History Main / CruelTwistEnding

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[[quoteright:280:[[WesternAnimation/StressedEric https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cruel_twist_ending_41.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:280:And they lived happily-- Never mind.]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''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.
* In ''Fanfic/DOOMRepercussionsOfEvil'', the protagonist is suddenly transformed into a zombie with no explanation or foreshadowing.
--> "[[MemeticMutation No, John. You are the demons]]." AndThenJohnWasAZombie.
* 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".
* On the ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' fic ''[[http://sarcasticfreedom.tumblr.com/fanganronpa Fangan Ronpa: Universal Despair Sale]]'' follows an alternate cast in an alternate school in the US, as usual Monobear appears and they are forced to kill each other in the Mutual Killing in the Mall of Monomerica. It mostly follows the same structure of the game: six chapters, and trials, except that in the last chapter when the remaining survivors defeat the Mastermind and earn their freedom, and then after having their last night at the mall remembering their fallen friends and vow to never forget about them once they're out just to end up in a different room, not the mall but not outside either, being part of a new batch of students and Monobear's voice:
--> Upupupu...It's time for round two!
* ''Franchise/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.
* ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/10858911 New Appreciation]]'' starts with [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Julian Bashir]] discovering his coworkers find him annoying and getting a replacement everybody hates whilst temporarily assigned elsewhere, and continues with the universe compounding the lesson by dumping [[TranshumanTreachery Colonel Bashir]] on them. At the end, the senior staff throw a little 'welcome back' party for the Bashir native to their universe, he and Garak get a RelationshipUpgrade...and the very last line reveals that this is ''still'' Colonel Bashir. [[FridgeHorror Given how he talked about killing his counterpart if they ever met]], [[KillAndReplace the 'original' Bashir is almost certainly dead]], and probably never even knew how everyone else really felt. And the fic implies that Garak had a hand in arranging the original's transfer and replacement, making it even ''worse''...
* '' Fanfic/PokemonStrangledRed'' has an in-universe example. In the eponymous hacked game, the aftergame consists of a '''giant''' cruel twist. After winning the championship, Steven first loses Miki in an accident, then he turns into a monster in trying to bring her back to life, and finally kills Mike by strangulation.
* ''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.
* 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''.
* ''Fanfic/ADashOfLogic'' does this to several ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episodes that originally had positive endings.
** In "Squid Baby", [=SpongeBob=] and Sandy travel back in time to prevent the former's past self from causing Squidward to suffer the head injury that caused him to revert back to an infant. [[BadFuture This somehow results in Squidward, [=SpongeBob=], Patrick, and Mr. Krabs all suffering head injuries and Sandy being stuck taking care of them.]] [[ANaziByAnyOtherName On top of that, they now live in a dystopian future where Man Ray rules over Bikini Bottom as a fascist dictator and Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have to hide in their basement.]]
** "Pest of the West" ends with Dead Eye Plankton [[TheBadGuyWins successfully stealing the deed to the Krusty Kantina and throwing [=SpongeBuck=], William Krabs and Hopalong Tentacles out]], [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished all because [=SpongeBuck=] took pity on him earlier and unwittingly gave him the idea to build a giant steampunk robot to steal the deed]]. To make matters worse, we then learn that the three met Sandy's ancestor, Adalynn Cheeks, and volunteered to be test subjects for her experimental aquarium. They all died in the process.
** At the end of "Truth or Square", Tom Kenny tries to quit his role as [=SpongeBob=]/Patchy after finally realizing that the Nickelodeon execs no longer care about maintaining any quality with their flagship show, but is then reminded that he has signed a contract that makes him Nickelodeon's legal property and gets strongarmed by a pair of "Human Resources" thugs into staying. The poor guy can do nothing but whimper in resignation. The [=SpongeBob=] segment also reveals that the Krabby Patty formula is nothing but a sham made up by Mr. Krabs to market his food brand without spending a nickle.
[[/folder]]

* 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.

* Zany gag strip and ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' spinoff ''John Darling'' [[https://funkywinkerbean.com/wpblog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Match-to-Flam-115.png (in)famously ended]] with the title character having his career ruined without ever achieving his dreams and then, completely out of the blue, being murdered on live TV by a crazed gunman. This was partially motivated by Tom Batiuk being in a contract dispute and wanting to discourage his syndicate from claiming and using the character, but Batiuk later stated the the primary goal was to give the strip (which was on the verge of cancellation due to the TV pages - which the comic was usually run on due to its TV-oriented humor - being crowded out by the explosion in cable channels) a dramatic sendoff rather than let it "wimp off into the sunset."

* ''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.

* ''Bible Black'' has this twice in the White Room ending, where you and your teacher are constantly fighting to stop the villain and her cohorts, and are subjected to a number of CruelAndUnusualPunishments that you get through using your wits and quick thinking. The two of you manage to reach the main villain at the last moment before she escapes her DealWithTheDevil, the teacher pulls out a gun, and...hesitates, being unable to shoot until it’s too late. The villains win. Cut to a few days later and you show up late to class, pull out the gun, and shoot the villain in the head point blank, as well as her lead cohort. You tell the truth, get deemed insane, and locked in a white room at a psych facility, but are satisfied with justice being served. You’re then told you have a visitor, and it’s the villain, completely unharmed.

!!Other examples

** "Pest of the West" ends with Dead Eye Plankton [[TheBadGuyWins successfully stealing the deed to the Krusty Kantina and throwing [=SpongeBuck=], William Krabs and Hopalong Tentacles out]], [[CruelTwistEnding all because [=SpongeBuck=] took pity on him earlier and unwittingly gave him the idea to build a giant steampunk robot to steal the deed]]. To make matters worse, we then learn that the three met Sandy's ancestor, Adalynn Cheeks, and volunteered to be test subjects for her experimental aquarium. They all died in the process.

Lighter-weight versions come up very often in shows where FailureIsTheOnlyOption, especially when the show has run for a long time, and the writers need to contrive more and more extravagant reasons why the protagonists can't win. It can also be used as a shock subversion of a stereotypical happy ending. If it's overused, it becomes a MandatoryTwistEnding. If the ending makes you wonder what the point of the story was, it can come across as a ShootTheShaggyDog. The DiabolusExMachina also often gets involved. AndThenJohnWasAZombie is often an example. Compare NotQuiteSavedEnough and SuddenDownerEnding. May cause EndingAversion if it's handed poorly.

!!This is a SpoileredRotten trope, which means that ''EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE'' listed below is a spoiler by default and will be unmarked without a tag. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list]].

!!This is a SpoileredRotten trope, which means that ''EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE'' listed below is a spoiler by default and will be unmarked without a tag. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned This is your last warning]], only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.

Lighter-weight versions come up very often in shows where FailureIsTheOnlyOption, especially when the show has run for a long time, and the writers need to contrive more and more extravagant reasons why the protagonists can't win. It can also be used as a shock subversion of a stereotypical happy ending. If it's overused, it becomes a MandatoryTwistEnding. If the ending makes you wonder what the point of the story was, it can come across as a ShootTheShaggyDog. A particularly dark version can lead to TooBleakStoppedCaring. The DiabolusExMachina also often gets involved. AndThenJohnWasAZombie is often an example. Compare NotQuiteSavedEnough and SuddenDownerEnding. May cause EndingAversion if it's handed poorly.

