- 07/04/2025
These movies ended up in a completely different place from where they started.
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00:00It's fair to say that most movies let you know precisely what they're about from the
00:03first few scenes, establishing a style, mood and narrative through-line which endures until
00:08the end credits roll about two hours later, but not all filmmakers are interested in just
00:13giving audiences precisely what they expect.
00:15It's a risky trick to shift genre, reinvent style or just take the story to a wholly unexpected
00:20realm, which of course threatens to alienate less adventurous punters who may end up feeling
00:24manipulated, but when it works, it really works.
00:28I'm SciForWhatCulture.com and these are 10 Movies That Are Totally Different By The End.
00:3310.
00:34From Dusk Till Dawn
00:36Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn begins as a modest yet pulpy thriller in which two
00:40criminal brothers, Seth and Richie Gecko, take a family hostage while fleeing to Mexico.
00:44It's as grimy and foul-mouthed as you'd expect from any Tarantino-penned thriller,
00:48yet that first half is ultimately just setting the stage for one of the most legendary genre
00:53shifts in cinema history.
00:55At the midway point, Rodriguez's film reveals itself to be a secret B-movie, that is an
00:59action horror film filled with bloodthirsty vampires and cartoonish supporting characters
01:04who look like they fell straight out of a comic book.
01:06By film's end, when Seth and Kate emerge as the only survivors from a night of hilariously
01:10over-the-top brutality, it couldn't seem much more divorced from the opening sequence
01:14in which the Geckos hold up a liquor store, no vampires in sight.
01:18For many movies, such a stark shift would simply tick the audience off, yet in From
01:22Dust Till Dawn's case, the second half is such an absurdly entertaining, no-holds-barred
01:26blast that few have ever bothered to complain.
01:299.
01:30Audition
01:31Takashi Miike's filmography is so absurdly eclectic, spanning from yakuza thriller to
01:35war epic to family comedy, that you can't ever be fully sure what you're about to
01:39see from him until the end credits have actually rolled.
01:42His 1999 film Audition, for example, begins as a seemingly down-the-line romantic drama
01:47in which a lonely widower, Shigehara Ayama, holds a series of mock auditions in an attempt
01:52to find a new wife.
01:53One gets the sense that Miike thoroughly enjoys toying with the audience throughout the film's
01:57first act, which is basically played entirely straight as an earnest melodrama.
02:01Though the object of Shigehara's affection, Asami, certainly acts oddly throughout the
02:05film, it isn't until the third act that Miike lets loose with a full-on stomach-churning
02:09horror show.
02:10Asami, who is revealed to be a jealously deranged psychopath, drugs Shigehara with a paralytic
02:15agent, tortures him, and then uses a wire saw to cut off one of his feet.
02:19The nightmare scenario only ends when Shigehara's son returns home and kicks Asami down the
02:23stairs to her death.
02:24That's quite the escalation from a bereavement dramedy that Miike offered us in the opening
02:2940 or so minutes.
02:318.
02:32Million Dollar Baby
02:33When you start watching Million Dollar Baby, it looks like the most typical Clint Eastwood
02:37movie ever made, a well-crafted, if familiar drama that sends the masses home happy.
02:42From its very first scenes, we're led to expect a conventional yet robust underdog
02:46sports tale in which an amateur boxer, Margaret Maggie Fitzgerald, attempts to reach the ranks
02:50of professional with the help of her grizzled old trainer Frankie Dunn.
02:54Yet, at the end of the second act, there's a jaw-dropping turn where Maggie is sucker-punched
02:58from behind by an opponent between rounds and hits her head on a corner stool, breaking
03:02her neck.
03:03The rest of the film becomes a devastating drama which, rather than have Maggie recover
03:07from her injury and return to the ring, segues into a meditation on euthanasia as
03:11Frankie wrestles with Maggie's request to help her die.
03:15Ultimately, he complies, ending the film on a heart-wrenching yet brilliantly executed
03:19down note, which couldn't be further from the Rocky-esque underdog yarn most surely
03:23expected from the beginning.
03:257.
03:26The Guest
03:27Adam Wingard's tenacious The Guest was largely sold as a horror film and, in fact,
03:32one of the very first sights in the movie is of a jack-o'-lantern.
03:35The establishing scenes, in which a grieving family are visited by David, an apparent army
03:39buddy of their dead son, sets audiences up to anticipate a twisted, seemingly horrifying
03:44reveal involving David's true identity.
