10 Movie Posters That Spoiled Everything
When movie posters straight-up gave everything away.
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00:00It's a common complaint among film fans that movie marketing gives way too much away,
00:05with trailers often outlining almost the entire story before audiences have even sat down
00:10to watch it for themselves.
00:11And even if you quite sensibly decide to go spoiler blackout on a film's trailers, it's
00:16always possible that even a single, unavoidable poster will flat out tell you how everything
00:21ends anyway.
00:22That's certainly true of these ten movie posters, all of which shamelessly gave the
00:27game away without a thought in the world for those who might prefer to experience the biggest
00:32and most iconic moments for themselves, totally unspoiled.
00:35A few of these posters at least got a few points for creativity, but most have been
00:40rightfully dinged for leaving little to the audience's imagination and ruining the joy
00:45of discovery in the process.
00:48Some have a few subtle elements you might not fully appreciate until you've seen the
00:51film, while others just describe the whole-ass plot of the movie, including its ending, in
00:56the most basic and annoying way.
00:58Either way, they're yet further proof that marketing intended to inform audiences can
01:03sometimes go way too far.
01:06And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with ten movie posters that
01:10spoiled everything.
01:1110.
01:12The Ritual, The Cabin in the Woods
01:15Most of the marketing for The Cabin in the Woods nicely played coy about the precise
01:19nature of its seemingly tropey horror movie setup.
01:23The trailer did, of course, suggest a sci-fi twist, but still kept things vague enough
01:27to be interesting.
01:28But the poster for the film's Japanese release dropped any and all pretense of preserving
01:34the big secret, by blatantly showing the underground facility which contains the various cube-like
01:39prisons containing the monsters unleashed at the end of the film.
01:42The poster makes it painfully clear that Cabin in the Woods isn't just an evil dead knock-off.
01:47It shamelessly reveals the big sci-fi conceit that isn't fully unfurled until much late
01:52in the story.
01:53Okay, sure, it doesn't quite go the whole hog, and right, it's part of a world-saving
01:57ritual in neon lights, but it gives more than enough context for most people who see the
02:02poster to start figuring out what's going on.
02:059.
02:06Carrie's Rampage, Carrie
02:07Brian De Palma's Carrie features one of the most iconic and unforgettable endings to any
02:12horror movie.
02:13Nay, any movie, period.
02:16Yet even audiences watching the film upon release in 1976 were bamboozled with posters
02:21which blatantly revealed the big third act outcome.
02:24The poster contained two pictures of Carrie, both as a smiling, beautiful prom queen and
02:29then bathed in blood, while stating that she has the power, making it abundantly clear
02:35that Carrie causes one hell of a massacre on prom night with her supernatural abilities.
02:40Even without the knowledge of the humiliation Carrie suffers at the prom, namely being soaked
02:45in pig's blood, it pretty plainly details the film's most iconic set piece and Carrie's
02:50descent into bloody vengeance.
02:52The marketing for the 2013 remake didn't fare much better either, showing Carrie covered
02:57in blood and wandering the fiery streets she'd just set ablaze.
03:018.
03:02The Band Goes to Prison, Airheads
03:05Comedy movies are generally less susceptible to spoilers ruining the experience, but even
03:10so, the posters for 1994's cult classic comedy Airheads dropped the ball big time.
03:16The film focuses on an LA rock band who hijack a radio station in order to get their demo
03:21recording played on the air.
03:23It's a fun concept and a fondly remembered movie by audiences, though certainly not by
03:27critics, except for the fact that the main poster literally shows the trio standing in
03:32front of a police lineup.
03:33And even if you think that's still somewhat ambiguous, the tagline at the top of the poster
03:37literally reads, they were a rock and roll band that couldn't get arrested, that was
03:42before they took an entire radio station hostage.
03:45Even so, it's little surprise that Airheads' indeeds end with the band being arrested for
03:49their act, albeit while only serving three months for their crime and going on to finally
03:54find the success they were craving.
03:567.
03:57John Connor is a Terminator, Terminator Genisys
04:00Name a more iconic duo than the Terminator franchise and spoiling its own plot in the
04:05marketing.
04:06The fifth Terminator film, Terminator Genisys, made especially baffling pains to give away
04:10its own shocking plot twist in both the movie's later trailers and posters.
04:15The final poster pointlessly revealed that resistance leader John Connor had somehow
04:19been turned into a villainous Terminator, with a fiery expanse showing the robotic form
04:24below his human facade.
04:26While fans who wanted to dodge spoilers could have avoided the trailer with relative ease,
04:30movie posters are basically everywhere, ensuring the spoiler-cautious were almost certainly
04:35subjected to it at some point before the movie's release.
04:38Given that this is Genisys' big reveal, it's clear that Paramount was so desperate to lure
04:43audiences in by any means necessary that they willingly gave away the film's big surprise
04:48for free.
04:49It didn't help much, though, as while certainly not a box office bomb, Genisys' commercial
04:54performance was much lower than expected.
04:566.
04:57The Monster, 10 Cloverfield Lane
05:00The marketing for 10 Cloverfield Lane did a genuinely solid job of only hinting at the
05:04dangers awaiting protagonist Michelle outside of Howard Stambler's survival compound.
05:10That is, except for the movie's international poster, which flipped the bird to subtlety
05:15and just straight up revealed the film's late game set piece.
05:18The poster shows Michelle running through a field while being pursued by a gigantic
05:22alien spacecraft, confirming that A, Michelle does indeed make it out of the compound, B,
05:27she can safely breathe the air out in the open, and C, the finale involves a fight with
05:32an alien.
