8 Horror Movies That Told The Audience Too Much

8. Switchblade Romance - The Twist Ending

By now, any horror hound worth their salt will be well aware of Switchblade Romance, aka Haute Tension, aka High Tension.

A truly phenomenal, pulse-racing horror movie for 80 minutes of its 95-minute run time, the film is one of the most gripping of its generation. When it comes down to it, though, Switchblade Romance didn't need to tell us that the real killer was Marie.

In giving the audience this information, that rendered the rest of the movie completely and utterly irrelevant. For a film to spend so long being so great, to then have that reveal? That was something that was better left unsaid or maybe even simply insinuated.

The majority of the tense, taught, seat-gripping moments we'd just witnessed? So many of them just would not be at all possible if Marie was the one carrying out those acts.

Switchblade Romance famously has one of the most disappointing twists in modern horror history, and if Alexandre Aja's picture had stayed away from telling us the real truth about one of its central protagonists being the villain of the piece, the film would've made so much more sense.

Hell, even just a more ambiguous ending that Marie might have been the killer would've been better than outright telling us this information.

Authored by Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.

First Posted On: 4th Dec 2020

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