03:47Yet by Act 3, The Guest slaloms seamlessly into vaguely sci-fi action thriller territory
03:52when we learn that David was actually a test subject in a military super-soldier experiment
03:56and is programmed to kill anyone who might compromise his identity.
04:00What follows is a bloodbath as David mows down anyone who gets in his way, before the
04:04film morphs again into a slasher flick when David chases remaining family members Anna
04:08and Luke through a haunted house.
04:10Hilariously, though, Wingard defies our expectations once more as the film ends with Anna and Luke
04:15making it to apparent safety, albeit while a presumed dead David resurfaces once more,
04:20having somehow survived a brutal stab wound and disappears into the night.
04:24Needless to say, audiences considered many possible endings for The Guest, but a third
04:28act that weaved between three distinct genres, sci-fi, action and horror, probably wasn't
04:33on their minds.
04:346.
04:35Miracle Mile
04:36Colt's 80s thriller Miracle Mile does a frankly magnificent job of luring the audience
04:41into a false sense of security.
04:43The first 20-ish minutes introduce us to lead Harry and his love interest Julie without
04:48even a hint of the horrors awaiting them.
04:50The establishing scenes are styled in the vein of a corny, cutesy rom-com as Harry and
04:54Julie meet, quickly fall for one another and agree to meet at a coffee shop after her work
04:59shift ends, but oh shucks, a power cut means that Harry doesn't wake up on time.
05:04It sounds like a totally banal misunderstanding on which to hinge a perfectly mediocre indie
05:08rom-com, and yet writer-director Steve DeJeanette has something else in store altogether.
05:14As it turns out, Harry answers a payphone at the coffee shop and is informed by the
05:17person on the other end of the line that nuclear war is apparently set to break out within
05:2270 minutes.
05:23At this point, Miracle Mile morphs into a paranoid suspense thriller in which Harry
05:27attempts to ascertain the truth while making contact with Julie, and as almost polar opposite
05:32to their adorable date at the start of the movie, it ends with the pair trapped in a
05:35helicopter that's sinking into La Brea Tar Pits, the very place they met at the start
05:40of the film.
05:41With no means of escape, they resign themselves to their fate, their only solace being that
05:45a direct hit from a nuke would turn them into diamonds.
05:48Lovely.
05:495.
05:50Kill List
05:51Ben Wheatley's 2011 crime flick Kill List offers a straightforward yet intriguing premise
05:55as two former British soldiers, Jay and Gal, take a job to carry out three killings in
06:00exchange for a hefty payday.
06:02The weirdness soon enough abounds as it becomes clear there's something more to Jay and
06:06Gal's mission.
06:07One of their target thanks them for killing him.
06:09It isn't until the final 15 minutes that things finally come into focus.
06:13As the pair prepare to carry out their third hit, they observe a cult ritual in the woods,
06:17which culminates in a human sacrifice, prompting an alarmed Jay to open fire on the assembled
06:22crowd.
06:23Gal is then mortally wounded by the cultists, while Jay is knocked unconscious and wakes
06:27up in a field, where he's stripped, fitted with a mask and told to kill his final target,
06:32the Hunchback, who is armed with a knife.
06:34Jay complies, only to learn that the Hunchback was in fact his wife Chell and son Sam, hidden
06:39under a mask and coat.
06:40The film then ends ambiguously, with the cult seemingly crowning Jay as their new king.
06:45For a film that was largely presented as a gritty low-budget crime thriller, the sharp
06:49left turn into folk horror, even with the preceding weirdness leading up to it, was
06:53a bracingly effective shock.
06:554.
06:57Hancock Hancock starts off as a damn fun time, an
07:00incredibly silly and puerile comedy in which an alcoholic superhero, John Hancock, causes
07:05all manner of destruction across LA, before PR specialist Ray Embry steps in to try and
07:09help rehabilitate his image.
07:11Though that basic set-up sounds like the recipe for an entertainingly broad comedy, the script,
07:16co-written by Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan, had something else in mind.
07:19At the start of the third act, we learn that Ray's wife Mary is also a superhero, and
07:24More to the point, she and Hancock were previously married, until Hancock lost his memory in
07:28an accident 80 years earlier and she left him.
