When movie posters straight-up gave everything away.
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00:00It's a common complaint among film fans that movie marketing gives way too much away,
00:05with trailers often outlining almost the entire story before audiences have even sat down to
00:10watch it for themselves. And even if you quite sensibly decide to go spoiler blackout on a film's
00:15trailers, it's always possible that even a single unavoidable poster will flat out tell you how
00:21everything ends anyway. That's certainly true of these 10 movie posters, all of which shamelessly
00:27gave the game away without a thought in the world for those who might prefer to experience the biggest
00:32and most iconic moments for themselves, totally unspoiled. A few of these posters at least got a
00:38few points for creativity, but most have been rightfully dinged for leaving little to the
00:42audience's imagination and ruining the joy of discovery in the process. Some have a few subtle
00:49elements you might not fully appreciate until you've seen the film, while others just describe
00:53the whole-ass plot of the movie, including its ending, in the most basic and annoying way.
00:58Either way, they're yet further proof that marketing intended to inform audiences can sometimes go
01:04way too far. And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with 10 movie posters that
01:10spoiled everything.
01:12Number 10. The Ritual for Cabin in the Woods
01:15Most of the marketing for The Cabin in the Woods nicely played coy about the precise nature of its
01:20seemingly trope-y horror movie set-up. The trailer did, of course, suggest a sci-fi twist,
01:25but still kept things vague enough to be interesting. But the poster for the film's
01:30Japanese release dropped any and all pretense of preserving the big secret, by blatantly showing
01:36the underground facility which contains the various cube-like prisons containing the monsters
01:41unleashed at the end of the film. The poster makes it painfully clear that Cabin in the Woods
01:45isn't just an Evil Dead knockoff. It shamelessly reveals the big sci-fi conceit that isn't fully
01:51unfurled until much late in the story. Okay, sure, it doesn't quite go the whole hog and write
01:56it's part of a world-saving ritual in neon lights, but it gives more than enough context for most people
02:01who see the poster to start figuring out what's going on.
02:04Number 9. Carrie's Rampage
02:06Carrie
02:07Brian De Palma's Carrie features one of the most iconic and unforgettable endings to any horror movie.
02:13Nay, any movie period. Yet even audiences watching the film upon release in 1976
02:19were bamboozled with posters which blatantly revealed the big third act outcome.
02:24The poster contained two pictures of Carrie, both as a smiling, beautiful prom queen and then bathed
02:30in blood, while stating that she has the power, making it abundantly clear that Carrie causes one
02:36hell of a massacre on prom night with her supernatural abilities.
02:39Even without the knowledge of the humiliation Carrie suffers at the prom, namely being soaked in pig's
02:45blood, it pretty plainly details the film's most iconic set piece and Carrie's descent into bloody
02:51vengeance. The marketing for the 2013 remake didn't fare much better either, showing Carrie covered in
02:57blood and wandering the fiery streets she'd just set ablaze.
03:01Number 8. The band goes to prison, Airheads
03:04Comedy movies are generally less susceptible to spoilers ruining the experience, but even so,
03:10the posters for 1994's cult classic comedy Airheads dropped the ball big time. The film focuses on an
03:17LA rock band who hijack a radio station in order to get their demo recording played on the air.
03:22It's a fun concept and a fondly remembered movie by audiences, though certainly not by critics,
03:27except for the fact that the main poster literally shows the trio standing in front of a police
03:32line-up. And even if you think that's still somewhat ambiguous, the tagline at the top of
03:37the poster literally reads, they were a rock and roll band that couldn't get arrested. That was
03:42before they took an entire radio station hostage. And so it's little surprise that Airheads
03:47indeed end with the band being arrested for their act, albeit while only serving three months for
03:52their crime and going on to finally find the success they were craving.
03:55Number 7. John Connor is a Terminator, Terminator Genisys
03:59Name a more iconic duo than the Terminator franchise and spoiling its own plot in the
04:05marketing. The fifth Terminator film, Terminator Genisys, made especially baffling pains to give
04:09away its own shocking plot twist in both the movie's later trailers and posters. The final poster
04:15pointlessly revealed that resistance leader John Connor had somehow been turned into a villainous
04:20Terminator with a fiery expanse showing the robotic form below his human facade. While fans who wanted
04:26to dodge spoilers could have avoided the trailer with relative ease, movie posters are basically
04:31everywhere, ensuring the spoiler cautious were almost certainly subjected to it at some point before
04:37the movie's release. Given that this is Genesis' big reveal, it's clear that Paramount were so desperate
04:42to lure audiences in by any means necessary that they willingly gave away the film's big surprise for free.
04:49It didn't help much though, as while certainly not a box office bomb, Genesis' commercial performance
04:54was much lower than expected. Number 6. The Monster, 10 Cloverfield Lane.
05:00The marketing for 10 Cloverfield Lane did a genuinely solid job of only hinting at the dangers awaiting
05:05protagonist Michelle outside of Howard Stambler's survival compound. That is, except for the movie's
05:12international poster, which flipped the bird to subtlety and just straight up revealed the film's late
05:17game set piece. The poster shows Michelle running through a field while being pursued by a gigantic
05:22alien spacecraft, confirming that A, Michelle does indeed make it out of the compound, B, she can safely
05:28breathe the air out in the open, and C, the finale involves a fight with an alien. Even with the film
05:34having Cloverfield in the title, many went in assuming it to be a smaller scale spin-off merely existing
05:39within the same world as Matt Reeves' 2008 found-footage film. But anyone unlucky enough to see
05:45the international poster had any and all ambiguity ripped away, ensuring they spent the entire movie
05:51anxiously anticipating the showdown they already knew was coming.
