Spooked Out People Share Scary Personal Experiences That They Can't Rationally Explain

Intro
I dreamt I was being choked and woke up to find my own hands around my throat.
[deleted]
There was a small door that led to attic space in my bedroom (11 yrs old to 13) and it became habit that I would shut the door as I walked into my bedroom a couple times a week. I didn't think anything of it, just assumed my mom didn't close it all the way when she left it.
After a while I made the mistake of joking with her when she made a comment about me not picking up after myself, I said something like 'every night I have to close the attic door behind you, how about you shut it all the way when you're done?' She then informed me that she hasn't been in the attic in months. Asked my brother... nope. Asked my father... nope. So then I started to pay really close attention to it. Making sure it was closed in the morning, checking it after school, checking blaster dinner. Then head up to bed and... open.
After a couple months of wondering, studying, experimenting, I thought I'd see what happens if I just don't shut it. Opened the door before school and checked it after school, still ooen. Checked it after dinner, still open. Before bed, still open. Now I'm laying in bed, mind going crazy with the open door across the room. Decide to check it out so I roll over and focus on the black space into the attic... to see a face staring back at me. Bolt downstairs, wake parents, get ridiculed by brother, switch bedrooms w brother, move into new house about 6 months later (due to expanding household). New physics teacher and his wife bought our house.
I could've forgotten all about that event and chalked it up to me having an over-active mind. But then my senior year I discovered how awesome our physics teacher was. Became my favorite class and by far, my favorite teacher. End of senior year my friend and I took our VHS camcorder around town, doing mostly silly things, but then took it to my old house to see what they've done with the place. We got a very fun tour, I got to tell stories about all the projects my dad did that were still part of the house.
Then the wife leads us upstairs to show us the sewing room. I ask (jokingly), 'Notice anything strange in this room?' and her face goes blank. On camera, she asks what I mean and I try to shrug it off but end up saying something about the attic door. She confirmed that every time she comes up to sew, the attic door is open. She then tells us that the second day of being in the house, their dog (German Shepherd) had gone into the room but would not go back downstairs. He started barking and could not be consoled, and then jumped through the window, landing on the tin roof over the porch and then running off. The dog did not come back until the next day and has not stepped foot into the hallway that leads upstairs since.
I had the initial thought that I could show my parents and brother the story I had on film but I decided to just let it be.
A few extra details to satisfy the curious...
'Attic' is the space in this house that runs parallel (like a cape cod) to the second floor, not above it.
I was 11 and 12 when this was going on so I did not immediately science it all out.
When I told my family that I saw a face, it was just my brother that ridiculed me. My father definitely would've checked it out for actual humans because one of the first comments he made was about a family that recently had a coin collection stolen from their house across the street.
This event itself was easy to shrug off because I could chalk it up to a lot of other possibilities, like the ones mentioned below. It wasn't until 5 years later that it became freaky. The look on the wife's face before she told us about the dog was very telling. Like something they decided to never put much thought into... now my story added depth to their experience and their story added depth to mine.
This did not make me a believer in paranormal. I told the story as a collection of details, not as a confirmation of ghosts. What it did do was make me never be able to be a nonbeliever.
Secondly, I thought the blaster dinner comment was a reddit reference that was over my head, like most of them. But just reread my story. Nice.
Last details...
The face was expressionless. I did not see a body, just what appeared to be a dimly lit face staring at me.
The door was an actual door, just smaller (2'x4'), with a knob that has to be turned in order to open the door.
I do not have the VHS tape from 20-something years ago. I moved a lot after high school and the tapes did not make it through all the moves.
When I was in uni I lived by myself, it was a nice little studio unit behind a house in a fairly decent area. I would honestly think nothing of walking places at night, there was a 24 hour MacDonald's and a 7 eleven that I would walk to, often between 12am to 3am since I was a massive night owl.
Well one day after finishing an essay at about 2 in the morning I decided I was hungry but didn't really have anything easy to cook so I decided to walk down to the 7 eleven and grab a pie or something. However as soon as I opened my door I was overcome by a suffocating feeling of fear, my heart started pounding, I started shaking, the works. Telling myself that this was ridiculous I walked out to the street with the intent to still go but that was as far as I got. I was terrified for no reason that I could understand, but no less intensely despite that. I ran back inside and ate dry cereal.
