10 Obvious Movie Twists That Fooled No One

Some movie twists have become so iconic that just about everyone on the planet knows the details of them, regardless of whether they’ve actually seen the movie. Think Darth Vader being Luke’s father in The Empire Strikes Back or Bruce Willis being dead the whole time in The Sixth Sense. But, at the time, no one really saw those coming. What about the twists that people did see coming when the movie was first released? Even the most labyrinthine of plots has tells. Foreshadowing, red herrings, big name cast members in roles that seem beneath them, tells have multiple faces.

The following plot twists are obvious. Not necessarily from the jump, but before the pin drops. It’s not to say these movies are bad, or even that the twist itself is bad, it’s just not as secretive a revelation as it was supposed to be. Naturally, spoilers will follow.

Tom is Dead in Last Christmas

“Last Christmas,” the song by Wham!, is about unrequited love and the feeling of loss. Last Christmas, the movie, is about Emilia Clarke’s Kate Andrich, a young woman working as an elf at a Christmas store who strikes up a relationship with a random man, Tom, standing outside that store.

It’s a particularly famous line from the title song, “Last Christmas I gave you my heart” that’s the ultimate tell. As the movie reveals, Kate was in a bicycle accident and now carries Tom’s heart. The movie isn’t shy about wearing its Wham! influences on its sleeve, and it’s increasingly obvious as the plot develops that Henry Golding’s Tom is actually a ghost. But for those who bought a ticket there were really two lines of thought. One was that it was yet another rom-com named after a catchy love tune. The other was that it was a story about loss, leading to the assumption that the too good to be true guy was just that.

Ares’ Identity in Wonder Woman

For the most part, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman stands as one of the best installments of the ill-fated DCEU. “For the most part” because once Ares gets involved its level of quality plummets. Part of this is due to the shoddy CGI, but an equal part to the finale’s shrug-worthiness is the fact it’s so predictable that Danny Huston’s Erich Ludendorff isn’t the film’s big bad.

The movie goes out of its way to have Diana Prince mention Ares, the God of War, multiple times. She assumed Ludendorff and Ares are one and the same. But it seems a little on the nose. Enter David Thewlis’ Sir Patrick, who has a scene here and there but none of them come across as particularly important. Around the midway mark at the latest it dawns on the viewer that he is, in fact, the God in question. At the very least it’s a case of why cast an actor of their caliber and give them nothing to do.

Roman is the Killer in Scream 3

Some Redditors believe that the Billy and Stu twist in Wes Craven’s masterful Scream is an obvious twist. Maybe so, but at least they work as the antagonists. Roman Bridger in Scream 3 does not, and there’s a major moment that’s so clumsily written it entirely deflates the revelation.

With Billy and Stu, there’s the movie store scene, where the duo (particularly Billy) are menacing towards Randy. But it’s somewhat in line with their established characters. In Stu’s case, he’s being a goofball. In Billy’s, Randy had literally just yelled in the middle of the store that Billy is likely the killer (not in direct terms, but still). With Roman, he’s the one person killed off-screen throughout the entirety of the film. Toss in the fact that just about everyone outside Dewey, Syd, and Gale is dead and it’s blisteringly obvious that Roman’s going to be taking off the mask. What wasn’t obvious was that Roman coached Billy and Stu, but that’s such a bafflingly awful twist that retroactively diminishes the impact of the first film that it’s best left forgotten.

Arthur Never Dated Sophie in Joker

Joker isn’t the only divisive film on its list, but one thing everyone who bought a ticket seemed to agree on was that it was pretty obvious Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck imagined his relationship with his neighbor, Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz). It’s too good to be true for Arthur, whose life is consistently made to look like a depressing trainwreck.

It’s all extremely obvious to the audience, even if it isn’t to Arthur, that Sophie’s affections for him are fictitious when she makes a finger gun and points it to her head…in front of her own kid. That’s something that would come to Arthur’s mind, not something he would actually see.

