The 10 Best Twist-Ending Horror Movies Ever, Ranked
Few things in cinema are as satisfying as twist-ending that is genuinely shocking. A good twist instantly changes your perspective and you will suddenly understand the events of the film in a different light. This list evaluates the best twists in the horror genre. Ranked with the best movie at the bottom, here are the best twist-ending horror movies ever made:
Spoiler warning: As this list is about twist-endings, reading the descriptions for each entry will give away plot details. Watch the movies before reading the descriptions!
10. Identity (2003)
Directed by: James Mangold
Identity is one of many murder mysteries based on the work of Agatha Christie. Ten strangers find themselves stranded in a downpour at a roadside motel. One by one, they start disappearing. We don’t find out until the very end that none of the nine people that get murdered are real—they are all personalities within the killer’s head. It turns out he’s been receiving an experimental rehabilitative treatment designed to help him “kill” all of his alternate personalities.
9. High Tension (2003)
Directed by: Alexandre Aja
This French horror movie is notoriously violent. It follows best friends Alex and Marie as they drive to Alex’s parent’s farmhouse for a break from school in the French countryside. Shortly after their nighttime arrival, Alex’s family is slaughtered by an intruder. Marie attempts to save her best friend. While some viewers say the twist-ending falls apart if you think about it too much, taken on a more dreamy/metaphorical level it’s a perfectly satisfying ending to a very scary film.
8. The Skeleton Key (2005)
Directed by: Iain Softley
This Southern gothic horror movie sees a woman named Caroline (Kate Hudson) take a job caring for a sickly elderly man and his wife on a remote Louisiana plantation. The house is allegedly haunted by Mama Cecile and Papa Justify, two servants who were lynched for teaching hoodoo to the owner’s children. Eventually, Caroline is spooked enough to use hoodoo to protect herself.
7. Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Directed by: Robert Hiltzik
In maybe the most bonkers twist ending of all time, a bullied girl named Angela is revealed to be a boy who was brought up as a girl after a boating accident killed the real Angela.
6. Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Directed by: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
An Austrian horror film about identical twins Elias and Lukas, who live in a rural home with their mother. When she returns from getting plastic surgery, the boys begin to suspect she has been replaced by a doppelgänger. In addition to her face being bandaged, their mother’s behavior seems to have changed, she is colder and punishes them harshly.
5. Carnival of Souls (1962)
Directed by: Herk Harvey
A psychological horror movie that opens with a woman named Mary (Candace Hilligoss) and her friends drag racing. After her car hurtles over a cliff, Mary emerges from the water below and swims to land, but there are no other survivors. She moves to Utah to work as a church organist, but Mary is continually drawn to an abandoned carnival on the outskirts of town, where she is tormented by the souls of the dead. It isn’t until the film’s end that we learn Mary died in the car crash.
4. Frailty (2001)
Directed by: Bill Paxton
Bill Paxton made his directorial debut with this unnerving psychological horror movie in which he also stars as the single father of two boys, Fenton and and Adam. One day the dad tells his sons that he has had a vision from God that he is supposed to “destroy demons” with his sons. To older son Fenton’s horror, “destroying demons” looks indistinguishable from murdering random people. Younger son Adam goes along with this dad’s visions, but Fenton suspects it is only to please his father. Years later Fenton (Matthew McConaughey) visits the FBI to report that he thinks Adam is wanted as the “God’s Hand” serial killer.
3. The Others (2001)
Directed by: Alejandro Amenábar
A haunted house movie set in 1945. Mother Grace (Nicole Kidman) lives with her two children in isolation after her husband Charles left to fight in WWII. Grace keeps the curtains closed as both children have an extreme sensitivity to light. The entire family hears odd sounds that make them fear the house is haunted, by ghosts they eventually refer to as “the others”.
2. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Directed by: Robert Aldrich
Legendary American actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford co-starred in this creepy psychological thriller about two aging sisters living together in a Hollywood mansion. Bette Davis is “Baby Jane” Hudson, a former child actress whose stardom was eclipsed by her younger sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford). Blanche’s career was then cut short because of a car accident (likely caused by Jane’s alcoholism) that resulted in Blanche needing to use a wheelchair. Still resenting her younger sister, Jane becomes Blanche’s sadistic “caregiver,” cutting her off from outside communication and cruelly torturing her while she plans a far-fetched Hollywood comeback.
1. The Sixth Sense (1999)
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Who does a twist ending better than M. Night Shyamalan? In his directorial debut, a child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) takes on the case of a boy named Cole (Haley Joel Osment) who is tormented by his alleged ability to see “dead people”. Initially skeptical, Cole proves to Malcolm again and again that his ability is real.
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