10 Horror Movie Characters Who Didn't Know They Were The Monster
Twists so good the villains themselves don't know they're coming.
Although there is an undeniable satisfaction to calling a big plot twist ahead of time, it would be boring if this happened with every single movie. Cinema would be absolutely nowhere without some truly mind-blowing reveals; the ones that stick in both memory and conversation long after the credits roll.
One of the biggest potentials for horror movies in particular is who's the real killer or who the true villain of the piece really is. Sometimes it's obvious, though usually it's a mystery to almost all on-screen characters, but what about a twist that shocked even the killer themselves?
Halloween never hid that Michael Myers was the villain, just like there was no mystery behind the atrocities on Elm Street. However, there are those characters who killed or did horrendous things without even knowing they were doing anything wrong. These are where plot twists can get turned up a notch.
Split personalities, brains protecting themselves from trauma, and possessed characters make up the bulk of this list, but there are also those who didn't know they were the monster because, in their eyes, they were genuinely doing no wrong. Some learn the truth, some don't, and all make for interesting watching.
10. Neil Morris - Outbreak
Over the years, zombies have been approached in movies from many different angles and used in a plethora of different ways. However, rarely have they been utilised as they were in Jeff Wolfe's Outbreak.
The story here surrounds Billy Burke's Neil Morris, a small-town park ranger dealing with unfathomable grief after his son went missing, presumed dead. Shortly after the event came the titular outbreak, with Neil being attacked by multiple different infected humans. Violent and aggressive, Neil naturally killed them, grabbed his wife, and hit the road.
More and more zombies attacked Neil, and he survived each kill-or-be-killed situation. The reveal at the end of the film, though, showed Neil as a completely unreliable narrator, as his mind was using the zombies as a coping mechanism against his grief and guilt. Every single "zombie" that attacked him, and that he killed, was in fact a completely innocent person.
There was no outbreak, and it was all a figment of Neil's imagination to escape from the reality that he was accidentally responsible for the death of his teenage son. Neil was shot dead by his best friend when he attempted to kill his wife who he still believed to be infected, and thus went to the grave never truly comprehending the reality of his situation.