[[quoteright:280:[[WesternAnimation/StressedErichttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cruel_twist_ending_41.png]]]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/StressedEric https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7722a555_7614_46a2_ab39_1a24e360b858.jpeg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie "Rest in pieces!"]]]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In an issue of the ''Magazine/DisneyAdventures'' 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.
* 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]].
* ''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.
* ''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.
* ''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/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.
* ''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.
* ''ComicBook/ThargsFutureShocks'' from ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' sometimes end with these twists, although the KarmicTwistEnding is more common. Some of the more interesting ones include:
** Earth's military [[WeComeInPeaceShootToKill not bothering with too many security precautions during first contact with aliens]] who have expressed having [[ImAHumanitarian strict humanitarian interests]] at heart.
** A war in space between humans and another alien species big enough to threaten the "destruction of all known space" is interrupted by an CosmicEntity who holds a fight to the death between the military leaders of both species to determine which race is worthy enough to continue to survive. Humanity wins the fight to the death, and the CosmicEntity then proceeds to [[KillAllHumans destroy all humans]], claiming that since [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans have thus proven themselves to be the more aggressive and war-like race]], the universe would be better off without them.
* This happens in ''ComicBook/XMen: Messiah Complex''. The heroes have the baby, Cable is going into the future to raise her and hopefully save mutants one day, and suddenly Bishop gets up and shoots Cable in the head! But wait, he already started travelling through time, meaning the bullet passes through him and hits Professor X right in the head instead. The comic ends with Scott Summers saying the X-Men are dead. However, this ends up being a subversion in another series shortly after where we find out his body disappeared in the last panel because of one of the other mutants there and his life is saved.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
** The series has "The Joy", an episode which features a [[TheVirus zombifying epidemic]] in the form of [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul extreme happiness that reduces the infected to mindless smiling idiots who drool rainbow saliva]]. Grouchy Miss Simian is the only person left uninfected after the Joy claims everyone at Elmore Junior High and discovers a cure by accident--playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." She sneaks out with her tape player to try to reach the P.A. system in the principal's office, and after several near misses manages to get there...only for Gumball and Darwin to emerge from the darkness, grinning hugely, to infect her. She tries to leave a message telling the world the cure but is unable to sing the song or remember its name. The episode ends with Miss Simian smiling and drooling.
** Subverted in "The Finale": NegativeContinuity suddenly breaks down, causing all of the collateral damage, physical and verbal assaults, giant monsters, and other hijinks the Wattersons have caused for two seasons to spontaneously pay them back in pitchforks and torches. The Wattersons come up with a solution - cause even more chaos until Negative Continuity gets a jumpstart - but it basically fails and the mob actively tries to murder them. Seconds before they're [[BolivianArmyEnding about to be torn apart]], Gumball laments that there isn't some kind of convenient, continuity-ending superdevice. Roll credits. Except of course, the cut to credits IS what officially fixes the Negative Continuity.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' had the SeriesFauxnale "Hot Water" as this. In the episode Cee-Lo Green narrates this twisted tale of Stan buying a hot tub to relieve his daily stress, only to get into hot water when the hot tub begins killing his family and friends.
* 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.
* Played for BlackComedy in the ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' episode "[[Recap/BojackHorsemanS5E06FreeChurro Free Churro]]." Most of the episode is just [=BoJack=] giving a monologue about his now-deceased mother, whom he had a very rocky relationship with. Right at the end, the episode reveals that he'd been at the wrong funeral the entire time.
* Being a SadistShow with a strong streak of BlackComedy, ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' has several of these endings. But special mention for this certainly deserves the ending of "Little Orphan Hero", where Captain Hero destroyed his home planet in revenge and raped his own parents to [[InsaneTrollLogic erase their memory]]. PlayedForLaughs, but still.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
** The series [[DiscussedTrope specifically references]] how cruel ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "Time Enough At Last" is by taking a parody of the episode to comically extreme lengths (e.g. his head eventually falls off) after which Bender comments that he was "cursed by his own hubris".
** Seymore Asses, Fry's adopted stray dog in "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E7JurassicBark Jurassic Bark]]". After an entire episode of Fry trying to resurrect his beloved dog, only to learn it lived to a ripe old age and died of natural causes. He concludes the dog lived a happy life and probably forgot him, and decides to leave it at that. Cue FlashBack during the credits that reveal the dog spent ''the rest of his life [[UndyingLoyalty loyally and forlornly]] waiting for his beloved master to return'', just as Fry had asked him to before ending up frozen. Even the ''writers'' felt this was needlessly sad and ultimately ret-conned it via TimeyWimeyBall where there were two Frys thanks to time-travel, one of whom remained in the past as Seymore's owner.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': In Episode 92, [[TooDumbToLive Stumpy]] [[DeathSeeker tries to die so he can]] [[HeavenSeeker see what Paradise is like]]. At the end of the episode, he decides to hang himself, but is sent to {{Hell}} as a punishment for ending his own life.
* ''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]].
* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'':
** All of the "Terror Tales of the Park" specials (save for "Creepy Doll", "Death Metal Crash Pit" and "Killer Bed") end this way.
** “Do or Diaper” revolves around Mordecai being forced to wear a diaper if he doesn't kiss Margaret by midnight on Friday. As they’re about to kiss just before midnight, Margaret instead drops this:
--->'''Margaret:''' Have a nice week, diaper boy.
** Mordecai, however, seems pretty happy despite this, since it proved he actually had what he needs to get into a relationship with Margaret.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Several "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror" segments end this way.
** One non-"WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror" episode that plays this straight is "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace". Its ending has the Simpsons returning home, thinking the Springfieldians have forgiven them. Instead, the town is there to [[DisproportionateRetribution repossess their belongings]]. The Simpsons are left with nothing to their names save for an old washcloth the mob missed, which they then proceed to fight over.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has several of these endings, but the most prominent:
** The ending of "Stanley's Cup". Stan's bike is impounded and to get the money he ends up coaching a pee-wee hockey team through the little leagues, and TheLittlestCancerPatient is waiting to see his team win a game. After drawing a first game, a second is scheduled for the interval in a professional one - but the opposing team fails to show up, denying the possibility of a victory. In a GenreDeconstruction of underdog sports movies, the pee-wee team is offered the opportunity to play the second half of the professional game against the Detroit Red Wings. To the [[UnderdogsNeverLose cheers of the audience]], Stan's team steps out against them. Of course, Stan's team are [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome utterly destroyed]], the cancer patient dies with "no hope" of seeing a victory, and the tone of the episode [[PerspectiveFlip flips perspective]], showing the ''Red Wings'' celebrating their victory as if they had been the protagonists.
** Moreover, the ending of the episode "The Return of Chef". At the end of this episode, Chef was convinced of being a pedophile and then dies horribly burned and skinned by wild animals. However, the Super Adventure Club revived him and is transformed into a Darth Vader-esque cyborg who remained a pedophile.
** "Scott Tenorman Must Die" mixes this with KarmicTwistEnding and DisproportionateRetribution. Scott starts making a prank on Cartman with his own pubic hair, then Cartman tries to convince Scott to give him back his money. When that doesn't work, [[note]]Scott burns the money in front of Cartman's eyes[[/note]] Cartman attempts several plans to avenge the humiliation, but every time he gets OutGambitted by Scott. Finally, after a very complex plan that involves Stan and Kyle trying to betray Cartman by telling Scott about what he tries to do, the latter's parents are killed and [[Theatre/TitusAndronicus Cartman made chili with their bodies. And Scott ate the chili without knowing.]]
** Parodied in Cartman's Christmas story from "Woodland Critter Christmas". "And they all lived happily ever after, except for Kyle who died of AIDS two weeks later."
---> '''Kyle:''' Goddammit Cartman!!!
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''
** In "The Bully," a new student at boating school starts picking on [=SpongeBob=] and threatens to kick his butt. [=SpongeBob=] tells Mrs. Puff about the bullying, [[AdultsAreUseless but her actions do nothing to help him.]] Eventually, the bully begins to beat [=SpongeBob=] up, but since [=SpongeBob=]'s a sponge, his body simply absorbs the blows, and the bully eventually collapses from the exhaustion of trying to beat up [=SpongeBob=]. Mrs. Puff then enters, sees the bully lying unconscious next to [=SpongeBob=] making a fist, thinks that [=SpongeBob=] beat him up and tells him that ''she's'' going to kick his butt.
** "[=SpongeHenge=]" ends with [=SpongeBob=] escaping the jellyfish after ten years, only to find Bikini Bottom destroyed by a windstorm.
** "Squid on Strike" ends with Mr. Krabs rehiring Squidward and [=SpongeBob=] after agreeing to all their terms of negotiation. This would be all fine and good if [=SpongeBob=] hadn't taken Squidward's earlier demands to "dismantle this oppressive establishment" a bit too literally. So when Squidward and Krabs arrive at the Krusty Krab, they find it literally dismantled (as in ''physically demolished'') by [=SpongeBob=]. As punishment, an enraged Krabs then rehires [=SpongeBob=] and Squidward ''"FOREVER"'' as his eternal servants. Cut to "One Eternity Later," where Squidward's skeleton and [=SpongeBob=]'s skeleton are sweeping the Krusty Krab floor.
** In "Good Neighbors", Squidward buys a security system with the intention of keeping [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick out of his house so he can enjoy his Sunday off. When [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick's apology cake falls on it, the machine malfunctions and turns Squidward's house into a robot that destroys Bikini Bottom, and once it's shut down the three of them are sentenced to community service every Sunday for the rest of their lives to pay for the damages. [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick are excited to clean up the city with Squidward, but he looks like he's about to have an aneurysm.
** "Gone" is one of the show's most infamous examples. When [=SpongeBob=] wakes up in the beginning of the episode, he realizes that [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin everybody in town was gone]]. Eventually, he starts suffering SanitySlippage. When everybody returns towards the end of the episode, they reveal that they were celebrating "National No-[=SpongeBob=] Day", where they leave town, build a wooden statue of [=SpongeBob=], and [[KillItWithFire set it on fire]]. Some people (such as Squidward) kick the ashes afterward. [[WithFriendsLikeThese Even Patrick joined in on the holiday]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superjail}}'' had "The Trouble with Triples", in which the Twins spent time being bullied and beat up [[BigBrotherBully by their elder brothers]] and then forced to oversee a battle for the jail, due to their [[LaserGuidedKarma lie about conquering it in an attempt to impress said siblings]]. In the end, due to a convoluted series of events and coincidence, the Twins are declared the winners- but their father whisks them away home, subjects them to painful, gratuitous [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and boring]] MindRape, and gloats about them becoming the new overlords. Until the ResetButton anyway. [[ShrugOfGod Although there may be something more to it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventuresHowISpentMyVacation'': Plucky decides to tag along with Hamton and his family so he can go to Happy World Land. He endured endless problems, including the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly named Uncle Stinky]], Hamton's [[BumblingDad idiot family antics]] and a [[AxCrazy maniac hitchhiker]] who tried to kill him and Hamton's family, but he finally made it to [[HopeSpot Happy World Land]]...only for the Hamtons to decide to go back before even entering the park [[YankTheDogsChain "because they didn't want to overdo it the first time"]]. [[WhatAnIdiot Oh, and as a little extra, they gave the hitchhiker Plucky's address because he seemed like a nice guy to them.]]
* ''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 is 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.
** And in the episode [[Recap/WhatIfS1E7WhatIfThorWereAnOnlyChild What If... Thor Were an Only Child?]], it seems to end quite happily. Thor cleans up his planet-wide party mess, sets up a date with Jane, and the Watcher comments how the people in this universe lived HappilyEverAfter... until a portal opens up with Ultron Drones emerging from it. And their leader? An Ultron who not only has the body of Vision, but also ''all six Infinity Stones''. Even Uatu is taken aback by this shocking turn of events.
---> '''Watcher:''' Oh dear... [[DidntSeeThatComing Perhaps I spoke too soon...]]
[[/folder]]

