Yahoo News All of M Night Shyamalan's movie twists ranked
He's the master of the surprise ending, never knowingly straightforward in his storytelling, but M Night Shyamalan, Mister Twister himself, has had some notable successes and some serious missteps.
While we're still digesting the multi-twist he hit us with in his newest movie, Glass, come with us to revisit Shyamalan's earlier films and see which of his twists were magnificent misdirections and which were a load of old nonsense.
8. The Happening
This much-maligned eco-horror starts with so much promise. One afternoon, people in New York randomly start killing themselves. Builders fall from scaffolding like acorns. A woman stabs herself with a hairpin.
A cop shoots himself; a cabbie retrieves his gun to do the same, all of a sudden the world's gone to s**t and no one quite knows why. Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel embark on a cross country journey hoping to find safety and answers.
The Twist
Turns out the plants did it. They were releasing a neurotoxin to kill off the pesky humans who were threatening them. Not only does Mark Wahlberg apologise to some potted greenery, he also runs away from the wind. Then at the end it just stops for no reason. And then it starts again in The Louvre because... Nope, still no reason.
7. Signs
Shyamalan's follow-up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable came with a lot of expectation riding on it. And this too begins with a promising premise. A lapsed priest (Mel Gibson) and his family discover crop circles at their farm.
More start to appear across the world, along with strange lights in the sky. Then the animals start getting aggressive. Is it aliens? Are they benevolent? Could this be the end of mankind as we know it?
The Twist
Turns out, no, it'll be fine because the aliens are fatally allergic to water, of all things. Bit of a schoolboy error to invade a planet with a surface that's around 70% water then, you might imagine. Also, what happens when it rains?
6. The Village
Olde-worlde villagers in a 19th-century Pennsylvania settlement remain within the boundaries of the woods for fear of the deadly creatures that lurk there, setting up a constant vigil.
When a member of the community gets sick, one of the villagers (Joaquin Phoenix) wants to venture to a neighbouring town to fetch medical supplies but he is forbidden.
Eventually, permission is granted for his blind girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) to make the trip. But what about the monsters?
The Twist
Actually there are three twists. Two good ones and one stupid one. Before she sets off, the village elders tell BDH that actually there aren't monsters in the forest at all and it's been a ruse – the elders dress up in monster costumes to dissuade people from leaving the village.
So off she goes into the woods. But then: argh! She is attacked by a monster, which she manage to trick into falling down a hole and dying. Only: oh no! It wasn't a monster after all, it was the mentally challenged bloke from the village who quite fancied her and now he's dead.
Oh yeah and then we discover that it's not the 19th century, it's the modern day and they all live in the middle of a wildlife preserve where they've been since the '70s in an encampment set up by the elders.
Apparently they pay the government to keep it a no-fly zone and the Park Ranger service to make sure no one ever comes in, so most of the villagers don't realise they could have, like, TVs and fridges and penicillin and stuff. Sounds like a lot of effort to us. And, like, controlling and possibly abusive?
5. Devil
Ok, this tale of five people stuck in a lift wasn't actually directed by Shyamalan but he did write and produce, and its twisty B-movie credentials have him written all over it. The devil has come to earth and trapped a bunch of guilty souls in an elevator, offing them one by one when the lights go out. But which of them is it? Tension mounts, paranoia abounds.
The Twist
It's basically And Then There Were None with a Satanic twist. The old lady who is found hanged midway through faked her own death and is in fact the devil. But she doesn't get to off Logan Marshall Green's hit-and-run perp because he confesses before she gets half the chance.
She buggers off back to hell or wherever, the lift starts working again and LMG achieves closure by apologising to the bloke whose wife and kid he killed.
4. Split
Shyamalan had his biggest hit in a long time with Split, in which a man with multiple personalities kidnaps Anya Taylor-Joy and her two cannon-fodder classmates while he waits for a superhuman, semi-mythical personality called 'The Beast' to emerge.
It's mainly an excuse for James McAvoy to go wild on screen, but it makes for an enjoyable tense and weird psychological thriller.
The Twist
Less a twist than a complete surprise from out of the blue, the final scene of the film reveals Bruce Willis sitting in a diner and butting in on a conversation about "that crazy guy in the wheelchair that they put away 15 years ago". The speaker is talking about Mr Glass, which makes Willis Unbreakable's hero, David. Split is set in the same world – laying the groundwork for the third movie, Glass.
3. The Visit
After making terrible, convoluted but not especially twisty fantasy films The Last Airbender and After Earth, in 2015 Shyamalan returned to his roots with The Visit, a taut horror thriller with a solid fist-in-the-mouth twist.
Two teens go to spend five days with their maternal grandparents who they've never met due to their mother's estrangement from them (over her choice of husband). Nana and Pop Pop are all very sweet, but it must be said they're a bit freakin' weird and very insistent that the kids stick to a strict 9.30pm bed time.
When the kids leave a hidden camera to film what's going on, they see some strange things. Then they show the footage to their mum...
The Twist
... Who panics because that's not actually her parents at all! When the kids try to escape they're forced into a hostile game of Yahtzee before discovering the bodies of their real grandparents in the basement.
Turns out they worked at a mental hospital and the two imposters are murderous patients. The teens battle the gramps, escape and are reunited with their ma.
2. Unbreakable
An excellent twist on the superhero genre featuring an origin story, super power and an arch villain.
Samuel L Jackson plays Elijah, a man with a rare bone condition which makes him fragile and prone to fractures. Bruce Willis is David, a guy who seems to be quite the opposite, a man who has walked away unscathed from accidents where others have been hurt or killed.
Elijah mentors David and helps him to develop his powers further – not only strength but also an ability to see the criminal acts carried out by those who touch him. He fights crime. Until...
The Twist
... Elijah invites him to shake his hand and David learns that he'd been the orchestrator of various accidents including the train crash David survived which killed 131 people, in order to find someone just like David.
He declares himself to be the arch villain to David's hero. So David calls the cops and Elijah is institutionalised.
1. The Sixth Sense
Not in fact Shyamalan's first movie but the one that propelled him into the limelight and established his twist abilities.
It was nominated for 6 Oscars including Best Film and Best Director and the twist isn't the only thing that makes this a great movie. But the twist is awesome. Bruce Willis plays child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, who's working with a young boy called Cole (Haley Joel Osment) who says he sees dead people (who don't always know they're dead).
Crowe is distant and estranged from his wife but manages to help Cole by encouraging him not to be afraid and to help the dead folk find resolutions and move on.
The Twist
Because of course, Crowe himself is dead, having been shot and killed at the start by a former patient he felt he had failed. Working with Cole, he comes to terms with his perceived failure and returns to his now bereaved wife to tell her he loves her. It is totes emosh.
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