movies that shift genre

[JeenLeen]

I've found I really enjoy movies that shift from one type of movie to another, like from drama to horror, or action to horror, or horror to psychological drama.*
*not talking about movies where you don't know if the threat is real or supernatural, or it's a riddle about who/what the Bad is. I do like those, but not what I'm talking about here.

It's hard to put into words, so let me give a couple examples. If you want to see these movies, I highly recommend you not learn anything about them and watch them first. Not even the summary on Netflix (though even the cover of the movie jacket might ruin the first movie, but it's an old one anyhow)

Action/Crime --> Horror
I had no idea it had vampires or anything like that in it, so the shift took me completely by surprise and was awesome. I think the movie would have been so worse if I saw that coming.



Starts off looking like a psychological drama, shifts to a kinda adult movie for a few minutes, then to a zombie pandemic set-up, then back to psychological drama.


Any other movies like this you can recommend? Please put in a spoiler what the shift is or any comments you want to make. I can see folk wanting to read that, but for this thread's purpose I'd rather not have it spoiled.
Bonus points if it's on Netflix or Hulu, as I have those.

It'd be cool to see one that starts as comedy and shifts to non-comedy horror or drama, but a shift like that might be too jarring. I guess most of these I've seen and liked are ones that shift between drama, horror, and/or action.

[Murk]

Whenever something like this happens I'm always left wondering if the genre shift was meant to be a surprise, or if I'm just terrible at watching movies (which I also am) and it should have been obvious from the start.

I'm sure Million Dollar Baby is not a spoiler anymore, but I honestly started that movie thinking I was going to see a feel-good success story, instead of a drama tragedy. So at the end I can only think "Was this supposed to be a twist, or should I have known?"

[comicshorse]

'Kill List '

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1788391/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Moves from domestic drama, into action thriller and then horror

[warty goblin]

Romeo and Juliet is a solid example of this. The first half or so is a straight up comedy - and produced well can be hilarious - before the sudden swing into murder, revenge and suicide after Mercutio dies.

Man I miss live theater.

[Radar]

I think Life is Beautiful by Benigni fits this fairly well. It starts as a straight comedy and then WWII happens. It still has comedic moments from the main character but they are just desperate attempts not to let his son be aware of how dangerous situation they are in and protect him at all cost.

I would say that Titanic also is half love story/half catastrophic movie, but it is happening so often with catastrophic movies that one might consider it a regular representative of that genre.

[Rogar Demonblud]

The original Predator with Ah-nold is pretty much the first example to pop into mind seeing the title. Starts out as a standard Arnold action flick, then...morphs into survival horror before switching again to be a retelling of Beowulf and Grendel

[The Glyphstone]

Shaun of the Dead sort of whiplashes between comedy and horror, does that count?

[Dire_Flumph]

I just found Anna and the Apocalypse last December, a High School Musical about a third in turns into a Zombie Apocalypse story (not a twist, it's in the marketing). More fun than I was expecting.

Sunshine (2007), an eco science-fiction film that somewhat more than halfway in inexplicably morphs into a slasher flick. Red Planet (2000) was similar.

Psycho might be the grand-daddy if you go in without the cultural osmosis the film has built up.

The World's End (2013). A pub crawl comedy about a washed-up loser trying to pull his friends into reconnecting with his high-school years. My Mom lost interest almost an hour in and turned it off. She was shocked when I told her what the second half was about.

[Roland St. Jude]

Cabin in the Woods
This "comedy horror" movie tells two stories, one of a very stereotypical horror romp and one of the humorous setting just beyond the horror victims' horizon. But which one is funny and which one is the real horror?

[Thomas Cardew]

Shaun of the Dead sort of whiplashes between comedy and horror, does that count?

If that does, so does Tucker and Dale Vs Evil.

[Wraith]

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Proposes to be a mockumentary about a film crew who follow an aspiring serial killer as he plans his 'debut'. It spends a lot of time discussing typical slasher-movie tropes - such as the importance of doing cardio to ensure that you're able to chase down your victim, or the importance of a recognisable gimmick to set yourself apart from other serial killers - and towards the climax it starts to reveal that these tropes aren't just being explained but that they're also being put into practice, albeit against an unsuspecting victim as the film turns into a traditional slasher.

To a lesser extent, I'd also suggest Spider-Man 2 (the 2004 one starring Toby Macguire). While it's mostly a traditional superhero romp, I'll just say "The Surgery Scene" and everyone will know to what I'm referring - it's one of the best parts of 2000's cinema :smalltongue:

[Brother Oni]

Starts off like standard horror film, which is reinforced after the reactor room catastrophe, but then just shifts into pure action movie.
Looks like a period thriller/horror film then morphs into a musical.
Shifts from noir detective movie to a supernatural horror movie.
Jumps back and forth between dark fantasy and brutal civil war drama throughout the film.