Lighter-weight versions come up very often in shows where FailureIsTheOnlyOption, especially when the show has run for a long time, and the writers need to contrive more and more extravagant reasons why the protagonists can't win. It can also be used as a shock subversion of a stereotypical happy ending. If it's overused, it becomes a MandatoryTwistEnding. If the ending makes you wonder what the point of the story was, it can come across as a ShootTheShaggyDog. A particularly dark version can lead to TooBleakStoppedCaring. The DiabolusExMachina also often gets involved. AndThenJohnWasAZombie is often an example. Compare NotQuiteSavedEnough and SuddenDownerEnding. May causes EndingAversion if it's handed poorly.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* 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 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]].
* ''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.
* 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.
* 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.
* ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'': You've spent the entire game tearing down the three gangs who turned Pacific City into a hellhole, brought peace and hope back to the people, and the Director congratulates you for a job well done...then surprise! It turns out the Agency was EvilAllAlong. They supplied and supported all three gangs and ran the city's police force into the ground, all from behind the scenes, [[EngineeredHeroics to create the very problem]] [[VillainWithGoodPublicity the Agency would be needed to stop]]. The Director gloats that you are the harbinger of a [[PoliceState new world order]] [[TodayXTomorrowTheWorld and that Pacific City is just the beginning]].
* ''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.
* ''VideoGame/DearMariko'': Mariko's boyfriend just broke up with her. You spend the whole game rooting for the protagonist against the scary stalker woman who's been going {{Yandere}} over her boyfriend and trying to kill her. But at no point in the game was it ever said that the ''protagonist'' was Mariko...the game just set it up such that you'd assume so, only for it to come crashing on you in the True Ending.
* The 1st Loop endings of ''VideoGame/DonPachi''. Congratulations! You've been fighting and killing your allies this whole time! [[UnwittingPawn Sucker]]!
* ''Videogame/Doom2016'' has the Doomslayer survive insurmountable odds, discovering his origins, trashing Hell to a bloody pulp, destroying the source of the demonic invasion and defeating Olivia Pierce in her Spider Mastermind form and finally he comes back to Mars just for Samuel Hayden to take the Crucible from him, announce that with it he can resume researching (and exploiting) Argent energy, and using the last charge of the Cyberdemon's core to teleport the Doomslayer to parts unknown just to get him out of the way. Cue the [[VideoGame/DoomEternal sequel]]...
* ''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/{{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/FantasyZone'': Guess what? The commander of the enemy soldiers was actually [[LukeIAmYourFather Opa-Opa's dad]]!
* ''Franchise/FarCry'':
** 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.
* 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.
* 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=]]].
* 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.
* 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.
* ''Videogame/ImmortalDefense'': after everyone on your planet is wiped out by the Bavakh due to Aa misleading you in order to save his planet, you decide to help the Bavakh fight and defeat Aa, becoming a hero to the Bavakh instead. You're then contacted by your granddaughter who informs you that they survived and are rebuilding your world. Naturally, you return to defending them from the Bavakh. The ending reveals that your granddaughter was a hallucination, there is no rebuilding, and you've been defending a dead world by mass murdering the Bavakh who previously saw you as an ally. You play the final chapter of the campaign as an Pathspace spirit, insane due to being alone for several hundred years, mindlessly shooting anything that wanders into that area of space until the Universe ends.
** Aa gets a Cruel Twist Ending too. He assumes that the destruction of your preserved body will kill you in Pathspace, and tries to achieve this by sending the ship holding ''his'' preserved body to kill yours. But when that ship is destroyed, he realizes that you ''and'' he are trapped in Pathspace permanently. Unable to face that, but also unable to die, he decides to just.. do nothing. Forever. (Although if you reach the hidden chapter of the campaign, you discover that he didn't manage that.)
* ''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.
* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', due to a long line of {{retcon}}s, CharacterDerailment, and DependingOnTheAuthor.
** The True Sith set up the Mandalorians to go rampaging. Revan and Malak defy the Council's cowardice and inaction by trying to stop the invasion. HeWhoFightsMonsters kicks in, they start falling to the DarkSide, and whip out a ColonyDrop weapon so horrific that even the Mandalorians are shocked by its brutality. The one Jedi who refused to go Sith with them is brutally cut off from the Force, and comes back to the Council to offer an olive branch, only to get spit on and told "get out." Revan goes on a rampage through known space, ostensibly to "unite it" against the bigger threat (NiceJobBreakingItHero), only for the Jedi to set up one hell of a {{plan}} in response. No matter how you play it, in the second game you're now playing that outcast Jedi. The Sith and the Republic are in complete ruins, Revan's vanished to force-knows-where, everyone either distrusts you or wants to use you for something, and no matter HOW Exile works the angles, the Council is still dead, the Republic is still a mess, and you're still about as popular as an X-Man at an anti-mutant rally. Kreia rubs it all in with her last speech. And [[VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic the new game]], 300 years later? The big threat Revan was trying to stop emerges from hiding, beats the crap out of the Republic...and it's stated "on panel" that [[TheWorfEffect Revan and Exile were never seen again]] after their respective games, meaning they likely died horribly and pointlessly.
** It gets worse in ''Videogame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' MMO-sequel. Republic adventurers will rescue Revan from prison and MindRape, so that he can enact his black-ops mission to kill the majority of the empire. Imperial adventurers will find Revan losing to TheCorruption, now on the verge of committing genocide (Ironically, this WOULD kill the empire but not the more important source) and has to be put down. Bonus points for having Revan's last words directed at Malak and him finally recognizing the fully-corrupted jedi as a friend. Also, the Exile was killed pointlessly by a Sith just to KickTheDog and prove he's a bastard. And even after that, Revan's dark spirit returns in an attempt to awaken the Sith Emperor that would have resulted in the latter consuming the galaxy and succeeds, with Vitiate later consuming all life on Ziost and plunging the galaxy into an even greater war with a big secret army out of nowhere.
** From the same story: a minor plot on the first world was the quest for a group outcasts for the Promised Land, a forgotten colony that would have protected them from the orbital bombardment that destroyed their world. In the MMO you find out that while it kept them alive, the shelter was destroyed and their descendants eked out a miserable existence for a few generations before all being killed by toxic waste poisoning.
* 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/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]].
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* Congratulations, you've finished ''VideoGame/NieR'', destroyed the Shadowlord and rescued your daughter. Even if it did turn out you're both {{Artificial Human}}s and the Shadowlord was the "real" Nier. Then you read ''[[AllThereinTheManual Grimoire Nier]]'' and realize that the human race will go extinct in a generation without the Shadowlord. Oh, and Yonah is still dying of the Black Scrawl.
* The ''sidequests'' of ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' are fond of these. To name one example: "The Wandering Couple". You spend much of the quest-line helping this pair of Resistance androids, who wish to leave the Resistance and just eke out a peaceful existence together, until finally they decide that they can't survive on their own and that they need to reformat themselves in order to return to the Resistance. Cue TheReveal: This entire set-up was just an elaborate ploy by the female android to get her boyfriend to get reformatted, so she can erase his personality and reconstruct it into a form more to her liking. In fact, this is her sixth time doing so. And you can't intervene to stop it, so she gets away with it.
** Many of the weapon stories in the game end this way. Here's a notable example:
-->One day, a hawk lost its way in the woods. Its proud wings soon grew weak as it tried in vain to find its way home. As death approached, a songbird took pity on the hawk and did its best to offer aid.
-->The songbird slowly nursed the hawk back to health. The beautiful sight of the small white bird nestled in the elegant wings of the hawk soon made it the envy of all the creatures in the forest.
-->When the hawk was fully healed, it knew it was time to leave the forest. But before flying away, it promised the songbird it would one day return. In turn, the songbird gave the hawk one of its shining feathers as a token of friendship.
-->As promised, the hawk eventually returned-but with a human in tow. "Well done," said the human. "These feathers will sell for a great price at the market." Then he slew the songbird in one blow and plucked its carcass clean.
