Top 20 Horror Movie Plot Twists

it's hard to beat twists like this welcome to watchmojo.com Ovie's for this list we're looking at the very best times that horror films shocked us to the core with unexpected plot twists that left our jaws on the floor because we're talking about plot twists be warned there will be heavy spoilers ahead number 20 ester is actually an adult woman orphan we wouldn't be at all surprised if this 2009 horror movie turned a lot of prospective parents off the idea of adoption especially when you consider the terrifying twist after Kate and John adopt a young girl named Esther the two struggled to get their new family member to open up tensions mount as Esther manipulates her new family with only Kate suspecting something's wrong it causes proportional dwarfism she only looks like a child according to our records Leena Klammer was born in 1976 she's 33 years old in a truly shocking moment Kate learns too late that Esther or perhaps we should say lena is really a 33 year old woman who suffers from a medical disorder that stunts her growth not only that but lena is a cold-blooded killer why was she at your hospital she's dangerously violent she could seven people that we know of suddenly the kid from problem-child doesn't look so bad number 19 tom was the Invisible Man all along or was he the Invisible Man Leigh Whannell reinvented one of the universe's classic horror characters for the modern era in this 2020 film [Music] after barely escaping the clutches of her cruel tech mogul partner Adrienne protagonist Cecilia begins to believe that her ex is using cutting-edge invisibility technology to stalk her if you fight me whatever you I'll find someone you love and argue instead her terrifying suspicion proves correct but with a twist after the unseen assailant is shot and unmasked he's revealed to actually be a dreams brother Tom but even this revelation is thrown into doubt with Cecilia insisting this is just another facet of Adrienne's twisted plot it was you not your brother just goes to show that you cannot always believe what you see or don't see in this case number 18 Marie unmasked high-tension what begins as a quiet weekend of studying quickly turns nightmarish in this French horror thriller and if the shocking violence doesn't leave an impression the twist definitely well the story follows two college girls Marie and Alex who stay with Alex's parents in their secluded home to study but a sadistic killer arrives on their doorstep taking out Alex's parents and kidnapping her it's seemingly up to Marie to save Alex from certain death until we learned that almost the entire scenario has been a fantasy playing out in Marie's head and she's been the one naming her way through numerous victims so she can move it's a shame because besides the whole being the killer part she was a great protagonist number 17 the old couple is possessed the skeleton key FINA live-in nurse is a demanding and often thankless job under the best of circumstances never mind when there are paranormal shenanigans going on Susy Sam in the mirrors after being taken on to care for an elderly man living with the after-effects of a stroke nurse Caroline begins to suspect the man's wife violet a foul play this comes after Caroline finds a secret room filled with the tools of hoodoo magic in the Attic which is generally a red flag with something hinky is going on but rather than simply a practitioner of hoodoo violet is revealed to be possessed by the spirit of a hoodoo magician from nearly a hundred years prior it's harder every time I just don't believe what they used to we'd quit to number 16 it's all staged April Fool's Day a typical twist on a horror movie involves the identity of the killer or killers but the twist in this ad slasher takes a different route by revealing there isn't a killer at all [Music] Bing seen par for the course as far as slasher movies go when the bodies begin to pile up at a fancy party thrown by a group of old college friends but imagine the audience's surprise when it turns out the events of the movie were just an incredibly elaborate rehearsal for a murder mystery night and nobody was ever in any danger what's this all about and don't anyone say April Fool's again how's that for a twist this slasher movie wasn't a slasher movie at all number 15 the Ancient Ones the cabin in the woods after their cabin trip is spoiled by some pesky zombies friends Marty and Dana discover a massive facility full of monsters beneath the cabin and after a surprise appearance by Sigourney Weaver herself the pair learns the deeper truth that the events of the film were an elaborate ritual to appease a group of Elder Gods who want nothing more than to see groups of teenagers meet their messy demise again and again they wanna see us punished punished for what for being young you don't need a film degree to figure out that the ancient ones craving for routine carnage is as somewhat skating commentary on horror audiences crystallizing the film's deconstruction of tired horror tropes and imploring filmmakers to try something new maybe it's time for a change number fourteen those aren't the real grandparents the visit director M night Shyamalan s reputation as the king of the twist ending is somewhat well-deserved as most of his movies contain at least one shocking twist we made a decision you go we're having a great time yeah heck this isn't even the only movie of his on this very list the twists can get more than a little sale but there's just something about this one that gives us the creeps [Laughter] good afternoon after an odd yet seemingly innocent weekend at their grandparents teens Becca and Tyler receive a shocking revelation that those aren't their grandparents Nana and pop up you've been staying with those people the whole time this reveal comes hot on the heels of a number of strange occurrences the parrot experienced suddenly ratcheting up the already high tension to stratospheric levels number 13 red is a delayed