13 Totally WTF Horror Movie Plot Twists
11. It's All Part Of An Ancient Ritual - The Cabin In The Woods
The marketing for Drew Goddard's terrific horror-comedy did a fantastic job of concealing its big twist.
Though the trailers hinted at some sort of a sci-fi element, this was ultimately just one layer of the onion, that the cliched titular setup was part of a mysterious laboratory experiment.
In the film's third act, Goddard finally drops all pretenses, as sole survivors Dana (Kristen Connolly) and Marty (Fran Kranz) are confronted by the director of the "experiment" (Sigourney Weaver).
She explains that they're actually partaking in an annual ritual to satisfy a group of underground gods known as the Ancient Ones, who will otherwise destroy humanity.
The Ancient Ones require sacrifices consistent with slasher movie tropes - the clown, the virgin, and so on - though in the film's final moments, Dana and Marty refuse to sacrifice themselves, seemingly triggering the end of the world as a gigantic hand bursts through the cabin.
As a playful thumbing of the nose at the horror genre's laziest instincts, this was a glorious subversion of expectations.