Later the next day I heard about a group of drunk guys that were causing havoc down near the intersection at the 7 eleven, they'd beaten up someone from my uni. Even though I can't explain it, I'm convinced something bad would have happened to me that night if I had ignored that feeling and gone anyway.
I was in first grade, hanging out at recess with a friend. He was shooting some hoops outside and I was playing DS, sitting on the pavement. I remember him asking me if he could make a shot from half way across the court. I told him he could try but he probably wouldn't make it while looking at my DS. Suddenly, my dad asks me what I mean, and when I look up I'm sitting on my living room carpet, talking to my dad, and it's dark out. I was sitting in the same position, playing the same game, same level, and same exact spot in the level. Everything continued normally that night, and I didn't tell anyone at the time, but looking back it is really freaky. I thought it was a dream for the longest time, but thinking about it it didn't really feel like a dream, and I don't really remember dreams that well.
I posted this a long time ago but when I was younger my mom was dating this guy (who we will call JB) and after a few months he invited my mom, me, and my brother to go with him and his son (about my age) out to his lake house for the weekend. It was right on Lake Michigan but up in a more secluded area which was pretty awesome. Well we got up there and for one I already felt really creeped out. It was a smaller two (maybe 3 if you count the really big attic) story house that had the living room/dining room/kitchen on the first floor and had 2 bedrooms on the second floor.
His grandfather had helped to build the place with his (the grand fathers) dad and then he lived their for most of his life working as a tailor in the nearby town. We went up to the attic to get some beach toys because that's where JB kept all of that stuff so he didn't have to haul it every time he went out there. Well when we went up to the attic I noticed in the corner covered in some dust and cobwebs about 8 mannequins, some just upper torsos and some full body. Not to out of the ordinary considering a tailor had lived there.
Me and JB's son slept down in the living room on the couch since there were no more beds, and near midnightish I heard on of the stairs squeak a few times. Figuring it was my mom coming to check to make sure we were asleep I told his son to be quiet and quickly turned the TV off and hid under the covers. After not hearing any noise for a few minutes I looked out from under the covers and saw three of the mannequins moving around in the kitchen. Like their body parts weren't moving but they were sliding around the kitchen.
I swore I was dreaming but was so terribly frightened I hid back under the covers with a small yelp and then heard the dragging on the floor coming closer and peaked out seeing one of them just a few feet from the couch. I hid back under the covers and shut my eyes tight hoping it would go away.
The next morning I got up and tried not to think about it, really really hoping it was just a bad dream but when we went back up to the attic to put the beach stuff back the mannequins were in different spots and weren't covered in cob webs any more..... Don't believe me if you don't want to but it happened and I've been scared shitless of mannequins ever since.
When I was 6 years old, I had a cat named Buster. Buster was actually my step-dad's cat, but because I never had a cat before, I claimed him as my own. Suffice it to say, Buster didn't like being hugged and coddled all the time by a little child, so he hated me. He avoided me at all costs. He was also an outdoor cat, so he would often spend most days outside and then come in for the night.
One night, Buster didn't come back in the house. We usually fed him at night, so I was worried. Our area was also well-known for an abundance of coyotes. My parents were being a bit hush-hush about Buster's disappearance, but I didn't get the hint. That night, when I was drifting off to sleep, Buster jumped onto my bed. He lay down by my head and let me pet him until I fell asleep. Honestly, I was shocked because he had never done this before.
The next morning, I triumphantly walked downstairs and related to my parents that Buster now loved me because he slept in my bed during the night. My parents looked at me inquisitively and sat me down at the breakfast table to let me know that while they were outside the night before, they had found Buster's body in the alley behind our house. They thought he had been harassed by a coyote. But, he was dead, so he couldn't have slept in my bed that night.
To this day, I like to think that Buster just wanted to say goodbye and thank me for trying to love him in the only way a child knew how.
Every decade we learn and grow.
Well, we hope we do.
Everything changes with the passing of time.
Sex is especially fluid.
