History MindScrew / Film

* No mention of this: [[RockyHorrorPictureShow A man and his fiance-that he takes the time to remind everyone of- end up entering a castle inhabited by generic horror movie servants who work for a transvestite Tim Curry who somehow creates a frankenstein monster only for a zombified Meat Loaf to ride a motorcycle out of a giant freezer to sing a song while dry humping his girlfriend only for Tim Curry to slaughter him and then apparently marry the frankenstein only for a narrator with no F***ing neck to introduce Tim Curry having sex with the asshole and the slut followed by the musical sex scene of the slut seducing the frankenstein when the paraplegic, nazi kool-aid man crashes through the wall and announces that meat loaf is his nephew and things about how much of a disappointment Meat Loaf was and this introduces musical attempted rape followed by a musical orgy in a pool and-wouldn't you know it- a musical dance where the servants reveal that they are aliens and kill transvestite Tim Curry, Meat Loaf's girlfriend, and frankenstein and then fly the castle off into space.]] I am obviously talking about Thelma and Louise.

* SuckerPunch: It has an ImagineSpot (a brothel) which has one or three different [[ImagineSpot Imagine Spots]] within. During the imagine spot inside of the brothel, the characters participate in frenetic, over-the-top and [[RuleOfCool awesome]] action sequences full of hidden symbolism. [[UnreliableNarrator We're also not sure how much of what happened is the truth,]] and just who the protagonist is. And it subverts AllJustADream so many times that you're not sure just whose dream it is. Logically, whoever's dream it was would be the protagonist, but good luck figuring that out.

** Topped a few months later by ''[=~I'm Not There~=]'', Todd Haynes' attempt to quantify the existence of Bob Dylan by presenting him as SEVEN SEPARATE CHARACTERS, including a woman, a small black child, and Billy the Kid. If you have an extensive knowledge of the man, the metaphorical touchstones are fairly easy to follow, but if you're even but a casual fan, entire chunks of the movies will leave you stonefaced or completely confused as to their relevance.

*** [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot The depressing thing is that you could have made a quite good science fiction movie from the themes in]] ''Zardoz''. That movie would have had interesting things to say about the abuse of technology, colonial oppression, stagnation in advanced societies, and a bunch of other things. It didn't ''have'' to be James Bond in a diaper. Really, ''Zardoz'' should be shown to kids in junior high schools to warn them against taking drugs...

* ''Meek's Cutoff'', specifically the end. What was the point of it again?

* The 2007 BobDylan BioPic ''ImNotThere'' uses five different actors (and [[CateBlanchett one actress]]) to play different aspects of Bob Dylan's personality in separate stories and visual styles, several of which appear to be within the mind of another or exist within some sort of RecursiveReality.

* ''{{Meek's Cutoff}}'', specifically the end. What was the point of it again?

* ''Meek'sCutoff'', specifically the end. What was the point of it again?

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEPSIAkmzAE This]] short film adaptation of the Maurice Ogden poem "The Hangman". Also doubles as SurrealHorror.

* The 1965 science fiction horror ''MonsterAGoGo'' attempts to pull off a mind screw at its climax, although as with everything else in the film - acting, special effects, sound recording - this fails utterly. In brief, director Bill Rebane ran out of money before he could finish the film; the footage was was later purchased by producer Hal Warren, who finished it as cheaply as possible, with extra scenes shot a year later and some spurious narration. The end result was a disjointed, haunting mess, in which characters we don't know talk at great length about a threat we never see. The kicker comes at the end; after sixty minutes of plotless meandering, it ''finally'' seems as if the radioactive monster has been cornered, in a sewer. The army are called in, and we watch some soldiers dressing themselves in radiation suits for five long minutes. But just as it seems that some action is about to take place, ''a cosmic switch is pulled''. [[spoiler:''There was no monster''. "There was no trail. There was no giant, no monster, no thing called "Douglas" to be followed."]]

* Most films directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, including Solyaris, Stalker, and The Sacrifice. but most notably The Mirror, to which Tarkovsky commented that even he himself didn't understand the full meaning behind some of the scenes.

* ''{{Last Year at Marienbad}}'', considered one of the most famous mind screws in French cinema. The film has no discernible plot other than apparently two people who may or may not have had a affair a year ago in Marienbad (German name of a Czech city) meet each other again at some sort of elite social gathering. Other than that, it plays out like some sort dream over loosely connected scenes. People still has no idea what exactly it was about, but the cinematography was beautiful.

