Line #140 MindScrew/LiveActionFilms


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9	[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/352189342_2001_a_space_odyssey_baby_answer_12_xlarge_6848.jpeg]]]]
10	[[caption-width-right:350:[[GainaxEnding ... Huh?]] Big baby bubble?]]
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12	->''"A mental mindfuck can be nice!"''
13	-->-- '''Dr. Frank N. Furter''', ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow''
14
15	----
16	* ''Film/{{Pi}}'' was described by ''The A.V. Club'' [[http://www.avclub.com/articles/pi,19384/ as]] "like ''Film/{{Eraserhead}}'' re-envisioned by {{cyberpunk}} author Creator/WilliamGibson." Mix a paranoid mathematical genius, Hebrew numerology, conspiracies, neurological headaches, the secret name of God, and [[spoiler:the aforementioned paranoid mathematical genius taking [[ThisIsADrill a drill]] to his head to escape all this crap]]. To top it off, it's filmed in [[DeliberatelyMonochrome extremely high-contrast black and white]] and scored to techno music.
17	* ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. The book, on the other hand, [[MindScrewdriver is vastly more comprehensible.]]
18	** Allegedly a sizable voice over was recorded, but Kubrick nixed it to avoid the effects of movies like Blade Runner. To be fair, it probably wouldn't have had the same effect and cemented Kubrick's directorial style, but it would have probably given the audience a clue as to what was happening.
19	** A popular urban legend (later confirmed by Creator/ArthurCClarke himself) goes that, after the premiere, Creator/RockHudson stormed out of the theater yelling, "Can someone tell me what the hell I just watched?"
20	** You may not have heard of the sequel, ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact'', although--or perhaps because--it was largely devoted to ''[[MindScrewdriver trying to explain what had happened in the last movie]].'' Of course, it ended up opening ''new'' questions.
21	** Ironically, its status as an enormous mind screw helped it grow in popularity with the counterculture at the time after a large number of regular moviegoers had been driven away by the incomprehensibility of it all. Reviewers who had initially given it negative reviews due to the weirdness on first viewing grew to like it on later viewings.
22	** The prologue and ending of the original book of ''2001'' are significantly longer than their movie equivalents for the same reason. There was a lot of 'splaining to do.
23	* ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse2007'' can be anywhere from "slightly confusing" to "incomprehensible acid trip on film", unless you're a [[{{Music/TheBeatles}} Beatles]] fan and have some basic knowledge of the '60s counterculture movement.
24	* ''Film/ApocalypseNow''. The whole film is a [[SurrealHorror surreal]] UsefulNotes/VietnamWar experience, [[WarIsHell full of horrors]] that transform sane men into madmen.
25	* The indie film ''Film/ArchiesFinalProject'' aka ''My Suicide'' is a bit of a mind screw. The whole movie is meant to be a school project made by the main character, who is a teenage boy with a movie obsession and probably several mental illnesses. The first hour or so has a lot of slightly obscure movie references and a lot of random animation, images, and voice overs that don't really make sense, especially not the first time you watch it.
26	* ''Film/ArizonaDream'' by Creator/EmirKusturica. [[CloudCuckoolander Insanely weird characters]]? Check. Odd dreams? Check. [[MindScrew Flying fish]]?! You bet! So, what exactly happened in the movie? Well, it sort of varies.
27	* ''Film/BartonFink''. Granted, nothing Creator/TheCoenBrothers 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.
28	* The very end of ''Film/ABayOfBlood'', 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?'']].
29	* ''Film/BeingJohnMalkovich''. The film revolves around the discovery of an inconspicuous, boarded up doorway in an office building which turns out to be a portal which allows any individual who enters it to see through the eyes of actor Creator/JohnMalkovich for a short space of time, raising all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of the human mind and existentialism in the process. It only get weirder from here on in.
30	* One complaint about the ''Film/{{Bewitched}}'' movie is how it got a little ''too'' meta for your average Creator/WillFerrell comedy. Basically some people want to make a reboot of the original Bewitched, except it turns out that the actor they pick to play Samantha is an ''actual'' witch. And then suddenly the family members from the original show start to appear to the two leads to offer advice (with the two just acting like they're actual family members until they suddenly disappear.) The movie finally ends with the actors who play Darren and Samantha getting together and moving into the ''actual'' Bewitched house, across the street from the ''actual'' Bewitched neighbors.
31	* ''Film/BlackSwan''. 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 5 minutes after the credits? Mind screws are a recurring theme in all of Creator/DarrenAronofsky's films.
32	* ''Film/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 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 cord before even being born, with the implication that his mothers' multiple stillbirths before him were due to the similar circumstances.]]