They say the older you get the better it gets.
I'm not sure for myself, but it sounds like it's working out for a lot of other people.
20s are full of verve and energy.
30s are full of bitterness and regret from the sex in the 20s.
Though that can be hot too.
Redditor Infinite_Werewolf395 wanted to hear about how things can change over the course of a decade when it comes to sexy time, so they asked:
"What is the biggest difference between sex in your 20s and sex in your 30s?"
I guess I was maybe little more confident in my 30s.
That was a plus.
Never Settle
"I gained the confidence to ask for what I actually want and say what feels good to me and what doesn't. Too many people just go with what they usually do in the sack, instead of talking about what each individual actually enjoys."
"Basically, I no longer settle for bad sex."
mynamecouldbesam
Continue
"20s: It didn't really take a lot to get me going, just 1. being in my bed, and 2. being mostly nude was enough."
"30s: I really need them to be into it, too. Like... if they act like they're only doing this to make me happy, I pick up on it and I just can't continue. I also need them to like, show some interest in me too, or it takes some monumental effort to be in the mood. I'm more particular, and more aware of what the other party is doing and how they're reacting, etc."
We1tfunk
Real Struggle
"The amount of time you have available."
frenix5
"Not necessarily. In general, life just gets busy. My husband and I are in our 30s with no kids and still find this a struggle. Life just gets busier the older you get. We have to work hard on prioritizing our relationship."
TheSilentBaker
"There’s a hell of a lot more planning involved. Gotta schedule that crap out in advance."
KosstAmojan
Learning
"I'm 35 dating a 27 yr old. I tried the pills and all kinds of different things. Eventually, we had this one time where I was really Into it (never happens anymore really. Can't keep it up so it's hard to comply when it's initiated cause I know it'll just end in disappointment for both of us) and It was the best sex we'd had in years."
"I'm still not sure what factors were different that day but I honestly think it was probably mostly emotional reinforcement. Usually, she just starts grabbing at me and there's no romance so it's hard to get... hard. I think that day we actually did some foreplay. Anyways this has really helped me a lot reading all the responses. I figured I was just freakin' cursed. Never got much action in my prime."
"It just seemed appropriate that when I was finally getting some my sh*t would stop working lol. Good to know that I'm not the only man who puts importance on the emotional component of sex. Thought that was my problem for a while too. Guess I just have emotional needs that aren't being met and it's bleeding into other facets of my life."
MurphNastyFlex
Still Hot
"Sex in the 30s are about a million times better. Still very very horny but also experienced, skills, more willing to try things."
probablyurprofessor
I didn't find this to be true.
That's me though.
The Process
"Sex got better. I finally figured out what my wife likes. Though a long tedious trial and error process."
SaiyanGodKing
Ruts
"Exploration is difficult once you’ve fallen into a rut. Routines become commonplace. I’m such a sub these days that I don’t mind bad sex for me as long as I can make my partner climax. It’s easy to tell with men, but with women partners I'm always afraid they’re faking or acting, so there definitely needs to be established trust first."
pissoff1818
Decades of Learning
"Teens: did it like a nympho, but sex was mediocre. 20's: did it like a nympho, sex was a little better. 30's: started figuring out what I wanted. Did it a little less, but better quality. 40's: best and most frequent sex yet. Hornier and more experimental now than ever before."
"(Edited to add: had kids in late 20's, early 30's. Kids consume so much time and energy. Kids are getting older now, so more time and energy for sex again. Honestly sex in 40's has been the freakiest, wildest, most fulfilling yet)."
ChristyCurious
Let's Sleep
"20s: sex?? Yeah!! I’ll have sex!"
"30s: sex? Hmmm okay but it’s already 8:30pm and so if we start now and stop by 9:30 we should still get a full nights sleep but also we could wait until Friday or Saturday night that might be better because if we are up too late it won’t really matter much the next day but sure yeah let’s do it! F**k it who cares wait what was that oh one of the kids is at the door."
