Drive you round the twist

Ed Power picks the most dismal film plot surprises, from Harry Potter spin-offs to nonsensical Star Wars revelations

- Ed Power

Whether it's the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the head-in-a-box payoff at the end of Se7en or even Charlotte being outed as a fake Welsh person on The Traitors, some of our most memorable screen experiences have involved devastating plot twists.

The perfect bait and switch, however, is hard to pull off. Poorly executed, it can ruin an otherwise thoroughly OK-ish movie. From Tim Burton’s ill-fated Planet of the Apes remake to Will Smith’s wobbly superhero thriller Hancock, cinema has seen its fair share of terrible twists down the years.

Even M Night Shyamalan, Hollywood’s de facto “master of the plot twist” ever since 1999’s The Sixth Sense, has been known to indulge some terrible left-field twistery – as this list will show. Read on for The Independent’s ranking of the 12 worst plot twists in cinema...

12. Now You See Me (2013)

This Ocean’s Eleven-style heist flick featured a Rat Pack-esque quartet of magicians – led by Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson – using a box of tricks to dazzle and hoodwink all around them. But then came the terrible rabbit from the hat, as it was explained that Mark Ruffalo’s doltish FBI agent, Dylan Rhodes, had been the one orchestrating the team’s daring crimes all along. It was a cheap stunt that the film had in no way foreshadowed – less a feat of conjuring than a clumsy handbrake turn.

11. Planet of the Apes (2001)