Humans see patterns in stories and then have blindspots toward twists. She used The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects to dig into the neuroscience behind plot twists. The study was detailed by Vera Tobin, who wrote a book called Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot. Our tendency to be fooled in movies says a lot about how our brain functions outside of the theater. From parents videotaping their kids react to Star Wars to us losing our minds to Shyamalan, there are real physiological effects to plot twists. The half-hour NPR story from Hidden Brain details how story twists and turns affect the brain. "When we dissect them, we can discover very, very reliable aspects of those tricks that turn out to be important clues about the way that people think." "Stories are a kind of magic trick," says cognitive scientist Vera Tobin. In a recent NPR article on the psychology of plot twists, this line affirms that sentiment. I can remember being in 6th grade and everyone on the recess yard crowding around to talk about The Sixth Sense.Įveryone was gabbing about how much it blew them away and how it made their heads explode.Īt the time, it felt magical. Chances are, there was a plot twist at the center of it. Think about the first movie you ever saw that blew you away. The ending completely misses the mark and spoils all of the brilliant storytelling leading up to the lackluster reveal.It feels weird to say, but this post contains massive spoilers. On its face, the twist is fine, but considering the movie offers zero indication of the outcome, it feels tacked on and digs up a series of unexplainable plot holes. This seemingly terrified woman is actually a delusional murderer in love with her friend Alex and has chosen to kill anyone who could possibly come between them. However, as the police investigate the slew of mayhem, they review the security footage from the butchering of a store clerk from a gas station where Marie and Alex had stopped, to reveal that the man we had been seeing kill everyone was a projection of Marie's hallucinations and that Marie had in fact been the one committing the murders all along. The killer continues a relentless pursuit, slaughtering anyone that gets in the way in an increasingly brutal manner. Two friends, Marie and Alex, are visiting Alex's parents for a weekend away when a serial killer shows up and massacres Alex's entire family, forcing the two girls on the run. But the real failing of the ending to the miniseries rests squarely on those wobbly, squishy spider creature's shoulders. The stakes are higher and you're just flat out more invested with the kids' side of the story. That's very Lovecraftian and can work on the page, but when you're dealing with early '90s effects and a TV miniseries budget, what you get is a creature that doesn't look much better than what you can find at your local Spirit Halloween Store.Īlready, it's less exciting to see grown-up, fully capable adults take on a creature than it is to see a group of children facing off against this ultimate evil. In the book, it is made clear that It isn't really a big spider, but that's the closest thing their brains can associate with seeing It's true face without driving them mad. There's more nuance in the book than the casual critics of Stephen King's endings will give him credit for, but at the end of the day, the epic story does culminate with a bunch of middle-aged people confronting a giant spider. This ending is an odd blend: a downer ending that also feels profoundly silly, and out of step with the psychological terror of the rest of the film. Jackson's Olin with one final jump scare before we see his spirit seemingly trapped in Room 1408 forever. In this version, Mike dies in the fire and his charred corpse ghost pops up to startle Samuel L. It was also a reshoot, and the original ending is the one you'll find if you rent or stream the movie today. A non-ending to a movie that deserves to go out with a bang. While rummaging through the handful of items that made it out of the fire, Mike finds his recorder, which features audio of his dead daughter speaking, proving to his estranged wife that his supernatural encounters were real. In the theatrical ending, Cusack's Mike, a paranormal researcher and writer, survives his ordeal in the haunted Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel, emerging from the flames of the destroyed room and ready to pick up the pieces of his ruined life.
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