Mystery movies are predicated on their twist ending.Get Outdoesn’t work if the audience isn’t shocked by the Armitages’ true intentions for Chris;Se7endoesn’t work if the audience isn’t shocked by the contents of John Doe’s FedEx delivery;Shutter Islanddoesn’t work if the audience isn’t shocked by Teddy Daniels’ reality. Sometimes, audiences can see these twists coming from a mile away. From the revelation of a modern-day simulation inDon’t Worry Darlingto the revelation of the new Jigsaw killer inSpiral: From the Book of Saw, there are plenty of predictable twists in mystery movies.
The Tourist (2010)
The studio behindThe Touristbagged one of the most lucrative A-lister pairings in recent memory with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in an exotic romantic thriller. ButThe Touristfalls apart when it arrives at a twist ending that’s both predictable and nonsensical. Jolie plays a femme fatale on the run from the feds who want to catch her tax-evading lover Frank, while Depp plays the unsuspecting traveler who she decides to pin with Frank’s crimes. The two characters end up falling in love during the journey, to the point that Jolie no longer wants to make Depp the scapegoat for Frank.
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But then, it turns out that Depp actually is Frank. This twist doesn’t make any sense and it’s also the most obvious way for the script to resolve the mystery of Frank’s identity. Twists that reveal the villain has been right under the audience’s nose the entire time – likeKeyser Söze inThe Usual Suspects– only work if the first two acts drop in hints and clues.The Touristjust takes a random left turn.
Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (2021)
Chris Rock set out to reinvent theSawfranchise with his police procedural spin-offSpiral: From the Book of Saw. The movie revolves around the search for a Jigsaw copycat killer, borrowing as much fromDavid Fincher’s grisly neo-noirSe7enas the previousSawfilms. With franchise staple John Kramer out of the picture, the big mystery running through this movie is the identity of the new Jigsaw. Rock plays Detective Zeke Banks, a hotshot cop on the trail of the new Jigsaw, and Max Minghella plays his new partner on the case, Detective William Schenk.
Schenk is creepy and suspicious from the first moment he appears on-screen, and Minghella makes no attempt to trick the audience into trusting the character, so no one is surprised when he’s revealed to be the copycat.
Identity (2003)
Ever sinceAlfred Hitchcock’sPsychoarrived as one of the most iconic and influential thrillers ever made, countless imitators have used dissociative identity disorder as a plot device. The same misrepresented mental illness can be seen inSplit,Black Swan,Fight Club,Primal Fear, andDressed to Kill, and it was even seen beforePsychoinDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Identitysets itself up as an Agatha Christie homage, playing onAnd Then There Were Nonewith a group of strangers convening at a motel where they get picked off one by one. But it quickly becomes apparent that the movie isborrowing more from Hitchcockthan Christie.
With its title alone, James Mangold’s psychological thriller gives away its DID twist. In the first half ofIdentity, the impending twist reveal about the villain’s multiple personalities is painfully obvious. The reveal is so predictable that in the second half, when he tries to kill the murderous personality, the film loses the plot.
The Visit (2015)
M. Night Shyamalan’s found-footage horror comedyThe Visitmarked a return to form for the director. He received his best reviews in years for the creepy low-budget tale of two siblings traveling alone to visit their mom’s estranged parents. From the offset, something seems off about Nana and Pop Pop as they run amok around the house at night, attack random people in the street, and wander the grounds armed with a shotgun. They never seem like quirky grandparents; it’s clear that they’re psychotic killers.
It’s a fun modern take on theRed Riding Hoodlegend with escaped psychiatric patients replacing the grandparents instead of a bloodthirsty Big Bad Wolf. But viewers can see that twist coming from the moment the fake Nana and Pop Pop pick them up at the train station. There isn’t a second that the audience actually believes that these deranged, violent people are really the kids’ grandparents.
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Olivia Wilde’s sophomore slump,Don’t Worry Darling, starts off witha similar premise toThe Stepford Wives. Florence Pugh plays Alice, a frustrated housewife who feels trapped in the domestic bliss of 1950s Americana and begins to suspect her reality is a lie. But it culminates in a much more baffling and heavy-handed twist thanThe Stepford Wives. The robot twist inThe Stepford Wivespays off the Disney Imagineer plant from earlier in the story and ties in perfectly with the theme of men controlling women in a patriarchal society.Don’t Worry Darlingdoesn’t stick the landingin quite the same way.
The ‘50s-era town that Alice inhabits turns out to be a modern-day VR simulation that her discontented husband trapped her in. This is exactly the kind of “it was all a dream” cop-out ending that audiences expect from these stories. It never makes for a satisfying conclusion, because it makes the whole dramatic endeavor seem pointless if none of it was real.