33	* Generally most of Creator/JohnCarpenter's films are pretty straight forward in their delivery. A partial exception would be ''Film/TheThing1982'', which despite having a narrative that's more or less easy to follow really leaves out a lot of crucial details that the audience is left to fill in. To this day fans of the movie still debate on [[spoiler: who got to the blood, whether Blair was infected before or after he was locked up (which depending on how you look at it can provide wholly different interpretations of his actions over the course of the film), how Fuchs ended up being burned to death outside, and most of all whether the Thing really was defeated, or if perhaps one, both, or neither of the survivors have been assimilated]]. Also helps create an EXTREME case of ParanoiaFuel and NightmareFuel.
34	** This is nothing when you look at the final installment of the "Apocalypse Trilogy", ''Film/InTheMouthOfMadness''. [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness There's a reason why it's a former trope namer]]. It starts off with the character being brought into a mental institution, and his story starts off straight forward- a simple investigation into the disappearance of a horror writer due to release the titular novel. Then things get weird when it becomes clear that the books have a weird impact on readers, and he stumbles across a town that shouldn't exist and the writer tells him [[spoiler: he's a fictional character created for his novel, and then his partner is literally written out of the story]]. By the end of the movie, you can't quite tell for certain one way or another who's sane, who's insane, what's real and what's fictional. [[spoiler: Is the protagonist real, or is he merely a figment of a writer's imagination? Was the world really destroyed by Lovecraftian monsters or was it something else? Did the entire story even happen or is it all in his head?]]. To make things even more baffling, the final scene has Sam Neil's character walking into a movie theater to watch the film adaptation of the book the entire movie has been centered around. [[spoiler: It turns out TheFilmOfTheBook is actually the movie we've just finished watching]].
35	** While essentially a straight forward story, ''Film/BigTroubleInLittleChina'' could be considered a minor version of this trope as well. The film gives only a bare minimum of exposition for what is going, which even then only comes midway into the film after numerous unexplained supernatural events have taken place. The BigBad Lo Pan has three different appearances throughout the film [[spoiler:(one as a decrepit old man, another as a normal middle aged man on the street, and yet another a 9 foot tall wizard)]] never explaining how or why he changes between each one. The film also seems to assume the audience will be able to figure out how Chinese Ghosts work on their own, while at the same time totally making up its own mythology.
36	* The 2004 film ''Film/{{Casshern}}'' had no explanation for the ending or for the various DeusExMachina moments that appeared throughout the film. For example, giant metal bolts of lightning that: Started the plot, transported the hero right to the point he needed to be with no question from anyone, ''and'' conveniently provided the final chamber with a giant hole in the wall.
37	* The opening scene of ''Film/TheCell'' has J-Lo riding across the Namibian desert in a wedding dress, dismounting and then looking back on her horse which has turned into a chess piece; and then approaching a boat that is half-buried in the sand and a boy who turns into a werewolf. Later on the film involves a schizophrenic serial killer who drowns his victims, augments their bodies so they look like dolls and then masturbates whilst hanging himself above them by chains attached to metal rings in his back; an albino German shepherd; a horse getting sliced up sushi-style; a collection of doll-like, corpse-like women inside display cases behind glass panels attached to crude machinery that jerks them about in grotesque, sadomasochistic sexual poses; a female bodybuilder; a demon-like man with purple curtains attached to his back; Vince Vaughn getting his intestines pulled out and spiraled around a rotisserie; vultures; peacocks and J-Lo dressed as the Virgin Mary. Justified on account of the fact that the majority of this takes place within people's minds.
38	* In ''Film/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. [[spoiler: The entire movie takes place in a snow globe]].
39	* ''Film/CleanShaven'' is largely about providing a more objective look at schizophrenia and it's effects. Although the plot is straight forward, it's a mind screw because uses a lot of unusual/disturbing images and sounds to give us an insight into the protagonists condition.
40	* ''Film/CloudAtlas'': Each story initially appears to be set in the same universe as its predecessor. This is toyed with when Frobisher questions the veracity of Ewing's journal, then completely undermined when Cavendish receives Rey's story as a the manuscript for a fictional novel. Yet connections between the characters seem to bridge this fiction-reality divide, such as the shared birthmark of Frobisher, Rey, Sonmi, and Zachry (in the book, the last character chronologically with the birthmark was Meronym). Similarly, the reader is led to believe that all of the protagonists are one reincarnated soul, marked by the distinctive birthmark, but this is disputed since the lifespans of Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish should overlap... ''unless'' [[FridgeBrilliance they're two aspects of the same person, since they're the exact same age]]. Her being a fictional character in his universe might be a more significant barrier, unless she was real and "Half-Lives" is a story based on her adventures -- which is entirely possible. [[spoiler: The film implies this possibility more heavily than the book, because in the film the "Half-Lives" manuscript is written by Javier Gomez, the same kid who routinely drops in to visit Luisa and doesn't shut up about mystery tropes.]]
