24th May 2021
Best Plot Twists
I’ll be perfectly honest, I’ve spent the past 5 months hoping that 2021 didn’t turn out to be the biggest plot twist of our lives. But on the other hand, I also happen to be a huge fan of stories that spin around so quickly they leave you with whiplash. So in this edition of your favourite blog, we’ll be exploring the moments in books, films, and TV shows that left us reeling.
? Be warned, spoilers lie ahead, so approach with caution… ?
p.s. I am single handedly the worst person at preemptively guessing where a story is going, so forgive me if you totally saw these plot-twists coming from a mile away – I certainly didn’t!
INCEPTION
Okay so technically this one isn’t a plot twist, but it certainly could be depending on how you interpret the ending. If you don’t think the spinning top falls, then Cobb would still be dreaming… in which case: plot twist! Perhaps the beauty of never knowing whether he is or is not in reality is actually the plot twist itself?
PARASITE
The Kim family manage to each get hired by the Parks and end up temporarily moving into their swanky house while their employers are on a camping trip. All pretty stock standard stuff until you find out that the former housekeeper has been keeping her husband in the basement of the house.
ZOOTOPIA
The bunny cop movie we all love and totally expected to give us the “Mayor is a bad guy” cliche. Then it’s revealed to actually be the under-appreciated assistant who orchestrated the entire scheme to frame predator animals as uncivilised and feral.
THE UNINVITED
After losing her mother in a horrific fire and being confined to a psychiatric facility, Anna returns home to find her father dating her late-mother’s nurse. Anna and her sister become convinced the woman is evil and the sister ends up killing her. But, when Anna tries to explain everything to her father, we learn that the sister also died in the fire and Anna has been imagining everything.
CABIN IN THE WOODS
Five stereotypical college friends go away for the weekend to a remote cabin in the woods, but out there waiting for them is the absolute shock of their lives. But this is not your typical slasher movie, no.
Basically, the entire vacation has been arranged by a secret organisation so they can be sacrificed to the Ancient Ones.
THE BOOK OF ELI
This one starts out as your usual post-apocalyptic story with a mysterious protagonist seeking to protect his most prized possession (a book) from an evil warlord by using his outstanding mercenary skills. Well, our protagonist also happens to be blind but we only find that out after we learn he’s a fairly perfect shot.
KNIVES OUT
So I know I said this post was going to involve spoilers, but I just can’t bring myself to spill the beans on this one because you NEEEEEEED to watch it. I’m not kidding, it’s an amazing film that will have you guessing and regeussing every few minutes as all the pieces start to fall into place.
US
Our protagonist Adelaide takes her family on vacation where she grew up and has an unwelcome run-in with a family that look exactly like them – yikes! The absolutely shocking plot twist is that when Adelaide was younger, her doppelgänger choked her unconscious in a house of mirrors, imprisoned her underground, and returned to the surface to take Adelaide’s place.
WRECK-IT RALPH
Look I knew right from the start that King Candy wasn’t a great guy, all round not very cool. But I definitely didn’t realise his entire identity was a lie. Who knew someone like Turbo could so easily assimilate into and take control of a fun pop racing game – wild!
EXAM
I hope none of the academic staff have seen this film, I get nervous that they might think it’s an excellent idea they should implement. Essentially, during the middle of a viral pandemic in Britain (I know, a bit too realistic), eight candidates are invited to take part in a top-secret interview for a prestigious job where there is only one question – but it’s not super clear what that question is because it’s not on the exam paper. Cue the usual amount of cheating and trying to get the others disqualified. Turns out the question was posed by the invigilator before the exam even started – “any questions?”
LAST CHRISTMAS
This one follows Kate, a down-and-out twenty-something living in London. Her overbearing mother worries about Kate’s health, as she only recently received a heart transplant. Kate fears she will never make it as a singer, until the day she meets the charming Tom who inspires her to get her life back on track. The only catch, Tom isn’t real and was actually the guy who donated his heart after his death.
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
Being an avid fan of Supernatural means I’m pretty much desensitised to characters dying off, it’s like “oh sure, but they’ll be back in a few episodes”. But I honestly did not expect a popular franchise to go ahead and actually kill off half its characters, especially ones we all thought were ‘safe’. I was in complete disbelief that Thanos managed to snap his fingers.
THE GOOD PLACE
Hard for anyone to have missed this epiphany online (it dominated social media for weeks), but Eleanor realising the Good Place had been the Bad Place the whole time left me shocked.
BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA
This one hardly needs any explanation… I know for a fact we all cried right through the last part of that film and let me tell you, having read the book beforehand did absolutely nothing to prepare me for it.
BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP
The story follows Christine, a woman who has to relive each day for the first time due to suffering from anterograde amnesia (she cannot form new memories) following a vicious attack. Every morning she wakes up and must become reacquainted with her life and her husband. Only it turns out he isn’t her husband at all, but actually the man who attacked her.
LITERALLY ANY AGATHA CHRISTIE BOOK EVER
I’m being serious, I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s work so I simply could not choose just one of her books for this list. The stories will take you on hundreds of twists and turns as you convince yourself a new person was the true culprit every few pages. In the end, either everyone did it, or no one did it.
ENDER’S GAME
Ender is recruited by the International Military force because of his excellent strategizing skills. He takes part in the necessary training through games designed to simulate their future battles against an alien race. Only does he realise at the end, that these were no games, but in fact he was responsible for the real-life genocide.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
The format of the book leads you to think that Eva is writing letters to her estranged husband and has lost custody of their daughter after their son commits a school shooting. But in the end, we learn that both the husband and daughter are dead all along, having been murdered by Kevin.
THE BOOK THIEF
I knew this was going to be a terribly sad book right from the beginning, but as I was reading I thought to myself, ‘surely there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a happy ending’. But no, everyone Liesl knows dies. Sure if you reread the book with knowledge of the ending, it’s obvious that the bombing of Himmel Street was foreshadowed, but I did not see it coming the first time.
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
If you’ve seen the film then this won’t make any sense whatsoever, but the book lovers will understand. After Howl and Sophie manage to kill the Witch of the Waste, only then do we discover that the Witch’s fire demon, Miss Angorian, was the real villain all along.
