AT NUMBER 20: MIDNIGHT STING
THE BUILD UP:
Having made the bet that his boxer Honey can fight 10 men one after another and win, Caine and the viewers are on tenterhooks when we see Honey face up to Hammerhead Hagan, the only fighter ever to actually beat Honey during their professional careers. this being a twist itself because Hagan is brought in as a surprise ringer. Bad guy Gillon moved him in as a county resident just before the bet rules were established, meaning that Hagan can legally fight. After a gruelling fight to the death, Honey somehow manages to defy the odds and win the day, exhausted he collapses, the good guys celebrate, but then a stunning new twist is revealed. Gillon screams “when is the next fight!” to which they reply “its done-there is no more!” but Gillon proves them wrong! Because one of the 10 Boxers did not enter the ring, he could have not forfeited the fight, which means that Honey despite finally broken and shattered has to fight once again. Enter Minoso Torres, a tough-as-nails boxer who ruled the boxing underground in the prison from which Good guy Caine was recently released. No one has ever defeated him. Gillon teases Caine with the words “Never try to hustle a hustler.”…and there seems to be nowhere back for the stunned good guys!
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
An exhausted Honey is no match for this dirty fighter and starts to get battered.. But just when it seems the bad guys have won, Caine whistles at Torres to get his attention, the fight pauses, Caine straightens his tie and does a thumbs-down gesture (copying a move Gillon did earlier in the film and to the shock of the viewers and Gillon. Torres drops his gloves and invites Palmer to hit him, to which he knocks him out. Caine was expecting such a trick from Gillon and bribed Torres long ago for a moment like this. Its a wonderful punch in the air feel good moment that will make you want to watch the film all over again!
NO.19
AMERICAN PSYCHO
THE BUILD UP:
Having seen Yuppie Patrick Bateman just go crazy and kill people while listening to music like Phil Collins, we get to the climax where Bateman is all set to confess his sins…..
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
Having confessed to his murders and one the verge of a nervous breakdown, we soon realise along with Bateman that many of his supposed victims are still alive and kicking, implying that everything we have seen up to this point was all in his head! Of course the Did he or didn’t he? debate still rages on after all these years but the beauty of this film is that it leaves it up to the viewer to decide!
NO.18
THE VANISHING
THE BUILD UP:
Whilst backpacking, Rex is devasted when he finds his girlfriend has been kidnapped by a stranger. Rex becomes obsessed with what happened to the girl he loved and it becomes nothing more than an obsession to find out the truth. A few years later, he finally comes face-to-face with the man who took his love away and to save Rex more heartache, the kidnapper agrees to tell Rex what he done to his girlfriend but first he has to drink a . Inviting Rex to the same café from which his girlfriend was abducted, the kidnapper tells him he will tell him the truth but first he has to drink a cup of coffee that has been laced with a sedative to make him sleep. When Rex awakes, he will discover the truth in what happened…..
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
Rex awakes to find himself buried alive in a coffin where there is no escape and in which he will stay there knowing he is going to die and the realisation that this is the fate his girlfriend went through. Such a stunning and shocking finale was too upsetting for the american public that had the climax changed for the awful re-make!
NO.17
THE WICKER MAN
THE BUILD UP:
Not the crap re-make but the classic original in which Edward Woodwood heads to a remote Hebridean island in order to investigate the case of a missing girl.
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT!
There was no missing child! The cop was only called there to lure someone to the island from the mainland. Fearing another poor harvest, the deranged locals were looking for a human sacrifice and the bone chilling finale shows that they had got their wish. Crazy Bastards!
NO16.
THE ORPHANAGE
THE BUILD UP:
When a loving couple moves into a former orphanage with their son, life can only get better or worse, especially when their son goes missing and soon the mother is haunted with a freaky looking ghost boy with a bag over his head. What is the link between her son’s disappearance and that of things that go bump in the night!
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT
In one of the most heartbreaking reveals in recent times, we find out that the noise she was hearing was that of her son, struggling to be heard after his mother locked him in the cellar by accident! We are told that after he died all alone in that cellar he came back as the ghost, leaving his mother heartbroken at what she done and all viewers stunned by the quiet dark finale.
NO.15
MEMENTO
THE BUILD UP:
In this modern classic by the man who gave us the new Batman films, this truly surreal mind bending film sees the viewer watch the film backwards, in which we follow Leonard Shelby, a man incapable of making new memories. which is hard while he is hunting down the people who killed his wife.
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
At the climax is revealed that his wife never died from the attack but from the hands from Leonard himself who made a mistake with her medication. With guilt eating away at him, Leonard has chosen to ignore this one major fact and actually exploit his condition, which means that he has a reason to live now, and hunt for the killers who actually did not murder his wife. Its a stunning reveal which automatically means that you lose all the sympathy you had for this man and you never be able to watch the film in the same light again!
NO.14
THE OTHERS
THE BUILD UP:
In a creepy old house, Nicole Kidman and her two kids are being tormented by ghosts in the night. The attacks are getting worse, and there seems to be no hope as we head to the finale!