* ''VideoGame/TheNinjaWarriors'' (and its remake ''VideoGame/TheNinjaWarriorsAgain'') has your prototype [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot ninja robots]] kill an evil dictator who has taken over the country using evil mutants and robots...only for your ninjas' leader to make them self-destruct to blow up the dictator's estate, and ''then'' he takes over the country with completed versions of the robot ninjas. It turns out that the [[FullCircleRevolution new government was no better]] [[HistoryRepeats than the one you overthrew]].
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle''. Right before the final battle with [[BigBad Jasper Batt Jr.]], Batt reveals to Travis that Henry, Shinobu, and Sylvia were all brutally StuffedIntoTheFridge by having some {{Mooks}} deliver him their severed heads on platters. And then right before Batt goes all OneWingedAngel, Henry shows up...and reveals that the heads were just very good replicas. And then [[BigDamnHeroes Sylvia saves Travis]] from his [[DestinationDefenestration fall from the top of Pizza Batt tower]]. Shinobu is [[BrotherChuck nowhere to be seen]], but given that the other two didn't actually die, [[InferredSurvival it's likely that she's okay as well]].
* The final book of ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'', Armageddon, is just the whole story going completely and utterly pear-shaped after everybody's personal stories wrapped up nicely. Even if you win and get the Good Ending, it's still extremely [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]].
* In ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008'', Elika is sworn to keep EldritchAbomination Ahriman contained in his prison. Her father trades his soul for Elika's life and releases Ahriman, which you and Elika spend the entire game undoing. When Elika dies during the final boss fight, the Prince (read: YOU) resurrects her (sans deal with Ahriman, but still releasing him) ''after Elika explicitly told you not to.''
* 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]].
* 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.
* ''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.
* 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.
* In the Adrift game ''The Sisters'', you play through the entire game only to find out that your character is a murderer, and the girl who kills you during the ending is actually the ghost of your victim getting revenge.
* At the end of ''VideoGame/SoldierOfFortune: Payback'', Alena Petrova hits you with a fire extinguisher and steals the secret device you just recovered. Apparently, she was TheMole of another terrorist group. The Shop intercepts a conversation between her, some unknown person, and the NotQuiteDead Moor, but the signal is lost midway. It is doubtful that this {{cliffhanger}} will be resolved, [[FranchiseKiller due to the game's poor reception and performance]]. Or maybe [[BolivianArmyEnding it was meant to be]] LeftHanging.
* ''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.
* ''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.
* ''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.
* ''VideoGame/ThroneOfDarkness'': The daimyo guiding you actually wants you to defeat the Dark Warlord so he can claim the immortality potion, become the next Dark Warlord, and then immediately brainwashes you and your party into his mindless zombies. Yep, you just spent the whole game becoming an UnwittingPawn to an EvilAllAlong guy; that's just mean, even compared to [[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} the game by which this game is inspired]].
* ''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.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitchsHouse'': In the true ending, it turns out that the player-character, Viola, is actually the witch, Ellen, [[GrandTheftMe who has stolen Viola's body]]. EverythingTryingToKillYou in the house? That's Viola trying to stop Ellen and reclaim her body. In the end, Ellen-as-Viola escapes the house, gloats to the pursuing Viola-as-Ellen that she'll be Viola now, and ''then'' Viola's father shows up and shoots her-as-Ellen. Ellen then walks off with Viola's father, giggling as they leave her bloody corpse behind. Worse, even if 'Viola' had managed to stop 'Ellen', reclaiming her body would have been impossible since the spell to swap bodies required consensual trust, trust which both lacked at that point -- Ellen due to never having it to begin with, and Viola as a result of Ellen's heartless betrayal.
* Some of the MultipleEndings you can reach in ''VideoGame/TheYawhg'' turn out this way. You can think that [[HopeSpot you've done everything right]], only for something to happen right at the end that feels like it completely invalidates all you accomplished.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' has the 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.
* ''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.''
* 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.
* ''Series/CSICrimeSceneInvestigation'': In one episode, a baby is found suffocated inside his father's car while he was at work. He forgot to drop the baby before going to work...[[AlwaysMurder or did he]]? It turns both parents are carriers for the lethal, untreatable Tay-Sachs disease and that they had another baby who died from the disease; the new baby started showing symptoms of the disease despite seemingly being born healthy, so the parents arranged to leave him in the car because this would kill him faster and less painfully than languishing his last days from Tay-Sachs. At this point the parents are guilty of murder, locked up for it, and their family plans and reputations destroyed. Then it turns out that the symptoms the second baby had were not from Tay-Sachs, but from accidental and easily treatable poisoning, and the parents unwittingly killed a perfectly healthy child.
* 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...
* ''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.
* ''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.
* 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/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/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]].
* 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.
* ''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/{{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/{{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.
* ''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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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/{{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]].
* 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/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, in the very next episode, Snow finally retaliated and cursed Cora's heart and tricked Regina into putting it back in, thus killing her?
* ''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. (In contrast, the original 60s ''[[Series/TheOuterLimits1963 Outer Limits]]'' had a higher proportion of bittersweet or even positive endings.) Some notable examples:
** "Tempests": In order to save a space colony, a man must figure out which of the two realities between which he's switching are real, the [[LotusEaterMachine seemingly perfect one]] or the darker one. He makes the "right" choice - and we find out that ''both'' worlds are {{Lotus Eater Machine}}s. His real situation is much worse: he's cocooned by giant spiders and slowly being eaten, and as a result of his failure everyone presumably dies.
** "The Deprogrammers": A group of humans beat alien brainwashing and eventually manage to take down the villain -- [[LetsYouAndHimFight just as a rival alien had arranged]], as it turns out. Once they've done his dirty work for him, they're turned into ''his'' {{Brainwashed}} slaves.
** "Hearts And Minds": A group of soldiers fight the good fight against bizarre invading insectoid beasts, only to find that the "medication" given to them by their leaders is making them see their actually-human enemies as bugs. They lay down their weapons and try to talk to the enemies...who promptly kill them all, being under the influence of similar drugs and seeing our protagonists as monsters.
** "Straight And Narrow": [[SchoolForScheming An exclusive private school]] brainwashes its students for use as mercenaries, similar to the movie ''Film/DisturbingBehavior'', which it predates. The one student who is immune to the process manages to escape and tell authorities -- who prove to be alumni, and drag him back to undergo the procedure (now corrected to work on the likes of him) as the assassination he'd tried to prevent is successfully carried out.
** "Quality of Mercy": A captured space pilot comforts the girl he's imprisoned with when the aliens start turning her into one of them. To give her hope, he says there's a secret reserve force waiting to strike at the aliens. Just what she wanted to hear, because she was a spy, and they're changing her ''back'' into an alien.
** The writers continued that story in "The Light Brigade" just to squash any hope the viewers had. Due to the aforementioned episode, the aliens begin winning the war. In a last-ditch effort, humanity tries to surprise attack the alien homeworld with a planet-killing WMD. The fleet is ambushed and the ship carrying the device is crippled, and everyone is killed immediately or knocked unconscious and given a fatal dose of radiation which will kill them soon. The hero manages to unmask a traitor, get to the destination and drop the bomb before his ship can be boarded. Unfortunately, the ship had been ''turned around'' whilst everyone was unconscious - the hero has just heroically ensured that the bomb was dropped on Earth!
** "Dead Man's Switch": A fleet of alien spaceships are seen heading toward Earth. Knowing they might be evil, a Doomsday plan with a DeadMansSwitch is prepared, with five people in individual bunkers sharing the responsibility to prevent the doomsday plan from being enacted (should it become unnecessary) by regularly pressing a button to keep the doomsday device from turning on. The five people in the bunkers are gradually killed off in variety of ways. The brief hope for peace is extinguished when a second fleet of colonization ships is found and the button pressers lose all contact. They die in their separate bunkers one by one until the last one remains. He finally decides to let it happen when he gets a message from his commander telling him they defeated the aliens with a new weapon. He stops the DoomsdayDevice at the last second and is told to keep pushing the button until they can disarm it. The last scene shows the aliens who used the commander as a puppet eating his brains over the glowing red ruins of DC.