* The 2007 BobDylan BioPic ''ImNotThere'' uses five different actors (and [[CateBlanchett one actress]] to play different aspects of Bob Dylan's personality in separate stories and visual styles, several of which appear to be within the mind of another or exist within some sort of RecursiveReality.

* ''{{Inception}}'' is not as mind screwing as one would expect. But the whole plot is about putting an industrial heir through one massive mind screw to mess with his free will. First he is put into an artifical dream where he gets kidnapped by people wanting the codes to his fathers secret safe, which he handles quite well. But then he gets put into a drea within the dream where he is approached by a stranger who claims to be part of his subconscious and they are both in a dream and under attack by kidnappers who wants to steal his company secrets. Then the laws of physics start to no longer apply correctly and he no longer takes things that well.

* The ending of ''{{Time Bandits}}'' as well as just about every other TerryGilliam film ever made.
** Don't touch it! It's Evil!
*** Completely...Its a ok although odd movie until the final battle and everything after. Then we were all WTF just happened?
** ''{{Brazil}}'' is a prime example of this. It's about a man living in a corrupt bureaucratic government who uses his dreams as an escape. It gets difficult to separate what's real and what's not, especially at the end when he's going insane [[spoiler: as his best friend tortures him.]] [[ExecutiveMeddling In the original ending, at least]].
* The 1960s version of ''LordOfTheFlies''. It's not even in a funny way. It's kind of scary.

* LastYearAtMarienbad. And ''how''.
* The 2007 BobDylan BioPic ''ImNotThere'' uses five different actors (and [[CateBlanchett one actress]] to play different aspects of Bob Dylan's personality in separate stories and visual styles, several of which appear to be within the mind of another or exist within some sort of RecursiveReality.
* 1968's "The Magus" (from the book of the same name by John Fowles, more highly recommended, than the movie) with Anthony Quinn as the Master Mind-screw guy, screwing with a young guy on a Greek island; ... very hard to know what is up, it's a good one.

* The beginning of ''TheCityOfLostChildren''. Most, not all of it, make sense by the end.

* The scene in ''{{Spaceballs}}'' where Dark Helmet watches himself on a VHS tape. He got so confused that he cannot grasp the concept of "when".
* ''TheMatrix''. The sequels have a mild case of it, anyway; in the first movie, Morpheus took the time to explain what was going on.
** Not mild with the Architect in ''Reloaded''...
** The "Animatrix", a collection of short anime films based off the trilogy, easily qualify as Mind Screw material.
* DavidLynch's ''Mulholland Dr.'' Or, to an even greater degree, ''{{Eraserhead}}''.
** ''Lost Highway'' where on the one hand characters transform into each other. On the other hand is the first scene repeated later from a different view: Fred, who answered the entryphone in the first version, rings the bell in the second one himself. So instead of an expected OnceMoreWithClarity it turns out to further support the Mind Screw.
** ''Inland Empire'' makes Mulholland Dr. seem sensical.
*** As Laura Dern's character describes the events of the film: "I'm trying to tell you so you understand how it went. Thing is, I don't know what was before or after. I don't know what's happened first...and it's kinda layin' a mindfuck on me."
** Mr. Lynch is so well known for his [[MindScrew Mind Screws]], that he had to title his one non-maddening movie ''The Straight Story''. And it's still kind of weird.
* ''Waking Life''
* ''{{Primer}}'', thanks to TimeTravel, SecondHandStorytelling, and a case of TheEndingChangesEverything. There is an explanation for almost everything that happens, but you have to watch the movie at least twice to put all the clues together.
* ''TheFountain''.

* ''DeadMan'' with Johnny Depp is a very otherworldly film, during which few things happen and most of the dialogues are just plain weird. It's even pointed out in frustration by the protagonist at one point.
* Speaking of JohnnyDepp, what about ''ArizonaDream'' by Emir Kusturica? [[CloudCuckoolander Insanely weird characters]]? Check. [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Odd dreams]]? Check. [[MindScrew Flying fish]]?! You bet! So, what exactly happened in the movie? Well, it sort of varies, depending on [[YourMileageMayVary who you ask]].
* ''TheButterflyEffect'' is a sort-of mind screw. Is he traveling through time? Moving across alternate universes and adapting to the memories of the version of himself in the new universe? Is he just totally nuts and then one day finally gets the help he needs? Is the end really just another delusion? These last two possibilities are subverted in the DVD release alternate ending in which he [[spoiler:goes back to when he was in his mother's womb and commits suicide with his own umbilical chord before even being born. Which is impossible, by the way.]]
** Not exactly, [[spoiler:most people seem to think he's strangling himself with it. He isn't; he's biting through it. Without teeth. Nice.]]

