Has the Shyamalan Twist Ruined Suspense Movies?

M. Night Shyamalan has continued a slow but steady comeback from this downward spiraling career drop, thanks to the back-to-back successes of his horror/thriller films The Visit (2015) and Split (2017). With Split topping the box office for weeks, and the reveal of its connection to Shyamalan’s acclaimed 2000 film, Unbreakable, M. Night is positioned to once again become a major player in Hollywood.

However, in looking at the full-circle career turn Shyamalan seems to have achieved in light of Split’s success, we can’t help but look back at where he came from, and wonder how Shyamalan’s work (starting with the milestone that was The Sixth Sense in 1999) has affected the industry. And when you step back and look at it, you have to wonder:

Has the Shyamalan Twist Ruined Suspense Movies?

Rise of “The Twist”

M. Night blew onto the scene with his 1999 film The Sixth Sense, a movie which went on to massive acclaim both critically (6 Oscar Noms) and commercially ($600 million worldwide). What gave the film long and profitable legs was largely the word of mouth surrounding its massive twist ending – a buzz that even carried the film long into its home video release. Later that year, David Fincher’s Fight Club also hit audiences with a massive third-act twist, thereby further cementing the technique as a new trend.

By 2000, when films like Chris Nolan’s Memento started to breakthrough and get mainstream attention for a non-linear mystery and a big twist ending, “the twist” was an official thing in movies (especially horror), with several films finding success in large part due to their surprise twist endings (see: The Others in 2001; The Ring in 2002, Identity in 2003, etc…). 

By the time the mid-2000s arrived, audiences were conditioned to expect that any film with a hint of mystery/thriller elements owed them some kind of surprise twist. 

Spoiled Gimmick

There was a time, back in my day (the ’90s) when big movie twists were rare gems. Films like Basic Instinct, The Crying Game, and Se7en existed as almost mythic experiences that dared you to seek them out; people who had seen them, offered a sly smile and an ominous promise, but almost never a spoiler. They were simpler times, in some ways… 

Nostalgia aside, twist endings were used way more sparingly in cinema, because unless that ending was thoroughly earned by the story preceding it (see: Soylent Green, Jacob’s Ladder) then it was considered a cheap gimmick, deployed to mask the lack of quality narrative conclusion. 

Since the mid-2000s, the twist ending has gone full gimmick and gets thrown around shamelessly by every would-B-movie that wants to think itself clever. For every Fight Club there’s a Dream House knockoff; for every Sixth Sense, a Stir of Echoes imitator. It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that Hollywood now baits audiences with twists that don’t even exist! Case in point: Watch the trailer for the 2016 film Passengers – a film that has no real twists at all (including why they woke up): 

The Endless Guessing

The problem with the expectation that mystery/thrillers are somehow vehicles for big twist endings is that it violates one of the biggest mandates of storytelling: the journey is more important than the destination. 

Movies are supposed to be about the indulgence of spending time in a world of film and getting to know the characters; they were never supposed to be a superficial rush from plot point to plot point, in pursuit of the catharsis that comes from being to able to guess a reveal before it arrives. 

There is no clearer byproduct of the Shyamalan Twist era than the incessant guess work that’s always being done by viewers of mystery/thriller films; hell, even mystery/thriller TV shows like Lost, which was over-guessed to death (and apparently out of limbo back to life again) by fans. Nowadays, anyone offering fans a fun mystery or thrilling turns has to endure heavy amounts of scrutiny – to the point that the reveal is either guessed early, or has to be so outlandish that no one on the Internet ever guessed it (near impossible). Either way, all the incessant early guess work makes the actual journey less enjoyable.