Hopeful_Jello_7894
Perfection
"Oh man, it's so much better in my 30s than it's ever been. Multiple reasons but primarily finding a partner (my perfect wife) who has helped break down my walls through conversation and experimenting together. I feel so much less guilt about sex now and I can actually enjoy it. Not sure if it was being raised with Catholic guilt or my first gf being just the wrong partner but wow did I ever feel awful about anything sexual before."
Leebollomew
Learning and Growth
"I’ve got something I haven’t seen yet..."
"20s: As a dude, I’d sleep with almost any woman even if they were a horrible person or I hated their guts."
30: Anything considered a red flag or something I don’t want to deal with causes me to go limp and I lose all interest."
Slappyhandz
A decade can really change everything.
Farewell youth.
CW: Suicide.
When it comes to our family histories, it seems like there are two kinds of people: those who have very little access to family documents and history, and those who know practically everything there is to know about what each of their family members has done since the dawn of time.
But even for those who seem to know everything, all families have their share of secrets.
And those secrets or more over-the-top stories can really enrich our understanding and appreciation of our families.
Redditor Careless_Put_4770 asked:
"What is the most interesting story you have of an ancestor (past your parent's generation)?"
A Dark Past
"The Uncle of my grandfather was part of Hitler's personal SS Corps."
- Eichelhaeher-Hermann
"I have a friend whose uncle of a grandfather was a bodyguard of Hermann Göring."
"He lost both his legs after he messed up and was sent to the Russian front as punishment, but still praised Hitler and the Nazis until he died."
"I also have an SS grandfather who dug up human remains at the Swiss border in 1941."
"Some general advice here: Don't ask your German friends about their family history. You're gonna have a bad time."
- Monarch-Of-Jack
Ranch Hand for Theodore Roosevelt
"I don’t know the date’s exactly off the top of my head but they’re written down at home."
"My Great Grandfather (Grandma's dad) was born in the Black Hills Germany. He allegedly killed a German officer and went on the lam to the United States."
"He worked as a ranch hand for Theodore Roosevelt for some years before he married my Great Grandma. He was gifted a buffalo rifle from Roosevelt which was taken by one of grandmas brothers after their dad died."
- Anonymous_Whale1
For the Woman He Loves
"My great grandfather killed my great grandmother's suitor and kidnapped her a night before her wedding."
"Apparently in the region of South India I'm from, women used to pick their future husband off a lineup of men wishing to marry her."
"My great grandfather was rejected by my great grandmother, and so he went about executing the dude chosen by her and kidnapping her, which apparently was seen as an extremely macho move."
"My Grandfather was born in 1896 so the time period would've been around 1860-1880."
- Glock_and_Dagger
An Impressive Gift
"My great-grandfather lost one of his arms during WW1, and right after the war, he decided to ask my great-grandmother to marry him."
"To show her how much he loved her, he decided to give her a really nice pair of shoes from a good shoemaker who lived in the countryside, and cars were not that common at the time."
"He took his bike and rode 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the closest big city to get her a really nice pair of shoes and rode 70 kilometers back with the box on his lap to give it to her. WITH ONLY ONE ARM."
"Pretty romantic, but that's not the end of the story."
"The shoemaker f**ked up big time and gave him two left shoes by accident, so my great-grandpa took his bike the next day, and did the 70 kilometers back and forth to exchange one of the shoes."
"And they lived happily married ever after."
"Every time I tell the story to someone married, they look at their husband with disdain, which I find pretty funny (I never told the story to any of my girlfriends, though)."
- Albescents
Family Lineage
"If you trace my family line back far enough you get to Norwegian royalty. It's a second son of a third son, kind of thing."
- LoveDistinct
A Supportive Family
"I come from a VERY conservative family, and when I realized I was gay, it terrified me to come out. I came out to my mom and she didn’t have an easy time handling it, but within 48 hours, she was my best friend and a strong advocate."
"The turnaround was very strange. She also told me to never be scared to tell anyone in the family, which again seemed like being set up for failure. But it really wasn’t. Everyone was super supportive and kind and very defensive of me."
"For years I wondered why and then one day I was at a family do with my grandmother and her four sisters, the Matriarchs of each branch of the family and the five most terrifying but loving women you ever met."
"They pulled me aside and we’re VERY interested in how I was doing if anyone in the family had been mean to me, and if anyone had given me a hard time about being 'special' as they called it."