** "Mind Over Matter": A man creates an AI machine to reach into a female coma patient's mind to help wake her up. It's a living dream and he falls in love with her cute avatar in the dream. Occasionally during this therapy they are attacked by a grimy evil looking version of the woman he believes is the AI attempting to take over. In the end he strangles the evil woman. The patient then dies because the cute avatar was the AI all along.
** "In Our Own Image": An android programmed to be a soldier who wants to live a life of peace escapes from the lab and gets a ride from a random lady he carjacks. She helps him escape and attempt to get the items he needs to remove his safeguards and be free. At the last second before he's truly free, she reveals she was one of his programmers and shuts him down. She wanted to see what he could do before she stopped him. Unfortunately for her and humanity, he had identified her beforehand, turns himself back on, kills her, and starts a robot uprising. This may also count as him giving a KarmicTwistEnding. [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters If humanity is going to act like this,]] [[DeadlyEuphemism then he needs to teach them a lesson.]]
** "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E20Nightmare Nightmare]]": A team for special mission is captured and interrogated on their mission to place a DoomsdayDevice on their foe's home planet. The aliens are interrogating them about the mission and the device and attempting to reverse engineer the device. The creator is one of the persons being interrogated, and in going over how the device is triggered activates it with an override to prevent it from being disarmed. At this point it's revealed it's all been an elaborate simulation to see how they would stand up under stress and [[EarthAllAlong they've been on Earth the entire time]]. Since they've trained so hard with the bomb, they had to use the real bomb with an inactive trigger to simulate it correctly. The creator noticed and fixed it as part of her manual override. Cue EarthShatteringKaboom. This example shows the contrast between the original series and the revival. "Nightmare" is a remake of [[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S1E10Nightmare an episode]] from [[Series/TheOuterLimits1963 the original series]] which had a similar plot with the "it was a simulation" twist at the end, but didn't have the whole thing with the bomb.
** "The Surrogate": A woman becomes a surrogate to a family via a private medical facility. She joins a support group for surrogate mothers there and becomes suspicious. Standard TownWithADarkSecret plot, right? Suspecting her baby will be a monster or something else she contacts an FBI agent who at first thinks she's crazy. The actual babies are never seen, and the surrogate mothers don't like to talk about them afterwards. When the big day comes and the FBI agent busts in to stop the evil birth...Only to discover the entire thing was a breeding operation for aliens. The alien's birth occurs when the alien growing in her womb eats all of her except her skin. And it's still hungry for more, ending with the FBI agent getting eaten too.
** "Gettysburg": A time traveler sends three young men at a [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Battle of Gettysburg]] reenactment back to the actual battle. One of the young men was a Southern fanatic who thought the South should have won and the battle was glorious. Being in the real battle under an insane commander dying of meningitis disabuses him of the notion. The time traveler sought to teach him that {{Aesop}}, because otherwise he would shoot [[HarsherInHindsight the first black U.S. President in 2013]] when the president spoke at Gettysburg due to his Southern sympathies. The time traveler, however, dropped his device and the insane commander accidentally activated it, causing him to be transported to the future [[YouCantFightFate where he then shoots the president while he attempts to shoot the Lincoln reenactor.]]
** "A New Life": This episode's premise may remind some fans of Shyamalan's ''Film/TheVillage''. Two married couples join a cult that resembles Puritanism, because their lives have become unfulfilling. The problem is, no one remembered how they reached the forest they were brought to, because the cult leader knocked everyone unconscious en route. At first, the protagonist seemed okay with his new life until the cult leader borrows his child and brands him. After the protagonist gets his son back, he panics and convinces his wife to flee from the village with him. Soon, they realize the forest's edge is blocked by a force field, and stay on the run, but their branded child was used as a tracking device. As a result, the couple was discovered by the cult leader and captured. For fleeing, the protagonist would be executed, so he helped convince his male friend (played by Jeremy Sisto) to help him escape and de-activate the force field. The plan goes well at first until the two of them find a teleporter. The protagonist volunteers to enter, while his friend protects his wife. After entering the teleporter, the protagonist was transported to a dark room with several robed people. The people in robes? Oh they're aliens. They also claim that the forest is ''inside a spaceship'', they've already left Earth, and they plan to use religion to encourage people to breed for the next 500 years...which is when they'll reach their destination and use the humans as ''slave labor''. Of course, the protagonist gets killed for knowing too much, though his partner met a grisly end. The cult leader burns him at the stake to urge people not to rebel. Even better? His wife watches him get roasted.
** "Breaking Point": A guy makes a time machine and travels a few days into the future, but finds out his wife is dead. Horrified, he returns to the present and tries to protect and warn her. His wife refuses to believe his stories of time travel, and eventually, he loses his temper and accidentally kills her. Anguished, declaring himself a monster, he decides she would have been better off without him, so he travels back to the day they met and kills his past self before he met her, erasing himself from existence. It was all for nothing. In the new timeline, it turned out that his wife had been contemplating suicide and meeting him that fateful day had saved her.
** "First Anniversary": Two best friends are both married to kind, loving women who look like supermodels, so they think life is good. But one day, one of them goes nuts, claims that the women are monsters, then commits suicide. After the funeral, his friend is baffled, until he starts to feel revulsion whenever he's around the girls (when he tries to kiss his wife, he smells and tastes something nasty). He fears that he's losing his mind, until the girls feel they have no choice but to confess. They are really aliens that crash landed on Earth. Since they can't leave, they decided to blend in and live the rest of their lives peacefully as human women. The reason his friend called them monsters and that he's feeling disgusted by them is that prolonged contact with them causes the person to develop an immunity to their {{Glamour}}. His wife tries to persuade him that no matter what they look like, they are still the nice women they befriended and fell in love with. Sadly, when he becomes completely immune to the illusion, [[BrownNote their true form is so hideous]] that [[GoMadFromTheRevelation he suffers a complete mental breakdown]]. The women move on and seduce two new guys, meaning the cycle will repeat itself roughly once a year.
** "The Grid": A man on a road trip stops at another city and finds that an evil organization has installed the buildings with antennas that emit a mind-controlling signal as a sort of TakeOverTheWorld plot. Since the protagonist is immune, the brainwashed citizens are ordered to kill him. He escapes and returns to his hometown, intending to call the cops, only to find more antennas. His brainwashed wife shoots him.
** "The Human Factor": On the first ever colony on Ganymede, a robot suddenly rigs the reactor to blow up. The robot explains that since HumansAreTheRealMonsters, its logical course of action is to destroy the colony and prevent humanity from expanding beyond Earth. The crew manages to deactivate the robot and save the reactor, though all but one die in the process. The survivor receives a message from Earth. WorldWarIII broke out, and nukes have wiped out a lot of the planet (including the survivor's family). A shuttle carrying the President and other officials is heading for Ganymede and will arrive in a few months. In despair, the survivor re-rigs the reactor to blow and turns the robot back on. He tells the robot it was right, then offers to play chess to pass the time until the colony is blown to kingdom come (though this one skirts KarmicTwistEnding a bit).
*** It turns into an outright cruel twist ending if you accept it as a true sequel to "Phobos Rising" instead of just another ClipShow episode attempt for ArcWelding unrelated episodes. Said previous episode had a true KarmicTwistEnding, as the Martian colonies destroyed each other thanks to rampant paranoia in the wake of a catastrophic event that ended up with the two factions declaring a truce, and just to twist the knife in further, the general giving the news to the sole survivors of each colony tells them that all of Earth is looking to Martian colonies as a symbol and example of cooperation and solidarity.