* Pretty much all of Luis Bunuel's movies are like this.
** ''UnChienAndalou''. Just try to read the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Chien_Andalou#Synopsis Other Wiki's synopsis]]. WordOfGod says that was entirely deliberate. Quoting Luis Bunuel on the rules he and Dali set for them selves in writing the script:"no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted." and "Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis."
* DavidCronenberg's ''NakedLunch'' is a lot less disgusting than the book it's named after (it actually borrows from a large part of the works of William S. Burroughs), but only slightly less confusing.
** Speaking of Cronenberg films, ''eXistenZ'' is Philip K Dick-like in the mind screw department. It features a VR game within a VR game within a VR game within a VR game, the characters openly question whether they're still in the game at every level (and for bonus points, compare real-life to VR), switch sides multiple times, and reference things that happened at other levels.
* The movie π (''{{Pi}}'') has a paranoid mathemathical genius, Hebrew numerology, conspiracies, neurological headaches, [[CosmicHorror the secret name of God]], and [[spoiler:the protagonist taking [[ThisIsADrill A Drill]] to his head to escape all this crap]]. To top it off, it's in black and white. And is scored to techno music.

* ''WhatTheBleepDoWeKnow'' is a ''major, major'' offender of this one. If you can make some sense out of the cryptic, convoluted {{Technobabble}} about Quantum Mechanics, Religion, Life, the Universe and Everything, you'll see how this movie easily beats ''SerialExperimentsLain'' in terms of head-trippiness, even though even TheOtherWiki agrees it's all just quantum mysticism mixed with the ideas of some new age school. [[http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/bleep.html According to Intuitor]], it also completely messed up Quantum Physics, horrible research, biases and scientific inaccuracies destroyed any hope of correct science.
** Here's the key: there is a middle-aged woman doing her best attempt at a deep male voice partway through the film. The name given on screen is "Ramtha". Her cult funded the entire movie.
*** The woman is JZ Knight, who claims to be ''channeling [[YouFailHistoryForever a 40,000 year old Indian spirit]]''. [[TranslationConvention Who speaks suspiciously good English]]. And [[YouFailPhysicsForever doesn't understand squat about quantum mechanics]].
** Additionally, David Albert, the Camberidge Physics/Philosophy professor who appears in the film, has gone on record stating that the filmmakers have selectively edited his interview to make it appear that he endorses the film's thesis that quantum mechanics are linked with consciousness when really he is "profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness."
** ''What the Bleep'''s MindScrew ability depends on your gullibility.
* Jean-Luc Godard's film ''Weekend''.

