That actually took me out of the movie and actually turned me against it. Sure it’s a GREAT visual. It’s also nonsensical and silly.
Regarding the end of “Seven” I actually assumed the box contained not Paltrow’s head but her fetus. So when it was clear what it was from the wisps of hair coming out of the box…I was…can I say this? Disappointed.
And he wouldve gotten away with it, too, if not for those meddling… oh wait, he did get away with it.
That caught me off guard too. I didn’t really think much about the Bruce Willis character during the movie, so it was a cool ending. And it all been cleverly pulled off in the film. Hard to believe the same guy made it that did all those other lousy movies.
“Jesus Camp”. Not just watching kids be indoctrinated, but being able to clearly see the transition boundaries in many of the kids from “innocence recoverable” to “irreversibly brainwashed” was heartbreaking.
In a similar vein, The Waltons had an episode where Elizabeth was harrassed by a poltergeist. That really, really creeped me out as a youngster!
What’s the name of that short movie that someone made with all of the old ladies sitting around playing Russian Roulette?
That was fucked. up.
I went into that movie completely cold. I mean that not only did I not know what the twist was, but I didn’t know there WAS a twist, so I wasn’t even thinking along those lines. I hate horror and ghost movies anyway, so my mind was just on enduring it until it was over. It caught me completely flat-footed.
Heh, I came to post this. A truly great movie that I will probably never see again.
My favorite, horrifying scene:
When they leave the family home and the girl turns back and briefly sees the pile of dead, naked bodies stacked like cordwood against the back of the house … and doesn’t tell the boy
But there are so many horrifying scenes it is hard to choose.
Gak!! Noooo!! Why did I look at the spoiler? Why?! Sigh.
Love that show. I’m right at the end of the first season (or ‘series’ as the Brits call them).
The Sting. In my defense, I was kind of young when I saw it (14 or so), but I was very surprised when Redford opened his eyes.
I don’t know that I’d ever seen a movie with a ‘twist’ ending prior to that.
Same for me. Can’t remember the circumstances - I think I was out of the country when it was released to theatres? - but I knew nothing about it, I mean nothing at all. Yeah, now that I think about that’s exactly what it was, my husband and had been overseas a few months, had just returned home, were still jet-lagged, and went into the video rental place looking for something not too involved that wouldn’t require too much from our fuzzy brains. We see a Bruce Willis movie, called the Sixth Sense, there’s also a kid on the cover… surely it’s your typical Willis action movie where he shoots stuff and things blow up and this kid is probably, like, the President’s son or something that he has to save. Maybe there’s some sort of ESP plotline, who knows, mindless action flick, here we come.
So we just had NO idea whatsoever what we were about to watch and were just stunned. The movie wouldn’t have had nearly the effect on me if I had known anything about it.
The guy who showed it to me thought it was hilarious. I have no idea why.
The ending of the pilot episode of The Shield.
Also, the ending of Frailty. Shocking on its own, then shocking again when you realize that Bill Paxton totally went for the implications of THAT ending and the studio behind him totally approved it.
Sunday’s Game. The have it on Youtube. It is a cute little indie short film. I encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to watch it for a quick pick-me-up.
I’d completely forgotten about that movie. That WAS shocking.
I went into the movie knowing there was a twist but not what it was. I was so totally engrossed in the movie that I forgot to look for the twist. It knocked me for a loop too. If I had seen it on TV I probably wouldn’t have been so into the movie and been able to figure it out. I still think its a great movie.
Requiem for a dream.
It just spun so out of control it was like piling pain, upon pain, upon pain.
The chest burster in the original Alien pretty much came out of nowhere.
The shower scene in Psycho because we thought Janet Leigh was the protagonist
Private Pyle’s suicide in Full Metal Jacket because it seemed he was beginning to get his shit together.
I passed out about half an hour into Haneke’s The Piano Teacher.
Tried to get out of the movie theater, only managed to make my way into the corridor, started to lose vision, stumbled into the men’s room and crashed to the floor.
The end of The Usual Suspects. The reveal in The Crying Game would have been, had I not known the secret before walking into the theater. My girlfriend at the time thought it was one hell of a special effect…
But the scene that first came to my mind when reading the OP was this bit, during the basement gunfight in Donnie Brasco. The clip shows a pretty surprising and bloody gunfight, where Bruno Kirby, Michael Madsen and Al Pacino lie in wait in a darkened basement to ambush three other Mobsters. The gunfight goes messily, but all three of the members from Donnie Brasco’s family make it through relatively unscathed…Until they start cleaning up the bodies at 2.35 of the clip and you’ll see Al Pacino’s character casually shoot Bruno Kirby’s character in the back of the head, like Pacino was turning off a light switch. It was intended by the director, Mike Newell, I’m sure, but the casualness of the killing was far more shocking to me than the gorefest that preceded it.
The ending of Katyn was shocking too, but more horrifying that unexpected. (Kind of like Titanic—we all know how the story’s supposed to end.)