10 Movies That Thought They Were Smart (But Really Weren't)

7. High Tension

High Tension is a textbook example of a great movie that completely derails itself in its final moments. Most of the movie revolves around two friends, Marie and Alexa, who find themselves being stalked by a sadistic killer after he summarily murders Alex's entire family in extremely brutal fashion. After Alex is kidnapped by the killer, Marie must save her, though once the police arrive at a gas station where more murder has taken place, they discover the truth: by viewing a surveillance video tape, we see that Marie has in fact been the killer all along. Wait, what? Yep, Marie is crazy and in love with Alex, and though the climax of the movie is still fun to watch thanks to some fancy gore, it has for all intents and purposes been ruined by this stupid and pointless revelation. What's more, the shocking nature of the reveal makes it clear that director Alexandre Aja thought his twist was clever, when in fact it just invalidates large portions of what we've seen on screen, and forces the film to become completely non-sensical. There is no reasonable explanation given post-twist, and a mostly great, straight-forward slasher movie is forever tarnished.