10 Horror Movies That Subtly Spoil The Ending Early

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is the grandaddy of modern horror, inspiring pretty much the entire canon through to today, and writing the book on building fear and tension on screen.

Adapted from Robert Bloch’s novel, Psycho follows Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) to Bates Motel, where she hopes to hide out for a night while on the run from her employer, $40,000 in the bag. Unfortunately, proprietor Norman Bates’ nice boy next door persona is just a veneer, masking the deep layers of darkness that lie within his psyche, and which have everything to do with his reclusive, domineering mother. Norman’s mother dispatches his guest, and the rest of the film follows Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) as she tries to find out what happened.

Early on, Norman compares his mother to one of his taxidermy animals, saying, she "is as harmless as one of those stuffed birds" - forecasting the twist ending that finds mother Bates dead and rotting in the basement, and Norman himself the cross-dressing killer.

However, there's a double allusion in the taxidermy. See, Norman kills and guts his prey, with a penchant for birds, and he goes on to do the same to Marion Crane, before trying to replicate the process with her meddling sister, Lila Crane. Subtle, but the kind of small detail Hitchcock will have been very proud of.