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Spoiler Alert: This list includes spoilers for multiple movies.A great plot twist in a horror movie is a thing of beauty, an unseen swerve that throws into question all the events that led before it. On the other hand, a predictable plot twist will leave moviegoers bored, texting their friends until the credits roll.
A predictable plot twist is worse than a bad one because once the ending of the movie has been successfully figured out, there’s no more suspense left in the movie. Horror is about the fear of the unknown, and once the mystery is known– no more horror. The following films are examples of what not to do in order to keep the audience guessing.
10 'The Boy' (2016)
Brahms Was Living In The Walls of the House
Image via STX Entertainment In the horror movie The Boy, an elderly couple hires a nanny, Greta (Lauren Cohan), to look after a doll named Brahms, named after their son, who died in a fire. After being given a rigid set of rules regarding Brahms’ care, the couple leaves Greta alone on their large estate. As creepy and unexplained things happen, Greta starts to believe the doll may be alive until circumstances lead to the real Brahms revealing himself. It turns out Brahms (James Russell) was alive the whole time and living inside the walls of the house.
The foreshadowing throughout the film is too heavy-handed not to figure out where the story is heading long before the reveal. The parents' odd behavior indicates there’s more to the story than the audience has been told, and the rules Greta is given strongly indicate there is a human somewhere in the house. If ever there was a need for clarification, Brahms’ father (Jim Norton) goes as far as saying, “Our son is here; he’s very much with us.”
9 'Secret Window' (2004)
Mort Was Shooter
Image via Sony Pictures Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is a mystery writer living alone in an isolated cabin, still reeling from the discovered infidelity of his wife Amy (Maria Bello). Mort’s life takes a fateful turn when a mysterious man named John Shooter (John Turturro) arrives with accusations that Mort stole a story of his. As Mort seeks a way to debunk Shooter’s claims, Shooter escalates their conflict into violent territory, killing multiple people and implicating Mort in the crimes. Shooter didn’t have to work too hard to implicate Mort because it’s revealed that Shooter is a fractured personality of Mort, and he was the one committing the crimes.
The split personality trope was being used frequently around this time, so audiences who had seen David Fincher’s Fight Club, among other options, would see a familiar pattern emerge while watching Secret Window. Secret Window came out at a time when Depp’s popularity was at its peak, so there was possibly a school of thought that no one would expect him to be a killer; however, the movie drops enough hints that it becomes hard to ignore the truth.
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Secret Window
Release Date March 12, 2004
Director David Koepp
Runtime 96 minutes
Main Genre Drama
Tagline Some Windows Should Never Be Opened
8 'Predators' (2010)
Edwin Was a Serial Killer
Image via 20th Century Fox In Predators, a group of strangers land on a foreign planet with no supplies or idea about where they are; the only thing they have in common is a violent past. As they succumb to cleverly hidden traps, they begin to realize they were brought to the strange place to be hunted by Predators. The group consists of military officers and trained killers, but Topher Grace’s Edwin is just a regular doctor, or so it seems, until he reveals himself to be a serial killer near the end of the film.
The plot twist relies on the idea that the Predators made a clerical mistake and grabbed Grace’s character instead of a soldier of fortune with the same name. His presence is too hard to ignore, and after his turn in Spider-Man 3 as Eddie Brock, audiences were expecting more depth to the character than being in peril for the duration of the film. The movie is fun and has an impressive cast, including the likes of Adrien Brody and Walton Goggins– the plot twist just misses the mark.
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Predators
Release Date July 3, 2010
Runtime 107
Writers Alex Litvak , Michael Finch , Jim Thomas , John Thomas
Studio 20th Century Fox
Tagline Fear is reborn.
7 'Malignant' (2021)
The Killer Was Madison’s Conjoined Twin
Image via Warner Bros. Madison Mitchell's (Annabelle Wallis) life is thrown upside down after her husband (Jake Abel) violently attacks her, smashing her head into a wall. The same night, Madison has visions of her husband being murdered before being attacked herself. Upon waking up, she receives more visions of people being murdered, with Madison able to point the police to the exact spots where the crimes were committed. Madison has intimate knowledge of what the killer is doing because the audience learns the killer is her conjoined twin connected at the brain.
Malignant exists in a dreamlike world where the sky is always gray, and a police station looks like a decommissioned library from the turn of the century, so one could be forgiven for not questioning the movie’s logic. However, the killer literally looks exactly like the main character with her hair over her face, so it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that all signs point to her for a reason. Horror fans should still check out this movie, though, because the big scenes near the climax are wildly inventive and fun to watch.
This horror film centers on a woman who begins to experience terrifying visions of brutal murders. As these visions intensify, she discovers that they are actually terrifying realities. She must uncover the connection between her traumatic past and the gruesome realities before it's too late, leading to shocking revelations.
Release Date September 10, 2021
Runtime 111 minutes
Budget $2.4 million
Studio(s) Warner Bros. Pictures
Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Pictures
Franchise(s) The Conjuring
6 'Hide and Seek' (2005)
David is Charlie
Image via 20th Century Studios Hide and Seek follows psychologist David (Robert De Niro) and his daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning), who move to a new house for a fresh start after the apparent suicide of their wife and mother. Emily befriends an imaginary friend named Charlie, whom the young girl begins to blame for odd occurrences around the home. After the mysterious Charlie is blamed for the death of a cat and then a woman David was seeing, the truth comes out— David and Charlie are the same person. David develops a split personality that is responsible for all the deaths, including David’s wife.
Emily befriends an imaginary friend named Charlie, whom the young girl begins to blame for odd occurrences around the home.
