Four Movie Twists That Make No Sense in Hindsight
A good plot twist will make you wanna watch the movie all over again to look for clues, but that’s exactly what filmmakers don’t want you to do. That’s because it might turn out that the whole reason the twist was so unexpected is because it makes absolutely no sense in hindsight. Sometimes, when you go poking around in the plot, all you get are holes.
Scream 6
The Twist: The police officer spearheading the investigation into the ghostface killahs who followed Sam and Tara all the way to New York City ends up being said ghostface killah, which should have been obvious as soon as Quinn, the girls’ roommate and his daughter, mentions that he recently transferred to the NYPD. What wasn’t obvious was that he’s the father of one of the previous killers, out for revenge, and his two remaining children (including, secretly, another character’s roommate) are his accomplices.
The Nonsense: Earlier in the movie, Ghostface is seen lurking around Quinn’s bedroom while she chatters obliviously on the phone, specifically by Sam’s love interest from a window across an alley, who then texts the group photos of Quinn being “attacked.” So exactly who were they staging that for? Why not just close the blinds while you squirt fake blood around and bang on walls? They presumably didn’t want him to see them, because he could have, like, called the cops or otherwise thwarted their plan. Fortunately for them, he upholds the series’ proud tradition of incompetent boyfriends, but he could have!
Now You See Me
The Twist: The mastermind behind a scheme carried out by a group of magicians to rob a bank and an insurance tycoon and frame Morgan Freeman for it is none other than the FBI agent who’s been trying to catch them, Dylan Rhoades. He’s the son of a famous magician who died trying to prove his mastery after Freeman, a magician debunker, debunked him, after which his life insurance claim was denied, and also, fuck banks.
The Nonsense: There are several moments throughout the movie when Rhoades is totally alone or otherwise has no reason to keep up the act when he does anyway. He’ll be chasing them down an abandoned alleyway and swearing at himself for losing them, like, who are you doing this for, buddy? Of course, he has to appear to pursue them, but maybe slow to a jog and chill out a little? He comes really close to catching them several times! What was he gonna do if he did? He also does weird stuff like accusing his partner of being the mastermind based on a conversation she wasn’t around for. Why? Did he get bored? During the culmination of his lifelong revenge scheme?
High Tension
The Twist: A woman named Marie is visiting the family of her friend, Alex, when a serial killer shows up and slashes through the entire family before kidnapping Alex. Marie follows, attempting repeatedly to rescue her friend, and eventually defeats the killer, at which point it’s revealed that the killer was actually Marie the whole time.
The Nonsense: If you’re going to do a Fight Club, it’s crucial that the two halves don’t interact with anyone at the same time, but Marie and the killer are constantly at odds in the presence of presumably very confused others. Specifically, when Marie trails the killer to a gas station, she hides and asks the clerk to call the police, but before he can, the killer enters the store. When the clerk leaves to retrieve something for the killer, he winks at Marie before getting axed for no apparent reason. So what actually happened there? That’s only the entrance to the plot hole so big that Roger Ebert described it as “not only large enough to drive a truck through, but in fact does have a truck driven right through it,” and he was only being kind of metaphorical.
The Sixth Sense
The Twist: You know this one. Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, it turned out no one but Haley Joel Osment ever spoke to him throughout the movie, and everyone’s mind was blown by the fact that they didn’t notice that. To be fair, that is a good twist. Got to give it up.
The Nonsense: Except when the two first meet, you can see in Willis’ notes that Haley Joel Osment was referred to him in September 1998. That’s presumably very recently, considering the movie flashes forward from the scene of Willis’ death to “the next fall,” or he’s one lazy psychologist. So who referred him? Sure, sure, “they see what they want to see,” but if Bruce Willis is imagining fake conversations with people, wouldn’t the person he’d most want to have fake conversations with be his wife? His notes are super detailed about the kid’s background and problems; how is he getting this information? Also, Haley Joel Osment is seen all over Philadelphia talking to someone who isn’t there. Now there’s a reason to call in a child psychologist.