The Statue of Liberty relaxes on the beach

There are few moments in film more thrilling than a genuine surprise ending. From the half submerged Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes to the revelation of the identity of Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects, the rush of a shock twist is one of cinema’s most powerful lures – when executed properly.

However, not all of them develop quite as elegantly as the above. In fact, the modern cinematic landscape is now so obsessed with pulling the narrative rug from underneath our feet, that the humble twist is losing its power.

Until recently, genuine twist endings were made all the more impressive by their rarity. Consider the six year gap between the first instalment of Planet of the Apes and the superb Soylent Green, with another seven before Luke found out who his father was in The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.

However, all that changed in the late nineties and early years of this decade, with a glut of superb film finales arriving in quick succession. 1999 saw the head spinning first instalment of The Matrix, the backwards facing Memento and David Fincher’s clever Fight Club and Se7en.

Such films marked a departure from the surprise endings of the previous era. Instead of a simple story with a shocking climax, this new postmodern style of filmmaking imbedded the twist throughout the film, signposting it for eagle eyed viewers with clever quirks of dialogue and allowing them to watch it a second time with an understanding of what was “really� happening.

The problem with the modern high concept twist is that it removes the audience from the fun. The moment that Lukediscovered that Darth Vader was his father was when the audience discovered it too, allowing us to share the massive revelation with our heroes. Instead the modern writer and director nod and wink at us throughout the film, daring us to work out the mystery before the characters get there.

"If you don't come down from there at once, I'm calling Jeremy Kyle"

Worse still, the runaway success of Fight Club and its ilk has lead to an entire legion of imitators, who have failed to grasp the cleverness of the originals’ twists. Films such as Identity, Righteous Kill, Lucky Number Slevin, Hide and Seek, the Saw franchise and recent M. Night Shyamalan films are all members of what might be termed the “twist genre� –  a set of films which market themselves entirely around their shock ending, instead of focusing on the quality of the film.

The original power of classic twist endings, came from their sudden and unexpected nature. By promoting modern films with the promise of a “shock� ending, an audience no longer views the film as a story with a surprising climax, but simply as a puzzle to be solved before the film reveals the solution.

The “twist genre� has now become so prevalent in the modern cinema, with iconic shock endings so casually imitated, that audiences are now expecting twists in everything they see. The sheer number of twist films, and our obsession working out the “surprise ending� has effectively stripped surprise endings of their power, by desensitising us to the unexpected.

Phil Reynolds