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.
A group of friends travel to Ireland and go on a tour searching for magic mushrooms. In between assorted drug hallucinations, someone or thing begins slaughtering the group
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.
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
A film from the Pang Brothers in which a heroine enters into an extraordinarily conceived fantasy world that would appear to be taking place in her own imagination
Quite evidently modelled on Se7en even to the lookalike title, this is the novelty of a Christian serial killer thriller. The results are quite strange to say the least
This starts out as a seeming ghost story without creating much tension then features Tom Sizemore going psycho, before arriving at one of the most confusing of all attempts to conduct an M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Incomprehensible New Zealand film about a group of camp counselors being haunted by something as they run through the woods
Japanese director Shion Sono has emerged as an increasingly worthwhile name in recent years. This is an admirably twisted and perverse work that leaves you quite flabbergasted
Marc Forster film that starts in with a beautifully filmed sense of disquiet mood and eerie reality disjuncts but loses it when it opts for another M. Night Shyamalan 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
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
Stephen King adaptation with Johnny Depp as a writer in a cabin in the woods harassed by mysterious stranger John Turturro. Screenwriter David Koepp directs a marvellously chill Turturro with lots of twisty surprises
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
Fascinating film from Brad Anderson where Christian Bale is subject to a series of reality blurrings. What hangs over the show most of all is Bale’s intensely physical performance for which he lost a third of his body weight to turn himself into an anorexic shell of a human
M. Night Shyamalan creates three-quarters of a tense and eerie film about a 19th Century village under siege from mysterious creatures only for it to fall apart when he produces a damp squib of a twist ending
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
The film that made the world take notice of Alexandre Aja. Aja serves up a brutal and gore-drenched variant on the Backwoods Brutality film, although things fall apart in an absurd twist ending
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
A South Korean ghost story that achieves quite a degree of spookiness, albeit influenced by the Japanese Ring phenomenon, although things fall apart at a confusing twist ending
John Cusack leads a star cast line-up in what appears to be a slasher where a group of people gathered at a motel are being killed by someone among their number. Big conceptual twists then ensue
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
An adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story in which Gary Sinise plays a man who is dragged away by security accused of being an android replacement that has a bomb implanted inside him
Borrowing the Blair Witch aesthetic, Brad Anderson makes a highly effective minimalist horror film about a group of working men encountering something during the clean-up operation of an abandoned asylum
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
Alejandro Amenabar directed ghost story made not longer after The Sixth Sense that works with nicely subtle effect and arrives at an unexpected twist ending that turn the standard haunted house tale on its head
The English-language remake of Open Your Eyes, starring Tom Cruise. The Spanish version is still the superior of the two but this stays surprisingly faithful to the original
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
A directorial outing from Bill Paxton, a strikingly original film quite unlike anything else where Paxton plays a man who has religious visions and invokes his sons to murder what he calls demon
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
The film that made the name of M. Night Shyamalan and still a strong and spooky story despite the variability of Shyamalan’s offerings since then. What made the film a classic was its twist ending, something that has been relentlessly copied by numerous genre films since
Excellent film from Alejandro Amenabar in which a handsome playboy finds himself in the midst of a baffling series of reality flips before arriving at an SF twist ending
An old fashioned Victorian ghost story based on a James Herbert novel, this suffers a very laidback pace but is redeemed by its left field twist ending. Produced by Francis Ford Coppola
What seems a routine low-budget action film is propelled into the decidedly watchable by a bizarre Philip K. Dick-ian twist that comes mid-film
Gerard Depardieu is being interrogated by police inspector Roman Polanski over a murder he cannot remember. Solid, well constructed drama that is turned on its head with a surprise ending
Psycho-thriller with Gregory Hines as a radio talkback host dealing with a psychopathic caller who plays a series of taunting games with him
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
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
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
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
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
Classic horror film about good and evil twins that creates a good deal of sinister effect and arrives at a much imitated twist
The film that started it all. This takes what could have been a jokey premise and delivers it in bold, exciting stokes. What elevates the film is Rod Serling’s script. filled with embittered soliloquies that become a biting commentary on the human condition, before the film reaches one of the great cinematic twist endings
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