5 Shocking Villain Plot Twists In Film History
Audiences enjoy a good story twist, and a twist in a movie might be about anything. There have been narrative twists including the narrator’s identity, the two main characters being the same person, and the entire novel being a psychological experiment.
A story twist is nastier when it reveals something startling about a villain whom the audience was already scared of. Darth Vader’s “I am your father” announcement is undoubtedly the peak of the villain-based story twist, although there are plenty of other excellent instances.
- The Train Crash was Mr. Glass’s Plan (Movie: Unbreakable)
While the twist in The Sixth Sense doesn’t hold up after several viewings, the rug-pull at the conclusion of M. Night Shyamalan’s follow-up film Unbreakable is a typical Shyamalan twist. The narrative centers around Bruce Willis, a security guard who realizes he possesses superhuman strength after surviving a train catastrophe.
Throughout the film, a comic book nerd played by Samuel L. Jackson, called “Mr. Glass” owing to his fragile bones, expresses interest in David’s skills. Mr. Glass, it turns out, purposefully provoked the train wreck (as well as several other catastrophic mishaps across America) in quest of a real-life superhero.
2. The abduction of Amy was planned and fake (Movie: Gone Girl)
This revelation was only startling to viewers who hadn’t read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl before seeing David Fincher’s adaptation, but the disclosure is just as stunning in the film (which Flynn wrote) as it is in the novel.
Throughout the first half of Gone Girl, evidence accumulates that Nick Dunne has a hidden dark side and that he did something terrible to his missing wife Amy. As it turns out, that’s exactly what Amy wants everyone to believe. She meticulously planned her own kidnapping and left a detailed trail of breadcrumbs to divert the detectives from the truth that she had just fled her troubled marriage.
3. Esther is not a kid, rather a mature serial killer (Movie: Orphan)
At the start of Orphan, a couple who has lost their kid decides to adopt Esther, a nine-year-old girl played by Isabelle Fuhrman. From the start, it’s evident that something is wrong with Esther – but no one could have predicted the twist.
Esther, it turns out, is a 33-year-old serial murderer who uses her uncommon hormonal illness to disguise herself as a child and prey on an unsuspecting family.
4. Jigsaw was the corpse on the floor. (Movie: Saw)
Two individuals wake up bound to pipes in a dark, seemingly abandoned toilet in James Wan’s low-budget horror masterpiece Saw. There’s a corpse lying unmoving between them, which is assumed, and they begin attempting to find out who kidnapped them and why.
Toward the end of the film, there is a shocking disclosure that the corpse between them is the Jigsaw murderer, the man who abducted them, alive and well. He quietly climbs to his feet as the climax approaches.
5. Surrender of John Doe (Movie: Se7en)
Se7en, another Fincher film, is a gruesome horror spin on the “buddy cop” genre. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt play a seasoned investigator on the eve of retirement and his hotshot rookie colleague, who is thrilled about his first important case. The perpetrator they’re looking for is a serial murderer who was motivated by the Bible’s Seven Deadly Sins.
In the middle of the film, when “John Doe” is still a few killings short of the full seven, he appears at the police station and surrenders. This proves to be a pivotal stage in his devilish Biblical game, since Pitt, Pitt’s lover, and Doe himself are to be the final three victims.
