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(This is going to be a bit off topic but I swear it's related.)
Situation pending it can be a good thing or a bad thing. Two examples I can think of are Evil Dead when it had an ending with a bit of shock value, and Mexican Werewolf in Texas (you can insert any terrible B movie here really though) which also had a jump scare.
Evil Dead it was fitting and approved of by audiences, and whenever anyone plays the attacking camera bit at the end of the movie people automatically get pissed off and accuse the film of ripping off Evil Dead. What makes Evil Dead fitting though? It's an 80s film with campy effects and one guy against constant evil, rarely giving the movie a minute to breathe once shit hits the fan. I think the lack of hacking things to pieces is what makes the final attack so effective. Really what was left to attack after all that? It puts you on the edge of your seat and makes you crave more.
Where Mexican Werewolf in Texas and its equal crap counterparts do so poorly at trying to create a scare, using bad effects and no build up to try and make you jump. One cannot fear jump scares alone though. The movie's final attempt at trying to scare its audience is just that. A lousy jump scare. Giving a horror movie a sudden bleak ending with an unexplained attack does not make it scary and thus a good horror movie. If you're going to make the movie any good at this point you might as well let the characters live. It'd be more unexpected and less whoring yourself out to try and be spooky.
That said bleak, gloomy, sad, etc endings only benefit the movie if it furthers the story. It wants to leave an impact with the audience, something that will make them talk about it for hours after words and recommend it to their friends just so they can understand why it was such a powerful film.
It can also be argued that certain genres of horror would be better fitted with a tragic ending. Horror comedy for example prooooobably wouldn't be a good one. That kind of movie wants to leave a humorous impact and killing everyone off would just leave a hollow impact. Drama would certainly work. Thriller could go either way. It's really about knowing what audience you're trying to entertain and story you're trying to do it with.
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