Top 10 Exact Moments Movies Became Entirely Different Movies

“Audition” (1999)

The first part of Japanese auteur Takashi Miike’s endurance-testing film features the widower Shigeharu auditioning various women for the role of his next wife. He meets a woman named Asami who meets his meticulous criteria, and sees a future with her. Then, things get weird. He finally calls her, only for it to be revealed that she’s been waiting by the phone for his call for days. And then the large, human-sized sack in her apartment begins to move. We know immediately that Shigeharu hasn't made a good choice. Though this is the first moment the movie really starts ratcheting up the tension, the pleasure and horror of “Audition” is how it constantly doubles, then triples down on Asami’s evil.

“Death Proof” (2007)

Quentin Tarantino’s half of the “Grindhouse” double feature follows four women on a night out in Texas. In the first part, he lets us spend time with these women and grow to care for them. Then, he brutally dispavtches them in a horrendous, intentional car crash orchestrated by Kurt Russell’s sadistic stunt driver. Tarantino spares no detail. Limbs fly, faces are obliterated by tires in graphic slow-motion. He even pauses to make sure we get to linger on every single character’s death in the moment of impact. The movie then cuts to the next year, with a new group of women, who get to enact a karmic revenge on the stuntman.

“The Cabin in the Woods” (2011)

There are a lot of signs that something is not right in this standard horror movie setup of doomed college kids going to a secluded cabin. As it turns out, the whole movie is a meta-commentary on the genre. The characters are actually caught up in an ancient storytelling ritual engineered by a secret underground lab. In the cellar of the old house are various objects that will trigger a different horror movie scenario. When the characters read from a diary, they unknowingly trigger a plague of murderous zombies. The movie is pretty unique in that its genre shift is explicitly part of the story.

“The Prestige” (2006)

This period thriller stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as two feuding magicians. Their growing rivalry leads to a game of one upmanship that leads them to a fictionalized version of real-life inventor Nikola Tesla. Played by the enigmatic and ethereal David Bowie, Tesla’s appearance isn’t just a plot point. It turns a story about illusions into something entirely different. In “The Prestige,” Tesla is not just a genius inventor. He’s also a magician of sorts. His transportation device puts both of the illusionists in touch with the supernatural, and turns a previously earthbound story into something dark and fantastical.

“Full Metal Jacket” (1987)

Stanley Kubrick’s meditative epic on the cost of war doesn’t start on the battlefield, but in the claustrophobic and abusive atmosphere of boot camp. We watch as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and fellow soldiers abuse and haze Private Lawrence, nicknamed Gomer Pyle, to the point of a psychotic break. Pyle murders the drill sergeant and takes his own life. The second half catches up with Pyle’s fellow recruit, Davis, as he and his compatriots fight in the 1968 Tet Offensive. Although they really do feel like two separate stories, they both deal with the psychological impact of fighting a war, even before deployment.

“Titanic” (1997)

Obviously, you go into a movie about the Titanic knowing it’s not going to end well. So it’s not a shock that it turns into a disaster movie in its second half. But what James Cameron’s Best Picture winning epic does so well is to truly sell the romance at its heart. Jack and Rose’s relationship is not just a distraction to hold us over until the dazzling special effects and tragic climax. Their story of love, class difference, and danger on the high seas was dramatic enough to be a movie all its own.

“From Dusk till Dawn” (1996)

Screenwriter and co-star Quentin Tarantino’s voice is strong in this story of Seth and Richie, two brothers and armed robbers fleeing from justice. The pair take a family as hostages and hole up in a deserted strip club. There they meet the sexy Santanico, and things quickly take a turn for the undead. What begins as a standard crime movie soon becomes something very, very different. The bar reveals itself to be a haven for a horde of vampires. The brothers suddenly find themselves starring in a creature feature, pitting them and their hostages against bloodthirsty creatures of the night.

“Parasite” (2019)

It’s lowkey hilarious to watch the Kim family insert themselves into the lives of a rich family by becoming trusted domestic servants. But one night, while their employers are away, the housekeeper they cheated out of her job shows up. It’s an incredibly eerie scene, full of dread, and played like an inverted home invasion. Suddenly, the atmosphere of the entire movie makes a complete turn. Her arrival signals the beginning of a life-and-death struggle. The subsequent revelations about the house turn its satirical class commentary into a sinister and creepy scenario straight out of a horror movie.

“Gone Girl” (2014)

When Amy Dunne goes missing, it sets off a media frenzy that soon lands her husband Nick in the sights of an angry mob and a dogged homicide detective. But halfway in, we realize several things. One, Amy is actually alive. Two, the diary entries that Amy has narrated to us to tell the story of her marriage are almost entirely fake. Three, Amy is a true blue sociopath who has staged her own disappearance and presumed murder to frame her husband. Her voiceover monologue at this point is a punch right to the gut. For the first time, we realize this isn’t a murder mystery at all. It’s a twisted psychological thriller about marriage as imprisonment.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

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A Laundromat Owner Pays a Visit to Another Universe

“Psycho” (1960)

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock pulled the biggest bait-and-switch in movie history. Although he was the master of suspense, and he’d filmed some thrilling sequences, he rarely touched the horror genre. “Psycho” initially sets up a potential love triangle between a woman embezzler, her lover, and the motel proprietor who lives with his domineering mother. But as soon as star Janet Leigh is brutally slashed to death in the motel shower, audiences are thrown for a loop. Suddenly, our focal character is dead. What started as a story about a woman on the run turns into a psychological character study about a lonely, haunted man who cleans up after his homicidal mother. And of course, that’s not even the biggest twist in this all-time classic.