Android (1982)

Dr. Daniel Was an Android

In the year 2036, obsessed and eccentric, Frankensteinish research scientist Dr. Daniel (Klaus Kinski) in a satellite laboratory on a remote space station in deep space, worked with his 5 year-old shy, assistant prototypical android Max 404 (scriptwriter Don Keith Opper) carrying out illegal research (androids were outlawed on Earth). In his spare time, coming-of-age Max engaged in learning about 20th century humans by playing computer games, watching old movies, reading sex manuals, and listening to rock 'n' roll and soul music.

In order to activate and complete a perfect, upgraded, perfect blonde-haired female android named Cassandra-1 (Kendra Kirchner) that would render Max obsolete, Dr. Daniel needed the life essence of a real female. When a runaway spaceship with three escaped fugitives, including escaped female convict Maggie (Brie Howard) docked at the space station, Dr. Daniel wanted to use Maggie as a model and sex-electrical power source.

When the sexual chemistry from Maggie and Max sparked life into Cassandra, she came alive and in the film's twist ending, it was revealed that Dr. Daniel was also a robotic android when his head was ripped off by Max and Cassandra during a struggle.

The film concluded with Max and Cassandra returning to Earth posing as Dr. Daniel and his assistant.

And Then There Were None (1945)

Quinncannon Was the Killer - Only Two Others Survived

In this most-popular of Agatha Christie's detective film adaptations, a mysterious "Mr. U.N. Owen" (read as "Mr. Unknown") had created a remote Indian Island deathtrap. He had invited ten guests there (eight strangers and the butler and cook Mr. and Mrs. Rogers) - all accused of having caused the death of others while escaping punishment.

One by one, the guests started dying (off-screen) - by poisoning, drug overdose, stabbing, axing, by a hypodermic needle, a shot to the head, death by a crushing load of bricks, etc. [Note: all of the murders were inspired by the children's song Ten Little Indians, aka Ten Little Niggers in the 1939 novel ("Ten little nigger boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were Nine...")]

Judge Francis J. Quinncannon (Barry Fitzgerald), one of the guests, was revealed as the perpetrator of the killings - and identified as the enigmatic Mr. Owen. Quinncannon had faked his own death (bullet hole in the head) with the help of one of the unsuspecting victims, Dr. Edward Armstrong (Walter Huston), who he then killed. At film's end, Quinncannon offered surviving guest Vera Claythorne (June Duprez) the option of hanging herself with a noose rather than waiting to be hanged publically, and then committed suicide by swallowing poison.

Only two guests managed to survive: Vera (who had confessed to a crime committed by her sister) and Philip Lombard (actually Charles Morley) (Louis Hayward) who had attended in place of his friend Lombard who had committed suicide when threatened by Owen.

Angel Heart (1987)

Harry Was Johnny Favourite, a Killer, and Cyphre was Lucifer

In this twisting, metaphysically-confusing film, seedy private detective Harold "Harry" Angel (Mickey Rourke) was hired by the mysterious and enigmatic Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) in the mid-50s to find the whereabouts of missing singer/bandleader Johnny Favourite (nee Liebling) who was a "disappearing act" after signing a contract. Favourite had skipped out without paying - he had actually promised his soul to the Devil in exchange for worldly success, but then tried to renege, cheat the Devil, and hide his identity in someone else.

The twist or revelation in the film was that Favourite had transferred his soul through a Satanic ritual into the original Harry Angel's body twelve years earlier (Favourite had randomly picked WWII GI Angel off the street, and assumed Angel's identity, and because of the war was traumatically brain-injured, hospitalized, had extensive facial surgery, and also suffered amnesia so that he was unrecognizable and couldn't remember who he was). Angel was actually Johnny Favourite, the evil man he was being paid to find. And Louis Cyphre was a gloating and knowing 'Lucifer' - waiting for Angel to realize or remember that his true identity was Favourite, and guiding him to commit numerous murders: ("The flesh is weak, Johnny. Only the soul is immortal... and yours belongs to ME!").

During his investigations in New Orleans and delvings into the black arts of voodoo, Angel's witnesses were brutally murdered. Harry was convinced that Johnny was trying to cover his tracks and was framing Harry for the murders - actually, Harry was the murderer of all the people he discovered dead - all people who were involved in Johnny Favourite's coverup.

In the shocking ending, it was also revealed that Angel probably killed his own daughter Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet), the daughter of Evangeline Proudfoot - a black woman who was rumored to be Johnny's lover (but now dead), after having incestuous (unintentionally) sex with her, by firing his gun into her groin area: (Cop: "You're gonna burn for this, Angel." Harry: "I know. In Hell"). He was then convicted of the murder and doomed to the electric chair.

The final scene strongly hinted that Epiphany's toddler son, Harry's grandson, had glowing eyes - hinting that the boy was fathered by 'Lucifer'.