** "Ripper": In VictorianLondon, a man goes on the trail of notorious serial killer UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper. He eventually discovers that the Ripper is actually an evil {{Body Surf}}ing alien. While it is in the body of an old woman, he fights and stabs it, only for the alien to exit the body and escape. The police arrive and arrest the protagonist, assuming that ''he'' is the Ripper. The alien, in a new body, visits the protagonist in the asylum and promises to find his family and kill them before leaving.
** "Blank Slate": A man with amnesia is pursued by mysterious agents for the device he's carrying. A woman is caught up in the events and teams up with the man. While on the run, they slowly fall in love. Unfortunately, when his memories come back, it turns out that he was working with the bad guys before. [[AmnesiacDissonance Reverting to his original evil personality]], he betrays the woman and returns the device.
** "Birthright": The protagonist believes he has thwarted an alien invasion...only for the taxi driver to reveal himself as one of them and capture him. The infiltration was more widespread than he thought.
** "The Voice of Reason": A man appears before a government committee to warn them about alien infiltrators. They dismiss him as a nut. Suspecting the official who opposes him the loudest is an infiltrator, the man shoots and kills him, hoping to expose his alien nature. The official was human and a complete {{muggle}}, and the man is arrested. And it turns out the protagonist had managed to convince him that aliens could be a legitimate threat, and killed his ally. ''Nearly everyone else'' in the committee is an alien, and they silently thank the man for [[NiceJobBreakingItHero getting rid of that guy, allowing them to take full control and further their invasion plans]]. (And this was the ClipShow. ''Even the clip show has a nasty ending.'')
** "A Special Edition": A guy appears on a talk show to present evidence that the government is performing illegal cloning experiments. The government cuts off their signal and sends armed thugs into the studio. The guy, cast, and crew try to escape, but are eventually captured. A clone of the guy appears and gives a fraudulent report that "disproves" the guy's evidence. The clone mocks the protagonists, claiming that the masses are stupid sheep who believe anything they hear, so his fraudulent report is already making them forget the truth. The guy, cast, and crew are all shot to death by the clone.
** "Human Trials": A group of soldiers sign up for a top secret mission. To "weed out the wimps", the soldiers are placed in virtual reality simulations (the kind where you can feel everything) of battles, natural disasters, etc. Those who die, crack, or give up in the simulations are eliminated and sent home. In the end, only one soldier makes it. After the round of congratulations, he eagerly asks what his mission is. He is then informed that there was no mission; ForScience, they were looking for someone really tough so that they could use him as a guinea pig to test the limits of human endurance and willpower. He is forcibly plugged back into virtual reality and subjected to nightmarish tortures as the technicians and military officials look on with LackOfEmpathy.
** "Manifest Destiny": A spaceship investigates a distress call from an abandoned spaceship. While exploring it, the crew begins to grow paranoid and insane, one by one. The doctor tries to figure out what is going on, but is too late and succumbs as well. The alien virus that caused this is unknowingly sent to Earth. This does overlap with KarmicTwistEnding seeing how the virus was the result of [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humanity destroying the aliens so they could colonize their homeworld for themselves,]] [[HistoryRepeats with the doctor comparing it to how the wars with Native Americans ultimately caused syphilis to be carried to Europe.]]
** "Final Appeal": A woman time travels to the future and is arrested because technology is banned. She goes on trial and tries to convince the leaders to bring technology back, because she has seen futures where humanity is screwed without technology. A second time traveler arrives with a nuclear bomb and threatens the leaders to keep technology banned, because he had seen futures where humanity ended up screwed over because of technology. After a long debate, the leaders decide to lift the ban and everyone seemingly convinces the second time traveler not to kill them and to return to his own time. He leaves...but leaves the bomb behind and it explodes, wiping out the city.
* ''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.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': Perhaps the best illustration of the difference between a KarmicTwistEnding and a cruel-twist ending are two episodes with virtually the same plot: a man manages to apparently become the last man on Earth, but cannot enjoy it. (In the second case the man finds he finally has time to read all the books he wants -- until he breaks his glasses.) It's the same twist in both episodes, but in "The Mind and the Matter", the man is a MisanthropeSupreme who wills everyone else away, making [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor his eventual fate karmic justice]]. In "Time Enough at Last", however, the man is a timid man who is ridiculed by his wife and boss for reading books, and who only survives a nuclear holocaust because he locked himself in a bank vault as the only way he could get some peace. In this case, the world screws him over just to be mean. Wiki/TheOtherWiki claims that he was being punished for [[LonersAreFreaks being antisocial]], and for daring to think that humanity being wiped out had a positive side. Make of that what you will.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'' has "A Little Peace and Quiet", in which a woman finds a pearl necklace that can stop time, like in the old TZ, but uses it to stop time immediately before Soviet missiles impact her town, leaving her with a choice of being permanently stuck in a frozen world or starting time again only to be vaporized.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2002'' was much more into cruel endings than karmic ones.
** The very first episode featured a rebel-lite teenage girl destroyed by the above-mentioned sealed-off modern community with the obligatory nasty secret, and along the way helps her younger sibling become an accomplice to a fairly grisly act. There was no sci-fi in her fate, more Sopranos -- and the sick twist is, in her depiction, she was no more a 'true' rebel than the oldsters in the original TZ's "Kick The Can" were really all that old. The would-be "rebel" many RL parents would be happy to get has some tattoos and some 'tude, and that's really about it.
** There was the time travel episode where a woman decides to kill an evil dictator as an infant by posing as his nanny. The baby was UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, and she succeeds. However, another nanny who saw what happened replaces the baby with another child, the implication being that the new child is the Hitler we had to deal with. It would have been a good episode, if it weren't for a very bad case of CriticalResearchFailure: the baby Adolf is the cherished son of his proud and well-off father, who is able to afford a nanny in the first place; the real Hitler's father was a civil servant, he didn't have a nanny, and the pair were not close.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Very common in the short stories of Charles Birkin. Examples:
** ''The Lesson'': A couple leave their young son with his uncle while they are hosting a party. The child ties up his uncle (who is drunk) and puts a plastic bag over the man's head to pretend he is an astronaut. When the parents find him, they are angry that he got drunk while taking care of their son. They decide to "teach him a lesson" by leaving him tied up while they go out - but then they get into a car accident. The badly wounded mother tries to tell hospital staff that the uncle needs help, but can only manage to say the word "bag", making the nurses think that she wants something from her handbag. Meanwhile, at home, the little boy is wondering why his uncle doesn't want to play any more ...
** ''Marjorie's On Starlight'' features orphan Marjorie going horseriding with her adoptive sister, who is a cruel bully. It's hinted that something bad will happen to the sister - but instead she torments Marjorie about her dead parents, causing Marjorie to react, her horse to bolt, and throw Marjorie straight into the path of a steamroller that runs over her head.
** ''The Mouse Hole'': In occupied France during WWII, an incompetent Resistance fighter known as "The Mouse" causes an innocent man to get shot by Nazis. The Nazis soon arrive at the man's door, and his mother is forced to hide her wounded son inside the oven. However, the soldiers think she is actually hiding The Mouse in there, and light the fire. The Mouse doesn't care and just chalks it up as another death for the cause.
** ''Hard to Get'' begins as a comedic story about an army officer trying and failing to seduce a beautiful woman in a restaurant. Then it's revealed they belong to a race of bloodsucking aliens that have taken over the earth, and their meal is a still-living human woman who has been tortured and trussed up to be served at the table.
** ''T-I-M'': A woman collapses in an accident at home and begs her young son to call for medical help. However, he gives the operator the wrong name, and ends up being connected to the speaking clock (a recorded service). He doesn't realize who he is talking to, and his mother lies dying on the floor unaware of what's really happening.
** ''Spawn of Satan'': A woman moves to a town where gangs have been stirring up racial hatred. There's an initial twist when we discover that her husband, who soon arrives to join her, is black. The real twist is when the woman suffers a fatal heart attack while driving, causing her to run over and kill a white child. Her husband is gruesomely lynched in revenge by the gangs.
** ''Fairy Dust'' appears to be a sweet little tale about a woman reading ''Literature/PeterPan'' to her young stepson. At the end, she convinces him that he can fly like Peter Pan, and lures him into jumping off an 80-foot balcony so that her own child can inherit the family estate.
** ''Old Mrs Strathers'': An elderly woman is paralysed and unable to speak following a severe stroke. She discovers that her son is about to be murdered by his wife, who is cheating on him. The son is poisoned, and the old lady struggles to her feet. There's a brief HopeSpot...then she falls head-first into the fireplace. The wife and her boyfriend get away with the murder, while Mrs Strathers is horribly mutilated and is sent to a work house because there's no one left to take care of her.
** ''The Finger of Fear'': A rich, miserly alcoholic is upset that she's obliged to pay for her housekeeper's child to have dental treatment. She ultimately comes up with a "solution", and has her chauffeur drive a box over to the dentist's surgery. It turns out to contain the child's severed head; the miser having figured that this would be cheaper than sending the whole child to the dentist.
* 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 the short story "Coffee" by Simon Bestwick, an overworked employee is DrivenToSuicide through sleep deprivation caused by drinking too much coffee and then being unable to sleep at night. However, the employee (never given a name or gender) is forced to stay at the company as a zombie, because they are not allowed to leave without an appropriate notice period. They're also disciplined for spending too much time at the coffee machine, and can't have any more coffee.
