I started this thread to try to figure out just what the Hell was going on at the end of Tobe Hooper’s Night Terrors. Nobody had any ideas.
What movies do you remember where the plot and/or the ending just didn’t make any sense? I don’t mean it’s a dumb plot/ending or a cop-out or an overworked cliche or just plain unbelievable, I mean you just don’t understand what’s going on.
And how do such movies get released in the first place?
“One Missed Call” was fairly okay, but the ending left me more than a little confused. I had the wrinkled nose syndrome after the credits started rolling, unable to figure out exactly what the ending was supposed to communicate.
It’s a Japanese-language film with subtitles, and the premise is that this group of friends starts getting missed calls and messages on their cell phones, but the calls are date and time-stamped several days in the future, and the messages are usually innocuous ones from their friends.
For example, one girl gets a missed call on her cell and a message date and time-stamped a couple of days into the future and she hears another girl’s voice on the message saying it was about to rain, or something like that.
A few days later the girl is on the cell phone talking to her friend, and she hears the friend repeat that exact phrase. She has a moment of deja vu, then the friend is horribly killed.
Repeat ad nauseam with different friends, different messages at different times in the future and that’s how the movie rolls out. It gets down to the predictable one targeted victim left alive and the guy trying to help her unravel the convoluted mystery of why this is happening.
There are a few creative and innovative things in the movie, particularly mid-way when one of the targeted girls becomes the subject of media frenzy and reluctantly agrees to be on one of those Jerry Springer-esque shows at the suspected time of her death to see if it’s really going to happen.
Well, it does, and I’d have to say that’s one of the few moments of the movie that made me spill my popcorn. It’s quite startling, IMO.
But the ending is just confusing and doesn’t wrap anything up. Maybe it’s not supposed to. 
Maybe leaving it open for One Missed Call 2? Yikes!
Well Magnolia certainly deserves mention.
(I’m not going to spoiler box nor specifically mention the ending. If you’ve seen the movie, you obviously know what I’m talking about.)
Though the ending has been much-discussed, I still never got it.
Yes there are biblical references to it occurring but so what?
Also I get that the characters accept and react to what’s going on with little surprise but again, so what?
Overall not a bad movie though.
The most recent one for me was The Uninvited Guest (El Habitante Incierto). The very ending made sense to me, but not the half hour to forty-five minutes that lead up to it. From reading the IMDB boards, I was not alone. No one seemed to understand it… I guess we’re to believe the main character had a breakdown, or imagined it, or something Lynch-like.
A few months ago I also watched They Came Back (Les Revenants) and I have no idea on earth why it ended the way it did.
The plot of the movie is that the dead return to life and resume their lives. Literally resume, not zombie shambling. It’s pretty compelling, right up until the living dead decide to run away to start blowing shit up for no apparent reason. Obviously they need to be killed again at this point, since the living can’t just have buildings crumbling around them without provocation. Since there’s no hint of motive as to why the formerly dead act the way they do, it leaves most viewers deeply puzzled.
I didn’t understand the ending of 2001: A Space Oddysey until I read the book.
“The Quiet Earth.”
Sir Rhosis
I believe he was gated through the anomaly to another planet (actually a moon
circling a gas giant). Since he could breathe and the temperature was amicable,
I’d assume there would be other life forms, perhaps even the humans which
“disappeared” earlier.
Oh: my vote probably would go to the ending of the Marky Mark remake of Planet of the Apes.
Planet of the Apes. Not the one with Charleton Heston. The other one.
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. When I first watched it (on video) and the end credits started to roll, I stood up and shouted “WHAT THE FUCK?” to my empty house.
Upon reading some analysis of it and rewatching it, I understand it better now, though there are still some elements in that I don’t get.
Nor did I – and then it all seemed so obvious in hindsight.
I swear to Og, your post wasn’t there when I posted!
Yargh, I hated the book’s ending. In fact, I’d rather be mystified by the movies’s conclusion than believe the crap Clarke came up with (though I loved the rest of the book). But blue goop? Come’on.
V For Vendetta. Having not read the graphic novel, I completely lost suspension of disbelief by the end of the movie. I shoulda kept a “waitaminute” chart. Here’s a brief list:
[ul]
[li]Where does this V character get a couple dozen truckloads of Guy Fawkes costumes? Does he have an army of costume slaves hidden somewhere?[/li][li]How is it that the general population, portrayed as living a relatively safe and comfortable life under tyrrany, decide to rise up all at once with zero resitance?[/li][li]In a surveillance society, no one notices V planting explosives and fireworks by the trainload?[/li][li]In a country where disappearances are a regular occurance, Evey’s boss produces a TV show that is not only highly critical of the high chancellor’s politics, but also executes the high chancellor’s character on-screen while expressing sympathy for V - yet he’s surprised when the goons raid his house?[/li][li]V was able to absorb dozens of bullets before dispatching eight armed guards… because he was wearing a bulletproof breatplate? What about the rest of his body?[/li][li]V made a general invitation for everyone to come to the Parliament building, the people storm past the military guarding the building, but somehow they all know to stay far enough away because it’s going to blow up.[/li][li]The government knew about a possible threat to Parliament from the Underground, so they don’t sandbag the tunnels, and cut the tracks? This is assuming that the electricity was already cut off, the Underground having been abandoned a decade ago.[/li][li]It turns out that V didn’t need to worry about loading a subway car with explosives, because Big Ben was clearly packed to the rafters with C5.[/li][/ul]
Oh, and they way the production carved up the 1812 Overture was painful.
Malice. If you’re in the mood for a less-than-Shakespearean thriller, it’s great. Then after watching, I tried to actually go back and collate all the facts, and it makes no freaking sense at all.
The all time champ in this category for me would be **Primer . I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to convoluted plots. I followed The Usual Suspects on the first viewing, ditto for Memento. I watched Primer twice, and I still have no idea what the hell happened. It helped my pride a bit when I was at a con recently, and several clearly non-dimbulb panelists admitted the same thing. And yet, others have claimed that the film does, in fact, make sense.
Now it’s bugging me, so I’m going to have to watch it again. :rolleyes:
I was certain someone would mention The Time Bandits. The whole movie was a hilarious romp until the very end, when the parents touch the lump of Evil™ and explode while the firemen just wave at the newly-orphaned kid and drive off.
WTF?!?
Anything Anime.
Great minds think alike ivylass!
Eyes Wide Shut - I kept waiting for the plot to develop, then the movie just finished.