Angels & Demons (2009)

The Camerlengo was the Mastermind Plotting to Become the Next Pope

Director Ron Howard's mystery-thriller action sequel to The DaVinci Code (2006) was also based upon another best-selling Dan Brown novel of the same name, published in 2000. It was written as a prequel to the earlier book, but filmed as a sequel.

The film opened with a spectacular prologue, in which a tubular capsule of anti-matter ("the God particle"), experimentally created at CERN Laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland, was stolen from a high-security area (where nuclear physicist Silvano Bentivoglio (Carmen Argenziano) was murdered and branded with the ambigram Illuminati). The capsule was used as a terrorist bargaining chip - a bomb to create a "blinding explosion," planted somewhere in Rome. In the meantime, a progressive Vatican Pope had just died (from a stroke, or from some other nefarious plot?) and the red-garbed College of Cardinals was assembling in a highly-secure conclave to choose a successor.

The CERN scientist's particle physicist partner, Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) joined recruited Harvard University symbologist Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) to decipher cryptic messages to follow a hidden path. It was feared that the ILLUMINATI, an 'enlightened' yet radical society of free-thinking scientists, a brotherhood that had been persecuted and driven underground by the Catholic church many centuries earlier was behind the terrorist plot (in 1668, four Illuminati scientists were kidnapped, branded, and executed by the Church). Now, four preferiti Cardinals (the "four pillars" - favored successors to the Pope) had been kidnapped, and were to be branded on their chests with the names of the four fundamental elements of science (EARTH, AIR, FIRE, WATER). They were to die on the "altars of science" of four public churches (set in a cross-shaped pattern overlaying Rome, where the Illuminati had met in secret in the past), in executions every hour at 8, 9, 10, and 11, before the midnight unleashing of the anti-matter capsule as a cataclysmic bomb, to explode in a burst of light and destroy the Vatican ("Vatican City will be consumed by light. A shining star at the end of the Path of Illumination"). It would be a repeat of the "ancient Illuminati threat" - "Destruction of Vatican City through light...Science obliterates religion."

The executions were in the style of the four elements:

1. suffocated and half-way buried in dirt (in the Demon's Hole in the Chigi Chapel in the Church of the Santa Maria del Popolo, once called Capella Della Terra (Chapel of the Earth)
2. punctured lungs (near a bas relief carving on the ground of 'West Ponente' (West Wind) in St. Peter's Square)
3. fire burning (in the Santa Maria Della Vittoria Church)
4. water drowning (in the Fountain of the Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona)

It was now clear that there was a paid, rimless glasses-wearing psychopathic Assassin (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) working for the Illuminati who was committing the dirty-work, including cutting out the entire eyeball of CERN physicist Bentivoglio, Vetra's research partner, in order to bypass the security's retinal scan in the opening scene. The assassin's hiding place was in the "Church of Illumination" or Castel Sant'Angelo (The Castle of the Angel), an ancient hideout and prison for enemies, connected to the Vatican by a secret tunnel-passageway. There, the Assassin spared the lives of Langdon and Vetra, but was betrayed by the Illuminati when blown up by a car-bomb.

There were many suspected individuals during the course of the film:

• Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a cunning, elderly and wise Old School prelate presiding over the papal election
• Commandante Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), the stern, menacing and disdainful head of the Swiss Guard, the Vatican's own security force
• Inspector General Ernesto Olivetti (Pierfrancesoco Favino), Vatican police force
• Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the young chamberlain/secretary of the late pontiff, who was, by tradition, the acting head of Vatican City until the new pope was chosen by the College of Cardinals

After Langdon and Vetra had raced around Rome, deciphering clues to the four execution sites and saving only the fourth Cardinal's life, another key location was the anti-matter capsule itself. It was in St. Peter's Tomb in the Necropolis, but Vetra didn't have enough time to change the battery before midnight. The Camerlengo volunteered to take the canister and heroically fly it away in a Vatican helicopter. He parachuted to safety, saving the city from the massive explosion, and was hailed as a possible papal successor. However, Langdon and Vetra viewed a hidden security videocreen in Richter's office desk which revealed that the Camerlengo was the mastermind plotting to become the next Pope - he had branded himself as the final victim with a fifth brand, the symbol of two upside-down crossed keys (the brand referred to St. Peter being crucified upside down - a clue that the anti-matter canister was under the Vatican where St. Peter was buried). The Camerlengo blamed Richter and others, leading to their deaths by police fire. He had also killed the Pope with an injection overdose of Tinzaparin, turning his tongue black a week later as a telltale sign. When confronted by the disapproving conclave, the Camerlengo self-immolated, pouring oil on himself from one of the ninety-nine holy lamps inside St. Peter's Basilica and igniting it.

