While “They Were Dead All Along” may seem like one of the oldest twists in the book, some weird movies make this ending feel really clever.
Summary
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“Jacob’s Ladder” reveals that a Vietnam veteran’s terrifying visions are actually attempts to save his life on the battlefield.
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In “Dead End”, a lost family on the way to a party actually died in a car accident and are unaware of their own death.
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“Reeker” shocks viewers by revealing that the college students who were murdered were already dead in a car accident at the beginning of the film.
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While it’s usually a cop-out for a movie to reveal that the hero was dead all along, sometimes this classic twist can be surprisingly effective. The reveal that a story’s hero has been secretly dead for the entire plot, unbeknownst to them, is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The premise dates back to author Ambrose Bierce’s infinitely influential 1890 short story, “An Happening at Owl Creek Bridge.”
All of On the garden wall to Repo men has offered viewers inventive variations on this well-worn twist, and the reveal is infamously popular in the world of fan theories. A theory that claims Maverick is dead at all times. Top Gun: MaverickIt’s so compelling that it might well alter the film upon rewatch. However, while everyone knows this old twist, there are some movies that got it right. These select films, ranging in genres from drama to horror to crime thriller, managed to make an old twist seem new with their final revelations.
10 Jacob’s Ladder
1990 Jacob’s ladder was a stylish and thoughtful horror drama from director Adrian Lyne. The film shows a disturbed Vietnam veteran played by Tim Robbins plagued by nightmarish visions while eking out a living in a rainy, gloomy city. Finally, the climax revealed that the terrifying, distorted doctors and nurses Jacob dreamed about were a medical unit unsuccessfully trying to save his life while he bled to death in Vietnam. Jacob never left the battlefield and his entire civilian life had been one long hallucination.
9 dead end
whilemy Jacob’s ladder It’s a dark horror movie, 2003 Dead end It is even less known. In this twisty psychological horror from 2003, a bickering suburban family drives in endless circles after getting lost on the way to a Christmas party. The first half of Dead end It doesn’t feature many horror elements, but the presence of genre veterans Lin Shaye and Ray Wise should clue viewers in to the twist. As the second half becomes more surreal, characters die one by one in horrible accidents until the twist ending reveals that they actually died in an accident hours earlier.
8 stinky
Ignored upon its release, the underrated 2005 horror film stinky It has the same structure as Dead end. However, this unpleasant chiller takes a slasher film approach with the same premise. After a group of mismatched college students crash their RV, the eponymous monster gradually kills them. This all sounds very predictable until the ending reveals that there is no murderer; It turns out that the teenagers really died in the car accident at the beginning of the movie. This star turn makes stinky Another surprisingly great horror movie despite its poor rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
7 Carnival of Souls
Before Dead end either stinky, Carnival of souls trod similar territory back in 1962 in a story that influenced everyone from David Lynch to Wes Craven. This horror film told the story of a woman who found herself chased by strange, shadowy figures after a car accident. Inevitably, she eventually learned that these were the souls of the dead and she had joined them without realizing it.
6 The Escapist
2008 The escapist is a tough prison drama about an elderly convict who is given one last chance to escape. Brian Cox is often excellent as Frank Perry, a compassionate lifer who has accepted his fate but goes to great lengths to help a group of fellow prisoners escape. Until the final moments of the film, it appears that Perry is among the fugitives but, in his final scene, The escapist reveals that its title refers to the antihero’s ability to imagine a happy ending while sacrificing himself and ensuring the survival of everyone else.
5 The sixth sense
While some horror films successfully change their original premise midway, it takes a very daring director to change a film’s central story at the last second. However, that’s just what M. Night Shyamalan achieved with his 1999 horror drama. The sixth Sense. For almost the entire duration of this film, it seems as if Bruce Willis’ Malcolm Crowe is a disgruntled child psychologist helping a young patient who claims to have seen dead people. Towards the end of the film, a shocking twist reveals that Malcolm himself is one of those spirits that the boy can see.
4 blank dots
from director John Boorman Blank point is a dark crime thriller about an amoral criminal who takes violent revenge on the team of conspirators who left him to die. Only that is not entirely true, since Blank pointThe entire plot has a surreal and unconventional tone that the film never fully explains. However, it makes a lot more sense once you know that Boorman himself said Blank pointThe entire plot was the dying fantasy of the film’s protagonist.
3 Stay
Long before Ryan Gosling became BarbieThe perfect Ken was a patient of Ewan McGregor’s perplexed psychiatrist in the 2005 drama. Stay. In this twisty mystery, Gosling played a college student wracked by survivor’s guilt who takes out his trauma on McGregor’s taciturn professional. Finally, the end of Stay revealed that Gosling’s character was actually in the process of dying the entire time, and his entire story had been a hallucination designed to help him deal with his transition into death. Critics hated it, but Stay remains a clever, elegant and touching twist on this popular twist.
2 angel heart
1987 Angel Heart is a twisted, dark neo-noir about a private investigator hired to hunt down a ruthless and remorseless criminal. Along the way, he sleeps with a young woman connected to the criminal’s murders and discovers a twisted history of satanic rituals and black magic. Then, the hero discovers that he is the murderer he is looking for, his love interest is his own daughter and his employer is the devil himself, who has sent him on this quest as punishment for the horrible sins he committed. committed in life.
1 The others
In 2001 Others, Nicole Kidman plays a strict and nervous mother whose children are allergic to sunlight. For most of its running time, this gothic horror involves the cavernous house inhabited by the Kidman family being haunted by unseen ghosts. However, Others The ending explains that the main characters themselves were ghosts all along and the presence that disturbed their home were new living owners. Essentially a much less fun twist beetle juice, Others proved that even the oldest twist endings can sometimes still feel fresh.