost every episode of ''Anime/YamishibaiJapaneseGhostStories'' ends this way. Without a doubt each episode has a Main/DownerEnding.
* At the climax of Ken's war on the White Dragon Clan in ''Manga/SunKenRock'', Yumin suddenly realizes, from out of nowhere outside of a seemingly bogus accusation by an antagonist, that what she really wanted all along was not to destroy her father's yakuza organization, but to take it over instead. Embracing her true nature, she blasts her beloved Ken out of the building. It is downplayed, however, in that Ken manages to survive the long-ass fall and eventually rebuilds his mafia empire by taking over America.
* The Future Trunks arc of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper''. Merged Zamasu has been defeated by the combined power of everyone left on earth, and though most of humanity is dead the remaining people can now work to rebuild the world, hooray! ...And then the sky turns black, getting covered by clouds that have Zamasu's face in them, and it's revealed that every living thing on earth except our heroes are now dead, as the immortal Zamasu is attempting to ''become the universe itself'', and his influence is even bleeding into other timelines, meaning all of existence is at risk. Ultimately, the only solution our heroes can think of is for Goku to ask for help from Omni-King Zeno...who sees the situation, dismisses it as "hideous" and promptly ''annihilates Trunks's entire timeline''. Goku and his friends manage to get back into their time machine and escape back to their own timeline, but Trunks's world is gone forever, meaning that all of his efforts throughout the entire arc were meaningless.
* ''Manga/GirlsGoAround'': The final chapter reveals what has been hinted at, but the full extent can still be quite shocking. The loop created by Chihiro will continue, as Kyousuke's loop on the day of graduation will only end when he kills himself to keep the others safe. There can be no happy ending, with Kyousuke and Chihiro repeatedly going through loops of regret.

* ''ComicBook/TalesOfTelguuth'', another 2000 AD comic, was also fond of this. While sometimes people who meet an untimely demise in the ending twists are [[KarmicTwistEnding punished for their wicked deeds]], just as often these people aren't evil in any way and are simply victims of the dark world of Telguuth.
* In an issue of the ''Disney Adventure'' magazine, there's a {{Gamebook|s}} story that takes place during the voyage to ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet''. The worst of three endings results in Flint's map being ''eaten'' by a space octopus, thereby putting the whole story of the movie to a grinding halt. Ouch.
* ''ComicBook/StarWarsTales'' #17, "Dark Journey" is the story of a Jedi Master who ignored her orders to return to Coruscant at the start of the Clone Wars, having become embroiled in the pursuit of a Dark Jedi named Kardem, a serial killer who targets Twi'lek women and also murdered her secret lover. Eventually she comes face to face with Kardem and engages him in a lightsaber duel. As it transpires, ''she'' is the real killer, having caught her lover in the arms of a Twi'lek woman and murdered them both in a secret rage. She created the Kardem personality to reconcile her actions with her breach of the Jedi code, but it takes control whenever she encounters a female Twi'lek. The "Dark Jedi" she encounters is actually a Jedi knight dispatched by the council to bring her in. As soon as she kills him, she regains consciousness, assuming that Kardem has struck again and killed a Jedi knight, and resolves never to stop until the killer is brought to justice.

* A [[https://youtu.be/pdNYgeI5zys motion comic]] for the movie ''Film/IAmLegend'' has an Indian girl hiding in a bunker with her family while the plague rages on outside. But her boyfriend is out there. Determined to save him, she sneaks out and finds him okay. When she returns however, the family will not let her back in, no matter how much she begs that she's not infected. Eventually the door opens, and she finds the entire family has been turned. She kills them all to put them out of their misery. However, the final shot of the short reveals that she, in fact, was infected, and she had killed her family while hallucinating that they had become monsters, due to the way that the infected [[HumansAreCthulhu see humans]].
* ''Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure'' is a mini-series following ''Daily Bugle'' photographer Jeffrey Haight. While Jeff has had some success as a professional photojournalist, publishing a book of crime photos due to his connections in the police evidence locker (his girlfriend is a cop who works there) he has never met his true goal, landing a photo on the front page. He's obsessively jealous of Peter Parker, a "stringer" (slang for a freelance photographer, or amateur), because Peter ''always'' gets great and dramatic photos of Spider-Man on the front page out of what Jeff attributes to luck, while Jeff's [[HardWorkHardlyWorks careful planning and studious work never does the trick.]] (Jeff clearly can't put two-and-two together.) Eventually, after his goal becomes an obsessive rivalry against Peter, ComicBook/DoctorOctopus takes notice of Jeff's attempts to photograph him, and feigns interest in his work, arranging a prison interview. Jeff [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter lets the flattery go to his head]], and against his better judgment, is tricked by Ock into aiding in Ock's escape, Ock persuading him to convince his "contact" to let Jeff place a device on his impounded tentacles so he can remotely control them. (Jeff assumes Ock is giving him a chance at the photo shoot of a lifetime.) However, Ock kills several civilians when he escapes, and threatens to kill more as Spidey finds him; Jeff eventually has a HeelRealization, and uses his camera's flash to blind the villain, but after Ock is defeated, he's still arrested, his girlfriend dumps him, and his life and career are ruined. Here's the cruel twist: He convinces Spidey to submit the pictures he took, and he ''does'' make the front page, the picture getting there the one that went off when he flashed it in Ock's face. Then he realizes ''why'' it's such a good photo. It looks exactly like something Peter would have taken. As a final kicker, Ock is seen reading the story in his prison cell in the last scene. "Excellent!" he says, admiring the great photo of himself.
* ''ComicBook/PlanetHulk'' seemingly ends on the happiest note possible for the Hulk; he's now a respected king of Sakaar, has a wife with child on the way, loyal Warbound friends, and has brought peace to his kingdom. Then the shuttle that brought him to the planet explodes, killing almost everyone except the Hulk and his Warbound. The Hulk can't have a happy ending or else his story is over, hence the sudden KillEmAll to lead in ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk''.
* The last issue of ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' volume 3 had Chase suddenly reunited with an inexplicably-resurrected Gert...only to get hit by a car mere seconds later. To provide an extra kick in the teeth, it wasn't even the real Gert.
* ''Johann's Tiger'', the first issue in Creator/GarthEnnis' War Stories has one. After spending the majority of the issue trying to keep his crew alive so they can surrender to the Americans before he can commit suicide by Soviet for his atrocities, the tank commander is thrown from his Tiger tank by his crew as they encounter a large group of Soviet heavy tanks. In the end, he's captured by Americans, the only one of his crew that's left alive. In the end, he'll either be executed for his crimes, or have to spend the rest of his life living with what he did.

* One arc of ''FanFic/YouGotHaruhiRolled'' ends with Emiri having joined the Anti-SOS Brigade, giving them enough strength to kill all of the good guys except for Kyon and his family, and dooming the entire world. And all because Kyon told Emiri to [[BeYourself Be Herself]]. It's retconned away in the next chapter due to NegativeContinuity, but still...''ouch''.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' fic ''Immortality Relapse'' which actually gave two cruel twists, one for the first story ''FanFic/ImmortalitySyndrome'' and one for its own. The first comes midway though the story when Bubbles accidentally splashes some Antidote X on a revived Butch. This negates the murderous tendencies that came from being killed and revived when the Puffs were recreated. but Bubbles goes into shock when she realizes in the first story they managed to subdue Buttercup that way and Buttercup was trying to warn them before she was killed again in hopes of fixing the problem. But that pales in comparison to the ending, when it looks like they had stopped Boomer from activating his doomsday machine, but he remains alive long enough to turn it on and kill everyone on the planet. Some last-minute actions by the Professor allowed Bubble to be revived but she now the last living being alone on Earth.
* In the [[NestedStory story within a story]] of ''FanFic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', the fic's version of the end of the Hearts and Hooves Day legend certainly qualifies as this.
** The name of the book that the legend came from should have tipped somebody off, as it was supposedly titled "How the Sea-Pony Wished Upon a Star and Unknowingly Started Racial Prosecution Under An Emergent Fascist Regime: A Collection of Filly’s Tales and Legends That Start Off Whimsical But End in Destruction and Death".

* ''Fanfic/DanganronpaTheImmersiveLearningProgram'' ends on a {{Cliffhanger}} with the titular Immersive Learning Program crashing, and the fate of the surviving students unknown. However, a single HopeSpot precedes this with Kaede reaching for Shuichi's hand. Unfortunately, the fourth chapter of the sequel ''Danganronpa: Academy of Discontent'' reveals that neither Shuichi or Kaede were able to get out in time, and were in fact two of the only three people not to do so, resulting in it becoming this instead.
* ''Fanfic/SonicXDarkChaos'' has Sonic and his friends defeating Dark Tails and saving the galaxy. JUST KIDDING! Dark Tails' death allows an entire race of ''even worse'' Lovecraftian horrors to finally escape. Which they do - and then promptly exterminate nearly all life in the universe.

* ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead''. The protagonists evade the zombies and send a message to the military, asking for help. The town gets nuked in response.
** [[FromBadToWorse Worse yet]], it's implied that the zombie infection is now going to spread via the nuclear fallout. That's right: even ''nukes'' can't stop it.
* The UK Ending to ''Film/TheDescent''. Sarah merely [[HopeSpot hallucinated escaping the cave]]; there is no exit. All along the characters have only been descending further down, without any way out. Waking up right where she lost consciousness, Sarah goes on to imagine her dead daughter sitting in front of her with a birthday cake, as the crawlers are homing in on Sarah to eat her alive.
* ''Film/TheDescentPart2''. One character escapes the caves alive, but then [[AssPull out of nowhere]], a minor character appears, knocks her out with a shovel, and drags her back to the cave. The best explanation critics have come up with for this is that it's a SequelHook.
* ''Film/TheCavern''. The two remaining survivors find a leaf, which they try to use to get out of the cave and call for help, only for them to be dragged back in by Petr, and later towards the end of the film, he brutally kills one of them and [[GratuitousRape rapes]] the other, with the film ending ''right there''.
* ''Film/TheCrazies2010''. By the time the movie's over, the two surviving residents of Ogden Marsh have been through hell and back just to survive the events of the movie, watching every single one of their family and friends die. The movie ends with the two finally making their way to an adjacent town free of infection, only for it to be revealed that a military satellite has been watching their every move, and now the military is going to repeat the exact same "containment protocol" all over again -- but this time, in the ''much'' larger city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It's even worse than if the movie had ended with KillEmAll.
* The original ending of ''Film/{{Clerks}}'': After Dante goes through hell on Earth during what was supposed to be his day off, [[DiabolusExMachina a robber comes in and murders him]]. The end.
** Of course, your mileage may vary. According to the most common interpretation, it's fitting as an homage to ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. Dante chose it as his favorite movie specifically because [[DownerEnding it ended on such a down note]].
* The Bruno Mattei [[AttackofTheKillerWhatever killer rat]] movie ''Film/RatsNightOfTerror''. It seems the protagonists have been rescued at the last moment by other people who survived the nuclear holocaust. Then one removes his gas-mask revealing they're Rat-People.
* The French black comedy ''The Red Inn'' is about a family of 19th-century innkeepers who kill their guests to steal their money. The only guest that knows the truth is a priest who can't expose them because he got the information during a confession he was tricked into performing. The plot devolves into a series of progressively wackier shenanigans as the priest tries to get the other guests out of the inn alive, leading said guests to think first that the priest is crazy, then that ''he'' is the serial killer. The police are called and they arrest the priest. Thankfully, they discover an older body, free the priest and arrest the innkeepers instead. In the final scene, the guests pack and leave the inn, only to fall down a ravine to their deaths when they cross a bridge the innkeepers had sabotaged earlier just in case their planned victims managed to escape.