41	** Cavendish and Luisa Rey may actually be of exactly the same age: she was born in 1947 (would turn sixty-five in 2012), and Cavendish is "65 and a half" in 2012. Can one soul be divided in two?
42	* ''Film/TheColorOfPomegranates'', a Soviet-Armenian film [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely based]] on the life of 18th century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova. But instead of being a straight biography, it's an artistic film comprised mostly just a bunch of bizarre scenes that don't make much sense to anyone not familiar with Sayat-Nova's poems.
43	* Creator/DavidCronenberg's works:
44	** ''Film/NakedLunch'' is a lot less disgusting than [[Literature/NakedLunch 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.
45	** ''Film/{{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.
46	** A slightly lesser known but still messed-up film of his- ''Film/{{Videodrome}}'' starring James Woods and Deborah Harry. At first it's just messed up, given it involves the protagonist discovering a "realistic" TV program in which "contestants" are taken into a room where they are tortured and eventually murdered. [[spoiler: As you'd expect, it's real]]. But things just get really weird when it starts messing with his mind and he starts hallucinating. By the time it's all over you're can't be totally sure how much of what you've seen is real and how much is in his head.
47	* The horror film ''Film/{{Cube}}'' intentionally offers no real explanations to what the eponymous ''Cube'' is and why the characters were placed in it. It just developed by itself, with one architect behind it saying "Because it's here. You either use it, or admit it's pointless" (which, in and of itself is pretty mind-screwy). The sequels, however, make things ''worse'' with their attempts to actually explain things somewhat, as none of the three films are made by the same people and can't seem to agree on essential points ++ ''Film/Cube2Hypercube'' being the worst offender in this area.
48	* Director of ''Film/{{Cube}}'', Creator/VincenzoNatali, also made ''Nothing'', a [[TheStoner Stoner Comedy]] about non-existence. It's fairly straightforward in its own way, but still...
49	* ''Film/DeadMan'', an acid Western with Creator/JohnnyDepp, is a very otherworldly film, during which few things happen and most of the dialogues are just plain weird. [[LampshadeHanging It's even pointed out in frustration by the protagonist at one point.]]
50	* ''Film/Dementia1955'':
51	** The film is chock-full of weird surrealistic imagery. The cop who's chasing the woman doesn't seem all that serious about arresting her; it's more like he's content to trail behind her while smiling creepily. The corpse of the rich man is surrounded by faceless people who look on impassively, not even reacting as the woman crawls in between them and cuts the man's hand off with her knife. There's a weird moment after the woman throws the man off the balcony in which the butler, who saw everything, simply laughs approvingly. And when the woman enters the nightclub, the pimp simply throws a cocktail dress at her, and she's instantly wearing it. Much of this is eventually justified by the AllJustADream ending.
52	** It's not clear what the woman's relationship to the rich man is or why the pimp ushers her into the rich man's car. Is the woman a prostitute? If she's a streetwalker, she isn't dressed for it. Is she his kept woman? Also, why is the detective, who is played by the same actor who plays the woman's father in the flashback, following her around before she's even done anything?
53	* The Netflix-exclusive short film ''Film/ExampleShow'', re-released under names such as ''Example Short 23.976 Clear Show'', ''Example Short 23.976 Burned In Timecode Remote Content'' and other strange titles. It involves [[LeaveTheCameraRunning lingering shots]] of the Netflix building gardens and a model train carrying toy penguins as the actor/director runs around doing random stuff and eventually quoting ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''. WordOfGod says that it was short made by a freelancer meant as a way for people streaming from Netflix to test their video players. The short has been subject to much MemeticMutation, usually along the same lines as "Three Wolf Moon."
54	* A particularly heart-wrenching example in the film ''Film/TheFather'', as the film is told from the perspective of an elderly man suffering from dementia. What begins as a simple domestic drama slowly descends into SurrealHorror as the reality around him keeps changing, and it becomes harder and harder to understand the things going on around him.
55	* If [[spoiler:the narrator being Tyler all along]] in ''Film/FightClub'' is not an example of that, then I'm a Martian.
56	* ''Film/FriendOfTheWorld'' is a surreal black and white film that makes the audience question the characters' fate in the second half.
57	* The point of the CRS company in the Creator/DavidFincher flick ''Film/TheGame1997'' is creating these.
