10 Sci-Fi Movies Ruined By Terrible Twists

Mulberry Street helmer Jim Mickle has gone on to bigger and better things in the years since his inauspicious debut such as underrated neo-noir Cold in July and cannibal horror/ family drama We Are What We Are, but we here at WhatCulture are still certain the director must be a bit annoyed by all the positive critical attention heaped on Frank Darabont’s 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist.

Yes, The Mist might have flopped at the box office, but the flick has nonetheless gone on to become a cult classic thanks to its remorselessly bleak unforgettable ending. However Mulberry Street, released only a year earlier on the indie circuit, features a remarkably similar ending.

Unfortunately for Mr. Mickle, said twist doesn’t work in Mulberry Street, and it may be due to the film’s, er, interesting choice of villain.

Yes, okay, so humans transforming into rats is in theory a terrifying idea, and the flick does manage to keep its monsters in the dark long enough to cue up some effective scares.

But when the ending rolls around and our heroes are forced to off their remaining loved ones, it’s hard to take the film seriously—so the revelation that the infected humans return to normal after sunrise plays a lot more like a silly punchline than anything as tragic as The Mist’s gut punch coda.