I'd say so! I NEVER expected that to happen. it was Theresa and Gary talking then before yiou know it, he's murdering her while there is a creepy strobe light! and then you see her dead face then BAM! end of movie. no music during the credits and your left with her blank face at the end. what a great ending!
shareLiked the movie but felt rather dissapointed by the ending. The film has made a case for a woman exploring her sexuality but then ends by implying that if a woman chooses to be promiscous then she will ultimatly be punished. I know it was based on a true story but it is still rather sad that people think that way.
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i cried at the end, but yes it was one of the best endings i've ever seen, and one of the most brutal (this coming from a horror/slasher movie fan! so i've seen a LOT of brutality). how could you not love this woman though? how could you call her dispicable? i guess you have to understand her plight - really, we're all just searching for love and acceptance (even through drugs and promiscuity - ESPECIALLY through drugs and promiscuity, that is always the bottom line buried beneath such efforts; i guess you have to have been like that to understand) .....if only she would have given william atherton a try; he loved her better than anyone else, and the murder never would have happened. how sad. i think the deeper message is the old addage (sp.?) "you can't see the forest for the trees" (or in her case, can't see the one good tree for the forest)- the one man that was right for her was right there right in front of her, and she was so obsessed with finding hot guys that she never even appreciated it; and in the end it cost her much more than him; it cost her her life.
"Mother, you're a real gold-plated whore! You know that?" -Margot Kidder, Black Christmas
I think you missed the whole point of her life. She was trying to get away from the conventional life and the strict moral that her father tried to impose on her and her family. The father was totally blind to the way lovely Katherine lived, but criticized Theresa so much. I think he felt very guilty about her birth defect(curved spine). She can't be normal and conventional because her body is a symbol of all that(deformed), although you can't tell because she had an operation to correct this. She doesn't love James because he never even notices her scar when they make love.He doesn't "see" the real Theresa. Notice how the Richard Gere character notices the first time and is sensitive about it.
shareI just freaked out at the end. I watched nearly every single of the scariest movies and this one really got me. I mean, the face that she have at the end was the most horrific thing you could see.
shareIndeed it does show the risks but I still felt it was a shame that Keaton was killed off, though she was certainly not despicable. She was simply trying to find fufillment. Unfortunalty she was looking in all the wrong places.
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An extremely powerful and disturbing ending to an extremely powerful and disturbing film. The music and the blue strobe lighting made it extra-haunting, and the sense of tragic inevitability leaves such a foul taste in the mouth. The perfect ending.
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i didn't cry at the end i kinda just stood there. it was so unexpected and ended so quickly.
sharewell why WOULDN'T they kill keaton off? that's what happened to the real lady in real life. they're not gonna change a story like this to a happy ending. and plus, the ending adds to the legend & enormity of the film. i don't understand why everyone was so suprised that that was the end. it had been a good 2 hours, and i pretty much knew that was gonna be the final scene. it just felt like it.
"Mother, you're a real gold-plated whore! You know that?" -Margot Kidder, Black Christmas
well i never had a clue that it was a true story, so i never expected the end. i did think maybbe something bad was looming but i didn't predict that ending lol.
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by Benji-The_Dog (Sat Jul 22 2006 22:46:16 ) UPDATED Sun Jul 23 2006 14:32:55I'm not sure what the book said since I haven't read it and I am not sure at what point you are quoting the book and what part is your interpretation.
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One line from the book that I remember to this day....it just seared itself into my mind when I read it 30 years ago....I still remember it verbim. As he is stabbing her her mind starts racing and her thoughts are written out on the page in italics. She resigns herself to what is happening and the last line of the book is her last thought upon dying.
"Do it! Do it! Do it! And get it over w----"
100% YES..Nothing ever freaked me out so strongly on film. one of my favorite films And the only film i cant re-watch. I had nightmares for weeks. it was so realistic. It didn't look like acting. Two death scenes on film looked more real than acting this one and the woman engineer executed for complaining about the barracks foundations in Schindler's list. There was also a film with Alan Alda about the red light killer. the gas chamber scenes was amazingly realistic.
shareI just watched this film again for the first time in more than 20 years, and it's even better than I remember it. The ending was phenomenal, a disturbing finale to a disturbing tale. The strobe light and music were used effectively, and the final shots of Theresa's face were haunting. I doubt that most studios today would allow such a downbeat ending -- or such a downbeat film overall, for that matter. But it felt completely honest here.
shareI remember watching this movie about 5-7 yrs. ago, never having seen it before, and the ending was so powerful and unexpected that it felt as if it just squeezed tears out of my eyes. I've had movies that have made me feel sadder, but this one just stunned me. The effect of the slowing strobe light as her life winds down; it was like a sharp slap. All I can say is wow.
I've....seen things you people wouldn't believe; Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
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"Liked the movie but felt rather dissapointed by the ending. The film has made a case for a woman exploring her sexuality but then ends by implying that if a woman chooses to be promiscous then she will ultimatly be punished. I know it was based on a true story but it is still rather sad that people think that way."
It happens all the time. It's a reflection of reality, politically correct or not.
"Cain and Abel will go to Heaven... if they can make it through Hell!" -Los Hijos Del Topo
reminds me of an interview they did with Kim catrall regading "Sex and the City". She was saying how great and liberating it was to play Samantha... and was glad people got to se a strong woman who was sexually free and answered to no one for it... "back in my day, we had movies like 'Looking For Mr. Goodbar' where the woman gets punished for that." And, all I could think was... yeah, "Sex and the City" is a funny show---and, I LOVE the character of Samantha... but in real life, a Samnatha Jones would wind up like the character in "Goodbar"---more liley that than the whole hooking up with Smith and living happily ever after ending they did on that show
shareI had been trying to find this move for a year now, and my girlfriend found it at a VHS rental place that apparently has ungodly amounts of tapes.
Anyhow, one of the most powerful and disturbing films I've ever seen. The direction and use of strobe lighting and sound was incredible. I'm not sure if I'm happy I've seen it, since the final scene really bothered me and still does, but there's no other way that this movie could have ended, even if it wasn't based on fact. If she was saved by James, it would have been hokey. And the movie would have never ended. I'm glad the folks stuck to the source material. It was the only logical (yet ironic) ending, and sadly, the truth.
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yup, for this movie that was THE perfect ending. just phenomenal.
my god diane keaton was brilliant in this.
I don't see the ending as a punishment for women who are exploring their sexuality. It is a cautionary tale for women to be more discriminating in choosing sexual partners. It is like a person running into a busy street and not expecting to he hit by a car.
shareTheresa's murder at the end would have fit in perfectly in an Italian giallo. The whole way it's shot and staged kind of reminds of something Dario Argento might have done at the height of his 70's heyday.
I am the Duke of IMDb bio writers! I am A#1!
The ending is indeed extremely giallo – artfully gruesome. This film would make an excellent companion piece to "Eyes of Laura Mars," a beautiful giallo-esque film about the ugly side of fashion with a similarly dark and danceable soundtrack. Both films, released within a year of each other, have gotten under my skin and only become more embedded the more I watch them.
shareShe didn't really get murdered at the end. It was just one of her imaginative freak outs, like when the cops came and busted her and she was on the news and got fired.
J/K - she did really get killed.