The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Ger.)

The Narrator Was the Real Madman

In the film's twist ending, it was revealed that the entire film (a framed story with a flashback) was a flashback made up from the delusions of the mentally-ill narrator/story-teller of the film Francis (Friedrich Feher) while he was seated on a garden bench in the asylum courtyard.

He told a tale about a series of horrible events that he had experienced, and about a mad Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) who used a tall, slender somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt) to murder people.

At the end of the tale, he told how he had heroically trapped the evil mastermind Caligari. He was actually a patient interred in the mental institution (with one of the patients named Cesare) that was directed by "Caligari." The last scene was of Francis becoming crazed when he saw the asylum director Dr. Caligari whom he insisted was the "Caligari" of his story.

A benevolent Dr. Caligari stated that he had a sure-fire cure for Francis' delusions - leaving the viewer with the overriding question: "Who was sane and who was insane?"

Candyman (1992)

Helen's Spirit Vengefully Killed Husband Trevor

At the end of this bloody horror film, both married graduate student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) and the haunting, incarnated hook-wielding 'Candyman' maniac (Tony Todd) were burned to death.

Still mourning the death of his wife, cheating husband Trevor Lyle (Xander Berkeley) was in his bathroom when he called out Helen's name five times in front of a mirror, not knowing that he was invoking her return as a spirit that had replaced Candyman - she appeared in a bluish pulsating light and asked him: "What's the matter, Trevor? Scared of something?"

Because he had been sleeping with another woman named Stacey (Carolyn Lowery) (who was in the kitchen with a butcher knife preparing dinner), she took spectacular revenge against him - she killed Trevor by stabbing him in the stomach with the Candyman's large hook, ripping him open from his groin up to his neck - and leaving him a bloody corpse in the bathtub.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Mary's Car Crash Was Deadly

In this classic horror film's final scene, it was revealed that all three female passengers in a car, including talented young organist Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), that plunged off a bridge and into a muddy river during a drag race, never survived the crash. However, in the film's opening, it appeared that Mary had survived when she emerged unscathed.

Her dreams, imagined visions and trances involving the ghouls in a dance of death were due to her hallucinations during her death experience and entry into the spirit world.

In the revelatory final scene's plot twist, the submerged car (with Mary's corpse inside) was partially dredged out of the river.

Carrie (1976)

Sole Surviving Classmate Sue Dreamed The Visit To Carrie's Grave

In the shock second ending to this De Palma horror film - a dream sequence, surviving classmate Sue Snell (Amy Irving), who was holding a bouquet of flowers, visited the defiled gravesite (with a graffiti-marked For Sale sign reading: "Carrie White burns in hell" and an arrow pointing downward) of dead psychic student Carrie White (Sissy Spacek). Carrie and her mother (Piper Laurie) had perished in their collapsing house.

As she went to put the flowers on the grave, Carrie's bloody hand burst out of the ground at her and grabbed her arm to pull her down into hell with her - the white-clad young girl screamed and suddenly woke up while recuperating in her bed at home, still screaming hysterically and being grabbed and held by her reassuring mother (Priscilla Pointer) ("It's all right, I'm here") as she experienced more nightmares.

Casablanca (1942)

Rick Heroically Allowed Lover Ilsa to Leave on A Plane to Lisbon with Husband Victor

This classic war-era film ended on a foggy airstrip in Casablanca, when cafe owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) sacrificially chose patriotism over his personal love. He told teary-eyed former lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) to get on the plane departing for freedom with her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid): "Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going."

Rick walked off with Capitaine Louis Renault (Claude Rains) across the wet runway into the misty fog, as Rick told Renault that they have forged a new alliance: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" - their new partnership was underscored with the triumphant sounds of La Marseillaise.

The Cell (2000)

Dr. Deane Successfully Brought Comatose, Schizophrenic Serial Killer Stargher Into Her Own Mind, Where She Murdered Him; Stargher's Latest Victim To Be Drowned in the "Cell" Was Rescued

Director Tarsem Singh's stylish and innovative sci-fi thriller (his first feature film) was a combination of a typical police procedural (The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or Se7en (1995)) mixed with a virtual reality gimmick, as in The Lawnmower Man (1992).

In the opening, child psychotherapist Dr. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) demonstrated her special empathic talent - she entered into the mind of a comatose young boy named Edward Baines (Colton James) who nearly drowned on Seal Beach. As one of the researchers said of her risky VR journey, "It's like the old wives' tale where you die in your dream, you die in real life."

