We really should've seen that coming.
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00:00Okay, I've got a few spicy hot takes for you guys right now.
00:03I reckon that plot twists in horror movies are good, but plot twists in horror movies
00:07that are actually hiding in front of you in plain sight are even better.
00:11Yeah, I know, very spicy.
00:12All jokes aside, there is nothing more satisfying than re-watching one of these movies,
00:16only to notice that the big reveal is incredibly obvious once you know it,
00:21thanks to some superb foreshadowing and hints placed along the way.
00:25So, with that in mind, I'm Josh from What Culture Horror,
00:27and these are 10 horror movie twists that were hiding in plain sight.
00:31Number 10, Dewey guesses the killer in his first scene, Scream 2022.
00:36Although it's usually difficult to deduce the killer's identity in the Scream franchise,
00:40many viewers correctly guessed that Amber and Richie were behind the mask in the latest film.
00:44The first giveaway is that Ghostface claims to have cloned Amber's phone,
00:48just like in Scream 3 at the very start,
00:50and a lot of viewers simply didn't think that the franchise would be lazy enough
00:54to use this trope again and so suspected it was a bluff.
00:58Likewise, Amber is the one being threatened in the introduction, apparently unknowingly,
01:03yet this is never brought back as a plot pointer even mentioned again,
01:07and that's because Amber was actually in on it from the very beginning
01:10and was letting herself be filmed in this scene.
01:13As for Richie, well, the most obvious clue is when Dewey just outright tells the gang
01:18that Richie is the most likely person to be Ghostface
01:20since the killer is usually the seemingly loving boyfriend.
01:24He says this the very first time he meets the group,
01:28and well, it turns out that he was exactly bang on the money.
01:31Hell, Richie even comments on this at the end of the movie.
01:34Sadly, nobody paid attention, least of all Dewey himself, who ended up getting gutted.
01:39Documents reveal the actual date, Final Destination 5.
01:43In Final Destination 5, Sam, Molly and numerous others
01:46barely escape with their lives from a collapsing bridge accident.
01:50And you know what that means by now.
01:52The Grim Reaper is going to pick them off one by one.
01:56In the climax, Sam and Molly avoid being killed though,
01:58seemingly cheating death once more.
02:00To celebrate, they decide to take a vacation to Paris,
02:03but as the plane prepares to take off,
02:05they notice a fight between Carter and Alex,
02:08two characters who appeared in the first Final Destination, which is set in 2000.
02:12Only then does the audience realise that Final Destination 5
02:16isn't a sequel, but actually a prequel,
02:18and Sam and Molly have boarded the famous Flight 180
02:21that's destined to explode immediately after takeoff.
02:24And for as good as this twist was, there are actually numerous hints previously
02:28that this film takes place in the past.
02:30For instance, at around the 40-minute mark,
02:32the camera focuses on Isaac's gift certificate,
02:35which expires on the 30th of the 6th, 2001.
02:38Likewise, Williams' van has a Liberty license plate that went out of date in 2001,
02:43while numerous characters use decidedly old-looking tech,
02:46including clunky keyboards and old-fashioned phones.
02:49Also, the movie never uses music released after the millennium.
02:52If you spotted any of these observations,
02:54you might have just thought that the characters were old-fashioned
02:57or being retro, you know?
02:58I mean, 2000s are very in right now,
03:01but upon watching the epilogue, the truth becomes clear.
03:04Number eight, Laurie's angry reaction, Happy Death Day.
03:07In Happy Death Day, a teenager called Tree is going about her day
03:10when she's suddenly stabbed to death by a masked serial killer,
03:13colloquially called Babyface.
03:15But death actually isn't the end of her troubles,
03:18because suddenly Tree wakes up,
03:20only to realize that time has reset to the previous day.
03:23And no matter what she does or where she goes,
03:26Babyface kills her again and again and again.
03:29Even though each day begins with her roommate Laurie
03:31offering her cupcake though,
03:33she always discards it, desperate to find out who's hunting her.
03:36After all, she has bigger problems than accepting a cupcake or not.
03:40When she convinces herself that she can't escape the cycle though,
03:43she actually just gives up and finally agrees to eat Laurie's cupcake.
03:47But when she dies immediately after accepting,
03:50she realizes that the cupcake was poisoned,
03:52and Laurie has been the masked killer all along.
03:55Interestingly though, viewers could have figured this out
03:57if they simply studied Laurie's body language earlier.
03:59See, every time Tree rejects the cupcake,
04:02you might assume that Laurie would be confused or concerned or whatever.
04:05But every time Tree refuses to eat it, Laurie looks noticeably angry.
04:09It's one of those subtle details you miss the first time around,
04:12but it becomes as clear as day on a second viewing.