Much like Secret Window, Hide and Seek was another film that indulged in the “the hero is the villain" twist that had worn out its welcome by the time of its release. Outside a supernatural explanation, which hadn’t really been the direction the movie was going, there wasn’t another suspect to be Charlie. There’s a neighbor Emily briefly speaks to, but there wouldn’t have been a reason for them to know about David’s deceased wife.
5 'Spiral' (2021)
Schenk Is the New Jigsaw
Image via Lionsgate Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) follows the grisly trail of a killer inspired by the psychotic Jigsaw in Spiral. Fresh off an undercover assignment, Banks is paired with rookie detective William Schenk (Max Minghella). The new incarnation of the trap-setting killer is focused on dirty cops, taking out Banks' fellow officers one by one, including Banks’ partner, Schenk. Banks won’t need to mourn the loss of Schenk for long because, as it turns out, he’s the new Jigsaw who faked his own death.
There’s a golden rule in a horror movie that if the viewer doesn’t see the person die, they’re not really dead. Schenk’s offscreen death falsely removes him from the suspects' list, but when a character that’s had that much screen time doesn’t get a trap scene, it should be a red flag to the audience. If Schenk had pretended to be a dirty cop, it might have made more sense, but as it was, it made Jigsaw look like he had killed an innocent.
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Spiral: From the Book of Saw
Release Date May 12, 2021
Director darren lynn bousman
Runtime 88
Main Genre Horror
Writers Josh Stolberg , Pete Goldfinger
Studio Lionsgate
Tagline Discover a new chapter
4 'The Village' (2004)
They’re In Modern Times
Image via Buena Vista Pictures A rural town in what appears to be a 19th century time period keeps to itself with little to no interaction with neighboring communities, always in fear of being attacked by monsters that lurk in the surrounding woods. When one of the members of the village is attacked, a visually impaired woman, Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard), is sent on a journey through the dangerous forest to get medical supplies. Because The Village is directed by M. Night Shyamalan, audiences find out The Village is actually set in modern times, and the lore of the monsters is to scare villagers into staying.
Shyamalan created an expectation with his films that a twist ending is part of the overall presentation, and laboring under the need to include such a device has people speculating about the twist before they even see his movies. By the time The Village came out, audiences were so savvy to a twist that many predicted the movie took place in modern times before they even knew the details of the plot.
A series of events tests the beliefs of a small isolated countryside village.
Release Date July 30, 2004
Runtime 108 minutes
Main Genre Drama
Budget $60million
Studio(s) Disney
Distributor(s) Disney
3 'Cutting Class' (1989)
The Killer is Exactly Who They Think It Is
Image via Republic Pictures Home Video A slasher film famously known as one of Brad Pitt’s earlier roles, Cutting Class is a standard horror film in a high school setting with a mystery that’s not too hard to solve. Brian (Donovan Leitch) was recently released from a mental hospital after killing his father, and the rest of the town is understandably concerned about the quality of a hospital that releases murderers. As Brian attempts to go back to school, dead bodies start piling up, with most assuming Brian did it because, as it turns out, he is 100% the killer.
As Brian attempts to go back to school, dead bodies start piling up, with most assuming Brian did it because, as it turns out, he is 100% the killer.
Cutting Class makes Brian look so creepy in each scene that it would have been weird if he wasn’t the killer. The movie attempts to hide the reveal in plain sight; but for that to have worked, they would have needed to more sufficiently downplay Brian leering at the rest of the cast like he was planning to kill them, which he was, because he was obviously the killer. Pitt fans who want to see him before he becomes a star might find Cutting Class worth the time, but otherwise, this is a twist that can be avoided.
2 'The Visit' (2015)
The Grandparents Are Imposters
Image via Universal Pictures A visit to rarely seen grandparents becomes a fight for survival in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit. Loretta (Kathryn Hahn) hasn’t spoken to her parents in years after a falling out over who she married, but she allows her two children to visit while she leaves for a cruise. Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are happy to meet their extended family, but odd behavior from their Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) leads them to believe they may be in danger. And they are, because the people Becca and Tyler are staying with are not their grandparents but rather escaped mental patients posing as their dead relatives.
It starts to become more odd and less inconvenient that Loretta never sees her parents when she’s talking with her children. The plot point of her estranged relationship with her parents doesn’t hold enough logic for the delayed attempt at communication between the people taking care of her children. It’s basic due diligence as a parent to confirm her children are safe. If a windowless van pulled up and said it was the new school bus, would Loretta shrug and let the children on? The Visit hypothesizes, yes, she would.
Two siblings become increasingly frightened by their grandparents' disturbing behavior while visiting them on vacation.
Release Date September 11, 2015
Runtime 94 Minutes
Writers M. Night Syamalan
Budget $5 million
1 'Scream' (1996)
Billy Is One Of The Killers
Image via Dimension Films In the horror classic Scream, a horror movie-obsessed killer stalks the teenagers of Woodsboro. Based on the victims, it’s clear that the killer knows everyone and is most likely a member of the friend group, and out of all the friends, only Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) talks almost exclusively in movie metaphors, with a focus on horror as his genre of choice. So when the masks come off, and the truth comes out, it’s no surprise that Billy is the killer.
Scream is tricky because even though Billy is an obvious plot twist, its main purpose is to throw everyone off from the super secret plot twist that there are two killers. Billy is creepy, and it’s hard to figure out what he and Sydney (Neve Campbell) have in common. While everyone is looking at him, his pal Stu (Matthew Lillard) can keep adding to the body count. Scream proves that even obvious plot twists can have their purpose.
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Scream
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
Release Date December 20, 1996
Runtime 111 minutes
Writers Kevin Williamson
Budget $14 Million
Studio(s) Woods Entertainment
Distributor(s) Dimension Films
Where To Stream Paramount Plus
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