Funnily enough, Stephen King will often cite his friend John Irving in talks about how he starts with the end and finds ways to reach it after that. And then goes on to emphasis how he thinks this approach doesn´t work for himself, and he doesn´t do that.
Conversly Stephen King is someone who is frequently critizised for starting out with interesting concepts but more often than not having bad endings.
I loved the ending because I love Twilight Zone type endings.
I hated the ending because I don’t want Guybrush and LeChuck to be brothers and kids. Also: as much as I love Star Wars, it being everywhere for 30 years has turned references to it more grating than cool.
I am the type of person who also loves ambiguous or nonsensical endings. Like I said: Twilight Zone. I think a LOT about stories from Twilight Zone, heck, I have a huge collection of short horror stories from that era. Matheson, Bradbury, Campbell, Etchison, Tanith Lee, you name it. I probably have every story ever referenced in the Simpsons Halloween specials, and I actually have many stories that have been adapted to TV. I miss the bravery of shows like that.
So in short, it’s a memorable ending, and often, memorable is better than good.
Oh, Twilight Zone, how fantastic it was!
I still remember Billy, a 6-years-old boy with mental powers, he could do everything, literally, including erase his aunt’s mouth from her face.
It was frightening to me, back then…
Stop it! Or I’ll wish you into the corn field!
I think it´s sad that these days when the word “twist ending” is mentioned people instanly think of or mention M Night Shyamalan and not Rod Serling, who should really be considered the master of the craft. Remember he also came up with the ending for Planet of the Apes!
Wait a minute. Statue of Liberty.
THAT WAS OUR PLANET! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!
Long live Frinkiac.
A lot of Serling’s stuff didn’t just rely on twist endings though, often there was a great premise throughout the whole episode that was established from the beginning.
I think people associate Shyamalan with twists, because for a while he was nothing but twists, it was a crutch and a gimmick, resulting in worse and worse films all with twists.
He’s like a cautionary tale about twist endings - you can get away with one really good twist movie (Sixth Sense), but it will rapidly have diminishing returns if you keep using twists. You end up as “the twist guy” and not in a good way.
Oh yes I agree. Serling brought along many concepts and ideas that were so fresh and new and often way ahead of their time that he was kind of considered a rebel and an outsider in Hollywood who had to fight to get his ideas past censors and other suits. He´s of course much more then the twist endings.
I also think if there is a TV episode or a movie that isn´t worth watching at all after someone spoilt the twist in a single short setencence to you (or again after you saw it yourself), it really might not be that interesting to begin with.
I´m far too young to not have known the twists of Psycho or Planet Of The Apes way before even seing the movies themselves. They are still great to watch and repeatedly so.
if in the “twist” genre we include the Agatha Christie style (where the mystery is revealed at the end), she does not seem to have had diminishing returns. More ups and downs, yes. Maybe Shyamalan also has ups and downs. I liked the recent “the Visit”, for example. (and unbreakable). but did not like the last one, Split.
That’s not a twist really… a twist ending is where some basic thing you assumed all along is not what you thought.
It’s not like at the end of an Agatha Christie story you are suddenly told it all took place on Mars, or that the main character was a figment of someone’s imagination, etc.
Right, it’s not the same. 
That’s different. A “whodunit” murder mystery doesn’t have a “twist” at the end: the premise is set from the beginning and all the clues are set for the viewer or reader to follow along. The whole purpose of the story is to figure out the ending.
This is different from what M. Night Shamalamanamanan does, where you get one story which goes in a particular direction, only to “twist at the end” with an entirely new detail that changes the context of the rest. You are not “supposed” to figure it out as you go along; you are expected to passively follow the original story and be shocked when the “true story” is revealed.
Like mentioned above, this can be very satisfying and surprising if done right. Most of the time it just comes off as pretentious bullshit.
dZ.
I think it normally works best when you have no idea there will be a twist. If you’re expecting a twist (like in any Shyamalan movie, because you know he does twists) then you tend to just dismiss whatever happens for most of the movie, because you’re waiting to get to the twist. It’s like you can’t really get invested properly.
Another pitfall is if the audience preferred what was going on before the twist and the twist erases it all.
You’re right, it’s not the same thing. I was thinking they are similar because, once the viewer has come to expect a twist from Shyamalan (because of previous movies), he watches from the start like he watches agatha christie, i.e. he constantly asks himself “can this event not mean what it seems to mean?”
May I use this occasion to say how mighty overrated I think the Sixth Sense and it´s twist is?
First of, somehow I seem to be the only person who actually saw that coming. I wondered why it was never adressed throughout the whole movie that he had been shot at the beginning. Nothing about the healing process whatsover. Then I wondered what kind of social life that guy leads where the only person he hangs around with is a little boy that sees ghosts. And yes there is that dinner scene with his parter that is edited so it seems that she just intentionally ignores him, but was that really enough to fool everybody?
Also it´s not like the “character has been dead the whole time” thing hadn´t been done before up to that point.
An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge
Carnival Of Souls
Dead And Buried
Jacob´s Ladder
So I get the appeal might be in some of the shocking portrayals of the ghosts, but that twist…really everybody?
Well, in my opinion, the problem is when the story is not very interesting to begin with, or the twist is convoluted or illogical, breaking the suspension of disbelief. In other words, where the movie has nothing going for it and relies on the “twist” as a gimmick to make it interesting.
Yeah, it’s not like it’s the greatest movie ever, though I think for a lot of people it did work well as a twist movie (as long as you didn’t guess beforehand and just assumed it was going to be a regular supernatural thriller).
I haven’t seen Carnival of Souls or Dead and Buried, but in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Jacob’s Ladder, the person is not dead, they’re hallucinating in their final moments before death. It’s more of an “it was all a dream” twist… the Ewan McGregor film “Stay” also has the same twist
Yes, this is the crux of it… especially if it’s like the movie is just biding time waiting to get to the twist.