In 2018, a plot twist in a horror film is expected, it’s rare now to see a film that
doesn’t leave viewers with their jaws in their laps because a movies was completely
turned on its head.
But in the case of the films we listed today, they are just a handful of horrors that paved
the way for the plot twist trope, and have remained embedded in our brains since we first
encountered them.
Hey guys, welcome back to Top 5 Scary Videos, I’m your host Lucy McPhee.
Let me know down in the comments what your favourite horror plot twist is, and while
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Alright, let’s jump into our list of the Top 5 Plot Twists in Horror Films.
And warning, there are LOTS AND LOTS of spoilers.
Like, I literally spoil ever single movie on this list, so proceed with caution!
5 The Wicker Man The 1973 British film, not the Nicholas Cage
trash that we should never speak of.
The Wicker Man follows Police Sergeant Neil Howie as he travels to an isolated Summerisle
in search of a missing girl.
But as he arrives, he realizes the inhabitants are far more sinister than he initially thought.
Abandoning Christianity the group practice Celtic Paganism, and after Howie discovers
a series of photographs celebrating the annual harvest, with a young girl taking on the role
as the May Queen, Howie fears the group intend on sacrificing the young girl in some sort
of ritual.
On the annual May Day celebration Howie steals one of the islanders costumes, disguising
himself as Punch the fool in order to infiltrate the celebration.
When he does he finds the young girl, getting her free and fleeing with her through a cave,
but as they exit they are ambushed, and the girl happily returns to the people.
It is then that we discover she was never the true sacrifice, Howie was.
After the island leader, Lord Summerisle tells Howie that he fits their God’s four requirements,
he came of his own free will, with the power of a king, aka represented by law, is a virgin,
and is a fool.
The islanders then take Howie, and tie him up inside a giant wicker man statue, setting
it ablaze and letting him burn.
As his death draws near, Howie curses the island and the wicker man collapses.
4 The Others Now, I think we can all agree that this twist
left us ALL with our hands covering our mouths.
Honestly, over 17 years later, I’m still shook.
The Others follows a family living in an isolated manor house, with the mother, Grace, played
by Nicole Kidman, being forced to care for her two children who are plagued by an allergy
to light.
Grace hires three servants to help her with the house, Bertha Mills, Mr Tuttle, and a
mute girl named Lydia.
Throughout the film odd events begin to play out, such as the eldest child Anne claiming
that she has seen others in the house, a man, a woman, an old woman and a young boy named
Victor.
Even spooking her brother Nicholas by telling Victor to touch his cheek so he will know
that he’s real.
Grace begins to hear footsteps around the house, and finding unlocked doors that were
once locked.
In one of the more intense scenes, Grace sees an old woman in one of the rooms, and attacks
her, before realizing she has just attacked her daughter Anne.
In the pinnacle scene the children awake, screaming for their mother after all the curtains
in the house have been removed, forcing Grace to banish the servants after accusing them
of the act.
After they leave, Bertha Mills orders Mr Tuttle to uncover the gravestones, which we learn
they have been hiding from the family.
Leading us to believe they are spirits tormenting the family.
Later the servants return, requesting to speak to the children.
Grace tells them to hide upstairs and out of sight, and this is when it’s revealed
to us that the servants had died of tuberculosis more than 50 years ago, before telling Grace
that she should go talk to the intruders that are upstairs with her children.
This is when we finally learn the true twist of the movie.
The intruders are performing a seance, attempting to contact the dead after being tormented
by spirits.
The spirits being Grace and her two children, who she had killed before shooting herself.
It’s a shock to learn the protagonists of the story we’ve been following have been
dead the entire time, and oh boy was it well executed.
3 Psycho The film that started it all.
Released in 1960 and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho follows Marion Crane on the run after
stealing $40,000 from her employer.
Taking back roads to avoid the fuzz, Marion stops at Bates Motel to seek shelter during
a heavy rainstorm.
It’s here that she meets the charming owner, Norman Bates.
He invites her for a light dinner before she checks in, she agrees, but as she waits in
Norman’s home she overhears an arguments between him and his mother, Norman later goes
on to reveal that his mother is mentally ill and refuses to let him lead an independent
life.