* ''{{Zardoz}}'', quite possibly the only film to begin with a giant stone head coming out of the sky, declaring the penis to be evil, and throwing a bunch of guns out of its mouth. The movie just gets weirder from there.
** Including [[{{Squick}} a bunch of women attempting to give an erection to Sean Connery, who is wearing a bright red nappy.]]
** Don't forget the scene with Sean Connery in a wedding dress, or several scenes which have random images projected onto various characters' skins, or the ending, which has Sean Connery and his love interest having a baby and then watching as all three, get old, and die, or the beginning, which has a floating head of a man with a beard painted onto his chin and a towel on his head attempting to explain the plot of the movie about to be watched, which just ends up confusing everyone else more.
** The commentary on the DVD has the director [[CaptainObvious admit he was on drugs]] throughout filming.
*** [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot The depressing thing is that you could have made a quite good science fiction movie from the themes in]] ''Zardoz''. That movie would have had interesting things to say about the abuse of technology, colonial oppression, stagnation in advanced societies, and a bunch of other things. It didn't ''have'' to be James Bond in a diaper. Really, ''Zardoz'' should be shown to kids in junior high schools to warn them against taking drugs...
* JimHenson (yes, THAT Jim Henson) made a overly symbolic (and Oscar-nominated) short film called ''Time Piece''. Scenes include a caveman in an office, Jim Henson's head on a serving tray, and the only dialogue in the movie is Jim himself saying "help" about 3 or 4 times.
** He also made a humorous but bewildering teleplay called ''The Cube'' (no relation to the Canadian film and its sequels). It's about a man trapped in a cube shaped room. He has no idea where he is or how he got there. Other people can enter and leave freely, but he cannot. People change into other people, objects appear and disappear, bizarre philosophical interpretations of his situation are suggested and dismissed, and when he gets cut he bleeds strawberry jam. Is he dead? Insane? Part of some twisted psychological experiment? Or is he really just a character in a television program? In a way this film deconstructs this trope, as an overabundance of explanations are provided by other characters, though which (if any) is the truth is never revealed.
* MirrorMask My God, Mirror Mask... If the visual conception isn't enough (and this troper believes it is), then would some other troper explain what the whole point was? Or how it was the SpiritualSuccessor to {{Labyrinth}}?
* ''{{Videodrome}}''
* ''GiveMyRegardsToBroadStreet'' has some Mind Screwing - partly from symbolism, partly because of [[DreamSequence Dream Sequences]] started and ended with very little warning.
* The Oscar-nominated French/Canadian/Belgian animated movie ''TheTripletsOfBelleville''.
* The ending of ''TheNinthGate'' caused everybody to make that sound {{Scooby-Doo}} makes when he's confused.
* ''RepoMan'' for sure, but played for laughs.
* ''{{Last Year at Marienbad}}'', considered one of the most famous mind screws in French cinema. The film has no discernible plot other than apparently two people who may or may not have had a affair a year ago in Marienbad (German name of a Czech city) meet each other again at some sort of elite social gathering. Other than that, it plays out like some sort dream over loosely connected scenes. People still has no idea what exactly it was about, but the cinematography was beautiful.
* ''BartonFink''. Granted, nothing the CoenBrothers have done is completely straightforward, but when [[spoiler:JohnGoodman is on a shotgun rampage through a burning hotel screaming "look upon me," and no, [[ItMakesSenseInContext it does not make sense in context]]]], you start to wonder what you've gotten yourself into.
** He's just showing you the life of the mind.
* The collected works of Mr. CharlieKaufman.
** ''Synecdoche, New York'' is an absolute Mind Screw from start to finish. From the ridiculous jumps in time to plays within plays within plays to a woman living in a perpetually burning house before [[spoiler:dying after 30 years from "smoke inhalation"]].
* ''Jacob's Ladder'' is a Mind Screw from start to finish.

* The very end of ''ReazioneACatena'', with [[spoiler: the main killers being shot to death with a shotgun by their '''8-year-old''' son, and his sister commenting, ''Gee, they're good at playing dead, aren't they?'']].
* Watch the Argentinian film ''Hombre Mirando al Sudeste'' (''Man Looking Southeast'') and try to decide which of the explanations is true. You'll be lying in bed thinking about it, seriously, as it's just that freakin' bizarre, and ends unanswered.
* The pretty much the entire point of the CRS company in the DavidFincher flick ''Film/TheGame''.
* After it runs out of material and stops being a comedy, ''Art School Confidential'' wants ''desperately'' to be a MindScrew, it tries ''so hard!'' But somewhere along the line someone missed the point of what a MindScrew actually is and the movie doesn't even really bother to actually try to confuse you with anything, because it's so proud of how it's got a grown up plot about a guy who commits murders and makes paintings out of them, only he dies and someone else gets arrested for it, instead of some silly story about ''art students''.
* ''I Love Your Work'' isn't as extreme as others on this list, as a simple [[spoiler: "I guess it was all in his head"]] makes sense of it as a whole, as the ending makes that seem like the most likely explanation. But some scenes are still pretty odd.

* ''Stay.'' It all makes sense at the end [[spoiler: the entire film is the product of Ethan's dying mind absorbing his immediate surroundings]], but through the course of the narrative, good luck trying to make sense of anything.
* Unless you're a {{Beatles}} fan and have some basic knowledge of the 60's counterculture movement, ''{{Across the Universe}}'' can be anywhere from "slightly confusing" to "incomprehensible acid trip on film".
** Topped a few months later by ''[=~I'm Not There~=]'', Todd Haynes' attempt to quantify the existence of Bob Dylan by presenting him as SEVEN SEPARATE CHARACTERS, including a woman, a small black child, and Billy the Kid. If you have an extensive knowledge of the man, the metaphorical touchstones are fairly easy to follow, but if you're even but a casual fan, entire chunks of the movies will leave you stonefaced or completely confused as to their relevance.
* Anything directed by Alexandro Jodorowsky.
** Jodorowsky was friends with Dennis Hopper, which is why Hopper's ''The Last Movie'' turned out the way it did.

