Five of the best horror films where evil prevails

There's a conflict in every human heart. Between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.

If you're into cinema, you will immediately identify where that line comes from. In context, that short speech refers to how one man has reached his breaking point, how he has become unmoored from reality and lost any sense of decency, empathy, and morality. In other words, the evil side has won the struggle and completely taken over.

The film featuring that line is not horror per se, though it certainly does contain elements of it. Just not monsters, demons, or anything supernatural. Rather, the horror is arguably far scarier, since it reflects the savagery that men can commit under extreme circumstances.

Many horror movies follow a predictable path that culminates in a showdown between good and evil, and in many cases, we can tell that good will prevail. Often, we want good to score a satisfying and unequivocal victory over evil. Only sometimes, there is no such happy ending. The opposite is true, actually: the ending is as bleak as it gets, and it is more memorable and impactful because of it.

Today, in no particular order, we look at five horror movies where evil prevails, making special emphasis on why certain imagery makes a lasting impact on the viewer.

The Omen (1976)

Perhaps the quintessential religious horror movie, The Omen reminds us that horror does not always come from hulking men in hockey masks or tentacled creatures from outer space. Here, a young child embodies and represents the ultimate evil, that of Satan himself.

Directed by Richard Donner and gathering a stellar cast that included heavyweight actors like Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, and Harvey Stephens as Damien Thorn, The Omen is a relatively simplistic but hugely atmospheric movie where the son of the Devil ensures -with a little help from Satan and its earthly familiars- that he gains the necessary power and wealth to carry out the wicked plans that the Book of Revelations warned us about.

The movie's last shot, that of Damien looking back and smiling creepily towards the camera while at his adoptive father's funeral, became one of the most iconic horror movie endings of the era.

As a curiosity, apart from a small TV role and a cameo in the ill-advised 2006 remake, Harvey Stephens never acted again, choosing instead to become a property developer and work in other 'normal' jobs.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

American novelist Ira Levin wrote Rosemary's Baby in 1967, and the movie, directed by Roman Polanski, premiered barely a year later.

Undoubtedly a classic of the horror genre, Rosemary's Baby barely features any special effects beyond nebulous, dreamlike visions of the Devil. Instead, it is a gritty, slow-burning, character-driven film where Mia Farrow portrays an increasingly isolated and frail Rosemary, who has fallen under the influence of a satanic cult bent on using her body as the vessel to engender an heir for Satan.

The line What have you done to it? What have you done to its eyes?, spoken near the film's bleak conclusion, stays with the viewer long after the credits roll. We don't actually see the baby's eyes, and we don't need to. As one of the cultists says, 'he has his father's eyes'. And that's enough to stimulate our imaginations.

A bit of trivia. Rosemary's Baby was Roman Polanski's directorial debut in Hollywood. The movie was partly shot on location at the Dakota apartments building in Manhattan. John Lennon was murdered outside the building's entrance just over a decade later, in 1980.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Folk horror films are few and far between these days, but back in the 60s and 70s, this subgenre proliferated and produced some of the best examples of it. Among these, The Wicker Man stands out.

Exploring themes like paganism and zealotry in small, relatively isolated communities, the horror of The Wicker Man does not happen inside gloomy castles or dark places. Instead, it unfolds in an almost carnival-like atmosphere in the countryside. Only this carnival culminates in a human sacrifice.

Christopher Lee played Lord Summerisle, the spiritual leader of the eponymous community, and Edward Woodward (of Equalizer fame) portrayed the ill-fated police officer Neil Howie, who was sent to Summerisle to investigate the alleged disappearance of a young girl.

One piece of interesting trivia. The Wicker Man effigy entered popular culture and is still widely recognizable today.

Shivers (1975)

Canadian director David Cronenberg is no stranger to controversy, and it's not hard to see why. Deemed 'the most repulsive film' by a prominent (and fellow Canadian) journalist, Shivers caused quite a stir when it debuted in the mid-70s.

The movie has a rather straightforward plot: man-made parasites causing unnatural and violent sexual appetite spread among the tenants living in a tower of luxury apartments, the Starliner building. That's about it.

Also known as They Came From Within and The Parasite Murders, Shivers ends with a stream of cars full of infected people leaving the Starliner tower and heading in all directions, presumably to continue spreading the infection.

Though the AIDS epidemic had not yet occurred at the time of the film's release, the sexual nature of the parasitic infection would be widely seen as somewhat prophetic of what was to come.

Shivers is sleazy, cheap looking (the budget was around $115,000 CAD), and amateurish -it was Cronenberg's first commercial film-, but the subject matter burrowed deep within the audience's mind, no pun intended.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Many alien monsters, robotic races, and other creatures have tried their hand at invading Earth, with varying degrees of success. But usually, these invaders have a physical form that we can identify and fight against.

In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, however, the enemy is a far more inconspicuous and insidious foe: an alien spore that grows into plant-like pods to imitate humans, whose bodies disintegrate once the replication process is complete. The resulting 'pod people', while they look exactly like their former selves, are actually alien beings devoid of emotion and empathy.

Who can forget the film's ending, with pod Donald Sutherland slowly raising his arm and pointing at Veronica Cartwright's still human character while emitting a terrifying screech? An iconic image and one of the defining moments of late 70s horror cinema.

Two pieces of trivia. The 1978 version was actually a remake of the original movie, released in 1956. And the alien screech was achieved by distorting pig squeals.

One can argue that any of these films necessitated a fitting bad ending. Happy conclusions would have been jarring and ruined the experience. These bleak outcomes add to the film's meaning and cultural impact, and that can only be a good thing, even if evil wins the day.