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Top 10 Worst Movie Plot Twists

The worst movie plot twists often ruined what could've been amazing movies and instead made them laughing stocks.

By WatchMojoPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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These are the films you should turn off with 20 minutes left. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we're counting our picks for the "Top 10 Worst Movie Plot Twists."

For this list, we've chosen big screen endings that enraged, frustrated, or just plain bewildered audiences and critics alike. Before you watch any further, beware that this list will obviously contain spoilers.

When Katie arrives in North Carolina, it seems she has big secrets. As she starts to fall for a widower named Alex and becomes friends with her neighbor Jo, we learn more and more about her, even suspecting that Katie is a murderer. But it turns out that she isn't and her abusive drunk husband is just claiming that so he can have an excuse to look for her. So, is that this romance movie's twist? NOPE. The twist is that Jo is actually the ghost of Alex's dead wife and she has been making sure Katie is right for Alex throughout the whole film. Control issues much?

After he sanctions several terrorist attacks and blows up Iron Man's house, audiences were really excited to see the Mandarin in the flesh. Until they actually did. You see, it turns out the evil Mandarin is just a drunk British actor named Trevor Slattery. And this actor is as surprised to find out about his terrorist persona as audiences were; since he had no idea such things were occurring in his name. As is later revealed, the Mandarin was a lie invented by Aldrich Killian to cover up the fact that his disability cure was kinda… blowing up veterans... and that he was the real terrorist.

After four arguably dismal movies, plenty of people were more than ready to see all the characters in Twilight brutally murdered. And that's exactly what they got. Jasper, Jane, Caius, Marcus, Aro, Ringo, and others all get the chop in the final installment of this romantic fantasy saga. Except, gotcha! Because the battle sequence was just a vision being shown to Aro of what would have happened if there was an epic and awesome battle. Since Aro decides not to wage war, the coolest scene in the franchise is made irrelevant.

For a film about tricks, this caper thriller sure didn't know how to pull one off. A group of magicians is assembled by a secret leader. The plan? To rob insurance magnate Arthur Tressler. The only man who can stop them is FBI agent Dylan Rhodes, played Mark Ruffalo. You know, the less angry half of the Hulk. Luckily for the magicians, though, he's a bit of a moron. Except in reality, Dylan doesn't want to stop the Four Horsemen. Why? Because he's the guy that brought them together! So, we're supposed to believe that this guy has been able to make his way up the FBI, all while acting like a moron?

In this psychological thriller, Walter Sparrow is given a book called The Number 23. Played by everyone's favorite Grinch and least favorite Scrooge, the animal control officer slowly becomes obsessed with the book, especially when he finds out that the last chapter, Chapter 23, is missing. As the movie wears on, Jim Carrey's character slowly discovers that he wrote the book, and that the murder described in it is something he did in real life. Really?! Can't Jim Carrey go back to being the funny kind of mentally unstable, like in “Me, Myself and Irene”?

After 90 minutes of gritty realism, it looked like this crime thriller's climax would be realistic. After their shared girlfriend is kidnapped by a cartel, pot dealers Ben and Chon capture the cartel leader's daughter. An exchange is organized but a shootout erupts. Several characters die. Ben is wounded and he, Chon, and the girlfriend Ophelia all overdose to die together. Except that all this was just Ophelia's fearful thoughts of what might happen. In actuality, the good guys live happily ever after. And for some reason, so does the cartel enforcer who's also a rapist and a decapitator.

M. Night Shyamalan has a reputation for giving his films terrible twists, and this is no exception. The psychological thriller appears to be set in a rural village in the 19th century that is being terrorized by monsters. Or so it would seem. But in fact, none of this is true. The story is actually taking place in modern times and the village is one in which a small cult of people, many of whom are unaware of what really goes on in the outside world, is living in a secluded forest. The monsters? Just the village elders in fancy dress. The whole film is basically an over serious, two-hour episode of Scooby Doo.

From Shyamalan to Shyamalan, we return to the king of the god-awful twist. In Signs, Mel Gibson and his family slowly realize aliens have landed. The tension is slowly, and masterfully, built up until one weakness is found. Water. Yes, water. You know, that thing that's spattered all over the planet. That liquid that comes out of taps in everyone's house. That naturally existing phenomenon that literally falls out of the sky. Are you kidding us? The aliens are supposed to have superior intelligence, right? Guess not… Let's hope they don't come back with raincoats.

Robert Pattinson breaks into this top 10 again. This time it's for Remember Me, a film that, ironically, will be forgotten by history. What's this one's twist? 9/11. Yes, apparently if you're stuck trying to end a terrible romance film, throwing in an international tragedy in will do just fine. That's like if The Notebook ended with footage from Columbine. Lazy writing at its most emotionally manipulative peak.

Before we get to the worst film twist of all time, let's look at some honorable mentions, or rather, dishonorable mentions:

  • The Good Guy Is the Bad Guy, A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
  • Julian Assange Denounces the Movie, The Fifth Estate (2013)
  • Not the Publisher's Daughter, Swimming Pool (2003)
  • Bacteria vs. Aliens, War of the Worlds (2005)

The original Planet of the Apes flick is considered a classic and one of the greatest films of the late 60s. So when Tim Burton took the reins for a reboot, he already had the foundation of a great film ready for him to slap his name on. Instead, the director took out what's arguably the greatest twist in movie history and replaced it with… this. Needless to say, it pissed off fans, critics, and pretty much everyone with eyes. If this is the best twist humanity can think of, we deserve to be overrun by apes. Seriously, how does this make any sense?

Do you agree with our list? Which mind numbing, painful twists hurt you when you watched them? For more twisted top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.

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