58	* After a certain point in the film version of ''Theatre/HedwigAndTheAngryInch'', the opening shot is redone, starting off a long medley featuring the three central characters merging into one and walking naked down an alleyway.
59	* Creator/TerryGilliam loves to screw with his audiences' minds:
60	** The final battle of ''Film/TimeBandits'' involves life-size versions of all of the toys we saw in Kevin's bedroom at the beginning of the film, {{God}} finally catching up with [[{{Satan}} the Evil Genius]] and turning him into charcoal, and Kevin suddenly re-appearing in the real world as his house is on fire, revealed to be started by a stray piece of the Evil Genius that was transported back with him. And despite his cry of "Don't touch it! It's Evil!", his self-absorbed parents fall for the SchmuckBait and are incinerated. And the fireman who found the source of the fire may or may not be Agamemnon...
61	** ''Film/{{Brazil}}'' is 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]].
62	* ''Film/TheGuards'', a 1965 Norwegian film by director Arne Skouen, telling the story of a soldier who neglects his duties because of a moral responsibility for a psych ward full of children with psychological problems. The story revolves around a court martial held afterwards, but to be fair, it is not certain whether the whole trial is in the soldier's head, or if he and the other adults working in the ward are actually as far out as the children they tend to. And then there is the oldest charge, a fourteen year old girl, CreepyChild and psychic to boot. The movie ends with a spectacular GainaxEnding. It tends to be the biggest MindScrew ever made in Norway.
63	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEPSIAkmzAE This]] short film adaptation of the Maurice Ogden poem "The Hangman". Also doubles as SurrealHorror.
64	* ''Film/HeartOfDarkness1958'' is an odd, odd adaptation of the Creator/JosephConrad [[Literature/HeartOfDarkness novella]]. What makes it a Mind Screw is the second half, which turns on a couple of weird, unexplained symbols (particularly the main character's ironclad determination to hold onto the bus fare he brought to the jungle with him). It finally builds to a GainaxEnding in which he seemingly teleports back to England. The story ''probably'' involves a VisionQuest, but that's never made explicit.
65	* Several of the ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}'' sequels have shades of this, especially ''Film/HellraiserDeader''.
66	* ''Film/{{Hulk}}'' is a comic-book related example with the heavy symbolism from each of the characters, especially David Banner. The dogs also count alongside the conflict.
67	* ''Film/ILoveYourWork'' 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.
68	* ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' requires multiple viewings in order to completely wrap your head around exactly what happened. [[spoiler: Why did Tony's [[FatalMethodActing face change]] every time he entered the Imaginarium?]] What even is the Imaginarium? What actually happened to the characters?
69	* ''Film/ImNotThere'', Todd Haynes' attempt to quantify the existence of [[{{Music/BobDylan}} 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, then the metaphorical touchstones are fairly easy to follow. But if you're only a casual fan, entire chunks of the movies will leave you stonefaced or confused, especially about how they relate to Bob Dylan.
70	* ''Film/{{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 artificial dream where he gets kidnapped by people wanting the codes to his father's secret safe, which he handles quite well. But then he gets put into a dream 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. Also, the main character who is putting the man through the mind screw is having some lingering doubt that he himself is dreaming and his mind being screwed with.
71	* ''Film/InitiationSilentNightDeadlyNight4'' is one big mind screw. Just one example is when the cult murders the heroine's boyfriend and somehow cleans up the apartment in the short time it takes her to get the cops over.
72	* ''Film/JacobsLadder'', a surreal [[spoiler:DyingDream]], is a Mind Screw from start to finish.
73	* Dalton Trumbo's film adaptation of ''Film/JohnnyGotHisGun'' 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.
74	* The collected works of Mr. Creator/CharlieKaufman.
75	** ''Film/{{Adaptation}}'' is about a guy trying to write a screenplay, but the screenplay is the movie that you are watching, so the movie is being written as the movie is playing out as the character writes it. It's also set in real life but it's not.
76	** ''Film/SynecdocheNewYork'' 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"]].
77	* Works by Richard Kelly:
78	** ''Film/DonnieDarko'', to the extent that members of the cast can't agree on whether there is a legitimate TimeTravel story, or just a handful of psychedelic delusions. In the DVD commentary, the [[WordOfGod director]] 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]].
79	** ''Film/SouthlandTales'' somehow manages to be even more violently insane than his first. It was supposed to be part of a massive multimedia experience (that never really panned out), but it would take a ''damn'' lot of graphic novels to explain what on God's green Earth was happening at any point during that movie. Read all about it [[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Southland_Tales_2006.aspx here]].
80	** ''Film/TheBox'' tries to be more understandable.