Her dinner with Norman leads Marion to have a change of heart, planning to return the
money she stole the next morning, however, she sadly doesn’t survive that long, as
she’s slaughtered in the shower by a shadowy female figure.
A week after Marion’s death her sister Lila begins to investigate her disappearance, leading
her to the Bates Motel.
After a series of events Lila finds herself hiding in the basement to escape from Norman,
it is in this moments that the true twist of the film is revealed.
Lila finds Mrs. Bates in a chair, turning her around we discover she is a mummified
corpse, just as Norman runs in wearing his mother's clothes, a wig, and wielding the
kitchen knife he used to kill Marion.
2 The Sixth Sense Arguably one of the most highly regarded plot
twists on our list, almost all first time viewers of this film NEVER saw the ending
coming.
Nor did I.
The Sixth Sense follows a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe, working with a troubled child
haunted by ghosts, Cole Sear.
To backtrack, the film begins with an altercation between Crowe, and one of his former patients,
Vincent, who accuses Malcolm of failing him.
Vincent shoots Malcolm before turning the gun on himself.
We then jump forward in time, to the relationship between Malcolm and his wife.
It’s grown cold, and they’ve become distant.
Malcolm spending most of his time focusing on his sessions with Cole and his wife occupying
herself with work and a new man friend.
After a handful of sessions with Cole, Malcolm believes him to be delusional and considers
giving up on him, but after going back to listen to old session tapes between himself
and Vincent, he hears weeps amongst the white noise, begging for help.
Finally believing that their may be some truth to Cole’s secret.
The film take us on a supernatural journey, following Cole and Malcolm uncovering the
reasons for some of the lingering ghosts, but at the very end of the film we are finally
met with our big reveal.
When Malcolm comes home he finds his wife asleep in a chair with their wedding tape
on the TV.
In her sleep she asks him why he left her, he of course said he didn’t.
It’s then that Malcolm comes to the realization that perhaps he did.
He thinks back to the conversations he had with Cole about ghosts, and realizes that
people have been ignoring him, almost like he wasn’t even there.
He begins to see cold breath coming out of his wife's mouth, and turning around he discovers
the bullet wound in his side.
Thus confirming to us that he’s been dead the entire time.
1 Saw Now this is perhaps my favorite plot twist
on our list, simply because of how simple, yet OBVIOUS it was.
I mean, looking back, how did we miss this?!
But let’s start at the beginning.
Saw begins with two men, Lawrence Gordon, and Adam waking up in a bathroom with their
ankles chained to the walls.
And between the two is a bloody corpse holding a revolver and a cassette player.
Both men discover they have tapes on them, informing them of their fate.
Adam’s tape tells him to escape, whereas Lawrence’s tells him to kill Adam.
They soon discover a bag containing two hacksaws in the toilet, Adam breaks his attempting
to cut through his chains, throwing it away in frustration.
Lawrence quickly learns that the hacksaws weren’t meant for the chains, they were
meant for their feet.
Forcing Lawrence to cut off his own foot to escape Jigsaw’s trap, and shoots Adam in
order to save his family who are being held hostage by a man named Zep.
Zep enters the bathroom to kill Lawrence, stating that those were his orders, but the
still alive Adam overpowers him, and kills him.
Lawrence crawls out of the now open room in order to find help, leaving Adam chained to
the wall.
He begins to search Zep’s body for a key but only find another tape recording, revealing
that Zep was just another victim following Jigsaw's rules.
After this reveal, the corpse in the middle of the room begins to rise up, removing the
fake gunshot wound on his head, revealing himself as John Kramer, aka, Jigsaw.
He tells Adam that the key for his chains were in the bathtub he first woke up in and
that escape was always available, except unbeknownst to Adam they key fell down the drain when
he was freaking out.
Thus sealing his fate.
Well there we have it!
What do you guys think?
Don’t forget to leave me a comment down below telling me what your favorite plot twist
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If you want to continue on this horror binge make sure to hit that playlist floating above,
and until next time, see ya later.