* ''Film/FinalDestination5''. So the movie sets up the main couple overcoming a breakup and surviving Death's design and coming through stronger than ever...until it's revealed the movie is a StealthPrequel to the first ''Film/FinalDestination'' and the couple dies horribly in the first movie's plane crash accident. All the films end this way, but this one burned, considering it was a SurprisinglyImprovedSequel. And the only other character who survived Death's design by accidentally having someone else take his place is sitting at a bar and talking to another dude...who reveals that the guy who took his place was terminally ill and about to die anyway, and then the plane turbine crashes through the ceiling, killing him.
* ''Film/RememberMe'', if not for the ending, is a heartwarming tale about a man's path towards rekindling his connections to his family. What happened to him? Well, he was told by his father to go to his office one Tuesday morning. And he did. Said Tuesday was on September 11, 2001. Guess where his father's office was.
* ''Film/{{Identity}}'', it appears that Ed has managed to kill [[SplitPersonality Malcolm's murderous identity]] while sacrificing his own life and leaving only one survivor, making the movie seems like a BittersweetEnding. But then it turns out that Ed had killed the wrong person, his sacrifice was in vain, and the murderous identity was still alive to kill the FinalGirl while causing Malcolm to kill one of the psychiatrists.
* ''Tales from the Crypt: Film/BordelloOfBlood'': Evil vampire queen is defeated and the film's love interest is rescued. Except it turns out she was vampirized and was living in sunlight using sunscreen lotion. Which makes no sense considering the evil vampire queen had set her up for some sort of ritual and her and her entire clan was wiped out, so if she was vampirized why did she stand there while all her brethren were being slaughtered?
* In ''The Rapture'', Sharon, a former swinger who joined a Christian cult, has a vision of her dead husband beckoning her to the desert. This is interpreted as God asking for her to wait for Him there so she can be taken up to Heaven when the Rapture happens. She and her daughter go to a desert and wait for a couple weeks, but she starts to question if the Rapture will actually happen. When Sharon runs out of food and loses her patience, she shoots her daughter, is arrested, and loses total faith in God. The twist is that the Rapture actually happens; when she and the officer who arrested her are in Purgatory, the daughter shows up and says they can get into Heaven if they love God. The officer states his love for God and goes to Heaven, but Sharon refuses to love God after what has happened to her. Her daughter then fades away asking if she knows how long she'll stay in Purgatory, and she replies "Yes...forever." Then it slowly fades to black with no music playing over the credits. The feeling you get after watching this movie is similar to getting slapped in the face.
* ''Film/{{Insidious}}'':
** The first movie has the main male protagonist, Josh, save his son, Dalton, who was trapped in a DarkWorld known as The Further. After finding their way back and Dalton returns to his body (they were astral projecting), Josh is faced by a lady ghost he had once met as a child. Josh then confronts her, affirming that he is unafraid of her. Cut to Josh's family having dinner in the kitchen while he has a conversation with the lady who had helped them. As the lady feels something amiss and grabs a camera, she is strangled to death by Josh. Josh's wife then enters the room to find the dead lady and the camera. She picks up the camera and is shocked when she sees, not a picture of Josh, but of the lady ghost. And then "Josh" grabs her by the shoulder...
** Subverted by the sequel: it turns out that Josh doesn't kill Renai at the end of the first film. Elise's spirit not only forgives him for murdering her (since he was possessed by an evil spirit and was trapped in the Further), but helps him break free of his possession by killing the movie's BigBad.
* The ending of the ''Film/JamesBond'' film ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' is the heartbreaking scene where Bond and his newly wedded bride Tracy are sitting in his car when Blofeld, Bond's archnemesis, drives by and has her assassinated, and [[DiedInYourArmsTonight she dies in his arms]]].
* ''Film/RabidDogs'' (aka ''Kidnapped''), directed by Creator/MarioBava, ends on an incredibly grim and ironic note. The film centers around a savage gang of robbers who take a father and his sick child hostage while trying to flee Rome. Towards the end, the father suddenly pulls out a gun and kills off the remaining gang members. And so it seems like his and his son's ordeal is over. Until it's revealed that the "father" is actually a kidnapper who's been holding his so-called "son" for ransom the whole time.

* At the end of ''Film/DeadSnow'' the last survivor Martin has appeased the Nazi zombies by giving back the gold they were after and weakly makes his way to his car. Then he finds the coin Hanna hid in his pocket. Cue OhCrap face and zombies smashing through the window. The end.
* ''Film/TalesFromTheDarksideTheMovie'', has this example in the third and final story. A down on his luck artist witnesses a gargoyle-like creature killing and eating one of his drinking buddies late at night. He tries to run, but the creature captures him. The creature agrees to spare his life, if he promises not to tell anyone what he witnessed. He agrees. Not long afterwards, he meets an attractive woman walking alone at night. He takes her back to his place, warning her that it's dangerous. The two get to know each other and soon enter a relationship. Because the woman happen to have connections in the art world, she helps his career take off. Years later, the artist is now rich. He married the MysteriousWoman and has two kids with her. Not able to get what he witnessed that night out of his mind, however, he draws the creature in perfect detail. He tells his wife about it, making it clear that the creature was the reason he insisted she come home with him that night. The twist comes in, when the women reveals that she is the creature in human disguise and that he broke his promise. She transforms back into the gargoyle creature. The children also turn into gargoyle creatures. She kills him and flies off.
* ''Franchise/{{Saw}}''
** In the [[Film/SawI first film]], Jigsaw has been killed, and Dr. Gordon has escaped to seek help for himself and Adam...only for the dead body that's been in the room the entire time to get up, reveal ''he'' was Jigsaw all along, and leave Adam to rot.
** The [[Film/SawIV fourth film]] had Rigg charge in to save the day, which resulted in the death of Eric Matthews and electrocution of Detective Hoffman and Rigg himself being fatally shot. Bad enough by itself, but that's when Hoffman disconnects himself from his own trap, and reveals himself to be Jigsaw's second apprentice.
** William in ''Film/SawVI'' manages to make his way through his tests alive and having learned the lesson he had been meant to learn about respecting life...only for the son of a man who died because of his past decisions as an insurance agent to kill him when given the choice between that or forgiveness.
* ''Film/ExMachina'' first appears as though it will end on a happy note, with [[RobotGirl Ava]] free, her abusive creator Nathan dead, and she and her rescuer Caleb becoming a couple and starting a new life together. It appears to be leading that way in the closing scene of Ava putting on skin and clothes to cute music, in a CallBack to a previous scene where she dressed and asked Caleb to be her date, until she locks him in Nathan's room and leaves. He has no hope of escape with the power out, Nathan dead, the windows too tough to break, and no one else in the world knowing he's here or what was happening in the compound.
* The ending of ''Film/{{Brazil}}''. Hurrah, Sam has escaped from interrogation by torture and left the city with his girlfriend! Except he hasn't. He's gone hopelessly insane in the torture chair, and is hallucinating the whole thing. Ironically, he ''has'' escaped the torture...because there's not a lot of point interrogating him any more. The ending is so shocking that some versions of the film ''delete it''.
* ''Film/LittleShopOfHorrors'': both the original 1960 non-musical film and the musical stage play end with both the protagonists EatenAlive by the killer plant, and an army of murderous plants wiping out all of humanity. This was filmed for the much better-known 1986 musical film but then was replaced with a more heroic ending after screen tests showed it caused audience opinion to plummet. The original ending was retained as an alternate ending which becomes an extremely cruel twist for anyone used to the regular version of the film (although some consider it FanPreferredCutContent, especially since its production values are remarkably high as it was fully intended to be the original ending). Ironically, for anyone who was used to the original versions, the released 1986 version would have been seen as having a ''positive'' twist ending.
* ''Film/DragMeToHell'' has Christine apparently having escaped being pulled into hell by the Lamia, by posthumously gifting the cursed artefact that summoned it to the dead gypsy woman who cursed her. Unfortunately, the ending reveals that the envelope she stored the artefact in was swapped with another one, meaning she gave the wrong item to the gypsy and is pulled to eternal damnation anyway. [[https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20100102081824/http://screencrave.com/2009-05-27/sam-raimi-interview-for-drag-me-to-hell Even if]] WordOfGod tries to imply it's a KarmicTwistEnding as Christine [[BitchInSheepsClothing is a nice gal who starts doing terrible things to save herself]], it's still one hell of a GutPunch.
* ''Film/Life2017'' has this. The plan for the two surviving members of the crew is to take the ISS's two remaining escape pods, shooting one into deep space with a crewman and the extremely voracious hostile alien life form while the other escapes to Earth. However, collision with debris causes the plan to go the opposite direction. The guy in the pod with the alien is sent to Earth where he's freed by a pair of well-meaning Vietnamese fisherman, while the other female crewmember is sent flying into deep space with her pod's navigation systems out, leaving her to scream helplessly as her pod takes her off into the black with no apparent way home. Plus the end of humanity is likely assured by the alien's presence on Earth.
* ''Film/AlienCovenant'': Just as it seems like everything will turn out fine in spite of the deaths of most of the crew, Daniels discovers all too late that David has replaced Walter and will continue to experiment on the thousands of colonists aboard the ''Covenant'' while they remain in stasis as she herself falls into a cryosleep.
* ''Film/AfterLife'': Deacon ensures that Anna gets buried alive with Paul thinking she was already dead. Then Deacon tells a drunk (and possibly drugged) Paul to go see for himself that she's really dead. He goes and digs her up just in time to save her from suffocating and everything seems like it will end well. Then it turns out it was all a hallucination and he ends up on Deacon's morgue table with Deacon telling him he really died in a car crash on the way to the cemetery before injecting him with the same drug Deacon injected Anna with at the start. So Anna dies in a grave, Paul will join her soon, and Deacon gets away with everything.

* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse''
** In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', Thanos succeeds in acquiring the Infinity Stones. [[HopeSpot Then]] Thor appears and impales Thanos. Unfortunately, Thanos still had strength to use the Gauntlet; all it took was [[BadassFingersnap a snap from his fingers]], and half of all life in the universe is wiped out. This includes most of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Hawkeye’s family, and most tragically, Spider-Man, who fades away in Tony Stark’s arms. Fortunately, the sequel manages to reverse most of the damage Thanos did through the snap by bringing all of its victims back to life.
** ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'': In an overlap with YankTheDogsChain, the first of the two post-credits stingers consists of Scott going to the Quantum Realm to retrieve "healing particles". Seconds before he is due to be returned to the normal world, "[[FanNickname The Snap]]" from ''Infinity War'' occurs, vaporizing the entire Pym/Van Dyne family and leaving Scott stranded in the Quantum Realm with seemingly no way out.
** ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'' is just as cruel as ''Ant-Man and the Wasp''. Spidey's saved the day, got the girl, had a vacation. What could go wrong? Oh, how about J. Jonah Jameson suddenly showing up with doctored footage framing Spider-Man for the death of Mysterio and revealing his identity to the world, [[LastBreathBullet courtesy of Mysterio himself]] [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning even if he really might be dead]]?
* ''Film/TheTortured'' (2010): In this Robert Lieberman film, a man who [[WouldHurtAChild kidnapped, tortured, and murdered a six-year-old boy]] is [[PayEvilUntoEvil kidnapped and tortured]] by the boy's [[MamaBear pare]][[PapaWolf nts]]. Except not. Towards the end, we find out that the prison transport (which the parents crashed in order to get their hands on the murderer) [[TheReveal was in fact]] carrying ''two'' inmates: the killer, and a man who was there for mere tax evasion. Due to his injuries from the crash, the couple mistook him for their target. So they've spent half the movie horrifically torturing an innocent man, who manages to escape only to kill himself because the torture psychologically broke him into thinking he was a monster. The real killer is taken back into custody to [[KarmaHoudini await parole]], and the couple disappears to avoid getting caught, with the implication that their actions will take a [[SanitySlippage serious toll on their mental health]].
* ''Film/ThirteenSins'': Subverted! At the end it turns out Elliot's wife got challenged as well, but she declined to eat the fly and threw it away. The movie ends with Elliot sporting a relieved smile in response to this.
* ''Film/TheLairOfTheWhiteWorm'' has an example overlapping with AndThenJohnWasAZombie. One of the heroes takes a serum to prevent a ViralTransformation after the leader of the vampiric SnakePeople bites him. At the end of the movie, he finds out that [[NotQuiteSavedEnough the drug he took wasn't the antidote after all]], and the final shot shows him baring his new serpentine fangs.
* In both the original book and first (American) adaptation of ''Film/TheWave1981'', the moment that the kids that are members of the titular school movement discover that their teacher has essentially converted them into thinly-veiled Hitler Youth as a social experiment to demonstrate how peer pressure can cause bad things, they all collectively do a MyGodWhatHaveIDone In the German remake ''Film/TheWave2008'', this revelation causes Tim, the [[LonersAreFreaks loner of the class]], to instantly FreakOut [[AxesAtSchool and pull out a gun]] because being part of the movement had finally allowed him to connect with his peers and he ''desperately'' wants to not be alone again. When the teacher manages to talk him down from hurting anybody else, [[DrivenToSuicide Tim instantly shoots himself]]. The film cuts to credits as the [[HeroicBSOD shell-shocked]] teacher is arrested and taken away.
* ''Film/{{Bunni}}'': Paige has survived nearly being murdered by Chris' mom, and despite having recurring nightmares about the ordeal, she seems to have made a comfortable life for herself raising her and Chris' son. Then Chris shows up at her door to take his son away from her.
* ''Film/{{Fractured}}'': Ray manages to rescue his wife and daughter from the OrganTheft hospital and they drive home...only for the audience to learn that Peri actually died from the fall that broke her arm and set the trip to the hospital in motion, and Ray accidentally killed Joanne when he had a serious concussion from the fall. Ray actually kidnapped an emergency patient and his family's bodies were in the car's trunk the whole time.
* Subverted in ''Film/GreenRoom'' when one of the Neo-Nazi's vicious attack dogs seems to be about to kill the injured two survivors of the carnage after going missing for half of the film, only for the dog to instead [[UndyingLoyalty lay down next to its dying owner]].
* ''Film/IDanielBlake'': After months of misery, the titular Daniel has finally got the appeal he needs to get his benefits sorted...only to suffer a massive heart attack and die minutes before its due to begin.