81	* ''Film/LandOfTheBlind'': [[spoiler: Either Joe imagined most of the movie before he got put into the reeducation camp and then prison, or the regimes are ''very good'' at covering their tracks]]. Also, the reeducation itself.
82	* ''Film/LastYearAtMarienbad'', 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 have no idea what exactly it was about, but the cinematography was beautiful.
83	* ''Film/TheLawnmowerMan'' involved a lot of this. Not only is there a very strange VR section involving (at the time) state-of-the-art CGI, there are drugs, a main character having his brain transformed and losing control of himself, and an ending involving something like a messianic ascension that is never explained. Compared to some films on this list, it is still pretty straightforward though.
84	* ''Film/TheLighthouse'' is a heavily symbolic dark comedy filmed in black and white. Several surreal events occur without a reference for time and even the circumstances of the main characters are questionable.
85	%% The 1960s version of ''Film/LordOfTheFlies''. It's not even in a funny way. It's kind of scary.
86	* ''Film/{{Lucy}}'', whose director expressed influence of ''Inception'' (as seen in Lucy's mental powers which start breaking the laws of physics) and ''2001'' (cavemen, plus a GoingCosmic ending). And like ''The Lawnmower Man'', the protagonist gets a brain transformation that culminates in [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascendance]], only with more weird philosophical dialogue. Not to mention at times the film cuts to some documentary footage...
87	* Creator/DavidLynch's films. ''Film/MulhollandDrive'' for example. Or, to an even greater degree, ''{{Film/Eraserhead}}''.
88	** ''Film/LostHighway'' where on one hand characters transform into each other. On the other hand the first scene is 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.
89	** ''Film/InlandEmpire'' 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.”
90	** Mr. Lynch is so well known for his [[MindScrew Mind Screws]], that he had to title his one non-maddening movie ''Film/TheStraightStory''. And it's still kind of weird.
91	** Heck, even his films that actually have a comprehensible plot like ''Film/BlueVelvet'' or ''Film/TheElephantMan'' have their share of mind screw moments.
92	* ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' by Takashi Shimizu, the director of ''Ju-on; The Grudge''. A man obsessed with fear finds his way into a warped underground labyrinth world, is menaced by "Dero" ("Detrimental Robots"); and rescues a feral girl who turns out to be a vampire, who he keeps chained up in his apartment, and feeds by killing other people and draining their blood. But is that really happening? Do any of them actually exist? Is the girl real, perhaps his own daughter who he abuses and treats like an animal, while he kills people to feed his own delusion? Or has his detachment from reality actually enabled him to stumble into a real alternate, quasi-supernatural world? The ending completely refuses to resolve any of these questions; leaving them up to the viewer to answer.
93	* ''Film/MarketaLazarova'' has an AnachronicOrder storyline on crack. Most people have to watch the 3 hour film a few times to make sense of what the hell is going on. Couple with that random pagan lesbian dream sequences, ethereal monologues, strange symbolism and just [[HighMiddleAges good old fashioned]] weirdness and the film can be a heady experience for the most focused of viewers.
94	* ''Film/TheMatrix'':
95	** The sequels have a mild case of it, anyway; in the first movie, Morpheus took the time to explain what was going on.
96	** Not mild with the Architect in ''Reloaded''...
97	* ''Film/TheMenWhoStareAtGoats'' is full of this, but is played for laughs. The final scene in particular stands out.
98	* Japanese auteur Creator/TakashiMiike, when he's not being the master of extreme violence and gore, is a master of the MindScrew. His most mind-bending film, however, has to be ''Film/{{Gozu}}''. Disappearing corpses, a river without a bridge, creepy transvestite waiters, unreliable guides with bizarre skin conditions, young women giving birth to full-grown men, middle-age women selling breast milk, an almost deserted former fishing town, Yakuza who live in a junkyard, an American reading her dialog from a cue card, and a huge minotaur wearing baggy underwear. And that doesn't even begin to describe how twisted this movie is. The strangest thing is that [[MindScrewdriver it all makes perfect sense]] when you realize [[spoiler: it's all a symbolic representation of the protagonist's inner journey, told with symbolism from both Japanese and Greco-Roman mythology, and represents his coming to terms with his own homosexuality and love for his Yakuza "older brother", and his "rebirth" as a new person]].
99	* ''Music/TheMonkees'' movie ''Film/{{Head}}''. A {{Deconstruction}} of the TV Show, plus an anti-establishment acid trip. Literally written while high on pot.
100	* The 1965 science fiction horror ''Film/MonsterAGoGo'' attempts to pull off a mind screw at its climax, although as with everything else in the film -- acting, special effects, sound recording -- [[EpicFail 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 Creator/HerschellGordonLewis, 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."]]
