10 Movie Posters That Spoiled Everything
When movie posters straight-up gave everything away.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 It's a common complaint among film fans that movie marketing gives way too much away, with
00:05 trailers often outlining almost the entire story before audiences have even sat down
00:09 to watch it for themselves.
00:10 And even if you quite sensibly decide to go spoiler blackout on a film's trailers, it's
00:16 always possible that even a single, unavoidable poster will flat out tell you how everything
00:21 ends anyway.
00:22 That's certainly true of these ten movie posters, all of which shamelessly gave the game away
00:27 without a thought in the world for those who might prefer to experience the biggest and
00:32 most iconic moments for themselves, totally unspoiled.
00:35 A few of these posters at least got a few points for creativity, but most have been
00:40 rightfully dinged for leaving little to the audience's imagination and ruining the joy
00:45 of discovery in the process.
00:47 Some have a few subtle elements you might not fully appreciate until you've seen the
00:51 film, while others just describe the whole-ass plot of the movie, including its ending, in
00:56 the most basic and annoying way.
00:58 Either way, they're yet further proof that marketing intended to inform audiences can
01:03 sometimes go way too far.
01:05 And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with ten movie posters that
01:10 spoiled everything.
01:11 10.
01:12 The Ritual - The Cabin in the Woods
01:15 Most of the marketing for The Cabin in the Woods nicely played coy about the precise
01:19 nature of its seemingly tropey horror movie setup.
01:23 The trailer did, of course, suggest a sci-fi twist, but still kept things vague enough
01:27 to be interesting.
01:28 But the poster for the film's Japanese release dropped any and all pretense of preserving
01:34 the big secret, by blatantly showing the underground facility which contains the various cube-like
01:39 prisons containing the monsters unleashed at the end of the film.
01:42 The poster makes it painfully clear that Cabin in the Woods isn't just an evil dead knock-off.
01:47 It shamelessly reveals the big sci-fi conceit that isn't fully unfurled until much late
01:52 in the story.
01:53 Okay, sure, it doesn't quite go the whole hog, and right, it's part of a world-saving
01:57 ritual in neon lights, but it gives more than enough context for most people who see the
02:02 poster to start figuring out what's going on.
02:04 9.
02:05 Carrie's Rampage - Carrie
02:07 Brian De Palma's Carrie features one of the most iconic and unforgettable endings to any
02:12 horror movie.
02:13 Nay, any movie, period.
02:15 Yet even audiences watching the film upon release in 1976 were bamboozled with posters
02:21 which blatantly revealed the big third act outcome.
02:24 The poster contained two pictures of Carrie, both as a smiling, beautiful prom queen and
02:29 then bathed in blood, while stating that she has the power, making it abundantly clear
02:34 that Carrie causes one hell of a massacre on prom night with her supernatural abilities.
02:40 Even without the knowledge of the humiliation Carrie suffers at the prom, namely being soaked
02:44 in pig's blood, it pretty plainly details the film's most iconic set piece and Carrie's
02:49 descent into bloody vengeance.
02:51 The marketing for the 2013 remake didn't fare much better either, showing Carrie covered
02:57 in blood and wandering the fiery streets she'd just set ablaze.
03:01 8.
03:02 The Band Goes to Prison - Airheads
03:04 Comedy movies are generally less susceptible to spoilers ruining the experience, but even
03:09 so, the posters for 1994's cult classic comedy Airheads dropped the ball big time.
03:15 The film focuses on an LA rock band who hijack a radio station in order to get their demo
03:21 recording played on the air.
03:22 It's a fun concept and a fondly remembered movie by audiences, though certainly not by
03:26 critics, except for the fact that the main poster literally shows the trio standing in
03:31 front of a police line up.
03:33 And even if you think that's still somewhat ambiguous, the tagline at the top of the poster
03:37 literally reads "They were a rock and roll band that couldn't get arrested.
03:41 That was before they took an entire radio station hostage."
