I just have to assume you had the opportunity to freeze-frame some of the key subliminal shots. I saw just one the first time through, but we recently rented the DVD from Netflix (or saw it on On Demand – I forget which) and watched carefully for all the places the gimmick is used. There are quite a few.
I’m still REALLY pissed about that one. I’ve never been so mad after a movie viewing in my life (if you don’t count Star Wars I-III).
My condolences on your crappy job made worse by serving rude idiots.
I was lucky enough to see The Sixth Sense in the theater early in it’s run without any idea of the twist, or that there was a twist to expect. It was amazing and was so powerful that I can get goosebumps on my arms from remember my reaction to the scene where he begins to understand…and we understood as well. The most amazing bit was the scene where he is late to his anniversary dinner. The first time I saw it I thought she was pissed off and a bit bitchy. The second time I saw it, she was heartbroken. Same piece of film. Amazing.
Yes, you would have. They owe you a set of treatments at Lacuna.
No Way Out was fantaastic.
I also thought Primal Fear with Richard Gere and Ed Norton was great. I’m usually pretty good at figuring that stuff out but no one had told me that there was a “twist” in that one so it was completely unexpected - which is how these movies should be judged. It always gets a little irritating when people know that there is a twist coming and then don’t like the movie because they thought the twist sucked.
Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan. I had no idea that was coming. I sat in the theater with my mouth hanging open, and then I cried until after the credits finished rolling.
Keyser Sose was a huge surprise too.
A lot of good plot twists:
The ending of Psycho would have been one, if someone hadn’t let it slip.
Cary Grant confronting Geirge Kennedy, James Coburn , and Ned Glass in the hotel room in Charade (and it’s only 1/3 of the way into the film!)
Kathleen Turner going into the Boat House in Body Heat.
The assassin’s shot in The Sting, not to mention the ending of The Sting.
The Scene on the Boat between Richard Benjamin and George Mason in The Last of Sheila
All of them really good “What th-----?” momemts that make you question all your previous assumptions.
Two things, first off, is it possible to either spoiler the spolier OR bold the name of the movie. Whenever I go through threads like this, I try to scan each post for the movie name, if I haven’t seen the movie I try to move to the next post without reading anything. If the movie name were bolded, this would be easier.
Second, one of mine. This wasn’t my biggest surprise, but since no one else is likely to mention it amongst the other things mentioned here. On Golden Pond, I was pretty surprised he didn’t die at the end. I really didn’t expect that.
I came in here for this exact scene.
Boondock Saints when the cat got shot. I was at my friends house when he still lived with his parents we were upstairs and when the cat got shot I literally yelled, “Holy Fuck!”. Thank goodness his parents were not home.
The end of Jumanji. It’s more surprising when there’s a twist in a movie that you don’t even know there is a twist to. (Of course, now everyone knows there’s a twist to it, but it’s not like someone would see it now after reading this that hasn’t already seen it…)
Near the end of Carrie. The hand.
What twist?
Here is my list of major movie surprises:
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**Sixth Sense **- I also saw it opening weekend and wasn’t looking for a twist. I thought it was good and I can still remember the moment when I thought, “He’s been dead the whole time!”
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Psycho - Somehow, I did not know the ending to this. I was blown away and freaked out.
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The Star Wars prequels. I remember early in 1999, just before the Phantom Menace, I assumed they would be fantastic. Seeing how bad they are now, I still can’t believe how surprised I was.
I knew the ending, but when they find Mother in the fruit cellar… holy crap.
The whole time before the end, they were actually still in the artifical reality created by the game, even before they opened up the game again. The game started when they first played the game in the 50’s-60’s and then never stopped. So once they finish the game, the last scene reverts back to them playing the game for the first time, and they continue on with their 50’s-60’s lives rather than with their pseduo-1990’s lives. (I forget exactly when the first scenes were supposed to have taken place, and perhaps I missed something in the beginning that establishes this as not a twist?)
Yikes, that one really got me, too. When I saw Carrie in a crowded theater, there was a collective gasp from the audience. I bet there wasn’t a dry seat in the house.
The scene revealing the real world in The Matrix was quite the surprise the first time through.
Similarly themed Vanilla Sky’s and The Thirteenth Floor’s twist endings.
The return of Samara in The Ring, after you already found out who killed her and her body was removed from the well.
12 Monkeys’ circular plot.
Clue
Mr. Green: They all did it. But if you wanna know who killed Mr. Boddy, I did. In the hall. With the revolver. Ok Chief, take’em away. I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife.
You will always be my hero for introducing me to that movie years ago, Cal.
It wasn’t a surprise/shock like many of you, but I was amazed at how… lovingly Tarantino shot the heroin scene with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Usually drugs aren’t depicted as giving pleasure, but that was the entire point of the scene: not to show that JT is a bad man, or that his life is going down the gutter because of it, but that he used because he enjoyed heroin.
Please tell me you watch these at home and didn’t do all that shouting in the theater??! :eek: 
I was watching **The Barbarian Invasions ** and all of the sudden they show what he is watching on TV, but the TV screen filling the whole movie screen: the plane hitting the second tower. I had avoided all footage of it and to see it for the first time years later, on a huge movie screen was…AAAAHHHH! Very shocking.
And I knew what happened to her but to see the depiction of Lavinia when they first see her in the field in Titus…AAAAHHHH!
12 Monkeys I am easily confused when women change their hair styles. In the film Bruce Willis has these flashbacks/flashforwards to his own death and in them a woman with long reddish hair is seen. I totally freaked out when Madeline Stowe, who has been in the film with her usual long brown hair, dyes her hair red and becomes the mystery woman.