Which Of These Fright Films Have The Most Devastating Choices?

Let's start with this film, which is all about how a family has to decide whether or not to sacrifice one of their beloved family members. In this film by M. Night Shyamalan, a loving family is forced to make a terrifying decision based on the word of strangers. Who knows if they are even telling the truth? But what if they are? Could you take that chance?

In Yorgos Lanthimos' chilling and idiosyncratic film, a doctor commits malpractice and kills a patient. The patient's son comes for vengeance and demands that the surgeon kill one of his family members, or they will all die. I think this choice is one of the worst choices that someone would have to make, and that is probably why there is more than one film on this list with this exact situation.

Directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannel, the first "Saw'" film spawned a franchise of ten films to date. In numerous situations, people are given horrible choices that will either result in their deaths if they do nothing or someone else's if they follow through with the challenge. This game is set up by Jigsaw or John Kramer, a man with a terminal illness obsessed with testing people to see how much they want to live. In "Saw," Dr. Lawrence Gordon is handcuffed in a dirty room with another man Adam, who the Jigsaw Killer insists that he must kill or that his family will be killed.

Most of these choices involve people beloved by the characters because who among us would not be tortured by the idea that we might have to harm someone we love? In "The Vanishing," it is a little different; Rex loses his girlfriend at a rest stop and is obsessed with discovering what happened to her. He gets postcards from the kidnapper, who never does but offers to meet with him. When he finally meets the kidnapper, Raymond, Raymond allows him to discover what happened to his girlfriend, Saskia. The choice is disquieting. Rex has to know, but how can he trust this man? The film's ending shows the consequence of his choice and is one of the most hopeless endings in cinema.

"Gerald's Game" presents another different choice that is no less daunting. Jessie Burlingame lives her life punishing herself for abuse that was committed by her father, believing that she doesn't deserve anything better out of life. When her husband dies during a sexual game that he demands that she play with him, Jessie is left handcuffed to a bed with nothing better to do than review her life. After she escapes, in a way that still makes people shiver, she decides to tell the truth about what her father did and face the truth rather than continue to hide it and hurt herself by condemning herself to private shame.

"Train To Busan" is a profoundly affecting human zombie apocalypse film. Yes, it's one that not only scares you but can make you cry. The choice in the movie is that of a distracted and somewhat selfish dad. In his final moments, he chooses to think of his beloved daughter and fall from the train rather than stay and become a zombie that might kill her. The film is about people making hard choices and sacrificing themselves to save others and people who do not choose to save others.

After five years, two girls are miraculously found after their father tries to kill them. Their father's twin brother attempts to take the girls in, but they both speak of "Mama," the person who protected them after the death of their father. Directed by Andy Muschietti and starring Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the choice in the film is that of the two girls. One chooses to go with her father's twin brother, and the other decides to die with "Mama' the restless spirit that cared for them after their father's death.

Of course, you can't make a list like this without including one of the most devasting choices made in a horror film. The ending of "The Mist" features an irony so dark that it makes people angry in real life. Stephen King went on the record to say that Frank Darabont's horrific coda was better than the one featured in his novella and that he wished he had thought of it himself. However, still, it goes down in horror history as one of the bleakest endings and most distressing choices ever made.

"Antlers" is a film where a teacher must make a difficult choice. Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) finds that a wendigo, a cannibalistic evil spirit, has possessed first the father and brother of a young boy, Lucas. In the film's final confrontation, Julia must choose to kill Aiden when the wendigo possesses the young boy. After she makes that choice, she and her brother Paul (Jessie Plemons) decide to take care of Lucas, the other child but worry that he too might be possessed by the wendigo at some point. Their choice to show mercy even though it could be dangerous is another difficult choice.