From Bad to Worse/Film: Difference between revisions

** He is not particularly evil, he is just as severe as you can expect from a teacher of that era.

* [[Stanley Kubrick]] film [[Paths of Glory]]. When soldiers in WWI refuse to continue with an impossible attack, their superiors decide to make an example of them. [[It Gets Worse]]: {{spoiler|the commanding general orders an artillery strike upon his own men}}. It gets even worse: {{spoiler|when the men fail from achieving their goal, the General orders three men to be picked to be summarily executed by firing squad.}} Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) attempts to save his own men. It gets even worse: {{spoiler|the men are shot, even though Dax successfully defends them in the justice. Instead, the general is sacked.}} The worst of all: {{spoiler|the film [[wikipedia:G%C3%A9raud R%C3%A9veilhac|is based on real life events]].}} The film is still banned in France.

** The Fellowship is at one point bracing themselves for an attack by a large horde of orcs. Boromir peers out the door and (after narrowly dodging two arrows) utters the line "They have a cave troll."

** And after fighting off said orcs + troll, another example occurs shortly after ''that''. Hearing more orcs on the way, the Fellowship flees, but eventually they end up completely surrounded by another, much larger horde. The two sides square off against one another, and just as it looks like they're about to fight...a loud roar is heard in the distance and the entire horde of orcs flees in terror.

* ''[[No Country for Old Men]]'': It's bad enough that {{spoiler|Llewelyn Moss, the protagonist of the story, gets caught in the motel and is shot to death}}. And then {{spoiler|that [[Complete Monster|rotten scum bastard Chigurh]] hunts down the protagonist's widow and kills her too}}. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, {{spoiler|Chigurh, after killing Mrs. Moss, successfully evades the area with the cash in hand and disappears, but not before breaking his arm in a car wreck}}. Last, but not...uh...best...{{spoiler|the sheriff vaguely reminisces on his attempt to bring the villain to justice and admits defeat}}.

** It's based on a [[Cormac McCarthy]] book. It Getting Worse is practically his trademark.

** The kicker ''really'' comes when he learns that his bosses put him through the ordeal ''for a bet''! The money they bet with? {{spoiler|''One dollar''}}!

* ''[[The Descent (film)|The Descent]]''. A group goes caving, there's a cave in, it turns out that the group leader lied and took them to an unknown cave without telling anybody where they were going, one of them breaks her leg... Oh, and there are cave beasties trying to eat them, the main character is losing her mind, and they still haven't found another way out.

* ''[[Alatriste]]'' (the movie, not the books) is two hours of "The lead character has really hit bottom now. Wait, there's more?"

* It's amazing that Star Wars: A New Hope isn't on here. Bad enough that the heroes find themselves trapped in the detention area with stormtroopers crowding through ''the only exit'' and have to resort to throwing themselves in to the garbage compactor, but then a horrible sewer monster starts swimming around them.

Han: It's worse. }}

* ''[[The Cat in the Hat]]'' has this: first, the {{spoiler|the beetle that is the key to the box gets attached to a dog, which runs away, then, the attempts to ensure the crate stays closed fail, leading to the house being transformed into an [[Eldritch Location]]. And then when the house is transformed back, the strain wrecks the actual house...}}

* The Wind That Shakes The Barley: Set in Ireland, 1920. The British are committing atrocities against the Irish. [[La Résistance|The Resistance]] is fighting back. [[It Got Worse|Yeah...]]

* If you've never seen ''[[Falling Down]]'', watch it. This movie is quite possibly the best example of this trope. It paints the picture of just how much one man can take before he has a complete mental breakdown and crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]]. The main character even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this when he {{spoiler|calls his wife after killing the surplus store owner}}.

* A filmography example. Lars Von Trier has described his film Melancholia as the ''first'' of his films to have a sad ending. Note that previous Lars films had such [[Sarcasm Mode|happy]] endings as -- [[Dogville|An entire town being slaughtered after systematically torturing a woman]] and [[Anti Christ|A man murdering his wife after she is driven crazy by grief]], among others. Reassuring.

* Basically any time the ''[[Mystery Team]]'' follows a lead.

 

{{reflist}}