101	* ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife''. Figuring out the meaning of life is ''easy'' compared with figuring out the meaning of this movie. In fact they were so busy mind screwing the viewer [[spoiler: that they forgot to actually convey the meaning of life, having to hastily throw together a bunch of cliched platitudes at the end. Perhaps the only part of the movie that made an ounce of sense, and it was given the least thought.]]
102	* Music/MichaelJackson's ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'' can be seen as a mild case of this. We have one segment, where Michael is chased by clay-mation characters, so he turns himself into a clay-mation rabbit and drives away from them on a motorcycle. And then, it turns out that the rabbit (Spike) is real, and Michael and he has a dance contest! Then we have the music video for "Leave me alone", which is heavy enough with symbolism to come across as hopelessly surreal. And then starts the last segment, where Michael suddenly has the ability to turn into a car and a giant robot!
103	* The ending of ''Film/TheNinthGate'' has famously caused some confusion among viewers.
104	* ''Film/APageOfMadness'', a deeply trippy 1926 silent film from Japan.
105	** The film is shot and edited very elliptically, with a deliberately obscure Mind Screw style that bears an obvious debt to ''Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari''. It doesn't help that there is not a single title card in the film. This is because in the silent era in Japan films were accompanied by a ''benshi'', a sort of narrator who would provide live description and commentary of the film as it played.
106	** The custodian appears to beat the head doctor to death during an attempt to break his wife out of the asylum. Later the doctor is shown to be alive and well, and the custodian is still working at the asylum.
107	** Some shots, like the early scene where the wife sees a specter of her husband or later shots in which the custodian is seen transparent against the background, even seem to suggest that the custodian might be a ghost.
108	** Towards the end of the film there's a scene in which the wife, who has been broken out of the asylum by the custodian, is attacking her daughter, who is cowering in the back seat of a car. It's hard to tell how they got to that point, though.
109	* ''Paranoia 1.0'' (often known only as ''One Point O'') is as mind-screwy as it gets. A man (Jeremy Sisto, no less) receives empty packages while constantly dozing off in front of his computer: he's trying to write a program to meet a deadline, but he's constantly falling asleep and receiving empty packages... and developing an increasingly unhealthy craving for "Nature Fresh Milk". The apartment complex is full of people who have cravings for equally irrelevant things and there is a landlord that watches everything. Everything in the movie (e.g. what the empty packages are, why the landlord has an equivalent craving for packed meat, etc.) is explained in a logical and sensible manner -- that is, until the movie decides to crank up the mind-screw-gears to twelve hundred and then flat out breaks the gauge and lets the whole thing explode. Thus, you just face an ending that leaves you wondering what you just watched.
110	* ''Film/{{Performance}}''. When the sudden MusicVideo ''follows perfectly''...
111	* ''Film/Persona1966'' features an actress who goes mute, except maybe she really isn't but wants to get away from her life. Her nurse wants to become the actress because she hates herself, and maybe she did. Or didn't. The actress also has a son that is involved... somehow. The opening scenes feature dead bodies, a sheep being stabbed with a knife, and [[WriterRevolt an erect penis]]. What does all this have to do with the rest of the film? [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment No idea]], as it's even more out of place than the rest of the movie. Anyone who says they get what's going on is lying.
112	** The abstract images which open the film are probably an homage to ''Un Chien Andalou''. Bergman realized his work no longer seemed as groundbreaking as it once had, so he was announcing to the world his intention to go deeper into stylistic experimentation.
113	** Bergman purposely put in a film break to [[BreatherEpisode give viewers a moment away from the surrealism.]]
114	* ''Music/PinkFloyd's Music/TheWall''. Especially "The Trial" in which the main character is put on trial by his inner demons, which is portrayed in a grotesque and psychedelic musical animated sequence.
115	* ''Film/PossiblyInMichigan'' is one of the oddest short films ever made. Two women in an empty shopping mall are stalked by a cannibal wearing a latex mask. He keeps popping up behind them, yet they never notice him until later. Most of the dialogue is delivered in a childish sing-song voice. The short ends with [[spoiler: the women killing and eating the cannibal]]...but somehow, he's still alive and well enough to steal wine from them.
116	* ''Film/{{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.
117	* Creator/GuyRitchie's ''Revolver''. It involves a formula that supposedly allows the main character to win any game, a blood disease that disappears for no apparent reason, a crime lord apparently being the same person as the voices in everybody's heads... Yeah.