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
The finale reveals that the Nicole killed her kids and herself in a rage and THEY ARE IN FACT the ghosts and the “ones” they have been seeing are actually living people!
NO.13
PRIMAL FEAR
THE BUILD UP:
Richard Gere comes to the defence of a seemingly innocent and kind altar boy accused of brutally murdering a priest.
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT!
Right at the climax after the smug Gere wins the case and saves the life of Edward Norton’s young character, we get the sucker punch moment where Norton reveals he was faking the spilt personality disorder and he is actually a ruthless cold killer, leaving us and Gere in full shock mode!
NO.12
FIGHT CLUB
THE BUILD UP:
Having created Fight Club and then telling people not to “talk about” Fight Club, both Tyler (Pitt) and the Narrator (Norton) watch as their project spirals’ out of control in which the Narrator decides its time to bring down his one time friend for good!
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
At the frantic climax the viewer gets the reveal that the narrator and Tyler are in fact the same person, a twist that is more remarkable given that the film is littered with clues through out! A stunning moment though in 90’s cinema.
NO.11
LES DIABOLIQUES
THE BUILD UP:
An affair leads to a wife to team up with his mistress to bump off their lover. When they do, an unexpected reveal shows that despite their planning, the corpse goes missing and there are sightings of him walking around, alive and well…
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
The missing body reappears in the family bathtub, and in a finale that has gone down infamous to all horror fans, starts to rise up and the poor terrified wife keels over and dies of a heart-attack, just as the headmaster and his mistress had planned. It seems this is what the lovers had planned all along. Dark and deeply disturbing!
NO.10
ARLINGTON ROAD
THE BUILD UP:
Jeffrey Bridges welcomes his new neighbours to Arlington Road but then soon suspects that his new neighbour (Tim Robbins) is a domestic terrorist.
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT
Not many films end like this especially action films but this stunning piece of 90’s fare left the viewers in a total state of shock when all the paranoia of Jeff is revealed to be true but it comes at an all mighty cost because the hero drives his car into the FBI headquarters where Robbins has hid a bomb, but as Jeff realises this mistake he runs to the car but its too late because the bomb goes off and he is ultimately blamed for the deaths of hundreds of people, leaving Robbins off scott free.
NO.09
THE MIST
THE BUILD UP:
In one of the best horrors in recent history, a mist decends on a small town carrying creatures that kills everyone in its way and after surviving for so long, Thomas Jane’s truck runs out of gas, leaving five survivors, including his son, stranded in the middle of the mist. With no escape in sight, and with despair in the air, all the survivours look at the gun and realise this is their way out from their misery Thomas shoots them all including his own son and then steps outside to be eaten by these monsters.
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT
The noise of the creatures he hears coming towards him is in fact the Army coming to save the day. Its one of the most cruel endings you ever likely to see, a total gut wrench that is so disturbing that I am actually laughing at it while I type.
NO.08
ANGEL HEART
THE BUILD UP!
Mickey Rourke stars in what is a probably his greatest role, plays Harry Angel, a washed-up private eye investigating a mysterious crook named Johnny Favorite on behalf of new client, Louis Cyphre
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT
When the climax arrives we discover that Louis Cyphre is actually the devil and the killings Harry is investigating and the killer he is trying to seek out, is actually himself…..a stunning reveal that is much admired to this day!
NO.07
OLDBOY
THE BUILD UP:
Having been kidnapped and held in captivity for 15 years, Oh Dae-Su is one day released and let go but is determined to find out the truth in why he suffered this ordeal. As he sets about planning his revenge, he meets and falls in love with a young girl named Mi-do, they have sex and plan for the future, but then comes the climax.
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT:
In one of the most disturbing twists of all time, we the viewer discover that Mi-do is in fact his own daughter, we learn, he’s been hypnotized to fall in love with his own daughter – and thus he has unwillingly had sex with her. It was all part of the captors plan and it left many viewers sick to the stomach. Great though!
NO.06
PLANET OF THE APES
THE BUILD UP:
Having crash-landed on an Alien planet run amok with taking apes, Astronaut Charlton Heston goes to the forbidden zone to discover the truth…….
THE JAW DROPPING MOMENT
Heston follows the shoreline and eventually discover the truth that Dr. Zaius warned them about. Heston falls to his kness and stares up in disbelief at an object not visible to the viewer. He flies into a fit of rage, screaming the infamous words, “We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! damn you all to hell!” In front of him is charred remnants of the Statue of Liberty where we get the truth that its not an Alien Planet but Earth, many years in the future……a Stunning reveal only spoilt these days for the newcomers because this infamous image is now on the DVD cover!
NOW THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A PRIZE.
If you can guess the final five in the right order, then you will be in with a chance to win a copy of the film that Ross Hughes has picked to have the best twist of all time. Remember its got to be the Top 5 in the order that Ross has put them.
Send your Top 5 to rosshugheshcf@hotmail.co.uk
The closing date is 27th August 2011……Good luck!
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