05:33Even with the film having Cloverfield in the title, many went in assuming it to be a smaller
05:38scale spin-off merely existing within the same world as Matt Reeves' 2008 found footage
05:43film.
05:44But anyone unlucky enough to see the international poster had any and all ambiguity ripped away,
05:49ensuring they spent the entire movie anxiously anticipating the showdown they already knew
05:54was coming.
05:555.
05:56This Is Not A Game, Ender's Game
05:59The posters and trailers for 2013's adaptation of Orson Scott Card's legendary sci-fi novel
06:04Ender's Game tried to get a little too cute for their own good, and in turn basically
06:09gave the game away.
06:11The posters proudly placed a tagline front and centre which read, This Is Not A Game.
06:16While at first glance this might simply seem like a cool movie marketing quote, it actually
06:20spoils the big climactic twist that the training exercise protagonist Ender believes he is
06:25participating in is actually a very real engagement with alien combatants.
06:29Hell, even the poster that didn't include this tagline nevertheless showed off the outcome
06:34of the final battle, with the alien planet clearly being obliterated by Ender.
06:39Though many people going to see Ender's Game would have been familiar with the source material,
06:44given that the book came out almost 30 years before the movie, it's also fair to say that
06:48many more likely wouldn't have.
06:51Despite the twist being surprisingly well executed, it's a shame that the marketing
06:55needlessly spelled it out in the most literal sense.
06:584.
06:59The Sniper's Identity…
07:01Phone Booth
07:02The New York City phone booth is a criminally underappreciated little thriller in which
07:05Stu Shepard finds himself held hostage in a New York City phone booth by an unhinged
07:10sniper.
07:11Now, to be completely fair, if you're a fan of the TV show 24, you're probably going
07:15to figure out very early on that the sniper on the other end of the phone is voiced by
07:19Kiefer Sutherland.
07:20But, if you weren't familiar with Sutherland's dulcet tones, the poster damn near clarified
07:25what the movie's villain looked like, showing a sliver of Sutherland's bespectacled face
07:29staring intensely into the distance.
07:32This wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that the movie intentionally conceals
07:36the sniper's identity until the very end of the film, and even attempts to mislead
07:41viewers as to who he is.
07:43In a final failed fakeout, we're led to believe that the caller is actually a disgruntled
07:47pizza delivery guy who encountered Stu earlier in the movie.
07:51But anyone who's seen the poster with Sutherland's face on, or better yet, knows his voice, will
07:55be acutely aware they're being messed with.
07:58And so, of course, minutes later, Sutherland finally makes a brief on-screen appearance,
08:02exactly as pictured in this poster.
08:04Evidently, Fox couldn't resist the urge to feature their 24 star in the film's marketing
08:09as infuriatingly spoilerific as it was.
08:123.
08:13A Dying Embrace, Pompeii
08:15While it's a given that audiences interested in Paul W.S.
08:18Anderson's Pompeii would be aware that the film would depict the titular city's destruction
08:23by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the outcome of its Titanic-esque love story
08:29seemed a little less certain.
08:30That was unless you took a gander at the poster, which blatantly showed gladiator Milo and
08:35his lover Cassia sharing an embrace while the volcano violently erupts behind them.
08:40While some might have assumed the poster was merely a conceptual one to synergise the film's
08:45romantic and action-based elements, lo and behold, the very end of the film indeed sees
08:50Milo and Cassia having one final kiss before being engulfed by Mount Vesuvius' pyroclastic
08:55flow.
08:56Hell, the poster even clarifies the point further with the tagline,
08:59No warning, no escape, confirming that the movie's characters won't find a way to miraculously
09:05survive and get their Hollywood happy ending.
09:072.
09:08Pete Davidson is the killer, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
09:11The poster for A24's satirical horror film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies delivers two spoilers
09:17the price of one, albeit in a way that not everybody will realise until they've actually
09:21seen the movie.
09:22It's a seemingly pretty typical poster which shows off the ensemble cast against an unremarkable
09:27dark backdrop.
09:28But take a look at Pete Davidson, who is the only member of the cast handling a weapon
09:33of any kind.
09:34A machete-like weapon, no less.
09:36This hilariously spoils the fact that Davidson's character David is technically the killer
09:41who kills the movie's first victim.
09:43It just so happens that the first victim is himself.
09:46Indeed, David is the first person to die in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, having his throat
09:50slashed by, you guessed it, the bladed weapon glimpsed up against his head in the poster.
09:55But the movie's big twist is that David wasn't murdered.
09:58He accidentally killed himself while trying to open a bottle of champagne with the weapon
10:02for a TikTok video.
10:03It's basically all blatantly hinted at visually by what we see on the poster, even if you
10:08might not quite realise just how spoilerific it is until you've watched the film yourself.
10:131.
10:14Sonya Falls to Her Death, Plumbum, or The Dangerous Game
10:18An extremely deep cut now, with the 1987 Soviet drama Plumbum, or The Dangerous Game.
10:23Both of the primary posters for the cult classic film show the face of lead actor Anton Androsov,
10:29who plays the title character, interspersed with an image of what appears to be a young
10:33woman falling to her death.
10:35And so, can you guess precisely what fable falls the movie's primary female character
10:40Sonya?
10:41That's right, she leaps off a roof to her brutal demise in the film's very last scene.
10:45While one of the posters at least disguises the falling individual's identity, another
10:49quite blatantly shows not only that she's a woman wearing a white gown, but makes no
10:54effort whatsoever to disguise the face.
10:56Given that Sonya's death is the grim climax to the entire movie, it's an extremely bizarre
11:01choice indeed.
11:02And that concludes our list.
11:04If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below, and while you're
11:07there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:11Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
11:15just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:17I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real
11:21soon.