"I said no, surprisingly everyone in the family had been lovely. They didn’t ask any more questions but told me to come to them if anyone was being mean."
"This was so overwhelming to see these elderly, super-conservative women being so supportive, so I cornered my mom and demanded to know why they were so nice."
"Then my mom told me about Ravi. Ravi was a beautiful, charismatic, loving, kind, sweet teenager who was my grandmother and her sisters' best friend in the 1940s. He was allowed to hang out with the women because he was 'not a threat' (he was super gay but you didn’t talk about it)."
"My gran and her sisters absolutely adored Ravi, until one day his personality changed. He became dark and withdrawn. Eventually, he killed himself."
"My gran and her sisters were devastated and didn’t know why, until they found out that Ravi had fallen in love with a boy and his parents had figured out. Ravi’s parents destroyed him psychologically through isolation, berating and eventually questionable medical interventions. Ravi’s soul was broken so he took his life."
"My grand and her sisters never ever forgave their community or Ravi’s parents for what they did to him, so when my mother called my grandmother weeping and screaming that I was gay, my grandmother came down on her like a ton of bricks with all the power and might that she could muster. She told my mother that if I was ever treated differently, If I was ever isolated or bullied by a member of the family, they would have to face the consequences of dealing with grandmother and her sisters."
"Her sisters also told all their children to treat me with respect and love, all without me knowing, because they never wanted anyone to go through what their best most loved male friend had all those years ago."
"I owe my happiness to that man, fly free my brother, wherever you are."
- Astro493
Such a Punch Line
"My Great-Grandmother had two suitors: a man in America and a man in Manchester, UK."
"The guy in America bought her a ticket to cross the Atlantic and be with him, and she was set to go, but at the last minute, the guy in England proclaimed his love and won her over."
"And that’s how my great-grandparents got together, as opposed to my great-grandmother dying on The Titanic."
- BigRagu79
A Pirate's Life for Me
"My great great great great grandfather was abducted by pirates as a boy and raised as one… in Canada. They were river brigands. My mom has a book on him."
"Her parents were from Czechoslovakian and Germany though, so I’m not sure how that happened. I always told people I was part pirate, though."
- iluvgrannysmith
A Wild Story
"Great-great-great-great-great-great grandpa Andrew threw rocks through his landlord's windows in Cork, jumped onto the next ship to Canada, started a farm on the Ottawa River, changed his surname to MacDonald so people would think he was Scottish, and imprisoned the tax collector in his cellar when they came to demand land taxes from him."
- ImperialistDog
Aerial Escape
"My grandad was an engineer for the British army in Egypt during World War Two."
"He and a buddy got drunk one time and slept in this small town, when they awoke they discovered the Germans had taken over the town. So they evaded capture and discovered an old plane that required maintenance, and the two ended up repairing the plane and flew it over German lines and into Allied territory."
- DeviousMelons
Wild, Wild West
"One of my ancestors was Curly Bill Brocious, the leader of the infamous Cowboys gang which fought against the Earps in and around Tombstone Arizona in the 1870s/80s."
"He was killed by Wyatt Earp himself by a shotgun blast that reportedly tore him in two."
- EppurSiMuove00
Family Trees
"My grandma (mother's side) was abandoned in an orphanage by my great-grandmother because she wanted to run off and marry another man, and he would not take her children. So my great grandfather, who was in the army during WW1, came to see them and promised to come back after the next battle. It was the somme, he died."
"The same grandmother did not know how old she was, by the time she obtained a copy of her birth certificate later in life, she found out she was a year older than she thought she was."
"My Dad's Grandfather was an advertising artist, semi-famous at the time, there is an original of his passed down in our family, it is with my dad's oldest brother now. It is of a boy running down a famous road in my northern city past a famous theatre still being used to this day."
- dracolibris
The Consequences of Love
"One of my great-grandmother’s grandma was an aristocrat. She fell in love with a peasant boy working on their lands. Her father told her he would disown her if she wanted to be with that boy. So one dark night the boy got my grandma escaped from their home and they ran away. Needless to say, she was disowned."