* Many ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books end with this, although most of them are merely {{Twist Ending}}s.
* Ray Nelson's short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" (loosely adapted into the movie ''Film/TheyLive'') tells the story of a man who singlehandedly saves Earth from a huge alien conspiracy and then drops dead at eight o'clock the next morning. That is, if you forget the aliens gave him the implanted hypnotic suggestion to die early on and the rest of the story is his TheLastDance.
* ''Literature/IAmTheCheese'' revolves around a teenage boy on a bike ride to see his father in another city. The ending reveals that there was no cross-country adventure, and that the trauma from watching [[GovernmentConspiracy federal agents]] murder his parents broke him and trapped him in a mental GroundhogDayTimeLoop, where he relives the same bike ride around the mental hospital grounds over and over while [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness envisioning it as a grand trip]]. And to take it [[KickTheDog even farther]], the ending strongly implies that the GovernmentConspiracy feels he's [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlasted his usefulness]].
* Many of the volumes of the ''LightNovel/VampireHunterD'' novels have {{Downer Ending}}s, but the end of the longest story, the 4-part ''Pale Fallen Angels'' was downright ''sick''. Although many died, D has slain the evil vampire lord, the children are safe from the evil Guide, Taki is safe from being sacrificed and the good, evolved vampire Baron Byron Balazs is planning on forging the first links of friendship between the Nobility and mankind. Then, with no warning or preamble, a hypnotic suggestion planted in Taki causes her to attack Byron, he rips out her throat instinctively while defending himself and in his shame [[ICannotSelfTerminate he hires D to kill him]], which D does without hesitation. Apparently you just ''can't'' have a happy ending in this series.
* ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell, almost''. The Gentleman with Thistle-down Hair intended to curse Lady Pole to die shortly after being released from his enchantment, as it is "very traditional." She gets lucky.
* ''Literature/NeverLetMeGo'' ends with all the efforts of both the clone protagonists and the clone-rights activists who had been working behind the scenes since before the book began being nullified and reversed after a MadDoctor uses illegal means to create genetically perfect children, a scandal that turns the general population against cloning. This is [[AssPull never foreshadowed at all]] prior to TheReveal.
* In the short story collection, ''The Dark Side of the Earth'', every single story except for the last one ends with a cruel twist. The story ''Silent Pursuit'' easily takes the cake: The lead detective rides the subway one night and, out of sheer luck, sees the murderer knocking a woman unconscious on the last train. He races to get there before he can get off and a fistfight ensues, culminating in the detective throwing the murderer out of the window and into the river. He helps the victim up and, when they get off the train, they are surrounded by policemen pointing their guns at him and ordering him to let her go. Because the real murderer is dead in the river, the woman is unconscious, and he can provide no genuine alibis for the dates of the other murders, all present evidence points to him being the real murderer; and he will never be able to prove otherwise.
* In ''[[Literature/DeptfordMice The Deptford Histories]]'' novel ''The Oaken Throne'', [[TheHero Ysabelle]] has just decided to abandon her status as [[BenevolentMageRuler the Starwife]] and run off with [[StarCrossedLovers her true love]], Vespertilio. She had rejected him before but now regrets doing so. As she is rushing to him and passionately proclaiming how she truly feels, she skids to a stop when she sees him lying dead. He had been murdered in the brief time she'd left him alone. The novel ends with her weeping over his corpse.
* In Jeff Long's ''The Descent'', capsules containing a deadly bioweapon are seeded through the sub-Pacific [[BeneathTheEarth underground world]] by a genocidal CorruptCorporateExecutive. Just as it appears the capsules will remain unactivated, averting the annihilation of both the hadal natives and their defenseless human captives, their contents are unwittingly released by the only two human characters in the novel who want to ''spare'' hadal civilization.

* "Slowly" by Fay Woolf: A six-year-old boy has been trapped under the wreckage of a collapsed fairground ride, and rescue workers fight to free him. They do manage to get the machinery off him, but then they discover it's cut him into a pile of severed body parts, which rain down onto the rescuers.
* The book version of ''Film/StruckByLightning'': The protagonist dies in the end, he also doesn't get into the university of his dreams (and the only one to which he applied), the entire school hates him, his literary magazine failed miserably, and he never got to make it out of Clover.
** It is also implied to be a good thing because he finally decided it is better to manipulate others than to be suppressed and got hit by a BoltOfDivineRetribution.
** And his mom said: "Since opposites attract, I would like to think that he was so positive the moment he died - so happy, he pulled that bolt right out of the sky."
* "Megan's Law" by Jack Ketchum has this ending. The story revolves around a concerned father turning vigilante when a convicted rapist/child molester moves to the town. Eventually, the father murders the guy - and then we discover the father himself is abusing his own daughter; he just didn't want any "competition" for her.
* ''Through Darkest America'' by Neil Barrett, Jr. goes over the top with this one. In this AfterTheEnd scenario, large animals have gone extinct leading most meat to come from "stock" semi-feral (possessing no language skills) humans who are implied to be mentally deficient. Early in the story, the protagonist's sister is sent to "Silver Island," a government-run facility dedicated to having the best and brightest restore the wonders of the pre-catastrophic world--the thought of her flourishing there helps the protagonists to weather a series of tragedies. It is revealed at the end of the novel that the story for Silver Island is a cover--its actual use to force those selected to breed with stock, preventing inbreeding.

* "Bess", one of the Literature/ScaryStoriesToTellInTheDark. The story stars a horse raiser named John Nicholas who has just one of his horses (the titular Bess) put down. He decides to come to Bess's skeleton and pat her skull. There is a rattlesnake living inside the skull that gives John a fatal bite on the arm.
** This particular storyline is actually OlderThanPrint, going back to (at least) the story of [[UsefulNotes/KievanRus Oleg the Wise]]'s death from the 12th century Russian ''Primary Chronicle''.
* At the end of ''Literature/MySistersKeeper'', Anna finally gets medically emancipated from her parents...and is then killed in a car accident, yet her kidneys -- the organ she had been asked to donate earlier in the book, leading to the aforementioned emancipation quest -- are perfectly intact to give to her sister, rendering her actions pointless.
* In Antonia Michaelis’ ''The Storyteller,'' the plot of the story details that there has been a string of murders in Anna’s hometown and her love interest Abel, has been framed for the murders. It turns out that Abel really is the murderer and he ends up killing himself once he is cornered by the police. The story then ends with Anna taking care of Micha, Abel’s younger sister and imagining that she is living with a different Abel from the one she knew.
* ''Creator/NicholasFisk'''s book ''A Rag, A Bone, and a Hank of Hair'', although written for children, has an extremely dark final twist. Brin, the protagonist, has been interacting with the "reborn" family cloned from the past and living in a historical simulation, and come to appreciate their way of life more than his own futuristic lifestyle. So, great, he's learned about historical people, right? Well, no; Brin is then told that he is ''also'' a Reborn, but was raised from birth in the future society rather than the simulation. The fact he ended up preferring the historical lifestyle is taken as a sign that, even with no preknowledge and given every advantage, Reborns cannot be integrated with the future society and are thus useless to it. He and the Reborns are locked inside the simulation, and then all blown up.
* ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'' has an underplayed example; at the end of ''Ninefox Gambit'', the Fortress of Scattered Needles is conquered and Cheris breathes a sigh of relief that she'll finally be rid of Jedao and her life will return to some semblance of normalty, only for Kel Command to send a fleet and kill everyone in an attept to get rid of the undead general once and for all. Cheris is the only survivor and she ends up being possessed by Jedao.

* A Dutch YA horror book (''"Beyond the grave"'') by author Creator/TaisTeng had a particularly jarring example. After the teenage heroine has spent the entire novel trying to collect the three [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] on the orders of the villain (even visiting the underworld in the process), she is captured by him after she befriends and falls in love with the bearer of the last one, a teenage boy. He goes to collect the RealityWritingBook to get her back in a HostageForMacGuffin exchange when he discovers that his younger brother (who's just learned how to write) used one of the pages to spell out "THE SUN GOES OUT". Nothing gets resolved, all life on Earth is just going to expire in an endless ice age. The end.
* In Hector Hugh Munro (Saki)'s ''The Unbearable Bassington'', the last chapter ends with Francesca Bassington getting word of her son Comus's death; it horribly sours the ironic tone of everything that has gone before, while Comus is a poor excuse for a tragic hero. And a few moments later that the other love of her life, her treasured Van der Meulen painting, is "a splendid copy, but still, unfortunately, only a copy”.