118	* ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'': An asshole 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 Creator/TimCurry who somehow creates a Frankenstein's 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 monster 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 monster when the paraplegic, Nazi kool-aid man crashes through the wall and announces that Meat Loaf is his nephew and sings 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, Music/MeatLoaf's girlfriend, and the monster and then fly the castle off into space.
119	** Bonus points for Dr. Frank N. Furter supplying the page quote.
120	* ''Film/{{Rubber}}'': Even once you get past it being a seriocomic horror movie about a tire with telekinetic powers, it's got nultiple {{fourth wall}}s and is determined to break all of them.
121	* ''Film/TheScienceOfSleep'': Due to the main character's constant and confusing dreaming it's hard to keep up with what is a dream and what isn't. And did that time machine actually work?
122	* ''Film/{{Shrooms}}'': Regarding Tara's apparent visions of the future, and it is also left unclear as to whether [[spoiler: the story of the children's home is real or not.]] It is also left open to interpretation just how aware [[spoiler:Tara is of the murders she commits.]]
123	* If you don't know the twist in ''Film/TheSixthSense'' you will experience the most thorough fucking of your mind ever. [[spoiler: The protagonist died five minutes in. The other protagonist knew the whole time and kept it a secret. The wife has been grieving this entire time.]] It's not so much that the twist in question happened, but that the audience realizes immediately how much sense it makes.
124	* The ending of ''Film/SnuffMovie'' makes it impossible to know if any of the events the viewer just watched actually happened, or if any of the characters are who they seem to be (or even exist in some cases).
125	* The scene in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' where Dark Helmet watches himself on a VHS tape. He got so confused that he cannot grasp the concept of "when".
126	* ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'' 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 were 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.
127	* ''Film/{{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.
128	* ''Film/Suspiria1977'': The plot is nothing else than a "witches doing evil wizardry after being discovered" kind of thing. They don't even try to hide this fact. The bizarre lighting, scary soundtrack, eerie camera angles, buckets of blood, and macabre scenery, though...
129	* The South Korean film, ''Film/ATaleOfTwoSisters''. Two sisters, Su-Mi and Su-Yeon, move to the countryside to live with their aloof father and WickedStepmother after their mother's death. Su-Mi is very protective of her sister, as it is implied that their stepmother abuses her. And then there's a scene that takes place right when dawn is breaking, Su-Mi awakens to a ghost crawling on their bedroom floor, proceeds to stand up and get on the bed in a rather creepy glitchy manner, and then ''a freaking bleeding arm comes out of the ghost's vagina''. Su-Mi wakes up to find that Su-Yeon has started her period, on ''the same day as the stepmother's''. It's later revealed that [[spoiler: Su-Yeon was dead the whole time and Su-Mi promptly flips her shit about it. Later, she discovers a trail of blood leading to a bloody burlap sack, which is implied to have Su-Yeon in it. Su-Mi attempts to try to cut the bag open when her stepmother comes along and knocks her out with a freaking statue.]] Later, Su-Mi's father tells the stepmother [[spoiler: to take her meds (which is shown throughout the film), but then it turns out that it was ''Su-Mi'' that was taking anti-psychotics and is put into a mental facility. As the film comes to a close, it is revealed that after Su-Mi argues with her father and stepmother, she storms outside in a fit and Su-Yeon runs upstairs to cry, where her mother comforts her until she falls asleep. When Su-Yeon wakes up. she discovers that her mother had hung herself in the wardrobe, and in a fit of panic, she knocks down the wardrobe and inevitably dies.]]
130	* Most films directed by Creator/AndreiTarkovsky.
131	** ''Film/{{Solaris\|1972}}'' is mostly set on a space station around the title planet, with protagonist Kris Kelvin bewildered to find a simulacrum of his long dead wife Hari, who becomes suicidal when she realises she only remembers what Kelvin knew of her and so has large gaps in her memory that she cannot reconcile. The film ends with Kelvin seemingly returning to his father's house and embracing him, but it's raining ''inside'', and the camera pans out to reveal the house is on an island in Solaris' ocean... or perhaps it's just a dying dream?
132	** Tarkovsky himself admitted that he didn't understand the full meaning of some of the scenes in ''Film/{{The Mirror\|1975}}'', which jumps back and forth randomly between different points in the protagonist's childhood and adulthood, ostensibly because the protagonist, Alexei, is having a deathbed stream-of-consciousness dream/reminiscence of his life. The idea that anything is possible in a dream seems the only explanation for such scenes as the one where a strange woman asks Alexei's son Ignat to read a poem by Creator/AlexanderPushkin, only for him to be interrupted by a woman knocking at the door who apologises for getting the wrong address, and when Ignat returns, the strange woman has vanished, but the condensation under her teacup is still on the table.
