10 More Disturbing Plot Twists In Non-Horror Movies
5. Dead Man's Shoes - Anthony Has Already Been Killed
Dead Man's Shoes follows Richard (Paddy Considine), a former soldier taking revenge on the men who tormented his learning-disabled brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell, in an outstanding debut performance). Directed by the great Shane Meadows, Dead Man's Shoes very much leans into the kind of gritty kitchen-sink realism British cinema is often associated with, and the result is a revenge flick that's devoid of catharsis or glamour, sitting proudly alongside works like Oldboy and I Saw the Devil as one of the most miserable revenge movies of them all.
The whole thing is grim viewing, but it's this plot twist that proves to be the film's most harrowing sequence. While Richard is seen talking to Anthony throughout the earlier sections of the film, it's eventually revealed that the men Richard is hunting actually killed Anthony already, and we've just been seeing him talking to a hallucination. It's an absolute gut-punch, and the flashback that shows Anthony's death is particularly hard to watch.
Plot twists involving a character talking to a hallucination have been done a fair amount, and some of them are entirely predictable - Secret Window, anyone? - but this one isn't at all, and it's a shock that'll leave everyone rattled.