* In ''CemeteryMan'', Francesco Dellamorte [[CantGetAwayWithNuthin Can't Get Away With Nuthin']], [[spoiler:and all of his murders are pinned on someone else]]. This is because [[spoiler:Francesco isn't real, but is an imaginary construct of Franco. Fantasy bleeds into reality, and Franco begins to murder people in his insanity.]] Or maybe the dead are actually rising, the film isn't very specific on details.
** Not to mention that [[spoiler: The entire movie takes place in a snow globe]].

* The StarWarsHolidaySpecial has quite some moments of mind screw, largely thanks to the fact there's absolutely no subtitles for non-human creatures' languages (such as the wookies). For instance, we'll perhaps never know what the hell where the tiny circus-performers like things the little wookie was watching, let alone the white swimming things that appeared in the machine that grandpa wookie was watching (though, because the image that followed was a woman saying how much she would [[{{Squick}} desire to have sex with said wookie]], perhaps [[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses The Nostalgia Critic's]] claim that it was wookie sperm isn't very far from truth)

* ''{{Inception}}'' is surprisingly straightforward until [[spoiler: the final shot of the top makes you question everything you just saw]].
** [[{{ChristopherNolan}} Nolan's]] style includes the ideas of deception, deep psychology, and order vs chaos. See ''TheDarkKnight, ThePrestige, {{Memento}}'', et all.
** It helps to realise that in every other scene that's not stated to be a dream, the top topples. So everything but the last scene is most likely real.
*** Ah, but it wobbled - did it actually topple?
** Deserves extra points for this trope, as it's a MindScrew film that's all ''about'' mind-screwing.
** May be a case of AllThereInTheManual: Michael Caine [[GuideDangIt stated in an interview with Time Magazine]] that if he is in the scene, then it takes place in real life.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEPSIAkmzAE This]] short film adaptation of the Maurice Ogden poem "The Hangman". Also doubles as SurrealHorror.
* ''BlackSwan'' is like MindScrew TheMovie. What's real, what's a hallucination, and what's a visual metaphor? In this movie, it's hard to tell, and increasingly it's hard to tell if there's even a difference. Did the movie even happen at all, or will Nina wake up screaming five minutes after the credits?

* It's entirely possible that the entire plot of BlackSwan was just a continuation of some hallucination.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEPSIAkmzAE This]] short film adaptation of the Maurice Ogden poem "The Hangman". Also doubles as SurrealHorror.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEPSIAkmzAE this]] short film adaptation of the Maurice Ogden poem "The Hangman". Also doubles as SurrealHorror.

* ''TheMonkees'' movie ''{{Head}}''. A {{Deconstruction}} of the TV Show, plus an anti-establishment acid trip.

-->"No you’re not, that's what you want me to believe!"

** [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotHeinous And there aren't even any pomegranates in the film!]]

* ''UnChienAndalou''. Just try to read the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Chien_Andalou#Synopsis Other Wiki's synopsis]]. WordOfGod says that was entirely deliberate. Quoting Luis Bunuel on the rules he and Dali set for them selves in writing the script:"no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted." and "Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis."

** Pretty much all of Luis Bunuel's movies are like this.

* Dalton Trumbo's film adaptation of Johnny Got His Gun was done largely by making the film one big mindscrew, caused by the character's explosion-induced loss of his ability to see/hear/speak (as well as his limbs) inducing nightmarish visions inside of his head to pad out the film.

** In the DVD commentary, the [[WordOfGod director]] pretty much owns up to the fact that even he doesn't really know what's going on and that the plot probably can't be explained without resorting to [[AWizardDidIt divine intervention]].

* ''{{Memento}}'' lacks any overt symbolism, but the ending (which is [[spoiler: the ''middle'']]) will make you wonder what you just watched, especially since which story told by Teddy concerning the protagonist and the death of his wife is true, among other factual discrepancies, is never explained in the movie. Then again, that may been the point.

* Most films directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, including Solyaris, Stalker, and The Sacrifice. but most notably The Mirror, to which Tarkovsky commented that even he himself didn't understand the full meaning behind some of the scenes.