us jordan peels electrifying follow-up to get out did not disappoint mixing great horror movie scares with a powerful undercurrent of social commentary even before you get to the shocking final reveal they can't hurt you you understand after narrowly escaping her tethered doppelganger with her life and family intact mother Adelaide seems to be in the clear [Music] except the audience's clued in via flashback that the woman we've been following for the whole film is the tethered [Music] Adelaide and her tethered were switched during childhood meaning the raspy-voiced red was actually the original out for revenge after being exiled below ground it's a twist that casts the entire movie in a new light just like a great twist always does number 12 Samara is now free the ring we're betting that up until this infamous moment in the 2002 remake of the Japanese horror sensation the protagonists were patting themselves on the back I'm supposed to help her it's okay now she's not gonna hurt you after all it's not every day you get to put the vengeful spirit of a dead child to rest but you forgot that you made a copy didn't you now your ex is dead and you have to continue passing the curse on in order to save your child great job in all seriousness the twist that the terrifying Samara was not put to rest by uncovering her grave and will continue to wreak vengeance on the living is still one of our favorites and we still can't see TV static without shuttering number 11 the call is coming from inside the house black Christmas in this 1970s Canadian slasher flick the residents of a sorority house are plagued by a string of obscene and disturbing phone calls but things just get worse when several of the residents are found dead and the killer is behind the obscene calls in the film's most iconic scene a telephone company employee frantically traces the location of the mysterious caller and eventually discovers that the calls are coming from a second line inside the sorority house oh Christ sakes Nash you got it wrong that's why the calls are going into that's where they're coming from it's a terrifying reveal one that kicks the tension in the film into overdrive with the revelation that protagonist Jess is far from safe despite being indoors and under police watch just tell them to put down the phone and walk straight out the front door number 10 the coagula procedure get out once again Jordan Peele manages to pull off a twist that's not only terrifying on the surface but casts the entire film up to that point in a new light white family black servants total cliche after meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time Chris begins to suspect something is amiss with the seemingly friendly couple phase one was the hypnotism that's how they sedate you face to his is the mental preparation following a series of unnerving encounters with the family Chris is hypnotized and wakes up bound to a chair a videotape informing him of his fate to have his brain removed so that a rich old white person can have his body instead so you won't be gone not completely a sliver of you will still be in there somewhere this twist itself a commentary on how black bodies and physicality are commodified by seemingly well-meaning white people cemented peel and the film as horror royalty number 9 it's all in the killer's head identity who am i speaking look at me Who am I speaking to right now in this horror / thriller from Logan director James Mangold a group of strangers find themselves stranded in a secluded motel and stalked by a mysterious killer but this isn't your run-of-the-mill slasher movie it's revealed late in the film that almost everything we've been seeing has been taking place inside the mind of a convicted serial killer why are you doing it because you owe one of his personalities the victims are actually the killers multiple personalities and they're being killed off as part of his treatment the it was all a dream or hallucination twist is honestly a little played out but this version offers an admittedly fresh spin on the well-worn idea to great effect where's number 8 mrs. Voorhees is the killer Friday the 13th well I have mrs. Voorhees an old friend of the Christie's the machete-wielding goalie mask wearing Jason Voorhees is without a doubt one of the biggest slasher icons but as horror aficionados are fond of pointing out he wasn't the primary villain in the first film in the Friday the 13th series watched every minute after a number of fellow camp counselors are brutally murdered the film's protagonist Alice discovers that the killer is in fact mrs. Voorhees the mother of a deformed boy who drowned while the counselors were shall we say distracted they were making love while that young boy dropped needless to say the revelation that the seemingly kindly old lady in a sweater is a crazed killer doesn't do much to make Alice [Music] number seven the girl isn't missing the Wickerman new sergeant are the right kind of adults before it was remade with Nicholas Cage and turned into an internet meme this 1973 horror film was a darling of British horror cinema the film begins when a police detective arrives at a small town on a secluded Island after a local girl goes missing but it quickly becomes clear that something is terribly wrong and that the villagers are part of a dangerous pagan cult you came here to find Rowan Morrison but it is we you have found you and brought you here and control your every thought and action since you arrived the detective suspects the girl might have been taken as a human sacrifice but it's worse the girl was never kidnapped and it was all a ploy to lure him to the island to serve as the sacrifice himself [Music] never six jigsaw is the dead body in the bathroom saw you're gonna be all right this infamous horror flick not only kicked off an entire franchise but arguably started a whole new sub-genre while the sequels went on to more gruesome and elaborate gore the first one keeps it fairly simple two