* Every story from ''Series/NightVisions'' ended this way, but a few episodes deserve special mention because their protagonists aren't in any way evil, or even mean-spirited. There's no LaserGuidedKarma here, just the universe being really nasty:
** "Now He's Coming Up the Stairs" had Luke Perry as a psychiatrist who could heal mentally ill people by [[EmpathicHealer absorbing their problems and neuroses onto himself]]. He uses his powers to help a child who, after being in a car accident with his mother, believes that the victim in the accident is after him; the boy constantly chants "Now he's coming through the woods, now he's coming through the yard, now he's coming in the house, now he's coming up the stairs." The psychiatrist takes on the boy's paranoia, which heals him, and even manages to fight off the delusion of the dead man attacking him and the family--except he doesn't. He's actually gone irreversibly insane and is trapped forever in his own head, repeating the "Now he's coming through the woods" mantra. The last shot is the psychiatrist rocking back and forth and reciting. The end.
** "If a Tree Falls..." has three college students accidentally drowning in a car accident--but since no one saw them die, they're still alive. One of the kids has strong religious convictions and can't bear the pressure of keeping their secret, so he decides to free his body from the wreck and move on to Heaven. You might expect that he succeeds, with his friends eventually realizing he was right--but the exact opposite occurs: he accidentally releases his two colleagues' corpses, which sends them into the afterlife, but in doing so sends the car plummeting to the bottom of the lake where they crashed, where it can never be found by anyone. He's now trapped on Earth forever, functionally immortal and completely alone.
** "Neighborhood Watch" is particularly effective, as it relies on realistic AdultFear rather than supernatural elements. A close-knit community is sent a letter with a warning that the newest occupant of the neighborhood is a dangerous child molester. A father, seeking to defend his daughter, eventually kills the man, and the other neighbors back him up...and then a second letter arrives, telling everyone that the first letter was a mistake, and the murdered man was completely innocent.
** "Harmony" has a drifter who wanders into a town where music and singing is outlawed due to fear it will attract a monster. The drifter and a like-minded mother and child try to convince the townspeople this is nonsense, but they form an angry mob and attack them. Against all odds, the drifter manages to sing "Amazing Grace", and nothing happens. The townspeople joyously start singing and celebrating him as a hero for banishing their superstitions...then the monster shows up and kills them all.
** "A View Through The Window" has a farm surrounded by an impenetrable forcefield materialize in the desert. The military investigates, and finds that the farmers inside cannot see or hear them, while they can only see and not hear them. One soldier, depressed by the loss of his family, observes the farmers and begins to fall in love with a lovely woman among them who seems to be as sad and lonely as he is. The soldier notices that the forcefield goes down for brief periods at a time. Eventually, when the forcefield goes down, the soldier jumps into the farm, deciding there is nothing left for him in his original world and wanting to be with the woman. The inhabitants immediately transform into hideous monsters and tear him to pieces. His horrified comrades try to save him, but the forcefield goes back up before they can. The monsters then start testing the forcefield, waiting for it to go down again so they can escape to the outside world.
** "My So-Called Life and Death" focuses on a moody teenage girl who is stuck on vacation with her DysfunctionalFamily, including her controlling mother, her [[BumblingDad meek, ineffectual father]], and her [[AnnoyingYoungerSibling bratty]] PyroManiac little brother (who [[KarmaHoudini gets away with everything]]). The girl develops a crush on the handyman next door, but he doesn't seem to notice her at all (and, when she tries to touch him, passes right through her). She tries to tell her family that their neighbor is a ghost, but her mother insists there's no such thing as ghosts, and yells at her to stop ruining their vacation. Undeterred (and excited by the idea of romancing a ghost), the girl finally succeeds in making contact with the handyman -- only for him to scream and run away in terror, because ''[[TomatoInTheMirror she]]'' [[TomatoInTheMirror is the ghost]]. Her brother set fire to the family vacation home one night, killing them all in their sleep; the handyman is the house's new owner, trying to repair the damage. The girl confronts her family, but her brother denies that he's done anything wrong and her mother angrily and fearfully demands she continue to uphold the charade that they're a normal family on vacation. The episode ends as the girl sits down to lunch with her family, her mother cheerfully stating that she hopes their vacation lasts forever -- and giving her daughter a hard look when she hesitates to agree. The entire family is trapped in a fantasy, unable to move on, because their matriarch can't face the reality of what happened to them or the role she played in it. What's worse, their daughter is stuck in the company of a family she not only cannot stand, but now ''knows'' is responsible for her death.

* ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' stories made heavy usage of cruel twist endings, while ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' were more prone to the KarmicTwistEnding. It is perhaps the reason why the former is considered to be scarier. A notable exception is the ''AYAOTD'' episode "The Tale of the Chameleon", featuring Tia and Tamera Mowry as the protagonist and her evil clone. The episode ends with the girl's friend being forced to decide [[SpotTheImposter which one is the real person]] - and choosing wrongly. The clone keeps her human body, while the girl is changed into a chameleon and left to drown at the bottom of a well. This episode always rates highly in fan polls.
* ''Series/FearItself'' heavily favored the cruel twist ending route during its short run:
** "The Sacrifice": A man manages to kill a vampire, freeing the last survivor of an isolated town whose inhabitants have been sacrificing their own happiness to keep the vampire at bay for centuries. Then at the last minute, it turns out that he was bitten. (This is perhaps foreshadowed, however, with the fight that shows the vampire's power to teleport and turn invisible -- or, at the very least, move so fast that it might as well be -- meaning that it could have bitten him at any time.)
** "Spooked": A RabidCop confronts the childhood trauma that led him to be such a monster, and refuses to cross over the line to become an actual murderer, and, now aware and able to deal with the trauma of his past, swears to live a better life and do the right thing from now on. [[DiabolusExMachina Then he's accidentally shot dead by his partner]].
** "Family Man": An accident somehow switches the souls of an auditor and family man and a fleeing serial killer called "The Family Man", [[FreakyFridayFlip trapping them in each other's bodies]]. The protagonist finds himself staring down the death penalty and a world that despises him, while his family is in the hands of a monster (who, while he claims he wants to look after "his" family, is clearly a ticking time bomb from his psychosis). When the protagonist finally escapes, he makes his way to his house and engages in mortal combat with the impostor. And then he's shot dead by a policeman. But wait...! The auditor finds himself back in his own body: the process is reversed. He's saved! And then...it turns out the impostor has already murdered the protagonist's wife and son and assaulted (and probably raped) his daughter. The daughter survives and fingers him as he breaks down in sheer horror and despair. He's escaped one level of hell only to plunge headlong into an even crueler one, and there's no escape from this. One of the proposed titles of this trope was the "Family Man Twist", by the way.
** Which one "New Year's Day" falls under is really up to the individual viewer. The twist: Our heroine, who has been spending the entire day trying to survive a {{zombie apocalypse}} and get to her friends' apartment, while being followed by her zombified boyfriend, turns out to have been a zombie all along. When she and her boyfriend get to her friends' apartment, they eat them.
** At least "Community" gives us a warning at the start with an InMediasRes scene of the protagonist running away in fear. However, this doesn't even come close to justifying (let alone explaining) ''his legs being cut off by his inexplicably brainwashed wife''!
* ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'':
** "The Cutty Black Sow". A young boy's dying grandmother instructs him in a rite to ward off an evil Celtic demon that claims the souls of those who die on All Hallow's Eve. The boy obediently performs the rite, putting stones in a fire marked with the names of his family members. His BrattyHalfPint little sister knocks the stone with his name out of the fire, which according to the myth, means that his soul will be taken by the Cutty Black Sow. The rest of the episode consists of him jumping at every sound and seeing a pair of yellow eyes through windows...until the end, where his parents come home from Grandma's funeral and his father comes up to tuck him into bed. Where's the twist? He embraces his father, relieved that it's over...and his father turns into the Cutty Black Sow. The boy is paralyzed with fear as the demon leans over him. Yeah, that's what you GET for trying to save your grandmother's soul, kid!
** "Effect and Cause": An aging hippie with a broken leg and her boyfriend witness the world's chaotic nature coming to a head, with things spontaneously happening, appearing and disappearing at random. They're both amazed, but she is really excited to be seeing the nature of the very universe. So...what does the universe do? Spontaneously change around the furniture as she walks around, causing her to fall and land on her broken leg, spontaneously cause some events that make the cops come to her house, spontaneously turn on the gas on the stove, and cause the broken doorbell to cause a spark and blow up the house while she can't do anything but watch it all unfold. Pretty vindictive for random chaos.
* ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' has had some ''nasty'' ones.
** "Abra Cadaver": In revenge for a prank that ruined his career, surgeon Marty poisons his younger brother Carl and injects him with a drug before he dies. Carl's body is hung on a meat hook, drained of blood, and scalped in an anatomy demonstration...[[AndIMustScream all while he's fully conscious, yet unable to move, speak, or feel anything]]. It's an elaborate prank staged by Marty to demonstrate how his drug preserves brain function after death. However, Carl suffers a heart attack in shock; Marty injects him with a larger dose. The drug works, but Carl is left helplessly witnessing his own real autopsy. The kicker? Contrary to Marty's previous claim, the sense of touch isn't the first to go--''it's the last''.
** "Three's a Crowd": A man believes that his wife and best friend are having an affair, leading him to eventually murder the both of them in a drunken rage. But just as he attempts getting rid of her body, he stumbles right into a surprise party that she and the friend had planned for him. And the reason? All to announce that they were going to be parents. So thanks to a misunderstanding, the man has now murdered his wife, his best friend, ''and'' his unborn child.
* Season three of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' ended such a note, with Angela's prophetic dream that Matt Parkman would save her son turning out to have a different meaning once they realize that Nathan is already dead. Then, to make things worse, the teaser for season four hints that their efforts to realize the prophecy through brainwashing Sylar into believing he's Nathan might not take.
* Creator/RLStine's made-for-TV-movie, ''Film/TheHauntingHour,'' had this ending. The protagonist reads a poem out loud that, when done so, awakens a murderous, man-eating monster. After it captures a popular girl from school, a pizza man, and the protagonist's brother, she and her male friend pour blood on it, causing its multiple heads to kill each other in hunger, and free the victims. She and her brother then burn the poem in the fireplace before going up to her room to sleep. Later that night, the parents discover the poem, having reconstructed itself, in the ashes, and read it out loud. As they laugh about how silly the poem sounds, there's a creaking noise on the porch...the protagonist opens her eyes in terror...and all the lights in the house go out. Cut to black. Voiceover: "Happy Halloween..."
* ''Series/TheHauntingHour'' TV series has these endings in nearly ''all'' of their episodes.
** The first example was in "The Dead Body", in which the main character strikes a deal with a new kid in school to help him prank a couple of bullies. Afterwards, the new kid insists that the main character "owes him". It turns out, the new kid is a ghost, and the main character is sent back in time to prevent his death. The main character does so...only to die in the ghost's place, and the now living ghost returns to the present to live out the main character's life.
** In "The Girl In the Painting", we follow a girl named Becky, who dreams of living a better life than the one she lives now. Becky finds a mysterious painting with real characters living inside of it who want her to come to their world so she would live a better life like she dreamed of. Becky gets swept up in her dreams and enters the beautiful painted world. Then it turns out that the people inside of it wanted to use her to feed a monster inhabiting their world so they wouldn't get eaten themselves. The episode ends with Becky getting EatenAlive and revealing that the titular girl inside the painting doesn't like her own world, questioning why Becky would want her life.
** "My Old House" has a young girl named Alice moving away from her [[GeniusLoci sentient house]], who's also her only best friend since she has a fragile relationship with [[WellDoneSonGuy her parents]]. She soon runs away from her family to live with the living building forever so she can finally be happy, but she soon sees that her own parents are [[AdultFear desperately searching for their missing girl]], proving that they do indeed love her. Upon realizing the mistake she made and knowing that her romanticized life with her house won't be as fantastic as she thought it was, Alice finally parts ways with her living house peacefully. Unfortunately, it turns out that the [[{{Yandere}} house]] refuses to let her leave and murders her ([[AndIMustScream possibly]]) by absorbing her body within its walls so she'll be a permanent part of it forever. Alice's parents never find their daughter and [[FromBadToWorse a new little girl moves into the house]] as the episode closes out with the House implying that it'll kill again.
** "Lotsa Luck": After trying to prevent an evil leprechaun named [[JackassGenie Seamus]] from stealing his soul, Greg uses the last of his three wishes to wish that he never met the leprechaun, thinking that this'll undo all the damage. However, it's rendered moot because Seamus reveals that Greg's soul belongs to him anyway because his own great grandfather offered Seamus his grandson's soul anyway as tribute so he could keep his own. The episode ends on Seamus lunging at Greg to [[YourSoulIsMine rip his soul out by force]].
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "Journey's End" gives all but two of the protagonists a happy ending: The Doctor DidNotGetTheGirl and loses his best friend, winding up alone ''again'', and Donna's memory must be wiped to save her life, undoing all of her CharacterDevelopment and self-confidence and causing her to lose even the ''memories'' of the best time of her life.
** "The End of Time" has [[Creator/DavidTennant the Tenth Doctor]] trying to prevent a prophecy of his demise which will come at the hands of someone who will "knock four times". This seems to refer to the Master, who has a four-beat drumming sound (the heartbeat of a Time Lord) constantly in his head, and nearly ends all of creation when he uses it to resurrect the Time Lord race. After saving the day, Ten is overjoyed to have escaped his fate, only to hear four taps: his companion Wilfred has become trapped in a radiation venting chamber, and to save him, Ten must take his place, accept his fate, and [[TheNthDoctor regenerate]] into [[Creator/MattSmith the Eleventh Doctor]]. Ten's reaction shows that he's fully aware it's this trope. Wilf offers to stay in the chamber instead, since he's an elderly man who doesn't have much life left anyway, but of course the Doctor would never kill an innocent man to save himself.
--> '''Tenth Doctor:''' [[FamousLastWords/{{Whoniverse}} I don't want to go.]]
** "The Angels Take Manhattan" ends with Amy and Rory defeating the Weeping Angels...but then another Weeping Angel appears and sends them back in time, separating them from the Doctor forever. While it was definitely this trope for the Doctor, the episode also makes it clear that it was HappilyEverAfter for them.
* Examples from ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
** "Exodus": The raft crew are found by a nearby boat. They've finally found rescue! Oh, wait. It turns out The Others are in fact REAL and "the boy" they were coming to take was Walt, not Aaron! Within the next few minutes, the raft is destroyed, Jin and Sawyer's fates are left unclear, Walt is taken, and Michael is left alone in the dark waters screaming for his son.
** "Exposé": The episode begins with the deaths of Nikki and Paulo. As the other survivors try to discover what killed them, we are treated to flashbacks, gradually approaching the present day. It turns out that they're NOT dead, just in a severe state of paralysis from a spider bite. Their friends don't know this though, and bury their fellow castaways alive.
** "Through The Looking Glass": The survivors have made contact with the approaching freighter, ten Others are dead and Charlie has avoided his predicted death. Then, one of the Others turns out to be NotQuiteDead, the freighter is revealed to have not been sent by who they think it was, Naomi is back-stabbed by Locke (literally!), and Charlie dies in a HeroicSacrifice. On top of all that, the episode's Jack-centric flashbacks showing him broken and suicidal are actually flash''forwards'', showing that he does eventually do what he's been attempting for three seasons and escape from The Island...only for it to be a poisoned chalice and completely destroy his life. So much so that he manically attempts to return! To say that the final scene completely changed the show for good is an understatement.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': The finale: After a whole season of build up, Robin and Barney are married, after 9 seasons Ted meets Tracy, he decides to stay in New York and the gang can stay together. Yay! Then Barney and Robin divorce, Barney goes back to his broken, playboy ways, Robin splits away from the gang abandoning a devastated Lily and Tracy dies leaving Ted a single dad. And after nine seasons of WillTheyOrWontThey and Ted finally learning to let go of his Robin obsession before it destroys his chances of finding happiness by himself...it turns out that the ''whole series'' was him trying to smooth-talk his children into giving him permission to go after Robin ''[[HereWeGoAgain again]]''. No wonder fans reacted so badly that they preferred the alternate ending, which omitted the twist.
* ''Series/{{House}}'' had several:
** In "Saviors", after everything seems wrapped up, complete with music from Hugh Laurie, House hallucinates Amber telling him that he's not losing his mind.
** In "Both Sides Now", House realizes that Cuddy helping him detox and then sleeping with him was another hallucination...and then both Amber ''and'' Kutner show up.
** In "Fall from Grace", it turns out that the patient whom the team has saved is actually a [[ImAHumanitarian cannibal]] and a SerialKiller. He fled the hospital before the FBI agents who just arrived could catch him.
* In a ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' time travel episode, John & Co finally manage to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong and return to the future. Unfortunately,the best alternate they managed to create still led to a group of peaceful women and children being horribly slaughtered, when they'd survived in the original timeline.
* ''Series/{{Highlander}}: The Series'': Tessa Noel was saved by Duncan from an evil Watcher, only to be gunned down in a random act of street violence not even five minutes later.
* ''Series/DeadtimeStories'', while aimed at a slightly younger audience than even most kid horror, still features cruel twists in every episode. Some of them are very minor and are just "boo, something else scary happened" (e.g. a giant spider is killed, but suddenly a frog jumps out of the sink; a ghost stops haunting two kids because her doll was returned, but a new doll suddenly opens its eyes). Others imply the characters are still in major danger. However, the show tones down the scariness by implying that the stories are just stories being read by a babysitter to two kids.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/MarriedWithChildren''. Every time a character has a [[HopeSpot shot at real happiness]] something [[RuleOfFunny completely random]] comes out of nowhere just to destroy their chances. Being a SadistShow this trope makes it humorous.
* ''Series/{{Hollyoaks}}'' had an episode where, after Jade Albright waits nervously for the results of a biopsy to see whether she has cancer, the test comes back negative. Jade celebrates her sixteenth birthday with everyone she cares about, gets together with her crush, and her foster family formally adopts her. Various problems of her friends and sister get resolved too. Everything's happy - and then it's revealed the entire episode was a [[AllJustADream daydream]] as Jade sits in a doctor's office, where she's just been told she ''does'' have cancer (and, therefore, that the resolutions for her loved ones were equally imaginary).
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'': "Abyssinia, Henry". Colonel Henry Blake is finally about to be shipped back stateside, escaping the nightmare of the Korean War. Except that he gets shot down by enemy fire before he gets there. Famously, [[EnforcedMethodActing none of the cast knew this was going to happen until the scene was filmed]].
* In the Season 17 finale of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', unit sergeant Mike Dodds is shot on a domestic violence call. The injury is serious, but he comes through the surgery and even seems to be in relatively good spirits in the ICU afterward, and everything is leading up to a happy ending. A few scenes later, he suffers a fatal stroke due to blood clots from the injury. The HopeSpot really just makes it so much more wrenching.
* ''Series/BlackMirror'' has them frequently, although sometimes it's hard to determine [[KarmicTwistEnding if the cruelty was deserved]]. For instance, Series 3 has two in a row:
** "Recap/BlackMirrorPlaytest" features a man participating in a BrainComputerInterface test in order to generate a properly scary experience for a horror game. After experiencing his worst {{Adult Fear}}s and two fakeouts involving him thinking he left the game, he's finally taken out and sent home, only to find his mother is showing symptoms of Alzheimer's, one of the many fears explored in the game. He breaks down in tears upon realizing this. You'd think it would end there, but it gets worse: He never started the game in the first place. The man died within 0.04 seconds of strapping himself in due to leaving his cellphone turned on. The staff notes he spent his last moments convulsing and calling out to his mother.
** "Recap/BlackMirrorShutUpAndDance" had some people who were manipulated into doing things (from simple delivery to a DuelToTheDeath) to prevent their secrets from being leaked online. After the main character successfully completes his final, bloody task, they still have the data released to humiliate them one last time. Interestingly, the episode also seems to aim this trope at the ''viewer''. At first we're lead to believe that the teenager protagonist was an innocent kid who just happened to be recorded as he was having ADateWithRosiePalms. At the end it's revealed he's actually a paedophile who was caught watching child pornography.
** Season 4 pulls this off again in a ''particularly'' cruel fashion with "Recap/BlackMirrorCrocodile". In a society where people's memories can be viewed by a device called an "adjuster," a woman starts a murder spree to erase all evidence of a crime she commited. As she's walking out of the house of the couple she recently killed, she comes across their infant son, and the [[WouldHurtAChild implications are clear.]] At the ending of the episode, which confirms she has indeed killed a ''baby'' to get away scot-free, it's revealed that the kid was ''blind.'' Meaning he wouldn't have seen anything incriminating her in the first place. And to make everything [[SerialEscalation even]] [[UpToEleven worse]], she killed all those people in vain anyway, because it turns out that the technology works on the family's ''guinea pig'' and the police were able to use its memories to track her down. ''Wow.''
* A staple of the short lived horror series ''Series/{{Darkroom}}'':
** "Stay Tuned, We'll Be Right Back" - a man digs up a old radio that allows him to send messages back in time, saving his father from a fatal mission in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII...and assuring an Axis victory.
** "The Bogeyman Will Get You" - a teenage girl (played by a young Creator/HelenHunt) becomes suspicious of her nighttime-hours keeping neighbor, believing he's a vampire. She confronts him about it, under the light of a full moon...
* One of the short stories featured on ''Crackanory'' had a man pass out drunk on his stag night only to wake up in an abandoned hospital and under attack by three zombies. At first he is running scared of the zombies and fears for his life but eventually realises he will eventually be killed by just running and must survive for his future wife's sake. Thus he manages to kill the zombies and escape the hospital. He leaves fully expecting a zombie apocalypse outside however he is met with laughter from his mates. It turned out that they had set the whole thing up as an elaborate stag night prank and the zombies were actually actors hired by them. As a result he was now facing a triple murder charge instead of a wedding. The ending implies he goes on to kill his mates too via the camera ominously focusing on his weapon.

