One of the most famous horror tropes is the “surprise cliffhanger” ending. You’ve seen it before. The camera zooms in on the supposedly-dead body of the villain when suddenly the eyes of the monster spring open, the murderer’s fist breaks through the rubble or grave they were buried under, the fingers of what is supposed to be the corpse of the serial killer begin to twitch. It’s not quite a twist or a cliffhanger in the traditional sense, in that it doesn’t really affect the plot or character development in any way, but it does do just enough to shift the ending away from the nice traditional “happily ever after” side of things (if you have a lot of time to waste, I recommend looking at the TVtropes page about this, linked here).
While in actuality the purpose of these little twists is probably to ensure the sustainability of a film franchise, enabling studios to make more sequels and therefore more profits, but I think there is something to be said for the fact that a lot of times, horror doesn’t resolve. It goes on. Even A Head Full of Ghosts is not immune to this trope. In the very last chapter, Tremblay gives us just enough to think that perhaps everything is not quite over. There’s the confusion about the fingerprints on the jar of poison, for example, or the way Merry’s breath hangs in the air in the last sentence, reminiscent of Marjorie’s possession “performance.” The story is quite clearly wrapped up, yet there are still those loose threads, those little details that do just enough to keep your hair standing on end long after the book has ended.
My question is, what is the reason for this trope? Where does it come from? Maybe it’s for shock value, maybe its for future profits, but I think the answer is something simpler than that. Horror, by its own definition, can’t fully “end,” at least not in the way we normally expect stories to end. The whole point is to unsettle, to disturb, to shock. A simple resolved ending, much like real life, does none of those things. Horror is paradoxically the furthest and yet the closest genre to everyday life. On the one hand, we deal with things like ghosts, zombies, vampires, demons, and the like, creatures and beings far outside the world we feel control over. Yet at the same time, horror doesn’t just…end. It goes on. Just like life, sometimes it wraps up, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way you have to leave the theater, close the book, or turn off the tv.
