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.
This was made before Ex Machina and has a surprisingly similar plot – although takes it even further in many regards – where a woman journalist goes to interview a tech genius and ends up in a romantic triangle between him and his android creation
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
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
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
Psycho-thriller that plays out like a creaky old deranged relative in the cellar film retooled as a teen romance until an absurd mid-film conceptual twist irredeemably kills the film off
An airport psycho-thriller that feels like wannabe Gillian Flynn that has been mounted as a vehicle for the talent-handicapped Sydney Sweeney. The whole plot hangs on a believability stretching mid-film twist revelation
A film of reality bending conceptual twists about a psychiatrist tending cryogenically frozen prisoners who then wakes to find that he has become one of the prisoners
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
The Austrian Goodnight Mommy was one of the most effective horror films of recent years. This is the toned-down English-language remake starring Naomi Watts as the mother
Film about a man in his home fearful of demonic forces attacking those around him, this comes with decent atmosphere and at least one highly effective twist
This feels as though the director, frustrated with lack of financing, grabbed a camera and shot a film around his home. This generates a modest creepiness but falls apart at a credibiity-stretching ending
Adrian Lyne became one of the most visually exciting directors of the 1980s. Here he makes an afterlife film that swings between moments of greatness and a script that seems very confused about what is happening
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
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
From the pen of Iain Reid who wrote I’m Thinking of Ending Things, an SF film about a man recruited for a space mission and the training of his android replacement. Expectedly, what is going on is shifting and pulls expectation out from under us
A haunted house film from Andrew Jones, who makes an okay but very low key film – the spookiest it ever gets is a phantom record player. Things are lifted by a modest M. Shyamalan-esque twist
From the director of The Last Exorcism Part II, a title that does nothing to suggest a horror film. All we get is a ghost story that does an M. Night Shyamalan shift into an improbably contrived fugue state drama
The Hollywood remake of the South Korean ghost story A Tale of Two Sisters that waters down and reduces the effectiveness of the original to generic shocks
A.I. film directed by Ridley Scott’s son. The set-up seems awfully similar to Ex Machina – unfortunately, this sidesteps any of that fascinating questions about A.I. that film dealt in, while the latter half just becomes The Terminator before reaching a frankly unbelievable twist ending that sinks the film
John Carpenter returned to the director’s chair after more than a decade but failed to light the world on fire. Carpenter makes what you could call a ghost story version of Girl, Interrupted. The scares are tame and the film is hamstrung by an improbable M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Lucky McKee, director of May and The Woman, makes a film about two men meeting at a cabin in the woods where secrets emerge amid psychological tensions between the two
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
Psycho-thriller with Gregory Hines as a radio talkback host dealing with a psychopathic caller who plays a series of taunting games with him
David Twohy has shown himself a standout screenwriter and director with the Riddick films but came unstuck with this effort where tourists in Hawaii come to believe their traveling companions are wanted killers. A film killed by far-fetched twists
Bollywood remake of a ghost story that comes with one of the cleverer M. Night Shyamalan conceptual reversal twists
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
This starts out seeming like it is going to be a regular Backwoods Brutality film about a regular family threatened by hicks before expectations are abruptly turned on their head
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
This is essentially The Sixth Sense rehashed as a teen horror film and conducted without any finesse – here you can see the twist ending coming miles in advance
Not to be confused with the Joss Whedon film, this starts out seeming like a weepy romantic drama before pulling one of the most absurd M. Night Shyamaalan-esque conceptual twists ever put on screen on us
A low-budget film about a journalist’s modern-day investigation into a secret village located near Salem, Massachusetts that results in paranoia and suspicious treatment by the locals
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
Film in which Christina Ricci fears her son is being drawn to a monster in the lake, this hangs around a very contrived twist ending
There have been some extremely good films about androids and A.I. in the last few years. This one about an android manservant is so ridiculous it should have been played as a comedy
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
A variant on the sinister child’s invisible companion theme. A fine cast has been assembled but the film goes and kills itself with a lame twist ending
Incomprehensible New Zealand film about a group of camp counselors being haunted by something as they run through the woods
US soldiers arrive at a chateau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II that appears to be haunted. In a conceptual reversal twist, everything is not what it seems
A film that mostly consists of amnesiac Air Force pilot James B. Sikking being questioned by psychologist Hector Elizondo. The film constantly hints at a big revelation before settling for one of the corniest twist endings
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
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
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
Another remake that nobody asked for. The 1990 film is reworked in a script that ditches almost all of the afterlife themes and instead seems to want to be a film about veterans addicted to reality-blurring drugs