10 Movie Posters That Spoiled Everything

WhatCulture

When movie posters straight-up gave everything away.

Transcript

00:00It's a common complaint among film fans that movie marketing gives way too much away,

00:05with trailers often outlining almost the entire story before audiences have even sat down to

00:10watch it for themselves. And even if you quite sensibly decide to go spoiler blackout on a film's

00:15trailers, it's always possible that even a single unavoidable poster will flat out tell you how

00:21everything ends anyway. That's certainly true of these 10 movie posters, all of which shamelessly

00:27gave the game away without a thought in the world for those who might prefer to experience the

00:31biggest and most iconic moments for themselves, totally unspoiled. A few of these posters at

00:37least got a few points for creativity, but most have been rightfully dinged for leaving little

00:42to the audience's imagination and ruining the joy of discovery in the process. Some have a few subtle

00:49elements you might not fully appreciate until you've seen the film, while others just describe

00:53the whole-ass plot of the movie, including its ending, in the most basic and annoying way.

00:58Either way, they're yet further proof that marketing intended to inform audiences can sometimes go

01:04way too far. And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with 10 movie posters that

01:10spoiled everything.

01:12Number 10. The Ritual for Cabin in the Woods

01:15Most of the marketing for The Cabin in the Woods nicely played coy about the precise nature of its

01:20seemingly trope-y horror movie set-up. The trailer did, of course, suggest a sci-fi twist,

01:25but still kept things vague enough to be interesting. But the poster for the film's

01:30Japanese release dropped any and all pretense of preserving the big secret, by blatantly showing

01:36the underground facility which contains the various cube-like prisons containing the monsters

01:41unleashed at the end of the film. The poster makes it painfully clear that Cabin in the Woods

01:45isn't just an Evil Dead knockoff. It shamelessly reveals the big sci-fi conceit that isn't fully

01:51unfurled until much late in the story. Okay, sure, it doesn't quite go the whole hog and write

01:56it's part of a world-saving ritual in neon lights, but it gives more than enough context for most people

02:01who see the poster to start figuring out what's going on.

02:04Number 9. Carrie's Rampage

02:06Carrie

02:07Brian De Palma's Carrie features one of the most iconic and unforgettable endings to any horror movie.

02:13Nay, any movie period. Yet even audiences watching the film upon release in 1976

02:19were bamboozled with posters which blatantly revealed the big third act outcome.

02:24The poster contained two pictures of Carrie, both as a smiling, beautiful prom queen and then bathed

02:30in blood, while stating that she has the power, making it abundantly clear that Carrie causes one

02:36hell of a massacre on prom night with her supernatural abilities.

02:39Even without the knowledge of the humiliation Carrie suffers at the prom, namely being soaked in pig's

02:45blood, it pretty plainly details the film's most iconic set piece and Carrie's descent into bloody

02:51vengeance. The marketing for the 2013 remake didn't fare much better either, showing Carrie covered in

02:57blood and wandering the fiery streets she'd just set ablaze.

03:01Number 8. The band goes to prison, Airheads

03:04Comedy movies are generally less susceptible to spoilers ruining the experience, but even so,

03:10the posters for 1994's cult classic comedy Airheads dropped the ball big time. The film focuses on an

03:17LA rock band who hijack a radio station in order to get their demo recording played on the air.

03:22It's a fun concept and a fondly remembered movie by audiences, though certainly not by critics,

03:27except for the fact that the main poster literally shows the trio standing in front of a police

03:32line-up. And even if you think that's still somewhat ambiguous, the tagline at the top of

03:37the poster literally reads,

03:39They were a rock'n'roll band that couldn't get arrested. That was before they took an entire

03:43radio station hostage. And so it's little surprise that Airheads Indeeds end with the band being

03:49arrested for their act, albeit while only serving three months for their crime and going on to

03:53finally find the success they were craving. Number 7. John Connor is a Terminator, Terminator

03:59Genesis. Name a more iconic duo than the Terminator franchise and spoiling its own plot in the

04:05marketing. The fifth Terminator film, Terminator Genesis, made especially baffling pains to give

04:09away its own shocking plot twist in both the movie's later trailers and posters. The final poster

04:15pointlessly revealed that resistance leader John Connor had somehow been turned into a villainous

04:20Terminator, with a fiery expanse showing the robotic form below his human facade. While fans who

04:26wanted to dodge spoilers could have avoided the trailer with relative ease, movie posters are

04:31basically everywhere, ensuring the spoiler-cautious were almost certainly subjected to it at some point

04:37before the movie's release. Given that this is Genesis' big reveal, it's clear that Paramount was so

04:42desperate to lure audiences in by any means necessary that they willingly gave away the film's big surprise

04:48for free. It didn't help much though, as while certainly not a box office bomb, Genesis' commercial

04:54performance was much lower than expected. Number 6. The Monster, 10 Cloverfield Lane.

05:00The marketing for 10 Cloverfield Lane did a genuinely solid job of only hinting at the dangers awaiting

05:05protagonist Michelle outside of Howard Stambler's survival compound. That is, except for the movie's

05:12international poster, which flipped the bird to subtlety and just straight up revealed the film's late-game

05:17set piece. The poster shows Michelle running through a field while being pursued by a gigantic alien

05:22spacecraft, confirming that A. Michelle does indeed make it out of the compound, B. She can safely breathe

05:28the air out in the open, and C. The finale involves a fight with an alien. Even with the film having

05:34Cloverfield in the title, many went in assuming it to be a smaller-scale spin-off merely existing within the

05:40same world as Matt Reeves' 2008 found-footage film. But anyone unlucky enough to see the international

05:46poster had any and all ambiguity ripped away, ensuring they spent the entire movie anxiously

05:51anticipating the showdown they already knew was coming. Number 5. This is not a game, Ender's Game.

