10 Recent Movie Twists That Fell Totally Flat
4. Clifton Is The Killer - The Blackening
The Blackening is a modestly entertaining horror film in which a group of Black friends are targeted by a masked killer.
The big twist reveals the killer to be one of the group, Clifton (Jermaine Fowler), who sought revenge against his "pals" due to them often doubting his level of "Blackness" in college.
That's all well and good, except the reveal was painfully obvious to anyone aware of the pervasive trope that villains aren't allowed to use iPhones in movies.
As Rian Johnson famously pointed out following the release of Knives Out, Apple is fiercely protective of its brand and won't allow movies or TV shows to have their products placed in the hands of antagonistic characters.
And so, early on in The Blackening, Clifton goes out of his way to mention that he owns an Android phone, much to his friends' disgust.
This seems like such an obvious indication that Clifton is the killer that viewers might assume they're being misdirected, but no, he really is the murderer. How disappointingly obvious.