07:31Moreover, the closer together Hancock and Mary are, the more mortal they become, and
07:35in order to maintain their powers, they must again split up.
07:38And so, Hancock's finale becomes a far more dour and earnest story than the hour of silly
07:43fun times that preceded it, offering up a mawkish pondering on the nature of god-like
07:47entities and a thoroughly sappy ending in which Hancock takes leave so that Mary and
07:51Ray can reconcile.
07:533.
07:54Bone Tomahawk
07:55S. Craig Zala's Bone Tomahawk is a western quite like no other, despite the fact that
08:00it seems to be a totally conventional entry at first sight.
08:03Even with a bloody opening sequence in which two brigands are brutally murdered by a local
08:07native, Zala's film seems to be operating fully within the tradition of a good old-fashioned
08:12pulpy western romp.
08:13At the end of the first act, Sheriff Franklin Hunt forms a rescue party to retrieve a number
08:17of locals believed to have been kidnapped by troglodytes, that is, a tribe of inbred
08:22murderous cannibals.
08:24Even with the troglodytes' nature being clearly described to us so early on, most
08:27of the movie's remainder plays out as a fairly familiar, albeit well-crafted, western
08:32journey.
08:33That is, at least, until we reach Act 3 and Hunt's party finally comes face to face
08:37with the troglodytes themselves.
08:38At this point, Bone Tomahawk mutates into a nauseatingly violent horror film in which
08:43Hunt is forced to witness Deputy Nick be scalped, ripped in half and eaten.
08:47The remainder of the movie is a glorified slasher joint as Hunt and his fellow survivors
08:51escape their imprisonment and attempt to murder the troglodyte horde, which they largely
08:55do in wildly grisly fashion.
08:572.
08:58Sorry To Bother You
09:00Sorry To Bother You starts off as an apparent workplace satire in the vein of office space,
09:04albeit from the perspective of the black experience, as our protagonist Cash gets a job as a telemarketer
09:09and begins to mask his personality in order to perform better.
09:13For most of the movie, we observed Cash rising through the company's ranks and, as he becomes
09:17wealthy, seemingly abandoning his prior pro-worker idealism.
09:21But writer-director Boots Riley pulls a sharp handbrake turn in Act 3 when Cash attends
09:26a party held by his company's CEO, Steve Lift, and discovers a group of human-horse
09:31hybrids shackled up.
09:32Bet you didn't see that one coming!
09:34It turns out Lift is using a gene-modifying power to transform his employees into Equisapiens,
09:40who are stronger and more obedient, and therefore generate more money for the company.
09:44At film's end, Cash himself begins to sprout three horse-like nostrils and then leads an
09:48army of revolting Equisapiens to break down the front door of Lift's home.
09:53Did a single living soul see such an insane shift coming from black comedy to surreal
09:58fantasy sci-fi?
09:591.
10:0010 Cloverfield Lane
10:01Even with the word Cloverfield in the title, Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams decided
10:07to market their spin-off, 10 Cloverfield Lane, as a claustrophobic, self-contained thriller
10:11largely taking place in a single location.
10:14And indeed, it kicks off with protagonist Michelle crashing her car and waking up in
10:18an underground bunker, alongside survivalist Howard and another resident Emmett.
10:23Howard claims that apocalyptic situation above ground makes it impossible for them to leave
10:27the compound for a few years, and both Michelle and we as viewers are basically immediately
10:32distrustful of him.
10:33Yet 10 Cloverfield Lane veers suddenly off-course in the last ten minutes when Michelle escapes
10:37Howard to the outside world and learns that he was basically sorta right.
10:42She soon enough spots an alien biomechanical craft in the distance and spends the movie's
10:46remaining minutes battling a creature which drops from it.
10:49Even though many expected to see an alien monster at some point in the film, by this
10:52time it was so close to wrapping up that many had just assumed that 10 Cloverfield Lane
10:56would indeed be a mere psychological thriller set within the Cloverfield universe.
11:01It finally shifted gears at the very end, in a move which some criticisers tacked on
11:05and unnecessary, while others appreciated it as fans of the original Cloverfield.
11:10And that's the list!
11:11Let us know what you thought of this video down in the comments below and any other films
11:14that you can think of that changed genre half way through.
11:18Make sure you like this video, share it with your friends, subscribe and hit that notification
11:22bell.
11:23I've been Si for WhatCulture and have a good week.
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