* Perhaps the most surprising ending in the history of video games due to its humorous and lighthearted mood throughout, near the end of ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaMk2'' you take part in a rather gruesome series of events where you have to destroy everyone your character holds dear with the game making you feel ''every'' horrifying action. Finally, when you approach the final boss, she simply laughs about how you've basically played into her hands all along as an UnwittingPawn to the end of Gamindustri, which is the opposite of what you were trying to do in the first place, and now it doesn't even matter if you defeat her because the entire world's going to collapse and everyone's going to die. Roll credits. Fortunately, this is NOT the true end.
* In the second part of ''VideoGame/Left4Dead's'' [[http://www.l4d.com/comic/comic.php?page=43 comic for The Sacrifice]], Zoey discovers that the carrier gene which has allowed her to avoid the infection is passed on by the father. She then recalls that at the start of the zombie ordeal, she killed her father after he was bitten, on his request, since he assumed he would turn into a zombie and wanted to [[DyingAsYourself die as himself]], having no idea he was a carrier.
* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' plays with this. That princess you're out to save? She's an EldritchAbomination who will eat you alive. But if you collect all the gems, it turns out [[YouAreTheDemons you're an abomination too]] - which makes for a surprisingly good ending as you and the princess fall in love.
* ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'': After Ark has destroyed Dark Gaia, his light version tells him that since he was a creation of Dark Gaia, he is now doomed to vanish too, alongside his village and all his friends and family. The kicker: He only set out on his journey in the first place to keep them safe, and instead he's doomed them all.

* ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed's'' dark side endings are this.
** The first game has Starkiller killing Darth Vader and trying to kill Darth Sidious, but the Emperor crushes Starkiller with the ship his LoveInterest is flying, while he sees all the corpses of the rebel leaders. Starkiller survives but is turned into a new servant of the Emperor much like Vader was with life-sustaining Sith Stalker armor. This leads to the DLC AlternateTimeline storyline, in which Lord Starkiller takes part in events seen in ''Film/ANewHope'' and ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', killing Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and corrupting Luke Skywalker into joining TheDarkSide, implying he's going to train him to kill the Emperor, much like Vader supposedly intended with him.
** In the second game Starkiller is killed by a dark-side clone of himself who was apparently invisible and observing the battle with Vader all along. Juno Eclipse, Kota and most of the rebel fleet are killed while Vader orders the dark apprentice to find and destroy the rest of the alliance. This also leads into a ''different'' AlternateTimeline storyline, in which Luke died on Hoth and the Dark Apprentice is sent to Endor, where he kills Han Solo and Chewbacca, and then confronts Leia, who due to her brother's death was the one who was trained as a Jedi instead. Despite this, she is killed too. And the Emperor reveals he is aware of Vader's secret attempts to train an apprentice of his own, uses Force Lightning on him, and sends an entire fleet of Imperial ships to Endor with the purpose of killing the Apprentice. ''Both'' storylines end on something of a CliffHanger though.
* In ''[[VideoGame/ChzoMythos 7 Days A Skeptic]]'' you survive the murderous rampage of an unstoppable killer, and get to reach the rescue ship in time. You reach them only to find that they have actually come to arrest you for murder as you have actually been an impostor of the character the entire time, and for convenience, they charge you with the rest of the murders as well.
** The best part? 6 Days a Sacrifice implies you ''were'' the killer after all.
* ''VideoGame/CanYourPet'' It's a cutesy, minute-long Nintendogs-esque game, but with chicks instead of puppies. The shock in the ending comes into full circle once you realize that the game's title is NOT a typo.
* Most of the MultipleEndings in the ''VideoGame/ClockTower'' games are this. Didn't find Lotte before boarding the elevator? Lights cut out and you hear Scissorman's laugh. Went to the wrong location to look for the demon statue? Jennifer's found dead in her room and someone's behind the door. Didn't bother to check that suit of armor? It unavoidably falls on you an hour of gameplay later and kills you instantly. The list goes on and on for this series.
* ''Cyber-Lip'', a UsefulNotes/NeoGeo sidescrolling shooter, has the time honored plotline of 'Humanity builds super-computer to fight evil aliens, super-computer itself turns evil and destroys Earth, one/two guy(s) must shoot everything including berserk computer.' In the rather sparse ending, it turns out that the super-computer was NOT evil, just reprogrammed. As the heroes fly back to their home base, their leader congratulates them on a job well done - and mentions how there are no more obstacles in their way just as he gives a nasty smirk while his eyes glow red. That's when it hits you that you've done just as the aliens wanted...
* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': After losing your sanity by acting as mission control to the most fucked-up dungeon crawl in human history, choosing which half of your party to sacrifice during the final boss battle, and defeating the EldritchAbomination responsible for controlling every monster your ancestor created, you finally discover thatyou killed a redundant organ. The Darkest Dungeon is in fact an ''egg'' that takes up most of Earth's core, one which feeds off of the cycle of life itself. When the cosmic beast inside is done incubating, it will destroy the Earth in an explosive hatching. Crushed by the horror of everything, you commit suicide, only for another descendant to show up. Why and how they are there is left unknown. Of course, it ''is'' the aforementioned horrible abomination that made humanity saying this, and there is plenty of space and a few reasons to believe it's just spitefully lying.
* The 1st Loop endings of ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi]]''. Congratulations! You've been fighting and killing your allies this whole time! [[UnwittingPawn Sucker]]!
* ''Videogame/{{Drakengard}}'' is infamous for this. Heavy spoilers follow, obviously.
** In Ending B, the protagonist's dead sister is placed into one of the "Seeds of Resurrection" in an attempt to bring her back to life, but instead she's reborn as a giant flying monstrosity. After one of the hardest boss fights in the game, the player is presented with the sight of the protagonist holding the body of his sister in his arms, as dozens more of her clones rise up into the sky from other Seeds, ready to destroy humanity.
** In Ending C, the dragon who was the protagonist's loyal companion throughout the whole game is forced to break the pact and fight the protagonist to death. Upon your victory, the protagonist leaves the temple only to find that the world outside is overrun with dragons exterminating the remaining humans. He is then shown clutching his sword tightly and charging into the fray, presumably ready to die in a hopeless battle.
** In Ending D, the whole party including the protagonist and the dragon are killed by enemy forces one by one. The last surviving party member seals himself, the Queen of the monsters, and the whole city in a timeless zone for an eternity.
** In Ending E, the protagonist, his dragon and the monster queen are transported into modern-day Tokyo, where an infamously difficult battle using rhythm game controls takes place. After defeating the queen, the protagonist and the dragon are [[RocksFallEveryoneDies shot down by JSDF jet fighters]]. The last frame of the game is the dragon's body impaled on Tokyo Tower, accompanied with a "Thank you for playing". [[FromBadToWorse Even worse]] is that this ending is what leads to ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'', as the body of the queen ends up becoming the source of that game's "White Chlorination Syndrome".

* ''VideoGame/FantasyZone'': Guess what? The commander of the enemy soldiers was actually [[LukeIAmYourFather Opa-Opa's dad]]!
* The ending of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV''. In the penultimate mission, the player is offered the choice of doing a drug deal with the BigBad or taking revenge on him for all the things he's done. Niko's cousin Roman will lobby you for the former and Niko's girlfriend Kate will push for the latter. The cruel twist is that whichever path you take, the character who suggested it (ie the one the player listened to and is more invested in) will die at Roman's wedding.
* With the Extended Cut DownloadableContent for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', it added in the Refusal ending. In it, Shepard refused to activate the Crucible (or [[AscendedMeme shooting the Catalyst]]), preferring to go down fighting against the Reapers. Without the Crucible, galactic civilization fell to the Reapers. If it weren't for Liara's warning, the next cycle wouldn't have succeeded in defeating the Reapers.
* The true ending of ''VideoGame/MogekoCastle''. Seriously game, after everything that Yonaka had gone through, you should've just finished the story when she reunites with Shinya and arrives home to blood everywhere. That's a Cruel Twist Ending in itself, and ending it there probably would've made the story make more sense than what ensued. After Yonaka Mercy Kills Shinya, it's revealed that SHE'S being read to by King mogeko, meaning either her mental state is so deteriorated that she's haunted by the trauma in her life...or despite her efforts, she's once again a prisoner of Mogeko Castle. Yonaka can't catch a break!
* ''My Little Pegasus: Kizuna [=DoPonyPachi=]''. Win against Angra Mainyu on 1st loop? TUTORIAL COMPLETE.
** Clear the Tsuujou loop? It was AllJustADream and Equestria is still in danger.
** Clear the obscenely hard Ura loop and defeat the TrueFinalBoss? All your friends are dead.

* At the end of ''VideoGame/SheepDogNWolf'', just when both you and Ralph think he won and finally got himself a sheep, not only did it turn out that it was actually Sam disguised as a sheep, preparing to punch Ralph once more, but it also all turns out to be just a dream, and he has to return to the routine of unsuccessfully trying to steal sheep from Sam. He's visibly unhappy about it.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/{{Ray|Series}}Storm'', particularly on 13-Ship Mode in its [[TheStinger stinger]], reveals that not only did you succeed in squashing the Secilian rebellion ''and'' sent the entire space colony of Secilia plummeting towards certain doom leaving what remains of its population to die, but that Earth, all R-GRAY craft, and the entire R-GRAY development team have all been wiped away too! Absolutely ''nothing'' hints at this, by the way.
* In the FightingGame ''VideoGame/AkatsukiBlitzkampf'', Anonym's ending is this through and through because right after she defeats the BigBad Murakumo...''she's at the receiving end of her ArchEnemy Mycale's GrandTheftMe''.
* ''VideoGame/BenAndEd'': You play as Ed the zombie, who has befriended a young boy, Ben, in an apocalyptic world. Ben is captured and used as bait for Ed to follow in a difficult and deadly obstacle-course game show. Once the show is stopped and Ed escapes to find Ben, they embrace. Then it turns out that Ed was never really Ben's friend, and he wasn't chasing after Ben to rescue him. He only saw Ben as a potential meal and Ed devours him alive.
* The GoldenEnding of ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica: The Battle Pentagram'': [[AdaptationalBadass Madoka]], [[SparedByTheAdaptation Sayaka, Mami, and Kyoko]] all help Homura defeat Walpurgisnacht, and [[EverybodyLives they all survive]]. Then TheStinger reveals it was AllJustADream Homura had before the events of ''[[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion Rebellion]]''. [[FromBadToWorse Things go downhill from there]].
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' drags Oersted through the mud. Oersted ends up killing the ruling king, having been tricked by an illusion to believe him to be the dreaded Demon King, and gets ostracized by everyone. His few comrades die and then Straybow, an old friend of his, turns out to have orchestrated everything to ruin Oersted. Oersted is forced to fight Straybow to the death and wins, but he can finally rescue his beloved fiancée, Alicia...only for her to yell at him for having supposedly abandoned her, having killed her father and lover, meaning Straybow. And then she proceeds to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]]. Everything Oersted fought for and having held onto the hope that even ''one single person'' may still believe in him, he utterly breaks and decides that, if everyone believed him to be the real Demon King, then [[ThenLetMeBeEvil he might as well become the Demon King]].
* The ending of ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'', once you can parse out the MindScrew: you've defeated Comstock, driven back the Vox Populi, and destroyed the siphon that limits Elizabeth's powers. Well, you've defeated ''one'' Comstock, out of an infinite number of alternate universes. "You" are not the first Booker to be called to Columbia - the Lutece twins have brought over a hundred alternate Bookers to take down Comstock, but you are the first to succeed at killing even one. And, as it turns out, Booker and Comstock are alternate universe versions ''of each other'', decided by whether he is baptized following the Battle of Wounded Knee. To kill all Comstocks permanently is to snip the rose at the bud by drowning Booker at his baptism, which destroys Elizabeth, his at-that-time-unborn daughter, as well. There's [[HopeSpot the implication that some version of Booker and baby Elizabeth somewhere survived this process]], but no confirmation is ever given.
** Episode I of the DLC ''BioShockInfinite/BurialAtSea'', which began as a What-If story of Booker and Elizabeth in [[VideoGame/BioShock1 Rapture]], is just as brutal in its ending. The "Booker" you play as is actually a Comstock, who accidentally killed Elizabeth while trying to kidnap her and moved to Rapture to escape. Elizabeth came to Rapture partially to find a girl she was searching for (who was turned into a Little Sister), but primarily to kill you. Which she does, via Big Daddy. Before, as the beginning of the next episode reveals, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard being killed herself]].
* The bad ending for ''VideoGame/FarCry3'' is almost comically brutal. By choosing to side with Citra, you slice the throat of your girlfriend, younger brother, and all your other friends before making love to each other. Shortly after the deed is done, Citra stabs you in the chest, having obtained the seed of "the ultimate warrior", and you basically have killed your friends for nothing.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' plays mostly like its [[VideoGame/FarCry3 two]] [[VideoGame/FarCry4 predecessors]], until you've witnessed [[MultipleEndings all three endings]] and realize there's absolutely no way to bring the BigBad to justice. You either capitulate right in the intro cinematic, let him get off scot-free during your final confrontation and assumingly get yourself brainwashed into killing all your friends afterwards, or you arrest him and thus trigger nuclear armageddon ''out of absolutely freaking nowhere'', which means [[TheExtremistWasRight this raving lunatic was right all along]]. Doesn't get much more unsatisfying than that.
** Fortunately, everything is rectified in ''VideoGame/FarCryNewDawn'', where not only does that game's hero defeat the villains there, but also finally deals with the previous villain.
* ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'' provides what is essentially a cruel twist ''epilogue.'' The main story ends with John making a valiant LastStand against the corrupt lawman who had been pulling his strings all game long, dying in a hail of gunfire in order to give his wife and son enough time to escape their doomed ranch. It's cruel, to be sure, but not exactly a twist given that John repeatedly acknowledges that he's led a life that would likely result in just such an end. He accepts this fate throughout the story on the hope that no matter what happens to him, he'll be able to secure a safe and prosperous life for his family and ensure that his son grows up to be a better man than John himself. But after the finale mission ends, a cutscene transitions to the epilogue, set 3 years later, and shows that John's wife Abegail has died and his son Jack is a bitter, vengeful outlaw whose only remaining goal in life is to hunt down and kill the man responsible for his father's death. In spite of all of John's efforts, his family is destroyed and Jack has become everything John didn't want for him to be, essentially rendering all of his efforts throughout the story pointless.
* ''VideoGame/RiverCityGirls'' does this PlayedForLaughs. Kiyoko and Misako tear through River City, pummeling various people in the process in search of their boyfriends Kunio and Riki, who were kidnapped. The girls defeat the final boss and survive a crash landing to find Kunio and Riki at the spa the girls crash landed at. They were never kidnapped, they were there the entire time. Even more, the boys are dismissive of the girls. Turns out that, surprise, Kiyoko and Misako are [[ClingyJealousGirl Clingy Jealous EX-Girlfriends]]! Subverted in the alternate ending added in a patch, where Riki and Kunio instead ask the girls out for burgers.
* ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'':
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky Trails In the Sky FC]]'', our heroes have beaten Colonel Richard, stopped his coup and getting him to use the Black Orbment to take the Aureole. When you're in the middle of the celebration party, Estelle leaves to go get some ice cream for herself and Joshua, and Professor Alba comes to speak with Joshua. He then reveals himself to actually be Georg Weissmann be an anguis of [[OverarchingVillain Ouroboros]], reveals that they came too late to stop Richard to stop his unintended contribution to their plot, and then gives Joshua his fuzzy memories of his time before joining the Bright family, revealing that he was an Enforcer of Ouroboros, and that he was a mole, giving Ouroboros information about the Bright family and the Bracer guild, with Weissmann erasing his memories of doing so afterwards, leaving Joshua in a HeroicBSOD. Later that night, Joshua is preparing to leave, Estelle finds him at the gardens of Grancel Castle, intent on confessing her feelings to him, and Joshua says he's going to tell her his whole past, after which he tells her that he's going to leave and gives him his prized possession and what he calls "all that remains of his heart", his harmonica. She confesses her love to him in an attempt to get him to stay, he kisses her, but he gives her a sedative when he does and leaves as he says he's always loved her. The credits roll with Estelle remembering all of her times with Joshua. For an adventure that was incredibly lighthearted, this was a shock to say the least, and it comes right out of left field.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel III]]'', after the events of the summer festival, Class 7 is invited to the imperial palace. While there everything takes a turn for the worst. It's revealed that there is a curse in Erebonia that makes people act irrationally, and one of its victims is Ash, who is revealed to be a survivor of Hamel. Ash proceeds to shoot the emperor and is captured. Chancellor Osborne then frames this and other recent events as the work of Calvard for the sake of starting a war with them. Class VII learns that Osborne and Ouroboros are planning to enact the Great Twilight, and that another member of the class, Altina, was kidnapped to be made a sacrifice for bringing it about, and then one of the bells from Crossbell starts ringing, which transforms the Imperial Villa into the Gral of Erebos and causes monsters to start popping up all over the place in Heimdallr. The characters descend the Gral, with their friends outside fighting against all but the strongest of the antagonists in the game. We learn that Sharon has fulfilled her contract with the Reinfords and is now fighting for Ouroboros again, and that Alisa's father is not only alive, but also the leader of the Gnomes and one of the people trying to make the Great Twilight a reality. After a fight with a corrupted Holy Beast is concluded, Olivert, Toval, and Victor show up seemingly to save the day, until the airship they're in explodes. And then when Altina is about to be sacrificed, Millium sacrifices herself in her place and becomes the Sword of the End. Rean, in a blind rage and completely overtaken by his ogre power, takes the Sword and kills the Holy Beast with it, kicking off the Great Twilight. And then when he goes for Osborne, he is stopped by all of the other Awakeners in the area, which includes Osborne himself. Osborne does a NeckLift on Rean, and then the game [[SmashCut Smash Cuts]] to the credits.
* Triple subverted in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge''. At the end of the game, the heroes fight a giant three-headed dragon so they can cast the Mars Star into Mars Lighthouse and restore Alchemy to the world. Once they defeat it, it's revealed they just killed a fused form of Isaac's kidnapped father and Felix and Jenna's kidnapped parents. Then they activate the Lighthouse, and the eruption of Mars energy brings them all back to life. The heroes return home to find that Mt. Aleph has erupted, destroying their entire hometown of Vale and everyone in it, including Isaac's mother and Garet's entire family. ''Then'' it's revealed that the Wise One evacuated all of the inhabitants to safety, and everybody joyously reunites.
* In ''Maze 5: Sinister Play'' Sophie escapes from the horror scenario RealityWarper twins placed her in and is reunited with her best friends JP and Dario, who were placed in scenarios of their own. After she hears their stories and questions the improbability of their survival, they comment that they "kinda died" in actuality and then turn into the twins, leaving her alone and weeping by the side of the road.
* ''VideoGame/StarshotSpaceCircusFever'' ends with Starshot reporting to Starcash that Virtua Circus has been severely compromised and its director Wolfgang has been captured. But as soon as Starcash leaves it turns out that Starshot was a hologram and the real one has been imprisoned offscreen at some point since the final boss fight! Cue a "The end?" screen teasing a sequel the developers didn't even intend to make. The implication is that the latter parts of the final battle after Starshot is scanned and cloned were all a simulation.
* ''Jinxter'''s famously bad ending. The game begins with the player character about to be run over by a bus, and then awaking in a mysterious, magical world where they become one of its guardians. If you successfully save the world, it turns out you didn't die and awaken in another world; you're quite alive, and the folks in the other world have no idea what was happening on Earth. They helpfully teleport you right back to where and when you left from - that is, right in front of the bus, to your immediate death.
* Just like most of the ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' books in the main series, ''Goosebumps [=HorrorLand=]'' ends this way. Just as everything seems to work out fine, what with your character, their friend, and the little girl they rescued managing to escape the titular AmusementParkOfDoom to freedom against all odds, the last moments of the game reveal that [[spoiler:the little girl, Gigi, is The Great Gargantua, and now that she's free, she plans to trun the whole world into her own personal [=HorrorLand=]]].