men find themselves chained in a bathroom with a corpse between them and a hacksaw each the only way either of them can escape is to take that hacksaw to their own ankle after much bloodshed it's revealed that jigsaw the mysterious killer who orchestrated the whole thing has been in the room the whole time posing as the corpse lying between his two unlucky victims shocking effective and oh so twisted number five the family are ghosts the others this spooky atmospheric horror gem stars a woman named Grace and her two children who live in a secluded mansion following World War two as anyone might if they lived in a house this creepy looking grace begins to suspect that her home is haunted turns out she's right but not in the way she expected after a series of terrifying encounters with what seemed to be spirits it's revealed that grace and her children are the ghosts haunting the house and the visions they've been seeing are the new residents children if you look damned why do you remain in this house it's a clever in version of the classic haunted house scenario that caught most cinema goers completely by surprise they made contact number four what David needlessly does to his group the mist things look about as grim as they can possibly get for painter David Drayton in this family after a strange mist envelops their sleepy New England town monsters begin emerging from the strange fog and exterminating everyone they can get their tentacles pincers and claws on David and his son flee in their car along with some other survivors in a desperate bid for safety eventually the car runs out of gas leaving David to shoot his friends and son to keep them from a grisly or fate with not enough bullets to go round David leaves the car to be eaten by the monsters only to find the military has arrived to save the day [Music] talk about too little too late number three Stu and Billy are the killers scream surprise Sydney this trend-setting slasher movie revitalized the genre for a new generation by injecting a dose of self-aware meta commentary to liven things up what's the matter Sydney you look like you've seen a ghost this mainly takes the form of the teenage characters who recognize that the mysterious killer stalking them is following the traditional rules of slasher films namely stuff like if you have sex do drugs or say I'll be right back you'll be the next one to die but rather than just - horror movie fans familiar with the tropes of the genre the characters of billions - turn out to be the killers themselves making the horror movie awareness of the Ghost Face killer suddenly make a whole lot of sense because the space in Sydney your mother was no Sharon Stone number 2 Malcolm Crowe is a ghost The Sixth Sense I think I can go now the twist so infamous it started an entire meme remains a fan favorite even if it turned a promising new director into the twist ending guy the film tells the story of a young boy with the ability to see ghosts which obviously leads to a near non-stop parade of terrifying encounters with the unquiet dead things look like they're getting better when he meets a child psychologist determined to help the boy to make amends for a previous failure but in the end it's famously revealed that Bruce Willis's dr. Crowe is a ghost himself having died after the film's opening scene for cinema goers in 1999 it was one blown mind after another you endeavor second if I've said it once I've said it a thousand times but I love movie twists I'm the type of person who generally does not go looking for them so I rarely see them coming so I love that feeling of Oh number one is the og in that department for so many reasons so let's look through some honorable mentions and then we'll name our top horror movie plot twist Samoa was trapped and died behind the walls the orphanage [Music] johnny is Harry angel heart gonna kill Margaret and I didn't kill Krusemark I didn't kill knowing I'm afraid you did Johnny my name's Johnny well killed by your own hand guided by me naturally Mary was dead all along Carnival of Souls [Music] Sarah's escape was a hallucination the Descent Crispin Z and Felix planned the whole thing you're next you kill me I'll give you four hundred thousand okay before we continue be sure to subscribe to our Channel and bring the bell to get notified about our latest videos you have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them if you're on your phone make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications number one Norman Bates is the killer psycho mrs. Bates [Music] [Applause] even before the shocking reveal at the film's climax Alfred Hitchcock's horror opus already had audiences scared out of their minds but that ending just made things worse after watching numerous characters seemingly die at the hands of the apparently demented mrs. Bates audiences were stunned to learn that the killer was in fact her soft-spoken son Norman who had preserved his dead mother's body and taken on her identity even decades after the film's release and subsequent enshrinement in popular culture the reveal at the end of this legendary film remains the most shocking and memorable twist ending in the history of horror cinema [Music] [Applause] do you agree with our picks check out this other recent clip from WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos [Music]

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Keywords: Hplot twists in horror movies, horror movie plot twists, horror, horror movies, plot twists, shocking horror movie reveals, shocking horror movie plot twists, plot twists we didn’t see coming, shocking plot twists, horror twists, unexpected horror twists, orphan, the invisible man, the cabin in the woods, the visit, the ring, black christmas, us, get out, friday the 13th, the wicker man, saw, the mist, scream, psycho, the sixth sense, the others, watchmojo, mojo, list, top 10

Id: v5ly0u-rwZI

Length: 21min 32sec (1292 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020