A serial killer in rural Southern California, identified as sadomasochistic Carl Rudolph Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio), was often accompanied by a rare albino German Shepherd (named Valentine). He had built a glass-enclosed "cell' in an underground chamber near an abandoned tin-sheeted building (near Exit 10 off Highway 99) where he kept each captive kidnapped victim (randomly grabbed) to torment. He would watch and record them on a set of four closed-circuit TV monitors as he meticulously fed and cared for them before slowly drowning them. With one recent victim, Anne Marie Vicksey (Catherine Sutherland), he gazed at her as she floated after drowning in the cell.

In the basement of his small house, Stargher treated the body of his most recent victim: bleaching it (turning it into a "doll"), then viewing it while suspended over the corpse, hung by 14 steel rings-hooks implanted into his back, and masturbating at his handiwork. Nearby, he displayed a grotesque collection of painted and pale plastic child's play 'dolls', some of which were modeled in absurd postures. Stargher had just suffered from an irreversible coma when he was apprehended by a SWAT team (he was tracked down by a hair from his rare albino dog). Dr. Deane was called upon by the FBI, led by Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn), to find Stargher's recently-kidnapped eighth victim, Julia Hickson (Tara Subkoff). Deane entered into Stargher's twisted, depraved and bizarre psyche and mental landscape to confront his dreams, represented by inventive, disturbing visuals. Links signifying empathy between Catherine and Stargher were evident early on - for example, Catherine's feeding milk to her cat, and a victim's milky bath. Her efforts were to discover information to locate and rescue the missing female kidnap victim from fateful drowning (automatically timed to occur within 40 hours) in the tank-cell.

Inside of his mind, she found that one of his alter egos in his severe schizoid personality was a young abused boy. She saw the younger version of Stargher (Jake Thomas) relive how his abusive father had whipped him for playing with dolls ("I didn't raise no faggot"), burned him with an iron, river-baptized him (nearly drowning him) - with water representing both death and salvation, and broke three ribs and fractured his jaw when he was six years old.

Others of Stargher's alter egos included a Grand Guignol king with a purple cape on a throne, and an evil, demonic devil satyr with horns created out of human hair. Agent Novak was also compelled to enter Stargher's mind to search for a trapped Catherine (taken captive by Stargher, wearing a neck collar and chain). Both risked insanity and death if they remained too long. Novak found himself struggling, bound and prone, as Stargher plaintively sang "Mairzy Doats" and disemboweled him with a large pair of scissors.

In the end, a clue from the logo of the steel torture slab (and hoist), manufactured by Carver Industrial Equipment in Bakersfield, California, led them to the location of Stargher's victim. Novak flew by helicopter, discovered the trap door leading to Julia's 'cell,' smashed the enclosure and rescued her just before she drowned. At the same time, without authorization, Deane reversed the feed and took Stargher into her own consciousness. Representing a Catholic Virgin Mary (wearing red and white), she took young Stargher into her trust. He admitted that his pathology started when he drowned an injured bird as a mercy killing ("It was better for the bird. I saved him") to save it from his father's torture. She then killed the murderous adult Stargher, by stabbing him in the heart with a sword, claiming: "My world, my rules." At the same time, she cradled the young Stargher in her arms as he also died and peacefully drowned in a baptism pool. As young Carl had saved the hurt bird, she also saved him from his beastly persona.

In the denouement, she adopted Stargher's albino dog, and used the reverse process to successfully break through Edward's coma (symbolized by blooming trees, falling snow, and an unbroken toy boat).

The Changeling (1980)

Senator Carmichael Was 'The Changeling' - An Imposter Heir Named Joseph, After the Real Joseph Was Drowned as a Boy

The title of the film was a major plot point - although it was not clear until about 3/4ths of the way through the film what it was referring to. Director Peter Medak's tense and unsettling haunted house entry starred George C. Scott as composer/musician and university teacher John Russell - a recently-mourning widower who rented and moved into a haunted Seattle three-story mansion while working at his alma mater. He was still having nightmares and dealing with his own personal tragedy after witnessing the death of his wife Joanna and young daughter Kathy in a freak snow-plow accident in the film's opening during a winter vacation in upstate NY. The house rental deal in Chessman Park was facilitated by one of the historical society's workers Claire Norman (Trish Van Devere), although he was warned about the gothic house: "No one's been able to live in it. It doesn't want people."