"And that’s the story of why I have to work now, instead of just seeing my monthly allowance show up on my bank account."
"Omnia vincit amor."
- Healthy_Chipmunk_990
Connections, Connections Everywhere
"My mom and my stepdad share an ancestor about four generations back."
"Also somewhere in this range, my great-[ex?]-grandma received a letter from her brother that had left Austria."
"He said, 'Come to America. If not for your sake, then for your children's sake.'"
" She talked her husband into it, they moved to the Midwest, and several generations later I was born."
- CrumblingInInverse
Anything's Possible
"I'm 34 but my paternal grandfather was born in 1895. He got shot through both knees sideways in Belgium during World War I then had to limp miles to safety... Sounds impossible but I have a newspaper article about it!"
"His brother also survived WWI, only to die in the Spanish flu pandemic. Sadly my grandfather died quite a while before I was born."
- Fit_Peanut_8801
It's amazing how far back some of our families go and how far back some families are able to trace their family's history. Knowing a little more about what our family has done can really tell us where we have been, so we can decide where we will go next.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
At least when it comes to entertainment, we're all taught to believe that being kind will take you far and that the good guy always wins over the villain.
But even in movies and TV shows, sometimes that isn't true anymore, and that can make a far more compelling story.
Note: there are massive spoilers below. You have been warned.
Redditor careater asked:
"What is a good 'the bad guy wins' movie?"
Man on Fire
"Man on Fire."
- Sapphic_Butterfly
Nightcrawler
"'Nightcrawler,' definitely. Only a few people mentioned it in this thread, which I find surprising. It fits the definition of the 'bad guy winning' perfectly and it is also a really good movie."
- belshezzar
Valkyrie
"'Valkyrie.' Crazy to think that Hollywood didn’t have to embellish much because those events actually happened in real life."
- lawontheside
Unforgiven
"'Unforgiven.'"
"Eastwood's character is the bad guy. He killed women and children and everything that walked or crawled. He was a hired vigilante."
"Little Bill was the law. But he was also a belligerent a-hole who beat a man to death and let another get away with cutting up a woman’s face because she was a w**re. He got what was coming whether he deserved it or not."
- PoorPauly
Starship Troopers
"'Starship Troopers.'"
- B3taWats0n
"It still baffles me that some people don't get that the humans are the bad guys. Neil Patrick Harris becomes more and more Nazified over the course of the movie until he's just wearing an SS uniform in the last scene."
- SergeantChic
"Consider:"
"At no point is there any evidence to the audience (unless presented by a newscast of a fascist regime) that the bugs are the aggressors."
"No fighting takes place on human territory."
"There is no clear cause for the bugs to throw a rock at the earth."
"The bugs did nothing wrong."
- couchsurfingpotato
Infinity War
"'Infinity War.'"
- O5CR
"Serious question for anyone who's seen that movie more recently: did Thanos have a 50% chance of wiping himself out of existence when he did the snap?"
- Discuffalo
"Yes, and this was confirmed by the Russo Brothers in a Q&A as well. That's why he seems surprised and gives a little smirk before teleporting away after the snap; he sees himself being exempted as proof that he was doing the right thing."
- fredagsfisk
"Titan Roulette."
- WayneAndWax
Halloween
"Basically ALL the 'Halloween' movies. Michael wins every single time except for 'Halloween Ends,' which is a real absolute first, to be honest."
"First runner-up: 'The Collector.'"
"Second runner-up: every single 'Saw' movie."
- whitehack
Midsommar
"'Midsommar' if you treat the cult as the bad guy."
- tkdyo
"The cult is definitely the villain of the story."
- A**_a**_in99
X-Men: First Class
"X-men: First Class (2011)."
"'I prefer... Magneto" what follows is the most bada** villain theme since imperial march."
- TeamAlphaSquad
"'I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. NEVER AGAIN.'"
- killingjoke96
"Magneto is the deuteragonist of the film."
"Shaw is the Bad Guy. And he gets a penny for his thoughts (a coin through his head)."
- streakermaximus
Lad Abiding Citizen
"Depending on your perspective, 'Law Abiding Citizen.'"