The film ended with the fourth and only surviving preferiti, Cardinal Baggia (Marc Fiorini), selected as the new Pope, to be named Luke, and Cardinal Strauss the new Camerlengo. The Vatican had covered up what had actually happened. Strauss thanked Langdon, and told him in the film's final words: "Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. All men, including this one (pointing to himself)...Mr. Langdon, thanks be to God for sending someone to protect his Church." When Langdon responded: "I don't believe he sent me, Father," Strauss replied: "Oh, my son, of course he did...," as the new Pope greeted the crowd in St. Peter's Square below.

April Fool's Day (1986)

The Party Was an April Fool's Joke

In this tongue-in-cheek slasher horror film, eight college students who liked to play April Fool's jokes on each other, met during spring break at the secluded island home of hostess Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman), to celebrate her 21st birthday (on April Fool's Day) during a 'bloody unforgettable' weekend. The oddly-behaving Muffy reportedly had a deranged twin sister named Buffy who was in an institution.

One by one, the students died (off-screen) by decapitation, throat cutting, castration, stabbing, and hanging, with one suspected killer being the injured ferry worker from the film's opening. Only Kit (Amy Steel) and Rob (Ken Olandt) were left at film's end, chased by the suspected killer Buffy into the living room, where she found all the others resurrected and alive.

It had all been an elaborate hoax or ruse for April Fool's Day, explained when Buffy showed that the knife wasn't sharp - causing the freaked-out Kit to scream. Muffy explained that there was no Buffy, and that the entire weekend had been a test for future bed & breakfast 'murder weekends' she was planning for the mansion.

In an additional twist, librarian Nan (Leah Pinsent) - supposedly angered by Muffy's reference to an abortion - slit the throat of soused Muffy when she returned to her bedroom - but then revealed that the knife and blood were fake as she smiled at the camera/audience.

Arlington Road (1999)

Faraday's Neighbor, A Terrorist, Tricked Him Into Transporting A Bomb to Blow Up the FBI Building

Widowed college history professor Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) became convinced that his nine year-old son Grant (Spencer Treat Clark) had been kidnapped by his white supremacist, structural engineer surburban Virginia neighbor Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins) - a dangerous extremist.

When he saw the boy in a van heading towards FBI headquarters, he drove his car through the barricades and into the underground parking lot of the FBI building. He discovered - too late - that his neighbor had set him up and duped him with a destructive bomb planted in the trunk -- which exploded and killed him, and wounded and killed many others.

The resultant news coverage blamed him as the criminal, although the real criminal was his terrorist psychotic neighbor. This film's twist ending was similar to the one in The Parallax View (1974).

Atonement (2007)

The Two Lovers Were Reunited Only in the Novel

The film's plot centered on fanciful, manipulative 13 year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) who mistakenly identified and accused her sister Cecilia Tallis' (Keira Knightley) 'secret' boyfriend, servant/cook son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), of 'raping' her 15 year-old cousin Lola Quincey (Juno Temple). [Later it was revealed that houseguest/chocolate tycoon Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberpatch) was actually making love to Lola, and a few years later married her, but the act was misinterpreted by the young Briony as 'rape'.]

Robbie was dragged off to jail and then released to join the British forces at the start of World War II.

At the end of the film, older, terminally-ill (with vascular dementia) novelist Briony (Vanessa Redgrave) was interviewed about her latest and last book - an autobiographical work titled Atonement - when she confessed as an act of penance that much of the end portion of the novel was fabricated in order to bring the two lovers together and make amends. However, she told the interviewer it was "the absolute truth, no rhymes, no embellishments."

A scene of reconciliation between 18 year-old nursing student Briony (Romola Garai) and her estranged sister (and Robbie) was "imagined, invented," in which Briony promised to make a written apology and officially recant her false accusation.

However, both Robbie and Cecilia died during the war, never to experience the happiness they desired. Robbie died of septicemia on the last day of the Dunkirk evacuation before returning home, and Cecilia died a few months later when bombs flooded the London underground tunnel where she was seeking shelter.

The final scene was an idealized look at the lovers cavorting on the beach near a beach house, as Briony stated: "So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I'd like to think this isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness."

Audition (1999, Jp.)

Asami Tortured the Widower Before She Broke Her Own Neck When Pushed Down Stairs by the Widower's Son

A shocking transformation and character reversal was the almost-unbelievable plot twist in this film: seemingly-demure, virginal and dutifully-humble 24 year-old 'auditioned' bride-to-be Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina) turned into a vengeful, sadistic torturer who exacted her revenge on middle-aged, lonely widower Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi).

She first drugged and temporarily paralyzed him (with a syringe), and then terrorized him with acupuncture needles (stuck into his eyelids) and piano wire (used to amputate or wire-saw off his left foot), before she herself broke her neck (and became paralyzed from the neck down) after being pushed down stairs by the widower's son.