Filmmakers have a long and mixed history of leading their stories down sudden and unexpected plot twists to surprise fans and subvert expectations. This trope has been especially well served by some genres and films. However, it doesn't always work. The plot device has been used across genres but is most closely linked to thrillers and horror films.
The twist ending has just as much chance of undermining the film's events as it does of adding something. The goal of such a twist should be to shock audiences or enhance the film upon rewatch. It should give fans a good reason to experience the story again with the twist in mind. Far too many movies, however, have inadvertently ruined the story they had built up through twists that undermine the rest of the film.
Updated January 6th, 2023 by Isaac Williams: Twists are an important ingredient in a filmmaker's toolkit. However, they can drag their film down if they're done poorly. Even excellent films aren't immune to this. As such, this list has been updated with more films from other genres that suffer from their big reveals.
15 Scooby-Doo's Return To Zombie Island Undermines Its Iconic Predecessor
Fans of Scooby-Doo were thrilled to learn that the franchise would be returning to one of the gang's greatest adventures in Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island. While this sequel has a promising start, it later goes off in a direction that actively undermines the original story.
The Scooby-Doo "Mook movies" are renowned for great stories and use of real monsters, something put to especially good use in Zombie Island. Return to Zombie Island disappoints fans by refusing to include those real monsters. Its twist even goes as far as to cast doubt on the beloved original.
14 Triangle Includes An Unnecessarily Convoluted Ending
The horror movie Triangle sets up a great concept. It is a slasher set on a ship drifting in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle. As a group of friends head out on their boat, they come across the mysterious ghost ship. Before long, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer.
For most of its runtime, the film is a great slasher. It makes good use of the confined and isolated setting of a ship at sea. In the final act, however, it reveals that the film's main protagonist is the killer. It then delves into the time loop that makes this possible. The rest of the film is a confusing blur of questionable time-loop logic.
13 Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings Tries To Change Villain
Xu Wenwu, the Mandarin, is an effective villain in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He lends immense weight to the film's themes of overcoming familial trauma and reconciling with one's roots. He has a sympathetic motive, an excellent powerset, and a tour de force performance from Tony Leung Chiu-Wai.
However, Wenwu isn't the film's final villain. Its main twist is that the Dweller in Darkness was manipulating Wenwu all along. Shang-Chi is beloved for its excellent fight choreography and its sensitively-written themes. The Dweller in Darkness undercuts both. The final fights with it are generic and CGI-heavy, and it has no ties to the film's themes.
12 The Unforgivable Undoes Its Entire Premise
The Unforgivable spends much of its runtime asking difficult questions. The protagonist is a woman who seemingly killed a police officer during an armed standoff. The film deals with her release from prison. In particular, her attempts to reintegrate into society and reunite with her sister are major plot points.
The Unforgivable doesn't shy away from the challenges of a heinous criminal attempting to live her life. It leaves the audience in a difficult moral place of rooting for her despite judging her actions. However, its main twist is that the woman's sister is the real killer. This undoes the film's premise and robs the movie of its layered moral complexity.
11 Reeker Has All The Makings Of A Hidden Gem Horror Movie
The indie horror movie Reeker stands out in the indie horror scene for various reasons. It follows a group of college students who stop at a motel in the desert. A grim reaper-esque figure then begins to stalk them and kill them one by one.
Reeker establishes a strong threat and an eerie tone. Everything seems in place for Reeker to be a solid horror. The movie's finale ends with the realization that every character featured in the film had been involved in a car crash. The film's events take place in the limbo between life and death. This immediately robs every action in the film of any weight.
10 Now You See Me Makes Its Antagonist A Protagonist
Now You See Me is a heist thriller film about four magicians. The Four Horsemen commit a series of heists under the guise of magic shows, baffling authorities. The film pays plenty of focus to its antagonist, the FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes. Rhodes spends his time hunting the Four Horsemen.
Now You See Me is a fairly typical heist film with a slick edge. However, its ending tries to throw a curveball. Dylan Rhodes is revealed to be the leader of the Four Horsemen. He's allegedly been helping them from the other side the entire time. It feels like a twist for the sake of a twist, and one that doesn't really make sense within the context of the film.
9 Friday The 13th A New Beginning Ditched Jason Voorhees
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning sets up a relatively typical and fun Jason movie. It follows Tommy Jarvis as he goes up against a hockey mask-wearing killer once again. It begins with the senseless murder of a young man. Viewers and characters alike are given reason to believe Jason is back.
However, the end reveals that the killer was actually the young man's father, Roy. He becomes a killer after the murder of his son, deciding to impersonate Jason. Horror franchises have a habit of having at least one entry with a similar twist. The new antagonist is never as well-liked as the original. Every time, they drag the film down with them.
