Rant 43 - 12/2/12 Subject: The overuse of twist endings

Rant number 43


This one goes out to you - M Night Shyamalan.

What kind of name is that anyway? He sounds like a really knaff superhero. And we all know what superpower he would have don't we? The ability to invent pointless 'twist endings' (of the variety you can see coming from 4 miles away.

Anyway - this is not a rant about mr Shylamlan. It just happens to be, that he is guilty of this more than often.

The 'twist ending' in a movie.

Now the occasional movie having a twist is fine. I quite like to be genuinely surprised - astounded even. But the thing is, a twist ending is like a good steak.

I love steak (mmmm steak.) Its tasty and yummy (especially with peppercorn sauce.)
Love it though I do however, I could not eat steak for every meal (for the sake of my bowels - if nothing else.)

A twist ending is just the same. Films are all about cliché's and conventions by necessity (unless you are talking about art house films, which no-one actually likes,) but good films try and be original with these.
A twist ending is lazy storytelling and almost always disappoints me.

Now until recent times, a twist ending was not used a great deal in film. In fact it was pretty rare until...

Mr Shyamalan broke onto the scene with his blockbusting hit 'The 6th Sense.'

Now I would be doing him a bit of a disservice not to admit that the film is OK on first watching. The thing is that - because it is a film all about a twist - it becomes pointless to watch again. I love films that I can re-watch over and over again.

The second time I watched the sixth sense, it was just a rather dull pedestrian plod of a film (and one that regrettably has allowed Mr Shyamalan to make some even worse movies like 'The Village' and 'The Happening'(God almighty is that film fucking awful. I mean, its just so fucking stupid. And the characters are really really shit and the whole thing is a complete mess(the films really really bad people, if you haven't watched it thus far, don't do it. Rub salt in your eyes instead or something along those lines, it will have about the same effect(though don't actually do that people, I am exaggerating, your eyes are not playthings, don't rub anything in your eyes!))))

After this film came along as well, everyone thought it was important to put a twist in their movie in order for it to be valid. As such - it became a twist not to have a twist in a movie. How screwed up is that crap!

All in all, don't be lazy in your storytelling. Impress me with what you have to say in your story. Don't fall back on lazy cliches!

Rant over.