04:15Number seven, some serial killer knowledge, Predators.
04:18In Predators, a group of strangers find themselves
04:20hunted by alien warriors on another world.
04:23The team consists of a cartel enforcer, a sniper, an RUF soldier,
04:27a mercenary, a yakuza, a death row inmate, a marine, and a doctor called Edwin.
04:32Because each person has a history of killing
04:34and are all, by my estimations anyway, hard as nails,
04:38the team believed that they were specifically chosen by the Predators
04:41since they would serve as a challenging sport to chase.
04:44However, because one of them, Edwin, seems totally harmless
04:47and he's played by Topher Grace after all,
04:50they assume that he was just picked up to keep his teammates alive
04:53with his medical skills.
04:54But during the climax, Edwin is actually revealed to have been a serial killer
04:58who is intent on killing them all.
05:00Some viewers suspected that there was more to Edwin
05:03than he was initially letting on,
05:04since it didn't make sense why the Predators would choose him for their game
05:08if he wasn't as dangerous as the others.
05:10I mean, what's to stop him getting killed early on
05:13and then having his quote-unquote purpose just be completely erased?
05:16However, Edwin's sinister side is implied early on.
05:20At one point, he comes across a chemical and instantly recognises its toxicity.
05:24Upon the first viewing, you'd assume that Edwin recognises the toxin
05:27due to his medical experience,
05:29but upon a rewatch, it's obvious that Edwin has used this neurotoxin
05:32to subdue his victims many, many times in the past.
05:35Number six, the food is the key.
05:38Orphan.
05:38In Orphan, Kate and John Coleman decide to adopt a child called Esther
05:42to help them with their troubled marriage.
05:44When they notice a series of accidents occurred
05:46immediately after adopting the girl though,
05:48the Coleman's suspect that there's something seriously wrong with her.
05:51And would you know it, they are totally right.
05:54Not only is she a cold-blooded killer, but she's not even a child.
05:58Due to a hormone deficiency, Esther looks like a young lass
06:01despite being in her thirties.
06:03She's pretended to be a child for years
06:05so she can finally be embraced by a loving family.
06:07In hindsight, the twist seems obvious.
06:10Esther constantly wears thick, frilly dresses to hide her grown-up figure
06:14and her adoptive family find it odd how she spends so much time
06:17getting ready in the morning
06:18unaware that she's applying makeup to look younger.
06:21However, the most discernible clue of Esther's true age is how she eats.
06:25To hide her adult teeth, Esther wears childlike dentures.
06:28And because of this, she has to chop up all of her food
06:31into tiny pieces just so she can eat it.
06:33And the film isn't coy about this detail at all
06:35since there's an entire scene dedicated to her stepbrother
06:38belittling her for the way that she cuts up her food.
06:41So yeah, this little freak was hiding in plain sight the whole time.
06:48In Shutter Island, US Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck
06:51head out to an isolated mental institution
06:54to investigate the disappearance of an inmate.
06:56After stumbling on multiple inconsistencies with the head doctor's claims though,
07:00Teddy believes the facility is harbouring a dark secret.
07:03In the end though, Teddy learns that he's an inmate of Shutter Island called Andrew
07:07and this case was devised by the facilitator to help him accept the fact
07:11that he, in fact, murdered his wife.
07:14His partner Chuck is revealed to be his psychiatrist, Dr. Sheehan,
07:17who went along with this scheme to keep Teddy in check.
07:20To some, this was a jaw-dropping revelation.
07:23But if you over-analyse every frame,
07:25you may have spotted a few things that just didn't quite sit right.
07:28For instance, when Chuck is asked to hand over his gun,
07:31he has trouble pulling the weapon out of its holster
07:34since he obviously has no experience handling a firearm.
07:37Which, of course, is weird for a US Marshal.
07:40Likewise, when Teddy asks Bridget about Dr. Sheehan,
07:43she quickly glances at Chuck, implying that they are one and the same.
07:46There are a few clues throughout as well that people are just acting around Teddy,
07:51and they'll actually drop the performance should they think that he's not looking.
07:58In Us' opening scene, a girl called Adelaide Wilson encounters her doppelganger,
08:02which leaves her so traumatised that she refuses to speak.
08:05Years later, the Wilson family find their house invaded by their own doubles,
08:09who call themselves the Tethered, which is led by Adelaide's counterpart Red.
08:13But in the closing scenes, we actually learn that Red swapped with Adelaide
08:16when they first met all those years ago.
08:19Meaning our supposed hero has actually been a Tethered the whole time.
08:23When you re-watch the film, there are so many clues about Adelaide being not who she says she is though.
08:28The biggest is the fact that Adelaide stopped speaking after her encounter with her double.
