The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A Conceptual Reversal Twist comes as part of a work that lulls the viewer into believing that they are watching one type of story before an abrupt reversal that usually comes at the very end reveals that everything one assumed about what was happening is not the case at all.
The two most famous Conceptual Reversal Twists are those that come at the end of Planet of the Apes (1968) and The Sixth Sense (1999), which offer jolting surprise twists about the protagonist’s conception of the world around them or who they are.
A famous Conceptual Reversal twist is the Deathdream Ending where the protagonist discovers that they have been dead all along or are in the process of dying. This, along with other twists such as that everything that transpired is All a Dream or a Virtual Reality illusion, has become a cliche from overuse.
The success of The Sixth Sense gave the ghost story the seeming need to have to pull last minute twists in every film made since to the point of frequent tedium. Such twists have also been popular in science-fiction works or Psycho-Thrillers that reveal characters are split personalities or imaginary.
The Conceptual Reversal Twist is very similar to the Conceptual Breakthrough Story where the protagonist comes to a new understanding of themselves or the world they live in, although not all Conceptual Breakthrough stories come with a Conceptual Reversal Twist. The crucial difference in the stories listed here it is the audience rather than the protagonist who makes a discovery about what they believe to be true.
Indie SF film where Denis Leary wakes up as patient in a psychiatric institution while he insists he has been awoken from cryogenic suspension in a future where he is awaiting execution
David Fincher tackles Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about secret brawling clubs. Maybe the only major studio film with an openly anarchist manifesto. Brilliant, incendiary, all over the map plotwise and thoroughly unique
A film about a couple who break down on a country road and seek help at a sinister farmhouse, before everything turns into Torture Porn territory. And then things get weird
At first glance, this seems a routine alien invasion film. However, this becomes a whole lot more watchable with a mid-film twist that turns what is going on on its head
A standout work that starts as Riz Ahmed snatches his two boys, fearful of alien body snatchers, before leaving us wondering if this is not all in Ahmed’s mind
Brad Anderson adapts an Edgar Allan Poe story about an asylum where the inmates are posing as the staff. This is lush period piece with an amazing cast line-up – the only surprise is that it did no box-office
This has an intriguing set up involving a child with an autoimmune condition that makes him allergic to everyday air and his journey to a sinister medical institute, before a completely WTF twist
Filipino ghost story inspired by The Ring and Ju-on films that generates a reasonable haunted atmosphere in its story about mysterious happenings in an apartment building. This later underwent an English-language remake
Maybe one of the worst cases of a trailer ruining the film by giving away the big mid-film surprise. The film itself is an absurdly contrived Shutter Island copy that has nothing else up its sleeve beyond its big surprise
This gives all appearance to being another copy of Insidious – a ghost story with an evil-sounding adjective for a title. The film settles in in predictable ways; then throws the ghost story angle on its head with a surprise SF twist
Solid offering from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason that takes more than a few leaves from Hellraiser with a ghostsbusting team investigating occult happenings in an abandoned asylum
James Wan has an exemplary track record in one’s opinion, you think this would extend to anything he produces. Here all we get are series of tired haunted house cliches before a twist ending that makes no real sense
Extremely confusing film in which Mike Vogel keeps waking up in different lives where he is pursued by creatures. Sort of like Dark City reconceived as a horror film.