05:55Number 5. This is not a game. Ender's Game.
05:59The posters and trailers for 2013's adaptation of Orson Scott Card's legendary sci-fi novel Ender's Game
06:05tried to get a little too cute for their own good, and in turn basically gave the game away.
06:11The posters proudly placed the tagline front and centre which read,
06:14This is not a game. While at first glance this might simply seem like a cool movie marketing quote,
06:20it actually spoils the big climactic twist that the training exercise protagonist Ender believes he
06:25is participating in is actually a very real engagement with alien combatants. Hell, even the poster that
06:31didn't include this tagline nevertheless showed off the outcome of the final battle,
06:35with the alien planet clearly being obliterated by Ender. Though many people going to see Ender's
06:41game would have been familiar with the source material, given that the book came out almost
06:4530 years before the movie, it's also fair to say that many more likely wouldn't have.
06:50Despite the twist being surprisingly well executed, it's a shame that the marketing needlessly spelled
06:56it out in the most literal sense.
06:58Number 4. The Sniper's Identity. Phone Booth.
07:01Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth is a criminally underappreciated little thriller in which Stu
07:05Shepard finds himself held hostage in a New York City phone booth by an unhinged sniper.
07:11Now, to be completely fair, if you're a fan of the TV show 24, you're probably going to figure
07:16out very early on that the sniper on the other end of the phone is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland.
07:20But if you weren't familiar with Sutherland's dulcet tones, the poster damn near clarified what the
07:26movie's villain looked like, showing a sliver of Sutherland's bespectacled face staring intensely
07:31into the distance. This wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that the movie intentionally
07:35conceals the sniper's identity until the very end of the film, and even attempts to mislead
07:41viewers as to who he is. In a final failed fakeout, we're led to believe that the caller is actually
07:46a disgruntled pizza delivery guy who encountered Stu earlier in the movie. But anyone who's seen the
07:52poster with Sutherland's face on, or better yet, knows his voice, will be acutely aware they're
07:57being messed with. And so, of course, minutes later, Sutherland finally makes a brief on-screen
08:01appearance, exactly as pictured in this poster. Evidently, Fox couldn't resist the urge to feature
08:07their 24-star in the film's marketing, as infuriatingly spoilerific as it was.
08:123. A Dying Embrace – Pompeii
08:15While it's a given that audiences interested in Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii would be aware that
08:20the film would depict the titular city's destruction by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.,
08:26the outcome of its Titanic-esque love story seemed a little less certain. That was unless
08:31you took a gander at the poster, which blatantly showed gladiator Milo and his lover Cassia
08:37sharing an embrace while the volcano violently erupts behind them. While some might have assumed
08:41the poster was merely a conceptual one to synergise the film's romantic and action-based elements,
08:47lo and behold, the very end of the film indeed sees Milo and Cassia having one final kiss before
08:53being engulfed by Mount Vesuvius' pyroclastic flow. Hell, the poster even clarifies the point
08:58further with the tagline,
08:59No Warning, No Escape, confirming that the movie's characters won't find a way to miraculously
09:05survive and get their Hollywood happy ending.
09:072. Pete Davison is the killer – Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
09:11The poster for A24's satirical horror film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies delivers two spoilers for the price of
09:17one, albeit in a way that not everybody will realise until they've actually seen the movie.
09:22It's a seemingly pretty typical poster which shows off the ensemble cast against an unremarkable dark
09:27backdrop. But take a look at Pete Davidson, who is the only member of the cast handling a weapon of
09:33any kind – a machete-like weapon, no less. This hilariously spoils the fact that Davidson's character,
09:39David, is technically the killer who kills the movie's first victim. It just so happens that
09:44the first victim is himself. Indeed, David is the first person to die in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,
09:49having his throat slashed by, you guessed it, the bladed weapon glimpsed up against his head
09:53in the poster. But the movie's big twist is that David wasn't murdered. He accidentally killed himself
09:59while trying to open a bottle of champagne with the weapon for a TikTok video. It's basically all
10:04blatantly hinted at visually by what we see on the poster. Even if you might not quite realise,
10:09just how spoiler-rific it is until you've watched the film yourself.
10:131. Sonya falls to her death, Plumbum or the Dangerous Game
10:17An extremely deep cut now with the 1987 Soviet drama Plumbum or the Dangerous Game.
10:23Both of the primary posters for the cult classic film show the face of lead actor Anton Andrasov,
10:29who plays the title character, interspersed with an image of what appears to be a young woman
10:34falling to her death. And so, can you guess precisely what fate befalls the movie's primary
10:39female character, Sonya? That's right, she leaps off a roof to her brutal demise in the
10:43film's very last scene. While one of the posters at least disguised as the falling individual's
10:48identity, another quite blatantly shows not only that she's a woman wearing a white gown,
10:53but makes no effort whatsoever to disguise the face. Given that Sonya's death is the grim
10:58climax to the entire movie, it's an extremely bizarre choice indeed.
11:02And that concludes our list, if you think we missed any then do let us know in the comments
11:06below and while you're there don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:11Also head over to Twitter and follow us there and I can be found across various social medias
11:15just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture,
11:18I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real soon.