This 2003 thriller saw ten strangers trapped at an interstate motel during a storm with a killer hidden among them, picking them off one by one. The movie featured an all-star cast includingJohn Cusack, Ray Liotta, John C. McGinley, Alfred Molina,andRebecca De Mornay.
Identityactually has two terrible twists. First, the murderer turns out to be the quiet little boy that nobody suspected, because the murders we see require incredible physical strength. Don’t worry though – the movie explains this by revealing that the entire story took place in the mind of a deranged killer, and every character was just one of his many personalities.
Saw 3D: The Final Chapter
The seventh installment of theSawfranchise finds Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) continuing the work of the crazed killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), abducting people he believes take their lives for granted and locking them in sinister death traps that typically require them to make some macabre choice to survive.
Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), a Jigsaw survivor and main character from the very firstSawfilm, ambushes Hoffman and locks him in a dungeon to die. It’s revealed that Gordon became a disciple of Jigsaw’s and has been designing death traps for him ever since, which makes absolutely no sense for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Gordon is a medical doctor, not an engineering savant.
M. Night Shyamalan’s2019 follow-up to the surprise hitSplitpits two real-life supervillains (James McAvoyandSamuel L. Jackson) against a nigh-invulnerable hero (Bruce Willis) as they’re all locked within a maximum-security institution by a doctor (Sarah Paulson) attempting to cure them of their “delusions.”
It turns out that the doctor actually works for an international organization tasked with hunting down all the super-powered people in the world and disposing of them. But they didn’t count on Mr. Glass (Jackson) transmitting the security camera footage of their superheroic showdown to everyone on the internet. So… we guess the good guys win?
High Tension
This bloody thriller directed byAlexandre Ajafollows Marie (Cécile de France) as she spends a weekend at the family farm of her best friend Alex (Maïwenn), only to suddenly find both herself and Alex being pursued by a relentless killer who murders Alex’s entire family and anyone else who tries to help them.
It turns out that Marie was actually the killer the whole time, and has been chasing poor Alex across the French countryside. This would be a forgivable twist if the entire film that preceded it hadn’t made it literally impossible for Marie to be the murderer unless she has superhuman strength and can be in several places at once to witness events she couldn’t possibly have seen.
Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3was the biggest box office success of the originalSpider-Mantrilogy by directorSam Raimi,featuring dazzling special effects, spectacular action, and the emotional payoff of a series-long arc involving Harry (James Franco) swearing revenge on Peter (Tobey Maguire) for the death of his father Norman.
The film suddenly comes to a halt to have Harry’s butler Bernard, a character who up to this point has had maybe a handful of lines in the entire series, explain that he’s always known Norman was the Green Goblin, and that Norman actually killed himself by accident while trying to kill Peter. It’s the clunkiest ending to one of the most compelling storylines we’ve seen in a comic book film so far.
Shutter Island
Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is called to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a patient from the island’s psychiatric facility. What follows is a Hitchcockian thriller as Teddy beings to unravel the secrets of Shutter Island, discovering evidence of a sinister conspiracy spearheaded by the facility’s head doctor (Ben Kingsley).
As most people guessed after watching the film’s trailer, Teddy himself is the missing patient, and the entire film was a delusion he created to avoid dealing with the guilt of losing his wife and his children to his wife’s murder-suicide. Which means the doctors have just been letting him run all over the island and pretend he’s solving a mystery. That seems irresponsible.
The Village
M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 filmThe Villagefocuses on a group of colonial-era settlers living on the edge of a forest haunted by sinister, monstrous beings. When Ivy’s (Bryce Dallas Howard) fiancé is stabbed by a rival, she ventures out into the woods to try and find medicine to save his life, believing the creatures might take pity on her blindness.
Ivy stumbles out onto a modern-day road and runs into a park ranger, because her old-timey village is actually just a community of people led by Ivy’s father living in the middle of a wildlife preserve. They set up a fake 19thcentury village because they wanted to return to a “simpler” time, and the creatures were just people in costumes who would occasionally show up to discourage anyone from leaving. So, no monsters, just a bunch of old people playing make-believe with their kids.
Vanilla Sky
Tom Cruiseplays David Aames, a publishing heir disfigured in a terrible car accident by his jealous ex-lover Julie (Cameron Diaz), who is killed in the crash. Forced to wear a prosthetic mask, David begins having bizarre hallucinations in which his face isn’t destroyed and Julie is still alive.
It turns out David is living in a lucid dream, after having himself suspended in cryosleep to wait until the technology exists to repair his face. Or, at least, that might be the twist. DirectorCameron Crowehas stated that there are actually five different ways to interpret the ending, including that the entire film is actually a book being written by David’s friend Brian (Jason Lee). Sure, Cameron.
The Life of David Gale
David Gale (Kevin Spacey) is a college professor and anti-death penalty activist who is on death row for the murder of his fellow activist Constance Harraway (Laura Linney). A reporter named Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) is granted a final interview with David days before his execution to tell his story. She then uncovers a tape that shows Constance actually killed herself and tries to get David’s conviction overturned.
David is executed but has another tape send to Bitsey after his death that reveals he was actually present for and assisted in Constance’s suicide. The two intentionally made the scene appear as if David had murdered her as an ultimate act of protest against capital punishment. So, good job deliberately making yourself appear guilty of a heinous crime to point out the flaws in our justice system, David.
A group of astronauts in the near future are onboard the Icarus, tasked with a mission to reignite the sun to save all life on Earth. to do that, they have to detonate a gigantic nuclear bomb in the sun’s center. On the way, they pick up a distress signal from the previous failed Icarus mission and change course to investigate.
It turns out the captain of the previous Icarus mission went insane and deliberately sabotaged his ship to ensure the death of the human race, believing it is his divine destiny to send everyone to heaven. DirectorDanny Boylehas said that the deranged captain might be a figment of the Icarus crew’s imagination, but either way we’re not entirely sure why this excellent science fiction drama needed to suddenly add a crazed slasher into its third act.