South Korean ghost story that has borrowed most of its moves from the J-horror cycle – Ring, The Grudge et al. A relatively anodyne treatment is enlivened by a twist ending that draws heavily on The Sixth Sense
Psycho-thriller with Gregory Hines as a radio talkback host dealing with a psychopathic caller who plays a series of taunting games with him
Low-budget UFO/alien abduction film that mostly this just retreads familiar material, although it does evince a certain interesting state of rubber reality about what is happening
Micheal Bafaro is a justifiably obscure director whose entire career has been built on recycling other horror films. This is his version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which is passable until a Sixth Sense-styled twist ending
An interestingly strange and undeniably different film where two teens break into a house at Christmas time to find a mother who keeps her daughter confined lest the creature inside her get free
An excellent underrated science-fiction film that was way ahead of its time about a class of androids in a future fighting for their rights as they gain increasing self-awareness
Australian effort that seems to follow the path of Aliens/Resident Evil with soldiers venturing into a laboratory of amok monsters before a Philip K. Dick-ian twist on what we think is happening
Hideo Nakata will always be known as the director of the original Ring. Here he revisits the kaidan eiga in the story of a haunted apartment but the show falls apart after a confusing Sixth Sense-type twist mid-film
A family try to make it through the woods in the aftermath of a mysterious catastrophe while hunted by something unseen. Sort of a zombie apocalypse film without any zombies where the terrors are psychological
Ghost story that does an effective job of generating dread and eerieness while also existing in a place that leaves you unsure whether it is all not just occurring inside the lead character’s fraying sanity
Unexpectedly good film with Madolyn Smith as a woman living alone in a cabin in the woods and Malcolm McDowell as a caller where the two engage in a series of cat and mouse games where nothing is what it seems
For a long time, this effort about a girl experiencing nightmare visions on her family farm doesn’t seem to be doing anything – then gets interesting as it switches to a parallel reality where what happens is mirrored slightly different
Vincent Gallo’s muchly ridiculed directorial effort is an unbelievably indulgent film consisting of long, tedium-inducing scenes where nothing happens. It does arrive at a a surprise left field ending that travels into genre territory
One of the better 80s attempts to copy A Nightmare on Elm Street from an old Charles Beaumont script in which Bill Pullman is a neurologist who becomes involved in an increasingly wilder series of reality bendings
A film where you are struggling to find any easy labelling. What it is is an hilariously ultra-violent and over-the-top parody of an action movie that will have your sides splitting
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
Award-winning Darren Aronofsky film about the rivalry between two ballerinas. At heart though, this is no more than a Brian De Palma psycho-thriller with pretensions
Powerful film from Christopher Smith set during the Middle Ages about a group on a journey to a village where a priestess can purportedly raise the dead. The film’s skewering of faith in an unforgettable ending is stunning
Antonio Banderas is a writer with a block, Jonathan Rhys Meyers a sinister stranger who moves in. Lots of tense psychological games between the two begin only for the film to almost immediately blow the premise
An extremely good film that starts out seeming like a standard stalked babysitter effort before everything gets turned on its head with most pleasing results
Pål Sletaune is a Norwegian director who deserves more attention for his reality-bending surrealism. Here mother Noomi Rapace moves into new apartment where ghostly screams come through the baby monitor and she soon finds that she cannot be sure what is real
A classic British ghost story that produces an exceedingly haunted atmosphere at times, although falls apart in a highly contrived M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
The rapper turned filmmaker Flying Lotus directs a copy of Alien with an amnesiac crewmember of a ship landed on a hostile planet where the crew are hunted by an alien nasty
One of the better in the fad for Artificial Intelligence films we have had since the 2010s with Theo James trying to place his late wife’s consciousness into an android body
This seems a generic ghost story. The second half has the protagonist’s dead girlfriend trying to stop him seeing another woman and becomes a descent into obsession that works rather well
This highly charged work about race issues received a very mixed critical reception but I liked it for its clever M. Night Shyamalan-esque twistiness that messes with storytelling convention
Thai ghost story about a woman haunted by the ghost of her dead conjoined twin sister. This produces a mix of jumps that fall between the effective and routine but falls apart in a contrived twist ending
An early film from The Asylum set in a hospital for alien abductees, which director Eric Forsberg evokes with some paranoia and a great ending
Quiet a remarkable film – on one level ostensibly a psycho-thriller about a killer targeting blind women before conducting a unique reversal of perception to reveal something else altogether
Psycho-thriller that should have gotten better notice than it did. Katie Holmes plays an A-student at an Ivy League college who is stalked by a missing ex. Slick and coolly written, before arriving at an effective twist ending