* 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 ''Literature/TheDescent'', 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.
* 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.
* Many ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books end with this, although most of them are merely {{Twist Ending}}s.
* ''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 GroundhogDayLoop, 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]].
* Tana French's novel ''In the Woods''. Main character homicide detective Robb and his partner Cassie have figured out who the killer is but don't have enough evidence to prove it. They set up a trap to get the killer to confess to Cassie. The trap works perfectly, Cassie plays her part brilliantly, even working the Irish equivalent of a Miranda Warning into the conversation, and they get a full confession of the entire plot on tape. Then the twist comes...the killer was the victim's teenage sister, and she's only 17, not 18 as the detectives had initially believed. This means everything she said outside the presence of her parents is inadmissible. She gets away with the murder, and the case destroys not only Robb and Cassie's careers, but their friendship as well. The book ends with Robb alone and miserable.
* ''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.
* In Julian Jay Savarin's ''Lemmus'' novels, the seemingly hospitable planet Terra (a.k.a. Earth) is revealed to have a malign influence on colonists from an advanced Galactic civilisation, causing them to become violent and warlike. Those who possess immunity are ruthlessly killed, but not before arming a DoomsdayDevice to destroy the planet. Even then the Galactic civililisation refuses to give up on the planet, and uses advanced technology and time travel to evolve a ''new'' race of humans in the hope that they will overcome the evil influence. It doesn't work; after millennia of conflict the planet is destroyed in a nuclear war. The last survivor, seeing two Galactic observers in radiation suits, believes them to be Jesus and Mary and curses them with her dying breath. Only then do the Galactics admit that they have failed, and blow up the planet's sun.
* ''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.
* "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.
* ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy''
** In ''The Well of Ascension'', our main character Vin finds the titular well after looking for it, due to believing that she is the Hero of Ages. And then everything goes to hell when the mist spirit that's been hanging around the entire book fatally wounds Elend, Sazed is attacked by the BrainwashedAndCrazy Marsh when trying to find Vin to stop her from doing anything hasty, and Vin enters the Well of Ascension, where she gives up the power of the Well in order to follow the prophecy, even if it means letting Elend die...only to free an EldritchAbomination that was trapped there and manipulated the entire prophecy so that someone would give up the power and free him. When Sazed reads the true prophecy later, having beaten Marsh for the time being, he loses his faith in all of the religion he's studied over the years.
* 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.
* ''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.
* ''Literature/PointHorror''s [[DarkerAndEdgier Darker and Edgier]] UK version ''Point Horror Unleashed'' had a few of these.
** ''The Hanging Tree'' ended with the titular tree seemingly chopped down and the rest of the forest saved, and protagonist Willow heading off to college with her boyfriend. Several years later they use the tunnel built underneath the forest where the tree once stood, see it's evil personification in their windscreen and fatally crash into the tunnel wall.
** ''Scissorman'' ends with the teenaged protagonists discovering their stepmother is the titular monster as she serves them their pet rabbits for dinner. She uses this fact to [[ScareEmStraight Scare 'Em Straight.]]
** ''Amy'' ends with the titular character swapping places with the protagonist Annie, leaving her to die in the morgue while she lives her life instead.
* 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.
* "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''.
* "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.
* 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.
* 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."
* ''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.
* 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".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''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/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.
* ''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/BerkshireCounty'': [[TheProtagonist Kylie]] managed to kill the adult intruders, and is recovering in the hospital. The child intruder is also given a chance at a normal life[[spoiler:, only for him to be taken by a man with the same mark on his arm as the other intruders. When Kylie wakes up from a nap, she finds everyone in the hospital except her is dead, and there are more pig-masked killers in the building with her now]].
* 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/{{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.
* As is the last non-infected survivor in ''Film/CabinFever''. Hilariously, his last words are "I made it! [[TemptingFate I fucking made it!]]"
* 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.
* ''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/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''.
* 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 ''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/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.
* 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.
* 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/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.
* 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]].
* ''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.
* 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.
* ''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/{{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.
* ''Film/TheFunhouseMassacre'': In the aftermath of all the carnage, Laurie and Sheriff Kate are carried off in an ambulance together. Then Laurie spies the knife hidden up the sheriff's sleeve, and screams. The first stinger reveals that "Sheriff Kate" was actually Eileen "The Stitch-Faced Killer", wearing the sheriff's face as a disguise.
* 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]].
* 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..."
* ''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.
* ''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.
* ''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/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.
* ''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/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/LivingDeadSeries'':
** The last survivor in ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' is mistaken for a zombie and shot dead. It's deliberately left unclear whether the protagonist was actually mistaken for a zombie, or if the rednecks saving the day just saw a good opportunity to shoot a black guy without a fear of punishment. It wasn't originally deliberate, since Ben's part was written for a white man. [[AscendedFanon George Romero is fine with taking credit for the alternate interpretation now, though.]]
** And in ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1990'', the black guy really ''was'' a zombie, while the JerkAss who'd left the others to die spoke when the heroine found him, proving himself to be alive. She shot him anyway, as payback.
** The ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'' remake ended this way through the credits. The heroes escape via a boat. Then during the credits, a few very short scenes play out. They start off celebratory and quickly devolve into them having no provisions that aren't full of maggots, finding zombie heads in a cooler they hoped was full of food, infighting, and then finally ending in a BolivianArmyEnding as a incredibly large horde of zombies descend on them when they try to debark.
* ''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]]?
* In ''Literature/TheMist'' the main characters leave the doomed grocery store in a car. When the car runs out of gas, the father takes a pistol, and shoots everyone in the car, [[OffingTheOffspring including his own son]]. Out of bullets and unable to kill himself, he notices the mist dissipating, and hears a strange noise which turns out to be the military, destroying the monsters. So, if he had waited literally one minute before killing everyone, they all would have survived. What makes it worse was the realization that one of the objects in the background of the reveal scene is army-standard temporary housing. They weren't being followed by the military, ''they were driving through a military outpost''! One film critic was so bothered by the ending that he spoiled it (with ample warning) in his review to keep people from being blindsided by it.
