User blog comment:Mmandator/Some thoughts on horror fiction/@comment-4581047-20120109165355

I agree with what you say: The monster winning in the end can be scarier. One thing that ruins the "happy endings" where the monster dies, is when they keep getting back up after being fatally-wounded to scare the audience. It's a cliche that I though was done wonderfully in John Carpenter's first "Halloween," flick where Michael Myers escapes in the end undetected, but ones like "Child's Play" and "Scream 3" can get annoying. Why monsters would wait until the last minute to fake their death and then jump out at the end is beyond me.