Some movies manage to genuinely shock their audiences, others just try to. There are multiple ways of doing this too; one is the cheap way, via a bunch of blood and guts, and another is taking the narrative in some genuinely surprising directions. For instance, the twist ending, a tactic famously used by Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone all the way back in the late ’50s and ’60s. Then, of course, there was its repopularization in the late ’90s courtesy of M. Night Shyamalan and his box office sensation The Sixth Sense. Twists haven’t gone away, and to this day they can be effective. What follows are, for me, some of the more jarring twists in cinematic history.
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It should be noted that it didn’t matter at which point in the runtime the twist occurred. And, of course, they can’t be obvious from the jump, like the “twist” of Shutter Island. Without further delay, the movie twists that have stuck with me. As you might expect, spoilers for a lot of movie will follow!
Oldboy‘s final reveal
Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy is influential to this day. It’s a neo-noir thriller so brilliantly constructed it’s easy to see why. The film follows Oh Dae-su, who is imprisoned by a mysterious man in a single small room for 15 years. When he’s released, Oh Dae-su is desperate to learn the identity of his kidnapper, which ultimately leads him to Mi-do, a young sushi chef, with whom he soon becomes romantically involved.
Long story short, Oh Dae-su’s kidnapper has utilized hypnosis to help facilitate this connection. It was the key aspect of his plan. Mi-do is actually his daughter. It’s essentially a reverse Matchstick Men with a devastating sexual element added. And, while the parentage twist in Matchstick Men was a gut-punch, it didn’t hold a candle to what Oldboy had in store for its audience members.
Stream Oldboy on Netflix.
The Death of Casey Becker in Scream
Wes Craven’s Scream kicked off a franchise that is still running strong to this day. And yet, in spite of the strength of some of the sequels, there’s just no beating the original. It’s just about perfect from front to back.
Emphasis on front, because the opening scene with Drew Barrymore takes a bite out of the viewer to this day. With her name and face on the poster, it was far from expected to see the child star of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial bite the dust in the first 12 minutes. It’s drawn out, brutal, sublimely acted, and a nice reference to Janet Leigh’s early departure in Psycho.
Stream Scream on Max.
Jamie Becomes the Killer in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers‘ is a horror movie ending ignored by further sequels, and that’s a shame because it’s a doozie. The audience spends the whole movie getting to know young Jamie Lloyd, daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis’ character from the first two films, Laurie Strode. Then, once it seems as though the resurfaced Michael Myers has been put down for good, that’s when the franchise’s most ambitious idea arrives.
The camera is on the surviving cast downstairs recuperating when all of a sudden, we hear Jamie’s stepmother scream upstairs. Dr. Loomis rushes to the bottom of the staircase and screams himself at the sight of, not his former patient back from the dead, but the little girl standing with a blood-covered pair of scissors in her hands.
Stream Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers on Shudder.
The Ending of Don’t Look Now
Grief-related narratives are always somewhat disarming. And, thanks to the late Donald Sutherland’s commanding work as John Baxter, audiences believe every ounce of the character’s grief in 1973’s Don’t Look Now.
In the film, Baxter’s daughter drowned in their property’s lake (while wearing a red raincoat). He and his wife move to Venice both for his work and to get away from that trigger-inducing property. And yet, even there, he just can’t shake the feeling that he keeps seeing his late daughter walking around in that red raincoat. Well, he is seeing someone wearing a red raincoat, and she is the size of his late daughter, but it’s not his daughter…it’s a serial killer, and the serial killer is raising a meat cleaver towards his throat.
Stream Don’t Look Now on Kanopy.
[RELATED: The Top 10 Scariest Twist Endings from The Twilight Zone]
Vera Cruz’s Identity in The Skin I Live In
The Skin I Live In has a dense narrative, told in a nonchronological fashion. There’s a long-term kidnapping, that kidnapping is born of revenge, and the end result of it is a shock; it’s not too dissimilar to Oldboy
Antonio Banderas’ Dr. Robert Ledgard is keeping a younger woman named Vera captive on his expansive estate. His late wife took her own life, which was something his daughter had witnessed and, ultimately, his daughter did the same. His daughter believed she had been sexually assaulted by Ledgard when, in fact, she had a psychological breakdown after hearing the same music she heard when her mother died in front of her. When she wakes up, she’s naked, and it’s Ledgard standing above her. But the reason she’s naked is actually because of a flirtatious encounter with a young man named Vicente, whom Ledgard saw rushing away from his daughter. Believing Vicente had sexually assaulted her and ultimately caused her breakdown and subsequent death, he’s kidnapped Vicente, given him a litany of surgeries, and turned the young man into a physically identical version of his late wife.