03:45 And so, it's little surprise that Airheads' indeed end with the band being arrested for
03:49 their act, albeit while only serving three months for their crime and going on to finally
03:53 find the success they were craving.
03:55 7.
03:56 John Connor Is A Terminator - Terminator Genisys
03:59 Name a more iconic duo than the Terminator franchise and spoiling its own plot in the
04:04 marketing.
04:05 The fifth Terminator film, Terminator Genisys, made especially baffling pains to give away
04:09 its own shocking plot twist in both the movie's later trailers and posters.
04:14 The final poster pointlessly revealed that resistance leader John Connor had somehow
04:19 been turned into a villainous Terminator, with a fiery expanse showing the robotic form
04:24 below his human facade.
04:25 While fans who wanted to dodge spoilers could have avoided the trailer with relative ease,
04:30 movie posters are basically everywhere, ensuring the spoiler-cautious were almost certainly
04:35 subjected to it at some point before the movie's release.
04:38 Given that this is Genisys' big reveal, it's clear that Paramount were so desperate to
04:42 lure audiences in by any means necessary that they willingly gave away the film's big surprise
04:48 for free.
04:49 It didn't help much, though, as while certainly not a box office bomb, Genisys' commercial
04:53 performance was much lower than expected.
04:56 6.
04:57 The Monster - 10 Cloverfield Lane
04:59 The marketing for 10 Cloverfield Lane did a genuinely solid job of only hinting at the
05:04 dangers awaiting protagonist Michelle outside of Howard Stambler's survival compound.
05:10 That is, except for the movie's international poster, which flipped the bird to subtlety
05:14 and just straight up revealed the film's late game set piece.
05:17 The poster shows Michelle running through a field while being pursued by a gigantic
05:22 alien spacecraft, confirming that A) Michelle does indeed make it out of the compound, B)
05:27 she can safely breathe the air out in the open, and C) the finale involves a fight with
05:32 an alien.
05:33 Even with the film having Cloverfield in the title, many went in assuming it to be a smaller
05:37 scale spin-off merely existing within the same world as Matt Reeves' 2008 found footage
05:43 film.
05:44 But anyone unlucky enough to see the international poster had any and all ambiguity ripped away,
05:49 ensuring they spent the entire movie anxiously anticipating the showdown they already knew
05:54 was coming.
05:55 5.
05:56 This Is Not A Game - Ender's Game
05:58 The posters and trailers for 2013's adaptation of Orson Scott Card's legendary sci-fi novel
06:04 Ender's Game tried to get a little too cute for their own good, and in turn basically
06:09 gave the game away.
06:11 The posters proudly placed the tagline front and centre, which read "This is not a game".
06:15 While at first glance this might simply seem like a cool movie marketing quote, it actually
06:20 spoils the big climactic twist that the training exercise protagonist Ender believes he is
06:25 participating in is actually a very real engagement with alien combatants.
06:29 Hell, even the poster that didn't include this tagline nevertheless showed off the outcome
06:34 of the final battle, with the alien planet clearly being obliterated by Ender.
06:39 Though many people going to see Ender's Game would have been familiar with the source material,
06:43 given that the book came out almost 30 years before the movie, it's also fair to say
06:47 that many more likely wouldn't have.
06:50 Despite the twist being surprisingly well executed, it's a shame that the marketing
06:54 needlessly spelled it out in the most literal sense.
06:58 4.
06:59 The Sniper's Identity - Phone Booth
07:01 Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth is a criminally underappreciated little thriller in which
07:05 Stu Shepard finds himself held hostage in a New York City phone booth by an unhinged
07:10 sniper.
07:11 Now, to be completely fair, if you're a fan of the TV show 24, you're probably going
07:15 to figure out very early on that the sniper on the other end of the phone is voiced by
07:19 Kiefer Sutherland.
07:20 But if you weren't familiar with Sutherland's dulcet tones, the poster damn near clarified
07:25 what the movie's villain looked like, showing a sliver of Sutherland's bespectacled face
07:29 staring intensely into the distance.