* This short animated film ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybop2CgBSfc Pig Me]]'', about an escaped slaughterhouse pig and his attempts to get brought like the other animals into a warm and loving household. From one commentator - [[SnicketWarningLabel Caution: If you want the Happy Ending: STOP THE MOVIE BEFORE 6:00.]]
* The ''[[LetsPlay/AchievementHunterGrandTheftAutoSeries Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V]]'' episode "The Grand Heist": The [[Creator/AchievementHunter Fake AH Crew]] (Geoff, Jack, Ryan, Michael and Gavin) are able to escape into a Titan and take off with Ray pulling off a HeroicSacrifice to get them all into the air. It seems things are doing well until the Titan stalls out, causing it to plummet and hit a helicopter flying underneath, destroying the Titan and killing the entire team.

* This happens in ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'' episode ''Fakin' It.'' Norbert spends most of the episode pretending that he was sick so he can avoid work and make Daggett wait on him hand and foot. But then, Daggett turns the tables on Norbert by pretending that he's sick. After Norbert gets angry at Daggett for tricking him, they both admitted to each other that they care about each other and made up until it turns out that they both got sick for real at the end of the episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' has one not to for an episode but a plot thread. Marble Pie and Big Macintosh had blatant romantic tension in every scene they showed up in together, but Big Mac instead ends up dating Sugar Belle. Rather than have Marble Pie meet someone else or even just leave it at that, it ends on an uncharacteristically mean joke of [[https://trixiebooru.org/images/1867803 Sugar Belle and Big Mac kissing with a devastated Marble seeing it and shying away]].

* In both the original book and first (American) adaptation of ''Film/TheWave1981'', the moment that the kids that are members of the titular school movement discover that their teacher has essentially converted them into thinly-veiled Hitler Youth as a social experiment to demonstrate how peer pressure can cause bad things, they all collectively do a MyGodWhatHaveIDone In the German remake ''Film/DieWelle'', this revelation causes Tim, the [[LonersAreFreaks loner of the class]], to instantly FreakOut [[AxesAtSchool and pull out a gun]] because being part of the movement had finally allowed him to connect with his peers and he ''desperately'' wants to not be alone again. When the teacher manages to talk him down from hurting anybody else, [[DrivenToSuicide Tim instantly shoots himself]]. The film cuts to credits as the [[HeroicBSOD shell-shocked]] teacher is arrested and taken away.

* In both the original book and first (American) adaptation of ''Film/TheWave'', the moment that the kids that are members of the titular school movement discover that their teacher has essentially converted them into thinly-veiled Hitler Youth as a social experiment to demonstrate how peer pressure can cause bad things, they all collectively do a MyGodWhatHaveIDone In the German remake ''Film/DieWelle'', this revelation causes Tim, the [[LonersAreFreaks loner of the class]], to instantly FreakOut [[AxesAtSchool and pull out a gun]] because being part of the movement had finally allowed him to connect with his peers and he ''desperately'' wants to not be alone again. When the teacher manages to talk him down from hurting anybody else, [[DrivenToSuicide Tim instantly shoots himself]]. The film cuts to credits as the [[HeroicBSOD shell-shocked]] teacher is arrested and taken away.

* ''Film/LittleShopOfHorrors'': The alternate ending (actually considered the original ending before changing it) has both our protagonists EatenAlive by the killer plant and the villain successfully taking over the world with an army of murderous plants, wiping out all of humanity.
* ''Film/DragMeToHell'' has Christine, who tried everything to escape the eternal damnation from the title, suffering it anyway. [[https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20100102081824/http://screencrave.com/2009-05-27/sam-raimi-interview-for-drag-me-to-hell Even if]] WordOfGod tries to imply it's a KarmicTwistEnding as Christine [[BitchInSheepsClothing is a nice gal who starts doing terrible things to save herself]], it's still one hell of a GutPunch.

* ''Creator/NicholasFisk'''s book ''A Rag, A Bone, and a Hank of Hair'', although written for children, has an extremely dark final twist. Brin, the protagonist, has been interacting with the "reborn" family cloned from the past and living in a historical simulation, and come to appreciate their way of life more than his own futuristic lifestyle. So, great, he's learned about historical people, right? Well, no; Brin is then told that he is ''also'' a Reborn, but was raised from birth in the future society rather than the simulation. The fact he ended up preferring the historical lifestyle is taken as a sign that, even with no preknowledge and given every advantage, Reborns cannot be integrated with the future society and are thus useless to it. To cap it off, he and the Reborns are locked inside the simulation, and then all blown up.

* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' fits this all too well. That princess you're out to save? She's an EldritchAbomination who will eat you alive in the bad ending. And if you collect all the gems? Turns out YouAreTheDemons, which makes for a surprisingly good ending, as you get along well with the princess.

* ''Jinxter'''s famously bad ending. The game begins with the player character about to be run over by a bus, and then awaking in a mysterious, magical world where they become one of its guardians. If you successfully save the world, the, it turns out you didn't die and awaken in another world; you're quite alive, and the folks in the other world have no idea what was happening on Earth. They helpfully teleport you right back to where and when you left from - in other words, right in front of the bus and to your immediate death.

** The first game has Starkiller killing Darth Vader but the emperor crushes Starkiller with the ship his love-interest is flying, while he sees all the corpses of the rebel leaders. Starkiller survives but is turned into a new servant of the Emperor much like Vader was with life-sustaining Sith Stalker armor. This leads to the DLC AlternateTimeline storyline, in which Lord Starkiller takes part in events seen in ''Film/ANewHope'' and ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', killing Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and corrupting Luke Skywalker into joining TheDarkSide, implying he's going to train him to kill the Emperor, much like Vader supposedly intended with him.