- lyzaros
"I can’t stand watching that movie. Every time I hope Gerard Butler will win, and Jamie Foxx catches him every d**n time…"
- KidAndrogynous
"Such a bulls**t ending. It's like they passed out of having Gerard Butler's character win, like they couldn't show a man with 10 years of planning pull off his vengeance plan against the justice system in case the audience got ideas."
"It seemed like a case of Jamie Foxx wouldn't allow them to make his character 'lose', but this is a myth apparently. It's still s**t, though."
- vaguebiscuits
"Yeah, it p**ses me off that Butler's character loses."
"The 'good guys' only won because they broke the law. The cop and the lawyer didn't get a warrant, and it was literally shrugged away as they broke into and entered the garage. If they were actually sticking to the rules they espoused, as they should have, Butler's character would have gotten away with it."
"I know, I know... The good guys have to win, Butler's character was a murderous psychopath, ends justify the means, etc. But I think the ending was a copout."
- cstretten
Gone Girl
"'Gone Girl.'"
- solitamaxx
"Well done movie, absolutely hated it and will never watch it again. Made me so d**n mad, but I understand it did exactly what it was meant to."
- Raccoonanity
Skeleton Key
"'Skeleton Key.'"
- nursesarahrn78
"A very interesting movie. The ending... whew!"
- Forsaken_Button_9387
"The scream I scrumpt when she said, 'Baby, you just trapped yourself!'"
- soljjr
Fallen
"'Fallen.' That movie was f**king awesome, great ending."
- TheRealOcsiban
"Did I ever tell you about the time I almost died?"
- crazym108
"Now remember, I told you I was going to tell you the story of the time I ALMOST died."
- whyisreplicainmyname
"Tiii-i-i-ime... is on my side. Yes, it is..."
- AKeeneyedguy
Cabin in the Woods
"'Cabin in the Woods.'"
"Well, the bad guys actually lose, but the world ends as a result."
- Jonny-Max
"It's one of my favorite twists on a horror movie ever."
- careater
"Are they really the bad guys though? Sure, they act like a**holes about killing people, but it’s kind of important that they do it."
- Freedom_7
"The gods they are trying to appease, it’s movie audiences like you and me. We are the actual bad guys."
"If what we expect to see doesn’t happen, like a virgin sacrificial ritual, we will destroy the movie at the box office. That’s the big hand you see at the end."
- Initial_E
"So ... our nostalgia and need for cliches is the bad guy? We're the reason Hollywood only does remakes now?"
"F**k... that's darker than I realized."
- konsf_ksd
Arlington Road
"'Arlington Road.'"
- Dapper_Interest_8914
"This should be top."
"'Infinity War' and 'Empire Strikes Back' are not the ending of the story, and as we know, the bad guy eventually loses."
"This is one of the only movies where the bad guy wins, and that's it, the end. He doesn't die and win like in 'Se7en.' There's no sequel to make right the wrong. The baddies just f**king trick the protagonist big time and win."
"Leaves you feeling almost angry, stunned even."
- 8blackJack8black
Everyone can appreciate a happy ending, but these movies go to show that a movie can still be great without the good guy coming out on top.
In fact, it might even make these movies all the move impactful and memorable.
When people feel as if they've been wronged, their initial instinct is to retaliate.
Getting revenge is a negative impulse in which the victim feels they can only move on from the situation only after inflicting a similar level of emotional or physical pain or embarassment.
That's not everyone's style, however, and it's not up to us to stoop to the lowest common denominator and give in to our darkest urges to seek justice.
But if you take a moment and consider other alternatives, certain forms of revenge can be sweet.
These were explored when Redditor Fronzie7 quoted a famous music icon to ask:
"Frank Sinatra said, 'The best revenge is massive success' What's a real-life example of this?"
Everyone loves a good Hollywood ending.
You Know You've Made It When You're On A Lunchbox
"Michael J.Fox has a great story about when he started out. Some big wheel at the network didn't like him for the role of Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties. He was too short, not cute, not heart throb enough, you're never going to see his face on a lunch box. But the producer cast him anyway and the show shot to number one and stayed there."