05:58The posters and trailers for 2013's adaptation of Orson Scott Card's legendary sci-fi novel Ender's Game

06:05tried to get a little too cute for their own good, and in turn basically gave the game away.

06:11The posters proudly placed the tagline front and centre, which read,

06:14This is not a game. While at first glance this might simply seem like a cool movie marketing quote,

06:20it actually spoils the big climactic twist that the training exercise protagonist Ender believes he is

06:25participating in is actually a very real engagement with alien combatants. Hell, even the poster that

06:31didn't include this tagline nevertheless showed off the outcome of the final battle, with the alien

06:36planet clearly being obliterated by Ender. Though many people going to see Ender's game would have

06:41been familiar with the source material, given that the book came out almost 30 years before the movie,

06:47it's also fair to say that many more likely wouldn't have. Despite the twist being surprisingly well

06:52executed, it's a shame that the marketing needlessly spelled it out in the most literal sense.

06:58Number 4. The Sniper's Identity Phone Booth

07:01Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth is a criminally underappreciated little thriller in which Stu

07:05Shepard finds himself held hostage in a New York City phone booth by an unhinged sniper.

07:11Now, to be completely fair, if you're a fan of the TV show 24, you're probably going to figure out

07:16very early on that the sniper on the other end of the phone is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland. But if you

07:21weren't familiar with Sutherland's dulcet tones, the poster damn near clarified what the movie's

07:26villain looked like, showing a sliver of Sutherland's bespectacled face staring intensely

07:31into the distance. This wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that the movie intentionally

07:35conceals the sniper's identity until the very end of the film, and even attempts to mislead viewers

07:41as to who he is. In a final failed fake-out, we're led to believe that the caller is actually

07:46a disgruntled pizza delivery guy who encountered Stu earlier in the movie. But anyone who's seen the

07:52poster with Sutherland's face on, or better yet, knows his voice, will be acutely aware

07:56they're being messed with. And so, of course, minutes later, Sutherland finally makes a brief

08:01on-screen appearance, exactly as pictured in this poster. Evidently, Fox couldn't resist the urge to

08:06feature their 24-star in the film's marketing, as infuriatingly spoilerific as it was.

08:123. A Dying Embrace – Pompeii

08:15While it's a given that audiences interested in Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii would be aware that

08:20the film would depict the titular city's destruction by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.,

08:26the outcome of its Titanic-esque love story seemed a little less certain. That was unless

08:31you took a gander at the poster, which blatantly showed gladiator Milo and his lover Cassia

08:37sharing an embrace while the volcano violently erupts behind them. While some might have assumed

08:41the poster was merely a conceptual one to synergise the film's romantic and action-based elements,

08:47lo and behold, the very end of the film indeed sees Milo and Cassia having one final kiss before

08:53being engulfed by Mount Vesuvius' pyroclastic flow. Hell, the poster even clarifies the point

08:58further with the tagline,

08:59No Warning, No Escape, confirming that the movie's characters won't find a way to miraculously

09:05survive and get their Hollywood happy ending.

09:072. Pete Davison is the killer – Bodies, Bodies, Bodies

09:11The poster for A24's satirical horror film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies delivers two spoilers

09:17for the price of one, albeit in a way that not everybody will realise until they've actually

09:21seen the movie. It's a seemingly pretty typical poster which shows off the ensemble cast against

09:26an unremarkable dark backdrop. But take a look at Pete Davidson, who is the only member of the

09:32cast handling a weapon of any kind, a machete-like weapon no less. This hilariously spoils the fact

09:38that Davidson's character David is technically the killer who kills the movie's first victim.

09:43It just so happens that the first victim is himself. Indeed, David is the first person to

09:48die in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, having his throat slashed by, you guessed it, the bladed weapon

09:52glimpsed up against his head in the poster. But the movie's big twist is that David wasn't

09:57murdered. He accidentally killed himself while trying to open a bottle of champagne with the

10:01weapon for a TikTok video. It's basically all blatantly hinted at visually by what we see on the

10:06poster, even if you might not quite realise just how spoilerific it is until you've watched

10:11the film yourself.

10:121. Sonya falls to her death, Plumbum or the Dangerous Game

10:17An extremely deep cut now with the 1987 Soviet drama Plumbum or the Dangerous Game. Both of

10:24the primary posters for the cult classic film show the face of lead actor Anton Andrasov,

10:29who plays the title character, interspersed with an image of what appears to be a young woman

10:34falling to her death. And so, can you guess precisely what fate befalls the movie's primary

10:39female character, Sonya? That's right, she leaps off a roof to her brutal demise in the

10:43film's very last scene. While one of the posters at least disguised as the falling individual's

10:48identity, another quite blatantly shows not only that she's a woman wearing a white gown,

10:53but makes no effort whatsoever to disguise the face. Given that Sonya's death is the grim

10:58climax to the entire movie, it's an extremely bizarre choice indeed.

11:02And that concludes our list, if you think we missed any then do let us know in the comments

11:06below and while you're there don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification

11:10bell. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there and I can be found across various social

11:14medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you

11:19have a magical day and I'll see you real soon.

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