* In ''Film/RightAtYourDoor'', the main character spends the entire film scrupulously keeping his home sealed from the toxic ash outside his house, only to be told by TheGovernment that actually, this just incubated the virus, making him doomed to DeathByIrony. Then they cart away his wife, hit him on the head, and suffocate him.
* In ''Film/{{Fallen}}'', Denzel Washington's character Hobbes sacrifices his life to destroy the villain. The villain escapes at the last minute; this was foreshadowed in the opening of the movie. Not to mention that Hobbes' reputation is completely destroyed--he'll be remembered as a psychotic cop killer who murdered his own friend. It's also implied heavily that Azazel will spend the rest of his son's life hunting him in order to visit the same fate upon him.
* The ending twist in ''Film/MurderByNumbers'' seems a heck of a lot like one of these. Yay! The evil villain who reminded Cassie of her abusive husband has met his richly deserved death! Justin's turned to the side of good! He was just a misunderstood and lonely teenaged boy! PSYCH. It was him all along, sorry. Have fun in prison. (Though it's not exactly a twist at all if you have enough knowledge of foreshadowing and/or the Leopold and Loeb case. Which, sadly, did not end in a shootout in an abandoned cabin.)
* The ''Film/CountYorga'' series loved these in its movies despite all the heroes' efforts and killing the title character. Endings are as followed...
** In the first movie Two of the male protagonists are dead and the last one finds the damsel with Yorga. He manages to stake Yorga (albeit accidentally) and saves the girl. However even with Yorga dead, his victims don't [[NoOntologicalInertia go back to normal]]. Meaning a female friend who was turned by Yorga remains as an evil vampire. She and another vampire bride come after the two but the protagonist chases them off with a cross. No sooner then when he turns around however, the girl he saved reveals she's now a vampire and lunges at him. The last shot of the movie is the bloodied face of the protagonist from the aftermath of the feeding.
** The sequel once again had nearly all the rescuers dead and a number of their female friends turned into vampires and under Yorga's command. The last rescuer is able to find the girl and they try to escape. Only to be cornered by Yorga. He takes the girl and leaves his vampire brides to finish the rescuer. Just as Yorga is about to bite the girl, the rescuer escapes and chases the two to the balcony. A fight ensues where Yorga is staked and killed. All seems well and the girl hugs her rescuer, however she pulls back and sees that he's deathly pale and has bite marks on his face (apparently having been bitten by the brides and the vampirism just now taking hold). Instantly he forgets about rescuing her and goes for her neck, dooming her to become a vampire which he was trying keep Yorga from doing not seconds ago. If that wasn't bad enough, Tommy, an orphan Yorga hypontized to help him is still under the vampire's control and stripped of his morality meaning he's not afraid to kill. Plus ''none'' of the vampires in the movie save Yorga was staked. Meaning they'll soon spread their vampirism to the defenseless orphanage next door and likely to the rest of the town as well. Just...sheesh.
* ''Film/{{Carnosaur}}''. The protagonists manage to defeat all the dinosaurs threatening their town and kill the MadScientist who unleashed them. Government agents and soldiers burst in, execute them all, and burn the town to the ground to prevent news of the incident from spreading.

* ''Film/{{Peelers}}'': Blue Jean and Logan ride off on Blue Jean's motorcycle with Carla's baby after blowing up the strip club, hopefully destroying any remains of the pathogen still inside. However, on the road, Logan notices the black substance on his body, indicating that now he's infected. Possibly due to the infection, he then drops the baby on the road while they're still moving.
* Extraordinarily cynical WWII movie ''Film/PlayDirty'' has the British raiding party arrive at the German fuel dump they've been sent out to destroy, only to find that their superiors back at base have decided that they no longer want it destroyed (the Allies have broken through German lines, and they want the fuel for themselves) and leaked their mission to the Germans. The mission goes disastrously and the only two survivors flee to nearby Benghazi. Their arrival coincides with the British Army invading the city, and since they're [[DressingAsTheEnemy wearing German uniforms]] they're "accidentally" gunned down by their own side while trying to surrender.

* As is the last non-infected survivor in ''Film/CabinFever''. Hilariously, his last words are "I made it! [[TemptingFate I fucking made it!]]"
* ''Film/{{Screamers}}'': The last survivor escapes the planet after a number of horrifying revelations (and gruesome deaths) and falls asleep, safe at last...turns out, the teddy bear he kept as a souvenir is also a Screamer.
** The movie was based off of Philip K. Dick's "Second Variety", where the girl the protagonist saved was actually one of the Second Variety robots, but that story straddles the line between cruel twist ending and KarmicTwistEnding, with its closing revelation that the robots, once they destroy humanity, are already preparing to destroy one another.
** The sequel, ''Film/ScreamersTheHunting'', reveals that the last survivor deliberately caused his ship to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Possibly a case of HeroicSacrifice, although the true cause is not revealed. Plus, he fails to tell anyone about the new varieties of screamers. And the sequel ends with our heroine (the daughter of the hero from the original), leading a ''really advanced'', human-like screamer to Earth. And she's pregnant with his bladed robot offspring.
* ''Film/StrangeNature'': All of the births of deformed creatures in Kim's hometown have been exposed, the Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a thorough investigation into the cause, and Kim, Brody, Joe, and Michelle have moved to a new town, away from all the contamination. Plus, Kim's given birth to a new healthy baby, so it all seems alright, right? Well, the baby has a functioning eyeball on the back of her left shoulder. When Nikki and Jodie gave birth to their deformed children, they had seizures, their skin started peeling off, and they died. So chances are the same fate now awaits Kim.
* ''Film/TimeBandits'': You think it's all over with a nice OrWasItADream ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' type ending--then the parents open the microwave "Mum, Dad! [[SealedEvilInACan It's Evil]], [[DontTouchItYouIdiot Don't Touch It]]!" So of course they touch it- BOOM!! smoke rises from two black spots where the kid's parents used to be. End film.
* In ''Film/TheOrphanage'', it turns out at the end that the protagonist's child, who vanished early in the film and inspired a long and arduous search effort, was accidentally locked in a secret room in the basement and died there. Then again, the protagonist ''seems'' relatively happy when she kills herself and becomes matron of an orphanage of ghost children.

* In ''Film/{{Canyon}}'', the female protagonist performs a {{mercy kill}}ing on her dying husband, only to have a rescue chopper appear seconds after he dies.

* In ''Film/{{Dresden}}'', the main character (a British pilot) manages to laboriously survive the bombing of Dresden with [[OnlyAFleshWound serious injuries]] and escapes back to England. After the war, he flies back to see his true love (and their child)...when his plane crashes. [[ShootTheShaggyDog So, he is killed...in the post-script...by a voice-over]].

* Almost every episode of ''Anime/YamiShibai'' ends this way. Without a doubt each episode has a Main/DownerEnding.

* With the Extended Cut DownloadableContent for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', it added in the Refusal ending. In it, Shepard refused to activate the Crucible (or [[AscendedMeme shooting the Catalyst]]), preferring to go down fighting against the Reapers. Without the Crucible, galactic civilization fell to the Reapers. If it weren't for Liara's warning, the next cycle wouldn't have succeeded.

* With the Extended Cut DownloadableCotnent for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', it added in the Refusal ending. In it, Shepard refused to activate the Crucible (or [[AscendedMeme shooting the Catalyst]], preferring to go down fighting against the Reapers. Without the Crucible, galactic civilization fell to the Reapers. If it weren't for Liara's warning, the next cycle wouldn't have succeeded.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': The finale: After a whole season of buil up Robin and Barney are married, after 9 seasons Ted meets Tracy, he decides to stay in New York and the gang can stay together. Yay! Then Barney and Robin divorce, Barney goes back to his broken, playboy ways, Robin splits away from the gang abandoning a devastated Lily and Tracy dies leaving Ted a single dad. And after nine seasons of WillTheyOrWontThey and Ted finally learning to let go of his Robin obsession before it destroys his chances of finding happiness by himself...it turns out that the ''whole series'' was him trying to smooth-talk his children into giving him permission to go after Robin ''[[HereWeGoAgain again]]''. No wonder fans reacted so badly that they preferred the alternate ending, which omitted the twist.

* ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'': In an overlap with YankTheDogsChain, the first of the two post-credits stingers for the film consists of Scott going to the Quantum Realm to retrieve "healing particles". Seconds before he is due to be returned to the normal world, "[[FanNickname The Snap]]" from ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' occurs, vaporizing the entire Pym/Van Dyne family and leaving Scott stranded in the Quantum Realm with seemingly no way out.
* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': Speaking of that film, it ends with Thanos acquiring the inform stones after recently murdering Vision only for Thor to appear and wound Thanos in the shoulder. Unfortunately, Thanos still had the strength to do the snap and wife out half of all life Tim the universe, which includes most of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Most of Hawkeye’s family, and most tragically, Spider Man, who fades away in Tony Stark’s arms. Fortunately, the sequel manages to reverse most of the damage Thanos did through the snap why brining earl of it’s victims back to life.

* ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'' is just as cruel as ''Ant-Man and the Wasp''. Spidey's saved the day, got the girl, had a vacation. What could go wrong? Oh, how about J. Jonah Jameson suddenly showing up with doctored footage framing Spider-Man for the death of Mysterio and revealing his identity to the world, [[LastBreathBullet courtesy of Mysterio himself]] [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning even if he really might be dead]]? There's Parker Luck and then there's wondering if Mephisto had a hand in this.

* The Refusal ending for the Extended Cut DownloadableContent for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', where Shepard can refuse to activate the Crucible, preferring to go down fighting aginst the Reapers. Without the Crucible activated, galactic civilization fell, which was up to the next cycle to fix it thanks to Liara's warnings. Going by TheStinger, they managed to succeed.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': So, you've built the [[LostSuperweapon Crucible]], forced the arms of the Citadel open, and now you're ready to shut down the [[EldritchAbomination Reapers]] once and for all? Guess what, the Citadel is an ancient AI that ''built'' the Reapers/Is the first Reaper, and now you're going to have to sacrifice Shepard and destroy the mass relays to stop the Reapers, no matter what ending you choose and no matter what choices you made [[OldSaveBonus throughout the three games]]. This was mitigated by the Extended Cut (which retconned some of the least popular parts of the original ending), and the origin of the [[AIIsACrapshoot Ancient AI]] that created the Reapers has been elaborated on in a downloadable chapter. It also suggested the possibility that the InsaneTrollLogic it used to justify itself was less a sudden reversal in the themes of the series and more because it was just stupid.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!]]" ends with Peter Parker, Scott Lang, and T'Challa as the ''only'' survivors after everything is said and done. Bruce Banner's fate uncertain after he Hulks out to clear a path for their jet to take off, [[HopeSpot but they're on their way to Wakanda with the Mind Stone so they can hopefully cure the rest of the planet]]... Then it's revealed that, despite Okoye's claims to the contrary, Wakanda has fallen. And among the undead hordes is a zombified Thanos, who already has the other five Infinity Stones.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!]]" ends with Peter Parker, Scott Lang, and T'Challa as the ''only'' survivors after everything is said and done, with Banner's fate uncertain after he Hulks out to clear a path for them to fly away, [[HopeSpot but they're on their way to Wakanda with the Mind Stone so they can hopefully cure the rest of the planet]]... Then it's revealed that Wakanda is already overrun. And among the undead hordes is a zombified Thanos, who already has the other five Infinity Stones.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!]]" ends with Peter Parker, Scott Lang, and T'Challa as the ''only'' survivors after everything is said and done, with Banner's fate uncertain after he Hulks out to clear a path for them to fly away, [[HopeSpot but they're on their way to Wakanda with the Mind Stone so they can hopefully cure the rest of the planet]]... Then it's revealed that Wakanda is already overrun. And among the undead hordes is a zombified Thanoss, who already has the other five Infinity Stones.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!]]" ends with Peter Parker, Scott Lang, and T'Challa as the ''only'' survivors after everything is said and done, with Banner's fate uncertain after he Hulks out to clear a path for them to fly away, [[HopeSpot but they're on their way to Wakanda with the Mind Stone so they can hopefully cure the rest of the planet]]... Then it's revealed that not only is Wakanda already overrun, but among the undead hordes is a zombified Thanos who already has the other five Infinity Stones.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!]]" ends with Peter Parker, Scott Lang, and T'Challa as the ''only'' survivors after everything is said and done, with Banner's fate uncertain after he Hulks out to clear a path for them to fly away, [[HopeSpot but they're on their way to Wakanda with the Mind Stone to hopefully cure the rest of the planet]]... Then it's revealed that not only has Wakanda already been overrun, but among the undead hordes is a zombified Thanos who already has the other five Infinity Stones.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E5WhatIfZombies What If... Zombies?!" ends with Peter Parker, Scott Lang, and T'Challa as the ''only'' survivors after everything is said and done, with Banner's fate uncertain after he Hulks out to clear a path for them to fly away, [[HopeSpot but they're on their way to Wakanda with the Mind Stone to hopefully cure the rest of the planet]]... Then it's revealed that not only has Wakanda already been overrun, but among the undead hordes is a zombified Thanos who already has the other five Infinity Stones.