3 Unexpectedly sad films

Everyone has a favourite sad film and normally you know its coming. Tissues and hugs are needed. However what is truly devastating is when you get blindsided by it and you are left a mess curled up in the cinema with sunglasses on or in the foetal position on your couch as you struggle to overcome the shock and sadness. Here are three films that on face value look sadness free but scratch the surface...

Oh, - SPOILERS ahead.

MAY

A quirky horror film about a quirky girl. May struggles to fit in anywhere and despite attempts cannot keep or make friends. So May decides that she will make her own friend...from other peoples body parts. Doesn't sound like a sad movie, does it? Wrong.

After going on her body part harvest with an esky in tow, May begins to sew her new 'friend' together. When May realises that her new friend can't see her, May stabs her own eye, and gives it to the bits and pieces doll she had created. In May's mind the doll comes to life and touches her face lovingly and May bleeding profusely and dying, smiles because she has a friend that understands her.

Downright sad and depressing.

SWORD OF THE VALIANT

Ok, so not the greatest of films, however, it does have a massive kick in the guts waiting at the end for you. After becoming a knight very quickly Sir Gawain gets tricked by the Green Knight (a scenery chewing Sean Connery), the Green Knight graciously grants him a borrowed year in which to solve a riddle, if the riddle is unsolved then the Green Knight will have one hack at his neck with an axe.

After saving a damsel and having a bunch of truly weird stuff happen to him,  Gawain then defeats the Green Knight. Yay happy ending! Or so you think. Gawain goes back to the damsel he rescued previously and what happens...It turns out she was on a borrowed year as well! As he touches he face she turns into a bird and flies away... Sad and unexpected, especially considering what had come before it.

BUBBA HO-TEP

Hmmm, so a film about Elvis and JFK sharing a nursing home and fighting off a soul sucking mummy is unexpectedly sad? Well it is and how.

Throughout the film, there is plenty of wistful thoughts about old age and fame, plenty of contemplative actions and words about how we treat the elderly. Elvis (played brilliantly by Bruce Campbell) wins out in the end not before being mortally wounded though. I think the best way to sum this film up is in these few lines...

"...If only I'd treated Priscilla right, if only I could have told my daughter I loved her. Always the questions. Never the Answers. Always the hopes. Never the fulfilment..."

Excuse me, I have something in my eye...