It will be fun in fifteen-twenty years watching these more recent movies with a generation that hasn’t grown up with them.
I watched the original Planet of the Apes with my 15 year old brother in law. IT BLEW HIS MIND! He had no idea about the reveal at the end.
The Psycho homage, “Dressed to Kill,” also veers in a completely different direction after the first 30 minutes.
And, of course, if you want that sort of twist, there is Deathtrap. Originally a play, there was a big twist at the end of the first act, and further twists as things went along.
In DOA: Dead Or Alive, not only is the protagonist murdered early in the film, but he then tries to solve it himself!
Memento, somewhat similarly, starts with a Polaroid of a corpse - then you get to see, during the course of the film, how the guy got to being dead.
Like this dude did when his kids watched Empire Strikes Back.
I know it is hard to believe, but I actually watched Psycho not knowing that Norman Bates was the killer and had murdered his mother years before. When she turned around and Bates was there with a knife wearing a dress, it blew me away. I actually yelled a bit…and this was around 1996 or so.
I knew about Janet Leigh’s death, of course, but the whole cross-dressing psychotic killer storyline somehow avoided me my entire life up to that point.
I honestly thought the mother was the killer. I feel foolish now, but it was cool experiencing it in the same way(almost) as the 1959 crowd would have.
I had heard of Psycho but knew virtually nothing about the storyline when I first rented it on VHS back in the 1980s. Thing is, I had rented “Dressed to Kill” sometime before Psycho and had no idea of the similarity until after watching both films.
So, Dressed to Kill was even more astonishing for me because I watched it first! Angie Dickinson, the star, killed in the first half hour? Wow!
I think the “poster child” for this is 1996’s Executive Decision, which kills off a major screen star near the very beginning of the film (muuch earlier than Deep Blue Sea does).
Aren’t these just all ripping off Police Squad, the series that each week had the guest star killed before/during the opening credits?
(Yes, I know Police Squad was a comedy, and these are purportedly dramatic movies)
Not in the case of Executive Decision, I think. It seems clear to me that they wanted this to be a shock, not a riff on a comedy series gag.
How about the first minute or so of Team America: World Police, where they make it look like it’s going to be cheap puppets on a poorly-drawn background?
How Soon is the twist in Repo Man (1984)?
Brian
From the 2005 movie “Feast”. I think this comes about 5-10 mins in (I can’t remember exactly)
The guy who plays the “hero” is Eric Dane, too bad they couldn’t get anyone more famous for the twist value.
I forget whether the big reveal in the Crying Game happened early enough to be considered early by your definition.
Bruce Campbell dies so early in Congo that he doesn’t come within miles of a chainsaw, shotgun, magic book, or steam-powered Oldsmobile with a giant propeller on the front.
Too bad… it might have made that movie more watchable.
I very much doubt that Psycho was ripping off a TV show that aired 20 years after it was made. 
Zuckers invented Time Travel, you know.
Starring Guy Pearce, who also starred in the first five minutes of The Hurt Locker.
What about the boot camp sequence of Full Metal Jacket? That definitely ends with what could be considered a twist… and it’s about a half hour into the film.
Lot’s of good examples here. I’d also consider** Psycho **to be the prototypical early twist movie. Not just an opening shock which is quite common, but a complete and unexpected turn around in the plot of the movie.