08:32This wasn't because she was traumatised, but because the Tethered literally can't naturally speak.
08:38Also, while Adelaide is at the psychiatrist's office as a child,
08:41she organises the toys in a straight line,
08:44which foreshadows Red's plan to have every Tethered lineup across America
08:47to reveal themselves around the world.
08:52Hereditary begins with Annie dealing with the death of her mother Ellen.
08:56Because the two had a hostile relationship, Annie is somewhat relieved when Ellen has passed.
09:01But after Annie's daughter Charlie is decapitated in a horrific car crash,
09:05she becomes convinced that her mother is manipulating her life from beyond the grave.
09:09Eventually though, Annie learns her mother was a cult member who worshipped the demon Paimon.
09:14Even worse, if it can get worse, Ellen has been shaping Annie's entire life for years,
09:19hoping that Paimon could be reincarnated in her children.
09:23And few viewers, myself included, see this revelation coming,
09:27even though the film actually leaves clues everywhere.
09:30For instance, Charlie beheads a pigeon which foreshadows her own fate,
09:33and just before Charlie has her head cut off,
09:35the party guests watch a video of someone being guillotined.
09:39It's pretty on-the-nose in hindsight.
09:42There's also the twist that Annie's friend Joan is actually a cult member as well.
09:46This is also hiding in plain sight,
09:48as she's seen buying a chalkboard that apparently belonged to her grandson
09:52who she'd used a séance to communicate with from beyond the grave,
09:55proving that she was just lying the whole time
09:57and buying the stuff she needed for the lie on the fly.
10:00Hey, that rhymed.
10:01Number two, the opening credits gave the twist away, Malignant.
10:05Malignant follows a young woman called Madison who suffers hallucinations
10:08which revolve around an unseen but extremely well-dressed freak
10:12who's performing horrific murders.
10:14During one of these visions, the murderer confides to Madison that he is Gabriel,
10:18an imaginary friend that she apparently created as a child, or so she thought.
10:23When detectives learn the murders that Madison has seen in her visions
10:26are actually happening in real life,
10:28they suspect that Gabriel is hiding in her house.
10:31And it's only when they confront Madison that the officers learn
10:34that Gabriel is actually a parasitic twin located on the back of her head.
10:40When Madison goes to sleep or gets knocked out,
10:43Gabriel takes over and uses her body to go on a delicious murder spree.
10:47However, the epiphany was actually revealed way, way earlier.
10:52In fact, it was unveiled before the opening credits had even finished.
10:55See, when the credits roll, we see dozens of medical images
10:58including surgical procedures, fetal x-rays, and microscopic images of tumours.
11:04When this sequence shows Madison's medical papers specifically though,
11:07there are pages that state Madison's condition is similar to animals born with
11:11quote-unquote two heads, since she has two fully formed faces.
11:16By pausing at this point, the viewer can learn the entire plot within the first five minutes.
11:21Just for one extra as well, early on,
11:23Madison actually reassures herself that everything is all in her head,
11:27which, aye, she's not really wrong about that, is she?
11:30Number one, Rose doesn't want to leave any evidence. Get out.
11:33Get Out centres on a black man called Chris
11:35meeting the family of his white girlfriend Rose Armitage for the very first time.
11:40Although Chris is worried that his relationship with Rose
11:42will pose a problem to a potentially racist family,
11:45the Armitages seemingly embrace him in their own cringey way.
11:49To Chris' horror though, he eventually learns that the Armitages are actually abducting black people
11:54and swapping the brains of their elderly friends into their bodies to cheat death.
11:58However, this revelation was implied over a dozen times throughout the movie,
12:03because this is a Jordan Peele film, and well, we've already seen what he does with us,
12:07this is just the guy's MO, and I love it.
12:09For instance, when a cop asks for Chris' ID towards the start of the film,
12:13Rose goes absolutely berserk, implying that the officer is racist.
12:17And although it just looks like Rose is defending her boyfriend in this scene,
12:20and we're all on her side, she's actually really avoiding a paper trail
12:25so no one will know where Chris went after her family disposed of him.
12:29Likewise, when Dean says that he likes to keep a piece of his mother in the kitchen,
12:33the camera cuts to the mid, demonstrating that she has the mind of Dean's mum.
12:38In hindsight, it's very unsubtle, but it's so, so cool.
12:42Still though, clues like this are so obvious on a second viewing
12:45that you can't understand how you didn't see the twist coming a mile away,
12:48and that's the sign of a really good reveal.
12:52So, that's our list.
12:52I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
12:54Did you pick up on any of these details the first time around?
12:57And are there any cool instances of foreshadowing and teasing like this that I missed off here?
13:02While you're down there as well, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,
13:05and head over to WhatCultureHorror for more lists like this on the regular.
13:08Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.