Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World
The Movie: As humanity learns of an asteroid on an unstoppable collision course with Earth, Dodge, now wifeless, goes on a quest to find his high school sweetheart. His neighbour Penny tags along, causing him to re-evaluate his life.
How Everyone Dies: Matilda the asteroid strikes Earth, wiping out the entire human race including Dodge and Penny, who spend their last moments falling in love.
If They'd Survived: Dodge and Penny would get married and live happily ever after, with the best “how I met your mother” story to tell the kids.
The Blair Witch Project
The Movie: Three university students visit the Black Hills woods surrounding the fictional Burkittsville, Maryland to study and document the mythical Blair Witch. They venture deeper into the woods, until they’re so far gone they can’t seem to find their way back to the car and that damn map is missing...
How Everyone Dies: After Josh goes missing and remnants of his teeth are found, it’s insinuated that the Blair Witch killed him. When Heather and Michael find a house in the woods and explore it during the climax, Michael ends up in the cellar facing the wall and Heather is knocked down by an unseen assailant.
Harking back to an earlier comment by one of the townsfolk, legend has it the witch would make one kid face the wall while she killed the other one....before she’d kill them too.
If They'd Survived: Heather would go on to become a famous filmmaker, notoriously difficult to work with. Josh and Mike would fail to return her calls.
Cabin In The Woods
The Movie: A typical bunch of teenagers head to a cabin in the woods for what turns out to be a not-so-typical weekend away. Discovering a cellar full of unusual artefacts, one of the group reads a set of incantations setting off a series of ritualistic events...
How Everyone Dies: Orchestrated by a group of technicians at The Facility, who offer up the kids in order to appease The Ancient Ones, all of the characters are killed in stereotypical slasher fashion.
Jules is decapitated, Curt drives his motorbike off a ravine and plummets to his death, Holden is stabbed by a zombie, and Dana and Marty are left waiting to be killed by the rising Ancient Ones.
If They'd Survived: The groups survival would have meant the end of the world, which happened anyway, as all of the monsters were set free, and the last two “offerings” were technically still alive at the film’s end...so the conclusion would be the same.
Triangle
The Movie: A sailing trip off the Florida coast turns sour for a bunch of friends after their yacht capsizes in a storm. When a mysterious liner ship appears, they board and are soon offed one-by-one by a strange person wearing a rather fetching bag...
How Everyone Dies: Trapped in a bizarre time-loop, Jess must kill her fellow passengers in order to break it. In one ‘cycle’ she shoots Greg, Sally and Downey and impales Victor on a coat hook. In the other ‘cycle' she shoots Greg, impales Victor but brutally stabs Sally and Downey. In each cycle Jess dies in a car accident along with her son.
If They'd Survived: The cycle would never ‘reset’ and Jess would lose the chance to save her son and utterly lose the plot. If Jess survived however, then the loop would never begin. She’d live happily ever after, learning from past mistakes and become a good mother.
Final Destination 5
The Movie: Following a premonition Sam Lawton has before embarking on a work retreat, he and his colleagues disembark a bus which then becomes involved in a huge suspension bridge collapse. Having cheated death, the grim reaper then comes back to pick them off one by one...
How Everyone Dies: Candice slips during a gymnastics routine, snapping her spine, Isaac is decapitated by a Buddha during an acupuncture session, Olivia trips on a toy and falls out of a window, Dennis is killed by a flying wrench to the head, Agent Block is shot by Peter, Sam stabs Peter with a giant rotisserie, Molly is cut in half by a plane, Sam is incinerated by the jet engine exploding and Nathan finally is killed when the plane’s landing gear squashes him.
If They'd Survived: Seeing as Death makes its power known to all who evade its grand design, even if they survived, they’d only really postpone their inevitable grisly fates. Bit of a lose-lose all round, really, this one.
Cloverfield
The Movie: During a farewell party for Rob, something attacks New York City, prompting a military evacuation. Along with his remaining buddies, Rob makes the jaunt uptown to rescue the love of his life, Beth. Nothing like a few beasties along the way to spice things up...
How Everyone Dies: The monster births a fleet of scuttling offspring, one of which takes a shine to Marlena who explodes after being bitten. His tail smashes down on Rob’s brother Jason. Hud is eaten in half, Lily flies off in a helicopter which crashes, and Rob and Beth are buried as a tunnel in Central Park is hit by military explosives.
If They'd Survived: Hud would win the Academy Award for Best Documentary congratulating his now-wife Marlena. Rob, Beth, Lily and Jason would be approached by the military to join their efforts with their new-found intimate knowledge of the monster.
Passengers
The Movie: A psychotherapist called in to treat a bunch of plane crash survivors begins to question what happened during the flight, after shifty airline men in big coats start appearing on street corners, and her patients mysteriously drop out of the sessions one by one....
How Everyone Dies: The patients’ disappearances are actually their individual crossovers to the afterlife, as they all died in the plane crash.
If They'd Survived: Claire would make amends with her sister, fire up a relationship with the dishy Eric and publish a bestselling book about her experiences during the crash.
Fallen
The Movie: After Homicide Detective Hobbes watches the execution of convicted serial killer Reese, a stint of copycat murders to begin immediately after his death. He learns that a demon, armed with the evasive skill of jumping into bodies by mere touch, named Azazel is responsible and must be stopped.
How Everyone Dies: Azazel possesses everyone surrounding the case and manipulates them into various methods of self-execution. Hobbes’ brother Art commits suicide by injecting poison, Lt. Stanton is shot by Jonesy, Dt. Jonesy is shot by Hobbes, and Hobbes smokes a poisoned cigarette in the hopes of killing the demon, but only kills himself.
If They'd Survived: Hobbes would go after Azazel, who at the last second transferred his soul into a stray cat. His streak of bad luck would see him banged up in the slammer after being reported to the RSPCA for animal cruelty.
REC
The Movie: A late-night news reporter documenting a fire rescue crew, follows them to after they receive a call about an old woman trapped in her apartment. The golden oldie is carrying more than a pocketful of Werthers, as she bites a policeman just as the government seal off the building. Residents gather in the lobby as the biting frenzy escalates...
How Everyone Dies: Turns out the old timer had severe case of the zombie munchies. Everyone eventually is killed and turns into zombies. The reporter and her cameraman are saved for last. She has a demon inserted into her mouth and he is beaten with a hammer.
If They'd Survived: Angela would receive a Pulitzer for her unbelievable story, then check herself into a maximum security day spa for a really, really long time.
Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
The Movie: A group of zombie epidemic survivors battle their way to safety and gather in a local mall.
Before long, their cabin fever gets the better of them as they plan an escape, which involves strapping food to dogs, pimpin’ some buses and setting sail for zombie-free pastures.
How Everyone Dies: Andre shoots Norma, Norma shoots Andre, CJ shoots Tucker, Monica is chainsawed to death by Glen when the bus swerves in the road, Glen is killed when Kenneth crashes the bus, CJ dies blowing up the bus and Michael shoots himself after being bitten.
Everyone else is killed by zombies, including the few survivors who arrive at an island overrun by the undead, indicating their imminent demise...
If They'd Survived: Upon arriving at the island, a bigger group would have been better equipped to fight off the welcoming zombies, allowing them to create a habitable sanctuary.
A little like Lost but without the polar bears.