The Original Ending of The Descent
Directed by Dog Soldiers‘ Neil Marshall, The Descent has two very different endings. In the U.S. version, the one surviving protagonist, Sarah, escapes from the monster-stuffed cave (somehow) and sees the ghost of one of her dearly departed cave-diving pals. It’s lame.
The original, U.K. ending, however, has Sarah escape the cave, see the ghost, and wake up back in the cave. She never escaped, and the creatures are approaching for the kill. The truncated U.S. ending doesn’t even make sense. She can escape the cave in a dream, but the viewer isn’t led to believe it’s possible in reality. The original ending, however, is phenomenally bleak and more realistic.
Stream The Descent on Tubi.
The Haunting Final Moments of The Mist
There are quite a few movies out there that simply wouldn’t exist without The Twilight Zone and Frank Darabont’s The Mist is one of them. Of course, it’s based on Stephen King’s novella of the same name, but at the end of the day the movie is better, which certainly isn’t something that can often be said, about King adaptations or otherwise.
The key is the absolute gut-punch of an ending. The ending of the novella has the survivors drive into the mist with the hopes there will be safety on the other side. In the movie, Tom Jane’s David shoots the other survivors (including his son) in their heads so they can avoid being ripped apart by the creatures in the mist. Then, moments later, the mist begins to clear and military vehicles make their way through it. It’s as brilliant as it is devastating.
Stream The Mist on Prime Video.
Defending a Guilty Client in Primal Fear
Before he was part of an even more iconic twist in fight club or (briefly) playing The Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton was breaking through via Primal Fear. The film follows Richard Gere’s Martin Vail, a Chicago defense attorney. He’s always confident, but finds himself taking on a tough case when 19-year-old altar boy Aaron Stampler is caught rushing away from the murder scene of a popular Archbishop.
The whole movie makes the audience genuinely believe it’s a case of wrong place at the wrong time. But it’s revealed that the young man has dissociative identity disorder. The audience genuinely believes that, too. But, in the final moments, Stampler’s act drops, and it becomes clear he knew what he was doing the whole time. He never had DID. Primarily thanks to Norton’s acting, it’s a jaw-dropper.
Stream Primal Fear on Paramount+.
Jeff Bridges Dies in Arlington Road
Jeff Bridges, the actor behind the MCU’s very first villain, more often than not plays the hero, with countless examples like King Kong, Hell or High Water, Tron, R.I.P.D., True Grit, The Big Lebowski, Blown Away, and Starman. And, when he does play the villain, he usually lasts until the credits roll. His name is typically above the title on the poster, after all. But not in Arlington Road.
An otherwise middling action drama, Arlington Road, much to its credit, manages to legitimately surprise the audience with the death of Bridges’ Michael Faraday. He thinks he’s about to save his son from his terrorist neighbors. In fact, he’s just the most recent fall guy in their mission to bomb a government building, and that bomb is in the trunk of Faraday’s car.
Goodbye, Keith in Barbarian
Zach Cregger, who has been tapped to reboot the Resident Evil film franchise, had one brilliant solo directorial debut (he co-directed the far different Miss March over a decade prior) with Barbarian. Ingeniously constructed and featuring an impressive lead performance by Georgina Campbell, it’s a modern horror classic.
But the twist doesn’t involve Campbell’s character, it involves Bill Skarsgård. Campbell’s Tess Marshall arrives at her rented Airbnb only to learn it’s double booked. Skarsgård’s Keith is already there. For a decent chunk of time and via subtle means, the viewer comes to think there’s something off about Keith, that he’s the film’s villain. This continues even as the duo find what appears to be a torture chamber and a connecting tunnel in the Airbnb’s basement. But Keith is not the villain, which is something Marshall learns abruptly when the deformed “The Mother” bashes his head against the wall of a tunnel.
Stream Barbarian on Hulu.
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