Every M. Night Shyamalan Plot Twist Ranked From Worst To Best
5. Old - The Beach Is A Testing Facility For Medical Drugs
Plot: A group of people become trapped on a beach that causes them to age rapidly.
A horrifying, imaginative and thoroughly disturbing mystery thriller that will constantly keep you guessing, Old is Shyamalan's best film since Signs and it also shows him ditching the bad habits that plagued his past twist endings.
Rather than deploy an illogical, over-baked twist ending that focuses only on shock value and not on concluding the film in a meaningful way (looking at you, Signs and The Village), Old's ending is low-key, makes sense and concludes the film on a very thought-provoking note.
It wasn't exactly the most surprising thing ever, since it was always clear the people on the beach were under surveillance for some purpose, but the reveal that it was all related to medical trials - with the beach being a way to do lifetime trials in the space of a day - was an unexpected and satisfying reveal.
It was also cleverly built up throughout the film, with the discussions of the medical conditions of various characters and the subtle clues in the film's opening scenes.
All in all, Shyamalan definitely succeeded with this particular ending.