133	** ''Film/Stalker1979'' gives us trains that cause the title character's tiny apartment to rattle, only for the sound to briefly change into the strains of "La Marseillaise" or Wagner's ''Tannhauser'' overture or Ravel's ''Bolero'' or Beethoven's Symphony No.9, and then there's the ending, in which the stalker's daughter, "Monkey", telekinetically pushes three glasses across a table... a scene whose meaning remains hotly debated.
134	** ''Film/{{Nostalghia}}'' sees poet Andrei giving up on his research into 18th century Russian composer Pavel Sosnovsky in favour of pursuing local eccentric Domenico's goal of carrying a candle across a thermal spring while keeping it lit (made somewhat easier by the spring having been drained for cleaning). When he succeeds, he appears to collapse and die, but his wife has somehow appeared in the spring as onlookers rush to his aid, and then the scene cuts to his house in the Russian countryside, somehow surrounded by the ruined Abbey of San Galgano in Tuscany.
135	** ''Film/TheSacrifice'' ends with Alexander setting fire to his house and everything in it, then trying to run towards his maid Maria as his family and friends restrain him until an ambulance suddenly appears and Alexander is bundled into it by two paramedics. As Maria leaves, she sees Alexander's son watering a tree he and his father planted, and [[SuddenlyVoiced suddenly speaking]] his only line of the film: "'[[Literature/TheGospels In the beginning was the Word.]]' Why is that, Papa?"
136	* Creator/JimHenson (yes, THAT Jim Henson) made an 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.
137	** He also made a humorous but bewildering teleplay called ''Film/TheCube'' (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.
138	* In the original ''Film/TotalRecall1990'', Quaid describes the real plot of the BigBad as "the best mindfuck yet." [[spoiler: And then Hauser shows up on video chummy with Cohaagen... The real mindfuck -- for the audience that is -- is the ending, which forces the audience to ask themselves if the entire movie did or didn't take place in Quaid's mind. On second viewings... it's still not clear. Fairly well done for what is otherwise a fairly standard action movie.]] WordOfGod is no help on the matter. In fact the director has said both interpretations are consistent with the facts, and it was set up that way on purpose.
139	* ''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 Creator/LuisBunuel 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."
140	* ''The Valley (Obscured by Clouds)'' -- French hippies on a quest (with Music/PinkFloyd soundtrack)
141	* Jean-Luc Godard's film ''Film/Weekend1967''.
142	* ''Film/{{Westworld}}'' is an odd case in that it ''almost'' makes sense, and keeps setting itself up as if for TheReveal. By the end, we've still got a [[AmusementParkOfDoom decadent amusement park]] where a bunch of RidiculouslyHumanRobots [[RobotWar started killing people for no apparent reason]]. Add in gallons of WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic, and you've got yourself a headache. And then it's remade as 'Jurassic Park'.
143	* While the Canon ending of ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' states that ItWasAllADream, it can be quite difficult to know what's real and what's not. Especially since the ruby slippers sent Dorothy at the exact same time she woke up.
144	* ''Film/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 ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'' in terms of head-trippiness, even though even Website/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.
145	** 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 [[ArtisticLicenseHistory a 40,000 year old Indian spirit]]''. [[TranslationConvention Who speaks suspiciously good English]]. And [[ArtisticLicensePhysics doesn't understand squat about quantum mechanics]].
146	** 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."
147	** ''What the Bleep'''s MindScrew ability depends on your gullibility.
148	* In ''Film/TheWolfman2010'', Did Gwen really visit Lawrence in the asylum? Or did Sir John for that matter? Is there some hidden symbolism behind the razor and all the candles everywhere?! Plus all the symbolism and foreshadowing in the hallucination sequences. [[WildMassGuessing Perhaps Lawrence just imagined the whole movie!]]
149	* The genre blender ''Film/{{Xtro}}''. Best summed up by this review:
150	--> "Bizarre alien horror movie about an abductee who returns three years later in alien form in order to abduct his son. He goes through several transformations, one of them by impregnating a woman through her mouth and gorily emerging a short while later as a full grown male. He transforms his son by sucking on his shoulder, who then joins him in bizarre activities like melting phones, creating a killer midget clown and stuffing the babysitter into a cocoon so that she can lay eggs. No, this movie does not make any sense."
151	* ''Film/{{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.
152	** Including [[{{Squick}} a bunch of women attempting to give an erection to Sean Connery, who is wearing a bright red nappy.]]
153	** 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.
154	** And on top of all that, the entire thing [[spoiler:is a gigantic allegory for ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'']].
155	** The commentary on the DVD has director John Boorman 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.

Context MindScrew / LiveActionFilms