** In the original novel it ends more ambiguously, with the father, son and some extras having fled the grocery store to an uncertain fate. Creator/StephenKing has gone on record saying that he absolutely loved the film's ending, however, and wishes that he'd thought of it himself for the novel.
* In the OurWerewolvesAreDifferent flick ''Film/MulberryStreet'', the protagonists discover that the infected rat-people become human again at sunrise just minutes after they finish killing off their own rabid-rodent loved ones in self-defense.
* 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.)
* ''Film/NoOneGetsOutAlive'': [[TheProtagonist Ambar]] survived her encounter with [[spoiler:the EndritchAbomination]] and killed Becker and Red. [[spoiler:However, when she's about to leave the building, she feels compelled to stay, implying she may now start sacrificing other tenants to the monster now.]]
* 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.
* ''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.
* ''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.
* In ''Film/TheRapture'', 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.
* 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/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/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.
* 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.
* ''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/{{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/TalesFromTheCrypt: 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?
* ''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.
* ''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.
* ''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/TrickOrTreats'': [[TheProtagonist Linda]] and Christopher have managed to kill Malcolm, and Linda goes to report his death to the police. Then Christopher takes an interest in Malcolm's knife, picks it up, and jumps at Linda to attack her with it. Freeze frame, end movie.
* The ending of ''Film/{{Troll 2}}'' was probably trying for this, but it ended up not really making any sense.
* 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/TheWickerMan1973'' is iconic for its use of this trope. The protagonist rescues the missing child he's been searching for, only to discover psych! She and the entire island were in on it the whole time! The letter he received was part of an elaborate ruse to lure him there so that ''he'' can be offered as a sacrifice. He is then burnt alive as the islanders sing merrily.
* ''Film/WouldYouRather'': Iris wins Lambrick’s twisted game, only to return home and find that her brother Raleigh, who she ''did this for'', has committed suicide.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/TurnAGundam'': It's a DistantFinale for all Franchise/{{Gundam}} series up to that point. How? Apocalypse after apocalypse reset humanity. It makes every ending of every Franchise/{{Gundam}} series up to that point a ShootTheShaggyDog story.
* 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.
* 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.
* ''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.
* ''Anime/HellGirl:''
** ''Midsummer Chart'': The main character of this episode works at a food store and is depicted as a self-centered jerk who gets angry at nearly everything, planning to send people who've aggravated him to hell for petty reasons (including one guy just for dating the girl he was lusting after). He draws violent comics about these people. Mid-episode, he meets a girl who he seems to have chemistry with, and though he starts to draw self-obsessed WishFulfillment comics about her as well, he is shown to actually start caring about someone else's feelings. He enters these comics into a contest and actually wins. On a bike ride home, he notices the girl who lusted after trying to jump off a bridge. In a HeelFaceTurn, he turns back around immediately to try to save her. She tells him her boyfriend played her and three other girls as well. He comforts her and walks her home, afterward he vows to send her ex to Hell for what he did to her and the three other girls, feeling that it's wrong to break a girl's heart. But he can't, because HE is being sent to Hell by the girl who he just saved. She regrets telling him about what happened and fears that he'll tell everyone.
** Another episode revolves around a girl about to use the Hell Correspondence to punish an evil old woman who's holding her dogs and the puppies one of them had hostage (and has already killed one of the dogs) in exchange for making the girl her slave. Meanwhile, Hajime tracks her down to try and stop her from doing so. In the end, the police storm the woman's house and arrest her, and it seems like Hajime succeeded...until the girl discovers that the old woman had killed the second dog and all of the puppies, and pulls the string on her curse doll anyway, damning both the old woman and herself to Hell.
** Hell Girl does this a lot. Like the first episode of Season 1, the first episode of Season 2 is about a cute school girl getting bullied. Unlike the Season 1 episode, however, the girl or none of her classmates know who's doing the bullying. Her school locker is filled with caterpillars. Her uniform and text books are filled with writing, calling her horrible names. And she is stalked and harassed whenever she is alone in school. A school nurse notices and feels sorry for her. She befriends her and things seem to be looking up. Then a female classmate shows the girl the nurse's office, which is filled with the stuff that was used to bully her. The nurse then reveals herself to be a PsychoLesbian who is obsessed with her, right down to having a mannequin that looks like the girl. She threats to pour acid on her face, if she doesn't agree to join her in terrorizing other students, starting with the girl who revealed she was the bully. She gets sent to hell.
* 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 post-apoc manga ''Meteor'' ends like this. Throughout the entire series, characters try to find food, shelter, locate their families...and most die before they can achieve this. Then the few survivors left reach a village, but everyone there starts to go insane. ''Then'' some government officials arrive and say there was no end of the world, but the town and the village were used as experiment-grounds for new weapons and drugs, and that the seemingly-insane people will be given proper treatment in their hospital. But the protagonist wants to take the sweet little boy, who went insane and ran off earlier, with them, and she and AlphaBitch go to find him. ''But'' in trying to catch him, the protagonist and the little boy fall off a cliff, becoming gravely-injured. The protagonist calls up at a-bitch to help them...only for the girl to run back to the rescue-helicopters and lie that both the protagonist and the boy went crazy and died. The manga ends with the protagonist screaming and crying for help as the last of the rescuers leave before sadly accepting her and the boy's fates as they slowly bleed to death.
* 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]].
* ''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]].
* ''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!
* Downplayed in ''Manga/{{Parasyte}}''. Everything seems to be wrapping up nicely, Shinichi's got a happy life now. However, in the final chapter, the serial killer the police had enlisted to help spot parasites comes back for Shinichi, and after almost slitting Murano's throat, he tosses her off the top of the roof he's cornered them on. Cue panels of Shinichi reaching for her and failing, until it's revealed it's all in Shinichi's head and he was able to grab her arm with the help of a still-dormant Migi. The manga ends on a positive, if very abrupt, note.
* ''Manga/PlatinumEnd'': After a new God is finally chosen, the last two chapters are spent watching him observe Humanity. When he views Humanity's numerous ills, he questions his and Heaven's roles in their development, and ultimately decides to leave the fate of the world in Humanity's hands to see if they would do better without him...by which he accomplishes through celestial suicide, nuking himself, Heaven, and the angels...whose existence turned out to keep Humanity running. The manga ends with [[KillEmAll every last human on Earth]] dying from youngest to oldest.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* Almost every episode of ''Anime/YamishibaiJapaneseGhostStories'' ends this way. Without a doubt each episode has a Main/DownerEnding.
* {{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.
[[/folder]]

* [[CruelTwistEnding/LiveActionFilms Films

!!This is a SpoileredRotten trope, that means that '''EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE''' on this list is a spoiler by default will be unmarked without a tag. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned This is your last warning]], only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.

'''''Note:''''' This is a SpoileredRotten trope, that means that '''EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE''' on this list is a spoiler by default and most of them will be unmarked. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned This is your last warning]], only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.

!!Examples:

* ''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. (In contrast, the original 60s ''[[Series/TheOuterLimits3 Outer Limits]]'' had a higher proportion of bittersweet or even positive endings.) Some notable examples:

* ''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. (In contrast, the original 60s ''Outer Limits'' had a higher proportion of bittersweet or even positive endings.) Some notable examples: