Stories with a REALLY major mid-story shift in tone, format, or genre?

Thanks for the recommendation. I found an eBook version and started reading it this evening. It’s great so far. (Haven’t gotten to the mid-story shift yet though.)

This movie trailer uses this idea.

Matrix has got to be on this list somewhere.

I’ll submit 28 Days Later for this list. It starts off as a zombie movie, then it becomes apparent that the movie is actually about the effects of isolation on a group of people under the influence of a charismatic and not quite all there leader. The Beach and Sunshine also explored this, and all three movies are Danny Boyle-directed and written by Alex Garland.

No. The shift happens very shortly into the film, and is just setup. It’s more a Sense of Wonder SF moment, as I’ve said before.

EvilMinion - good point about those Danny Boyle films. The shift in tone worked for “28 Days Later”, but for “Sunshine” I wish he had stuck with the movie he started with.

Meh- that’s as much a staple of zombie fiction as anything else. Ultimately everything still comes down to the zombies.

Maybe Event Horizon fits this? It starts off as a fairly straightforward mysterious-ship-in-space movie, and ends up as this whole paranormal, WTF?!, Hellbender horror flick kind of thing.

This was mainly because Ray Dennis Steckler, writer/director of this and other low-budget cheeseballs, got bored with his original plot halfway through and decided to change it.


The first time I saw Sneakers, its first 45 minutes or so seemed like a fairly lighthearted caper movie. It got a little darker when

the Russian consul is shot with Bishop’s gun and Bishop gets kidnapped.

On subsequent viewings, it’s not as jarring, but my friend and I in the theatre seeing it first time were like “Is this the same movie?”

Hope you enjoy it (I did, in spite of the twist)

Read a book called Oh Pure and Radiant Heart that shifted so much I fell off the edge of it.

It starts out as being about three scientists from the atomic bomb projects (Oppenheimer, Fermi and Szilard) getting transported into the 2000’s at the moment of the test blast as an unforeseen consequence, and living with a quiet average couple (Ann the librarian and Ben the devoted but boring landscaper) who live near the scientists’ old work site which has been turned into a museum. Focuses on 1) the culture shock each experiences in modern times 2) their feelings of guilt etc seeing documentaries and such about the blast, 3) human nature, through the lens of the history of nuclear development (vivid account of Hiroshima after the blast, painstakingly-researched bits about various nuclear tests). After adjusting a bit, the five of them go to Japan so the scientists can confront the results of their work.

I really liked Fermi at this point, as he was a quiet voice of reason to the other two scientists. Things were looking promising for his character arc- Ben had taken a liking to him and gradually realized Fermi was suffering depression (having adjusted to the 2000’s far worse than his fellows), and there was one kickass scene where MIB-looking American agents had sat next to him on a bench in Japan and tried to intimidate him. His crowning moment of awesome: “There were secret police in Italy, too. You don’t scare me.”

In the second half, which isn’t marked as a part 2 or anything, the witty and emotionally wringing stuff gives way to boring accounts of characters’ inner musings as they go for long walks, then the scientists and the couple get swept up in a strange Christian cult-y movement, which started when a bunch of stoners and hippies living in Tokyo listened to a speech Oppenheimer was pressured into giving. Ann’s enthralled with the scientists which causes tension between her and Ben, she falls asleep next to Oppenheimer and Ben thinks she’s cheating, and once they go back to America there’s some kind of strange stage performance with some dancers as cranes that ends up with the scientists getting shot dead (with at least a third of the book left to go) onstage by secret police in such a way that of the whole audience, only Ben and Ann know they’re dead. I don’t know what happens after that because I quit reading, but if you like radical changes in tone/genre you may have better luck than I did (maybe I was too invested in Fermi and Ben).

I feel some of these suggestions are missing the point. Sometimes the change in genre is the whole reason for the movie. It’s like complaining that Cowboy and Aliens started out as a western and turned into a sci-fi movie.

I dunno. Barton Fink starts out kinda weird and spends the whole movie ramping the weird up. It’s not exactly a sudden shift.

Blimey! :rolleyes: I’m not forcing anyone to listen to anything - I just made a suggestion, is all. You can listen or not bother. Whatever.

Still, if you must…

It starts out as an ‘as I walked out one midsummer morning’ folk song and turns into a searing description of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes by police at Stockwell underground station in July 2005. Almost an English version of The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol Lyrics here..

Thank you.

The City and the City was creepy and weird but not necessarily supernatural.

God, I hated that twist. Almost as much as I hated the shift in Sunshine.

There is a movie that came out in 2010 called The Perfect Host that has two dramatic mid-story changes. I originally watched it on netflix because I love David Hyde Pierce and at both points where the story changes I literally sat up and yelled “Holy Shit!”

The movie starts out with a bank robber looking for a place to hide out from the police and trying to talk his way into various people’s houses. He talks his way into DHP’s house only to end up being drugged and gagged because DHP is a psychopath and a murderer…apparently.

While it isn’t the best movie ever it is well worth an hour and a half of your time. You should see it if you haven’t already.

hmm. according to some of these definitions the film version of “Wizard of Oz” had a big shift - from "realistic"musical story of girl in Kansas to fantasy musical of girl in Oz. complete with color shirt.

Sorry, dude. Here in the USA we’re not that up on these sorts of thing, police shootings are all too common around here. Even after reading the lyrics I had no idea of what that was about.

Nice tune, tho.