8 Glass Damaged Itself With A Gut Punch Of An Ending
Split's ending reveals the film to be a stealth sequel to Unbreakable. It teases great things for the many fans of Unbreakable and protagonist David Dunn. Glass indicates that it will build up to an epic finale for the trilogy.
However, Glass veers off. Its plot itself is odd, focusing on an organization that kills superheroes. However, its ending doubles down by killing off all three of its protagonists. In particular, fans dislike seeing David Dunn drown in a shallow puddle. It undercuts the film and makes it a disappointing closer to the trilogy.
7 Fight Club's Infamous Tyler Durden Reveal Strains Disbelief
Fight Club is one of the most iconic movies of the 1990s. Its direction, style, and complexity all create a film that still stands out to this day. Its big twist is distinctly more contentious, however. In the film's third act, the unnamed narrator realizes that he's the same person as Tyler Durden.
Some films can pull off the protagonist and antagonist being the same person. However, Fight Club has too many scenes that cast doubt on the reveal. There are several parts that simply don't make sense if Tyler Durden is the narrator's alternate personality. It stops the viewer from appreciating the film. Instead, they spend time overthinking the unnecessary twist.
6 My Name Is Bruce Breaks The Fourth Wall Unnecessarily
Bruce Campbell's underrated movie My Name Is Bruce works well as a comedic commentary of the actor and his fandom. It stars Campbell as a fictionalized version of himself. When the inhabitants of a small town need a hero, they kidnap the king of B-movies to save them from a demon.
The movie poked great fun at the persona of Campbell crafted by his fans and his roles. However, its ending reveals its events to be a movie within a movie. Within moments, the film undermines its own entertaining self-awareness. It gets overly meta for very little pay-off.
5 Murder On The Orient Express Is Solid But Underwhelming
Agatha Christie is one of the most celebrated writers of the murder mystery subgenre. Her work is responsible for defining the whodunit trope. Murder On The Orient Express follows Hercule Poirot's investigation as he solves the murder of a passenger on the titular train.
The film sets up many compelling motives and gives viewers cause to suspect any one of the passengers of the crime. The film's main twist is that every passenger is guilty of the murder. This twist seems impressive but falls apart on inspection. Many passengers' actions don't make sense in light of the twist.
4 It Follows Tries To Undo Its Own Plot
It Follows is an original and effective horror movie. It's widely praised for its constant tension, unsettling threat, and proactive protagonists. However, its very final moments threaten to undercut its final story. The entire third act deals with the protagonists trying to hunt the monster before it can kill Jay.
They hatch a plan with Jay as bait. It goes wrong, but they manage to adapt and seemingly kill the monster anyway. However, its very final shot shows a figure in the far distance trailing after Jay and Paul. It's deliberately ambiguous. However, if it is the entity, then it renders most of the movie pointless. There's no real ending, and Jay accomplishes very little over the runtime.
3 Identity Loses Most Of Its Momentum After The Big Reveal
Identity centers around a group of people taking shelter in a small motel during a storm. Among these are a man claiming to be a detective with a prisoner he's transporting across the country. Not long after, people started getting murdered.
The story is primarily a classic whodunit. It slowly eliminates different characters as the possibilities of the killer's identity narrows. Its big twist reveals it to take place in the mind of a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder. As with many twists that reveal the film's events to be fake, this takes away the stakes. Any shock value isn't worth the entire story losing its weight.
2 The Abandoned Is A Great Ghost Story Until It Isn't
The Abandoned (also known as The Confines) tells the story of a struggling woman, Streak, working a night shift as a security guard in an abandoned hotel. It works incredibly well as a typical haunting story for the majority of its runtime. However, the ending features a completely unexpected twist that changes the nature of the entire film.
Spending the bulk of the story on an eerie haunting, it proved better than most ghost movies. The film closed with the revelation that the entire story was a figment of Streak's imagination – and that she had been hospitalized and in a comatose state the whole time.
1 Shrooms Is The Worst Case Of Having The Protagonist Revealed As The Killer
As far as slasher horror goes, Shrooms is, for the most part, firmly planted in the upper tier of the genre. It's set deep in the heart of the Irish woods and is coupled with a truly terrifying killer stalking the characters - all the makings of an excellent and intense horror movie.
However, the film's tension is entirely ruined in its final few minutes. Shrooms makes the mistake of revealing that the hooded killer never existed and was, in fact, the main character all along. A solid film falls victim to the overrated trope of needing a big reveal. In its final moments, Shrooms goes from being a great slasher to a disappointment.