10 Movies That Shockingly Switch Protagonist

After a string of hit movies, Quentin Tarantino used his industry pull to fund a passion project back in the mid-2000s. Gazing fondly back to the exploitation flicks of his youth, the director brought us Death Proof, a grindhouse, B-movie homage about a serial killer stuntman named Mike (Kurt Russell, with a luxurious bouffant, a dynamite wardrobe and an indestructible car).

Stuntman Mike is not, however, the main character; the four young women he stalks take that honour, and around the midpoint of the movie, he wipes them off the face of the earth in one grisly "accident".

Yep, Death Proof sees all of the main cast except for the antagonist ceremoniously bite the dust, to be replaced in the subsequent half by a hardier foursome – Rosario Dawson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Tracie Thoms and real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell – who prove to be Mike's undoing.

The second section of the movie shows Mike attempting to pull the same murderous antics with his car, but this time the ladies are ready for him and won't be run off the road without a fight. Though not Tarantino's best, Death Proof showed he still had the skills to make work the kind of disjointed (and potentially alienating) storytelling that made his early movies a hit.