07:32 This wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that the movie intentionally conceals
07:36 the sniper's identity until the very end of the film, and even attempts to mislead
07:41 viewers as to who he is.
07:42 In a final failed fakeout, we're led to believe that the caller is actually a disgruntled
07:47 pizza delivery guy who encountered Stu earlier in the movie.
07:50 But anyone who's seen the poster with Sutherland's face on, or better yet, knows his voice, will
07:55 be acutely aware they're being messed with.
07:57 And so, of course, minutes later, Sutherland finally makes a brief on-screen appearance,
08:02 exactly as pictured in this poster.
08:04 Evidently, Fox couldn't resist the urge to feature their 24 star in the film's marketing
08:09 as infuriatingly spoilerific as it was.
08:12 3.
08:13 A Dying Embrace - Pompeii
08:15 While it's a given that audiences interested in Paul W.S.
08:18 Anderson's Pompeii would be aware that the film would depict the titular city's destruction
08:22 by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, the outcome of its Titanic-esque love story
08:28 seemed a little less certain.
08:30 That was unless you took a gander at the poster, which blastantly showed gladiator Milo and
08:35 his lover Cassia sharing an embrace while the volcano violently erupts behind them.
08:40 While some might have assumed the poster was merely a conceptual one to synergise the film's
08:45 romantic and action-based elements, lo and behold, the very end of the film indeed sees
08:50 Milo and Cassia having one final kiss before being engulfed by Mount Vesuvius' pyroclastic
08:55 flow.
08:56 Hell, the poster even clarifies the point further with the tagline "No warning, no
09:00 escape", confirming that the movie's characters won't find a way to miraculously survive
09:05 and get their Hollywood happy ending.
09:07 2.
09:08 Pete Davidson is the Killer - Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
09:11 The poster for A24's satirical horror film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies delivers two spoilers
09:16 for the price of one, albeit in a way that not everybody will realise until they've
09:21 actually seen the movie.
09:22 It's a seemingly pretty typical poster which shows off the ensemble cast against an unremarkable
09:27 dark backdrop.
09:28 But take a look at Pete Davidson, who is the only member of the cast handling a weapon
09:33 of any kind.
09:34 A machete-like weapon, no less.
09:36 This hilariously spoils the fact that Davidson's character David is technically the killer
09:41 who kills the movie's first victim.
09:43 It just so happens that the first victim is himself.
09:45 Indeed, David is the first person to die in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, having his throat
09:49 slashed by, you guessed it, the bladed weapon glimpsed up against his head in the poster.
09:54 But the movie's big twist is that David wasn't murdered.
09:57 He accidentally killed himself while trying to open a bottle of champagne with the weapon
10:01 for a TikTok video.
10:03 It's basically all blatantly hinted at visually by what we see on the poster, even if you
10:07 might not quite realise just how spoilerific it is until you've watched the film yourself.
10:12 1.
10:13 Sonia Falls to Her Death, Plumbum or The Dangerous Game?
10:17 An extremely deep cut now, with the 1987 Soviet drama Plumbum or The Dangerous Game?
10:23 Both of the primary posters for the cult classic film show the face of lead actor Anton Androsov,
10:28 who plays the title character, interspersed with an image of what appears to be a young
10:33 woman falling to her death.
10:35 And so, can you guess precisely what fable falls the movie's primary female character
10:39 Sonia?
10:40 That's right, she leaps off a roof to her brutal demise in the film's very last scene.
10:44 While one of the posters at least disguises the falling individual's identity, another
10:49 quite blatantly shows not only that she's a woman wearing a white gown, but makes no
10:53 effort whatsoever to disguise the face.
10:56 Given that Sonia's death is the grim climax to the entire movie, it's an extremely bizarre
11:01 choice indeed.
11:02 And that concludes our list.
11:03 If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below and while you're
11:07 there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:10 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there and I can be found across various social medias
11:15 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:17 I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real
11:21 soon.