4. Secret Window (2004)
The Twist: A writer named Mort played by Johnny Depp has his life continually turned upside down by a guy named John Shooter... but it turns out in the end that - brace yourself - Johnny Depp was John Shooter all along. He's got split personality disorder!
Why It's Unpopular: Oh, man, one of
those endings- what a waste of time. There's no twist worse than the one where it turns out a character is insane or schizophrenic or something, is there? The fact that it was pretty obvious didn't help either.
Why It Deserves More Credit: All right, bear with me, because I'm not going to defend
Secret Window as if it's some forgotten masterpiece, because it mostly resembles a TV movie, and though it's good in places, it's still pretty average for a thriller. But the twist itself - in which one character turns out to be another - isn't as terrible as we all probably think it is. Once again, execution was the straw that broke the camel's back here - the twist simply isn't that bad because - in the context of the story, anyway - it actually makes
sense. The concept worked much better in its original novella format to be totally fair, and that's because it was written by Stephen King, who can make contrived plots of this sort into believable masterpieces. But remember that he came up with the idea back in 1990 and not in 2004, so although it might've felt like old hat when the movie version came out, the idea at least came from an era where it didn't feel done to death like it does now. And at least when Mort turns out to be Shooter it doesn't compromise the story, as with so many twists of this type.