Not So Happy Ending

For those of you who havent seen Insidious, i apologize for spoiling the ending of the movie and suggest you not read the following.

However for those of you who have, what a downer! As an avid movie watcher, my structure of feeling about the end of a movie has fallen accustomed to what is suppose to happen at the end: good wins, evil loses; the couple that never should work gets together, etc. We've seen it all. I love seeing a happy ending, and Insidious succesfully tricked me into what i assumed would be the culturally acceptable ending! The dad saves his son from a "limbo" like world, the family reunites, and he manages to defeat the demons haunting them. Or does he? Nope. And he goes on to kill the lady who helped him, and the movie ends, leaving the viewer to wonder, what happens to his family? Where does he go? IS HE IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW?? I hate scary movies, and its safe to say I was mildy freaked out, but the thing that irked me the MOST is that it tricked my brain into thinking it would end how all great classic movies end. My structure of feeling was shattered, and it made me genuinely uncomfortable.

Movies can do a lot of things: make you laugh, make you cry, make you want to go to Hogwarts. But another thing movies do (for me at least) is they make me feel complacent with certain situations. Glory Road made me think I was automatically going to win the championship if i played with heart (yet we lost), and Megamind makes me feel like I will end up with the woman of my dreams (which will hopefully happen). When I get in some of these situations Ive seen in movies, I almost relax and figure everything will work out for the best. But nothing in life is certain to happen, so thank you Insidious for bringing me back to Earth with an unpredictable ending.