Movies have told love stories as far back as the medium has existed. Not all of them follow straight plot lines either. They can get pretty weird and unconventional and sometimes they end well despite these strange diversions. For example,The Shape of Watersees a woman fall in love with an aquatic creature and they both almost die before swimming off to happiness in the end.
Wild at Heartis one of David Lynch’s more focused “romantic” movies which is confusing but still the characters do live happily ever after. These other movies, and the characters within them, were not so lucky. There will be spoilers.
7Craig/Lotte/Maxine (Being John Malkovich)
A Threeway Tie Inside Another Man
Being John Malkovichis one of the strangest fourth wall-breaking movies that anyone will ever watch. Spike Jonze movies are typically strange but this one is certainly up there. The film stars Craig who gets a new desk job on a floor too tiny to inhabit. Here he finds a door that leads to John Malkovich’s head, played by the man himself.
He can inhabit John, but not control him initially. Later Craig tells his coworker Maxine who then does the door trick with Craig’s wife Lotte and the two fall in love through manipulating John Malkovich much to the chagrin of Craig who is in love with Maxine.This love triangle taleends with Maxine and Lotte together and Craig getting trapped in Maxine’s daughter’s head to see the whole thing play out.
Harold and Maude is a strange love story for too many reasons to count. First, Harold tries to commit suicide several times in the movie to freak out his mom from lighting himself on fire to hanging himself. Fed up with his fake suicides, his mom tries to set him up with dates but Harold actually falls in love withan older womanpractically three times his age, Maude.
The two go on adventures with each other and eventually get married and both seem genuinely happy. Unfortunately, Maude does die leaving Harold alone once again.
Lisa Frankensteinis a modern retelling oftheFrankensteinstorybut one that is more like a slasher comedy. The titular Lisa doesn’t fit in with school despite her having friends so she talks to the grave of some young man in the woods constantly. One day this corpse, simply known as The Creature in the credits, gets stricken by lightning and is brought back to life.
Weirded out at first, Lisa slowly starts to fall for him as The Creature kills people in Lisa’s way. It all comes to a boiling point when Lisa dies but it seems like The Creature can revive her albeit in a muted state. It’s kind of unknown if it’s a happy ending or a bittersweet one as both lovebirds are dead.
Nosferatuhas a lot in common withLisa Frankensteinwhere the ending is concerned but this film is a straight-up horror movie. It’s a legally distinct reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that sees a young real estate agent, Thomas, go away to find Count Orlok in the country to sell him some land in town. He leaves his wife, Ellen, with some family friends who start having a spout of nightmares. It turns out that as a child Ellen befriended Count Orlok who fed on her and the reason why he asked for Thomas to visit him was to get Thomas away from Ellen.
He wants her back and kills others in the process through direct murders and by spreading a plague across Germany. Knowing that he will not stop, Ellen sacrifices herself to Count Orlok. The two make love until the sun comes up, instantly killing the two, and flowers spring forth from Count Orlok’s corpse which is a picturesque moment forthis Dracula-like villain.
Ready or Notbegins with a happy couple ontheir wedding day: Grace and Alex. Before they can make things official, Alex asks Grace to his family’s estate who became wealthy through board games. To make the marriage official, she has to play a random game and it lands on hide and seek which she finds weird but plays along.
What she doesn’t know is that Alex’s family is cursed and they have to kill Grace before sunrise or else the curse will kill all of them. While Alex warns her and tries to keep her safe, he ends up siding with his family. Unfortunately for this board game empire, Grace is a competent hide and seeker which leads to their deaths, not hers.
Significant Otheris one of the best horror premises of the past few years and most probably haven’t seen or heard of it. It came out exclusively on Paramount+ in 2022 and starred a couple, Ruth and Harry, who were having some domestic problems. Together, they hike into the mountains and after hearing a distressing call, Harry disappears into the forest. He reappears but something isn’t right as Ruth slowly finds out.
His body was taken over byan alien who crash-landedon the mountain and his species plans to do anInvasion of the Body Snatcherstype of takeover on Earth. Unfortunately for this alien, Harry’s love for Ruth is so strong that he infects this parasite into loving Ruth back. He no longer wants to kill her, but either way, Ruth wants no part in it and decides to escape only to find the fake Harry wasn’t lying. The film ends with the haunting image of dozens of ships falling toward Earth like a meteor shower.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncutis the first and only theatrical adaptation of the hit cartoon series. In it, Satan and Saddam Hussein are lovers who plan to take over Earth once the blood of Terrence and Philip is spilled. It’s more like Saddam’s idea he is a genuinely bad boyfriend who wants power more than he wants to be with Satan beyond a physical attraction.
Kenny, having died as he usually does, convinces Satan in Hell to stand up for himself. Even though Hell comes to Earth, Satan puts a stop to Saddam by impaling him on a spike. To thank Kenny, Satan grants him a wish to bring everything back to normal. It’s a bad ending between Satan and Saddam but a happy ending for humanity in one of the most bizarre but catchiest musical comedies ever. Saddam does come back in the show though, but things still don’t end well for him.