The Parasitic Twin in Malignant

Malignant stands as James Wan’s most divisive film for good reason. It’s far more outlandish than it is scary, but the bigger issue is just how obvious the outlandish element is very early on. Specifically, about nine minutes in.

The film opens with some vague talk from doctors about how the murderous and recently escaped “Gabriel,” a patient with supernatural powers, cannot be helped and how the “cancer” needs to be excised. The movie then shifts its focus to Annabelle Wallis’ Madison, who the film’s marketing materials made clear experiences visions of Gabriel’s murders. Her first scene in the movie has her arguing with her abusive husband, who bashes her head into a wall. The moment that happens, it’s readily apparent that Gabriel is in fact physically a part of Madison. Once she has a vision of her husband being murdered by Gabriel and that vision swiftly becomes a reality, it’s confirmation.

Hans is the Bad Guy in Frozen

A true audience favorite, Frozen is still fairly predictable when it comes to the villain department. The viewer knows Kristen Bell’s Anna is good at heart, and they get a strong feeling that her isolated sister, Elsa (Idina Menzel), is too. This even if society has deemed her a villain.

Once Jonathan Groff’s Kristoff enters the picture, he’s such a sweetheart that it becomes obvious that he is in fact the love interest. This leaves Santino Fontana’s Hans, who is nice and charming on the surface, but it’s far from surprising when he turns out to be anything but.

Detective Schenk is the Killer in Spiral

Outside the announcement that Chris Rock was going to executive produce and star in a spin-off of the Saw franchise, there was absolutely nothing shocking about Spiral. This includes the ending, where it’s revealed the partner to his Detective Zeke Banks, Detective William Schenk, is the killer. After all, like with Scream 3, he’s the only person who dies off-screen…and if Saw is about anything, it’s about showing everything.

It’s very hokey, and if the film hasn’t already lost the audience by the time the twist lands with a thud, it’s more than enough to do so. The backstory to Schenk is that his father was killed by corrupt police officers and now Schenk is getting his revenge, particularly on Detective Banks’ father. It’s an attempt at social commentary that, like the twist itself, doesn’t work.

Mort is Shooter in Secret Window

Of all the many, many cinematic adaptations of Stephen King’s works, Secret Window ranks somewhere towards the middle. As Mort, a successful writer going through a nasty divorce, Johnny Depp displays some charisma, but it’s also pretty apparent that those behind the movie cast him to be more than depressed and quiet.

Once John Turturro’s John Shooter starts showing up, he’s so cartoonishly Southern that he seems a little displaced from the film’s reality. As the third act reveals, that’s exactly what he is, just as it’s revealed that Depp was brought on to play against type as a sinister, mentally ill man with an axe to grind.

It’s the Bible in The Book of Eli

[RELATED: The Book of Eli Prequel Series to Star John Boyega]

In the Bible, Eli was a priest where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. Eli is not a particularly common name at this point in time, so the biblically inclined were likely already expecting some sort of religious connection in The Book of Eli. Once the movie starts to hammer in the point that Denzel Washington’s title character is guarding a book, it’s easy to guess just what that book is.

Even those who aren’t Bible readers can take a pretty easy swing at guessing what the book is given how much importance the narrative lends it pretty much from the first frame. It’s not Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Great Gatsby. Great books, sure, but there’s no way Gary Oldman’s Bill Carnegie would be willing to sacrifice all of his men just to get his hands on some Twain or Fitzgerald.

Imposter Grandparents in The Visit

The Visit may have been seen as a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan, but that doesn’t mean its twist was five percent as startling as The Sixth Sense‘s. The narrative follows two kids as they go and visit their maternal grandparents for the first time. Their mother has been estranged from them for years.

None of that is enough on paper to make the audience immediately assume that the kids’ Nana and Pop Pop are actually murderous escapees from a mental health clinic, but thinking about it for a second is. Would the mother really send her kids to stay with this couple if she grew up with them being this unstable? The movie doesn’t outright say why the estrangement occurred, but as soon as the grandparents start staying up all night acting terrifying, it’s obvious that they are not in fact the kids’ grandparents at all.