Deeply-disturbing imagery, supernatural phenomena (a piano key pressed by an unknown presence, a broken window), and sounds (strange thumping and clanging noises, doors slamming, running faucets, whispering sounds, Kathy's rubber ball bouncing down the stairs, etc.) began to appear to Russell, as well as an apparition of a boy underwater (when he went to turn off a faucet that had partially filled a bathtub). He discovered a secret padlocked doorway behind a bookcase, leading from the 3rd floor up to the attic, where he found a dusty, cob-web covered children's room. In it was a music box, playing the same tune that he had been composing on the piano. Investigating with Claire, Russell first found an historical record in the local library that a local girl named Cora had been killed near the house by a coal truck - similar to the death of his own daughter. Maybe the house was trying to reach out to him, because of the similarities between the death of the little girl and his own daughter?

During a seance, a frenzied medium received ghostly answers to her questions, not from Cora, but from a spirit named Joseph, and a large cone-shaped object sailed across the room. Russell received further communicative manifestations from the poltergeist - a crippled young boy named Joseph Carmichael - when he replayed a tape recording of the seance. He discovered that the six-year old boy had been murdered (drowned) by his father Richard Carmichael in the attic's bathtub in the early 1900s. [The thumping noise was the sound of the boy's frantic fist banging on the side of the tub during the horrific murder.] And it appeared that the six term, powerful, wealthy and elderly US Senator Joe Carmichael (Melvyn Douglas), the local symphony's benefactor, was somehow involved and wanted to keep it covered up.

In the film's conclusion, Senator Carmichael was revealed to be "the changeling" - the imposter or fake son Joseph. After the murder of young Joseph during his bath in the attic, the scheming father led everyone to believe that he had taken the sickly boy to Europe (for special therapy in a sanitarium). In fact, he had substituted a boy (the future Senator) from the local orphanage in his place, in order to inherit the boy's fortune. Richard's motive to replace the sickly and arthritic Joseph was greed, since his deceased wife's multi-million fortune was willed to Joseph, whom Richard feared wouldn't live to the age of 21, long enough to acquire the wealth. The real Joseph was buried in a deep well on the Carmichael's family ranch (now existing under a house where a young girl's bedroom was located, and where she experienced nightmares of an emaciated boy reaching for her). A digging under the floorboards found skeletal bones and the boy's baptism medal in the dirt of the well. (The Senator had in his possession a fake medal, and possibly knew about the swap that had brought him great fortune - the sins of the father were vengefully visited upon the son.)

When Russell confronted the aging Senator with Joseph's medal, he was offered blackmail money to keep silent, but Russell refused the money. When the Senator placed the real medal on a portrait of foster father Richard on his desk, it began to violently shake. He became hypnotized and had an out-of-body or dream-like experience - he entered the burning mansion (which ultimately burned to the ground), climbed the flaming stairs to the attic, and saw the same vision of Joseph's drowning death at the hands of his father. He suffered a fatal heart attack - and was wheeled into an ambulance from his home.

Charade (1963)

Reggie's Husband Hid His Money in Stamps on An Envelope Before Being Killed

In this clever and sophisticated suspense comedy/mystery, the recently-widowed and elegant Regina "Reggie" Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) found herself pursued by many harrassing men, even though she was penniless after her husband Charles was brutally murdered by being thrown from a train (she was planning on divorcing him anyway).

She became extremely vulnerable and apprehensive after learning that her husband stole government money during WWII, and feared that his double-crossed victims (all Army war buddies) wanted to locate the lost or hidden gold treasure worth $250,000. The Army buddies included:

• Tex Panthollow (James Coburn)
• Herman Scobie (George Kennedy)
• Leopold Gideon (Ned Glass)
• Carson Dyle (Walter Matthau)
• ? Alexander Dyle/Peter Joshua (Cary Grant)

One of the men who also seemed to be in pursuit was the enigmatic yet suave Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) - raising the question: Were the beguiling Joshua's motives honest and above reproach, or was he hiding secrets from her, and not disclosing his true identity?

The man identified as CIA administrator Mr. Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) was actually Carson Dyle, who had survived being shot by the Germans, and was killing off his back-stabbing Army buddies to get at Charles' money.

By the film's conclusion, it was revealed that alias Peter Joshua (going by the names of Alexander Dyle, Carson's brother, Adam Canfield) was actually Mr. Brian Cruikshank of the Treasury Department when his secretary buzzed him in his office. He made a surprise proposal of marriage to Reggie in his office to end the film:

Reggie: "...Marriage license! Did you say marriage license?"
Cruikshank: "Now don't change the subject. Just give me the stamps."
Reggie: "Oh, I love you, Adam... Alex... Peter... Brian... Whatever your name is. Oh, I love you. I hope we have a lot of boys and we can name them all after you!"

It was also revealed that the treasure - the subject of the frenzied search within the film - had been converted into valuable and rare stamps.