"Fox sent him a Family Ties lunch box with his face on it and then Back to the Future 1,2,3 lunch boxes."
– Hazelsmom64
A Rocky Start To An Amazing Career
"Sylvester Stallone as well. Casting agents told him he was too stupid looking and he'd only get small roles as the thug who got beaten up. He said he literally went to every casting agent in NYC and got rejected by all of them."
"Even after he wrote Rocky and found producers, they didn't want him to star in it."
– YounomsayinMawfk
The Dreamgirl Who Never Stopped Dreaming
"Jennifer Hudson lost American Idol and became more successful than the winner."
– Stashdragon
"She is a recent EGOT winner and the youngest woman to do it. 7th Place looks fantastic on her."
– jdmccoy
Against all odds, the end result was a victory for these accomplished individuals.
Home Surveillance Home Run
"The guy who invented Ring cameras went on Shark Tank and was rejected by everyone. They all thought it would fail….we’ll you know the rest."
– Ruzzthabus
"He went back on Shark Tank after that, but this time as one of the sharks."
– 1Land_1Keep
The Skies The Limit
"Ron McNair had the police called on him when he was little because he was black and reading in a library. He grew up to be an astronaut and the library he was kicked out of was later named after him."
– sperdush
"For those who may not be familiar with his name; he was one of the Challenger crew members on January 28, 1986."
– This-Marsupial-6187
Emerged From The Shallow
"When Lady GaGa was in college, some of her classmates had a Facebook group called 'Stefani Germanotta, you'll never be famous.'"
"Pretty sure she proved them wrong."
– NotHisRealName
Now these are smart business moves.
Recipe For Success
"Erin French, chef-owner of restaurant The Lost Kitchen in rural Maine."
"Co-owned a restaurant in the town of Belfast with her husband; a very tumultuous relationship ended with him changing the locks on the building with all of her equipment inside."
"She licked her wounds, leased space in an old mill building in her tiny hometown of Freedom, and built from the ground one of the best restaurants in the country, with a coveted reservation that is fabled for its difficulty to get a table. Has her own multi-season documentary on TV and is absolutely killing it in the culinary world now."
– Girhinomofe
A Toy Story
"George Lucas got the ownership of the toy rights to star wars because they don’t think it would be successful. He made an absolute killing on those."
– Birds-aint-real-
"Not just the toy rights, he got the entire IP in exchange for waiving is salary."
– xdert
Lamborghini Origin Story
"Italian industrialist, builder of tractors, made a mint out of it and rewarded himself with a new Ferrari."
"Ferrari broke down. Needed a new clutch. Wealthy industrialist waited patiently for his new clutch to arrive, and after many weeks it finally showed up - same clutch he was putting in his tractors, more than twice the price."
"A little bit annoyed at this, he rang Ferrari to complain. They told him 'go back to building tractors, leave supercars to us.'"
"And Lamborghini was born..."
– RaffiaWorkBase
Gaming Victory
"Sony and Nintendo were working on a console together before the N64 came out, intending to utilize Nintendo's gaming hardware combined with Sony's sound tech to create games with more immersive sound capabilities than have been seen before. Partway through development and immediately following Sony's announcement of their partnership, Nintendo backed out of the deal, which if you're not aware of Japanese business etiquette, is kind of a d*ck move."
"Nintendo backed out to work with Philips to put Nintendo games on the CDi, which resulted in the worst-received Nintendo games of all time."
"Sony, out of spite, went on to make the PlayStation, one of the best-selling consoles in gaming history, and cement themselves as a massive player in the console wars to this day."
– Critical-String8774
Be Kind And Rewind
"Blockbuster laughed baby Netflix out of the room with their idea. Then later, grown-up Netflix killed blockbuster."
– ChurroForSure-o
"Best thing for Netflix, really. Blockbuster would have driven themselves and the Netflix rent model out of business through mismanagement."
"I don't know about you, but I can't live in a world without Voltron: Legendary Defender."
– Tobias_Atwood
So what's the moral of the story?
Basically, always be kind and never make anyone feel less than they deserve. You never know what the future brings, and you putting down someone for your own fleeting gain will come back to haunt you.
Also, remember that karma works in mysterious ways.