Movies are an art form not bound by rules or reality. They are the means to tell unique stories that challenge our perceptions of reality and let our thoughts and imagination run amok. A well-crafted movieis an invitation to suspend your disbeliefand disconnect from reality. As humans, we are still bound to enjoy the most out of the experience as long as it makes some form of logical sense and challenges our minds.
Yet some movies commit the cardinal sense of asking too much out of our joy. Some films throw a curveball to our perceptions we can’t simply ignore. Sometimes these twists challenge the logic of reality; they evendare underestimate the audience’s intelligence. These plot twists are often used for the incredibly maligned sake of “subverting expectations,” which has become a running joke with modern blockbusters.
The films threw some wild plot twists out there and left us wondering: what exactly did the filmmaker think when they did this?
20The Forgotten — The Kidnappers Were Aliens
The Forgottenhad everything to be an incredible thriller, but the big reveal feels forced and nonsensical. Telly Paretta is a grieving mother struggling to cope with losing his 8-year-old son. She’s stunned to find out his memories of him are a fabrication of her mind.
She can’t accept that, but as Telly feels she’s losing her sanity, she meets a man living through the same experience. Although the film heavily impliesshe’s the victim of a government conspiracy,Aliens are the ones causing the disappearances and making people forget about their loved ones.
19Saw 3D — Dr. Gordon Is Revealed as the New Jigsaw
Sawis well-placed in the ranking of slasher films for having a unique formula and endless plot twists, revealing new players and returning characters who are either further tortured by Jigsaw or go on to become their apprentices. Dr. Gordon was Jigsaw’s first victim, or at least he was in the first saw film, as the movies have disjointed narratives, with some of them taking place in the past while others happen parallel to each other.
We never really got to see what happened to him after the first film’s events. We never really knew if he survived the game or saved the other guy in the room with him. Everything gets its answers inSaw 3Dor Saw VII, as the film reveals Dr. Gordon as Jigsaw’s successor after Hoffman gets too comfortable in the role. The reveal is hardly shocking, and it was something that audiences could see from a mile away.
18The Village — The Film Is Set in the Present
M. Night Shyamalan is known for being a one-trick pony these days. The man knows how to craft great mysteries, but he always falls flat on the big reveals as he’s been trying to replicate the success achieved with Sixth Sense after that great Oscar nod. InThe Village, we are presented with a gripping mystery about an Amish-style community set in the late 19th century, living in the woods where alien creatures exist.
The community and the creatures seem to have an uneasy truce as the people are left alone as long as they don’t venture into the woods.As the intrigue surrounding the creatures unfold, we learn the community is enclosed and kept safefrom the modern world, with multiple townspeople disguising themselves as the “aliens” who keep the rest people secluded.
17The Rise of Skywalker — Rey Is Revealed to Be a Palpatine
Have you ever watched a film that kills the whole purpose of sitting down to watch it in the first ten minutes?The Rise of Skywalkerdelivers multiple underwhelming reveals into Star Wars lore. Let’s put aside the fact that Oscar Issacs actually got paid to say in the opening act, “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” Without explanation as to how or why; There’s a bigger elephant in the room and it has to do with our main character, Rey.
J.J Abrahams’s trademarked mystery boxes bombarded us to keep the plot moving in the most sanitized fashion. However Rey’s big revealas a member of Palpatine’s housewas done in such poor fashion that makes little sense. While in mid combat against Kylo Ren, she uses the force to rescue Chewie after he was taken by the first order, only to unleash lighting force bolts and blow up the ship. It really doesn’t make sense, especially when The Last Jedi made a point of making her a nobody in the overall scheme of the plot.
16Die Another Day — Gustav Graves Is Revealed to Be Colonel Moon
Most films in the Pierce Brosnan era of Bond are fantastic. They combine the campy elements of the Roger Moore era with the more serious undertones of the Timothy Dalton era for larger-than-life spectacles and over-the-top villainswith close ties to real-world dynamics. However, many situations in these movies are pushing our suspension of disbelief.
InDie Another Day, Bond is facing two enemies: The North Korean government and mysterious billionaire Gustav Graves, who owns a company running a conflict diamond rig. It turns out both foes are the same as Graves is a genetically modified Colonel Moon, the man who tortured Bond at the start of the film and somehow got to become someone else in a few months.
15Perfect Stranger — Rowena Was the Killer All Along
Halle Berry deserved a better agent after that Oscar win in 2001. Nearly every film she’s made afterMonster’s Ballis mediocre or senseless.Perfect Strangerfalls into both categories, as she plays a reporter named Rowena, who goes undercover to investigate an advertising executive and his ties to a major murder.
After many mishaps, we find outRowena was the real killer all along, with a side of her broken psyche blocking her misdeeds on account of the trauma she experienced in the past after her father tried to abuse her but succeeded in killing her mother.
Related:20 Underrated Movies with Huge Plot Twists
14The Number 23 — Walter Wrote the Book
We really can’t believe Joel Schumacher and Jim Carey did this intentionally. Walter is a man who finds himself utterly obsessed with a book named “The Number 23,” as he sees the personal traits of the main character in the book too close to his persona. He obsessively thinks about the book and how it mirrors his feelings for a woman he meets in the real world.
As the plot advances, it’s revealed the woman is set to die. Walter fears his actions more than ever,only to be revealed that Walter is the book’s writerand he had already killed the woman, with the book being his sole means to cope with the guilt of his actions before committing suicide.
13American Psycho 2 — Rachael is The Perfect Killer
In the realm of unnecessary sequels,American Psycho 2is the one no one asked for. Mila Kunis plays a character that is essentially a slasher Mary Sue. Someone too perfectly conceived to pull offthe biggest crime spree in lifewhile getting away with it. The story follows Rachael Newman, a girl who witnessed her nanny’s death at Patrick Bateman’s hands. Fascinated at the sight of what she saw, she murders him and grows up to become an FBI aspirant.
In the film, we see Rachel kill everyone who proves to be an obstacle to getting what she wants, and we mean everyone, even accidental witnesses. She’s caught on a lie after a roommate figures out she has parents, something that would not be possible since she’s supposed to be an orphan. The big reveal at the end is that the girl we have been following for most of the film is not even Rachael Newman, as our physician had killed her and stole her identity at the film’s start.
12Prometheus — Weiland Is Alive and Expects to Be Immortal Just Because
Everyone was excited when Ridley Scott finally caved in to fan demand to revisit the world of the Xenomorph with a prequel.Prometheuschronicles the creation of the Weiland Corporation and their first mission to explore the universe to find the origin of life. The corporation funds a couple of young scientists with a strong belief system as they hope to find the Engineers, a superior race they believe are the ones who bring life across the stars.
In the film’s final act, Peter Weiland is revealed to be alive and behind the funding of Prometheus. He also created David to have him speak to the Engineers in their native language to ask them for immortality.Take a moment to realize this man’s ego—no wonder he ends up beaten and killed in less than two minutes.
Related:How Movie Hype Is Spoiling Plot Twists
11Life of David Gale — Gale Purposefully Leaves Evidence Incriminating Himself
The Life of David Galehas “Oscar bait” written all over it, yet it can’t get past its dumb premise. We have Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet acting the hell out of their minds in a min-bending drama where a fearless journalist is set to prove how broken the justice system in the USA is and the horrors of the death penaltyagainst an essentially innocent man. The great twist reveals that David Gale actually staged the entire murder scene just to make a point, making his martyrdom absolutely pointless.