[Ramza00]

The original Predator with Ah-nold is pretty much the first example to pop into mind seeing the title. Starts out as a standard Arnold action flick, then...morphs into survival horror before switching again to be a retelling of Beowulf and Grendel

Patrick Willems of YouTube has a good 2020 video essay on this. Also a couple other related essays for he was watching John McTiernan directed movies (Die Hard, Hunt for the Red October, a dozen other movies.)

[JoshL]

Angel Heart is such a great and underrated movie.

Starts as a straight up horror movie, but turns into a really weird comedy at the end. The punchline absolutely works though, and that's really hard to pull off

My favorite of this sort of thing, and one of my favorite movies ever
It starts off like a road movie. Travelling around the world, people chasing the protagonists, a whirlwind romance on the road. Then they get back to Australia. The main character had been collecting brainwave scans as he talked to people around the world so his father (Max von Sydow!) can create a machine to record people's dreams. Everyone becomes obsessed with rewatching their own dreams. Shot with all sorts of early digital manipulated video to make them extra dreamy, trying to find details among the noise. It's such a beautiful and overwhelming shift, and a great payoff to the story. Directed by Wim Wenders so of course it's brilliant

[Corvus]

Shaun of the Dead sort of whiplashes between comedy and horror, does that count?

Hot Fuzz also bounces around between genres. I haven't seen the third of the 'trilogy' but I think it does likewise.

[Eldan]

Hot Fuzz also bounces around between genres. I haven't seen the third of the 'trilogy' but I think it does likewise.

Comedy, then alien impostors, then really dark and depressing drama, then SciFi, then spoilers.

Worth a watch.

[LibraryOgre]

Warriors of Heaven and Earth starts as a pretty standard Western (if Chinese), and becomes a mystical action movie.

[snowblizz]

Shaun of the Dead sort of whiplashes between comedy and horror, does that count?
Honestly, IMO no. It's made deliberately as a comedy horror



The World's End (2013). A pub crawl comedy about a washed-up loser trying to pull his friends into reconnecting with his high-school years. My Mom lost interest almost an hour in and turned it off. She was shocked when I told her what the second half was about.


Hot Fuzz also bounces around between genres. I haven't seen the third of the 'trilogy' but I think it does likewise.

All 3 movies are quite deliberately comedies combined with other genres, action and horror respectively. And also parodies of the respective genres. The last one of them the least comedic of them all I would say.

It'd be like saying The Last Actionhero bounces between genres, I would say rather it combines them. Action and comedy.

For an action-comedy with a more marked shift in pacing I'd suggest Kindergarten Cop (also with AH-nold in the lead). It starts out like an pure action movie, then shifts gears into fish-out-of-water comedy only to finally for the 3rd Act to go back into rather hardcore action.

Obviously it's subject to subjectivity, how much of a tonal shift is a shift rather than a genre combination. YMMV.

[Dire_Flumph]

All 3 movies are quite deliberately comedies combined with other genres, action and horror respectively. And also parodies of the respective genres. The last one of them the least comedic of them all I would say.

Obviously it's subject to subjectivity, how much of a tonal shift is a shift rather than a genre combination. YMMV.

I'd argue Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are more combinations of genres, but I'll defend "The World's End" as a shift because it really doesn't tip it's hand that it's anything other than a pub crawl comedy until about 40 minutes in where it shifts to a sci-fi invasion film.

[LibraryOgre]

All 3 movies are quite deliberately comedies combined with other genres, action and horror respectively. And also parodies of the respective genres. The last one of them the least comedic of them all I would say.



I'd argue Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are more combinations of genres, but I'll defend "The World's End" as a shift because it really doesn't tip it's hand that it's anything other than a pub crawl comedy until about 40 minutes in where it shifts to a sci-fi invasion film.

I agree with the Flumph, here. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are both genre comedies that pretty rapidly show their hand ("and Advanced Cycling" may not be intended to be funny, but it reads that way to me). World's End looks like a "reclaiming of youth" comedy, then turns into alien invasion.

[Tyndmyr]

I'd like to add Full Metal Jacket, which is basically two movies stapled together. There's the glue of "military" holding both together, but just about everything changes at the halfway mark.

[Lvl45DM!]

Funny People techinically stays the same genre, but going from a Dramedy about a dying comedian to a Dramedy about getting back with his ex seems like a pretty big switch.

Hancock goes from comedy action to action drama

Parasite goes from Black Comedy to a Thriller

Death Proof goes from horror to action movie halfway if you ask me.

I mean....Avengers Endgame? Comedy action during the time heist, epic action once they get the stones.

[comicshorse]

Oh just remembered 'Dead Presidents'

Starts as a coming-of-age drama as the characters grow up and graduate high school in the 60's, then morphs into a war movie as they are sent to Vietnam and finally finishes as a heist movie when as desperate, broke, returning vets they plan to rob a armoured car

[Bohandas]

They're Watching switches to being an action film after the truth of the initial horror plot is revealed

2001: A Space Odyssey switches from surrealism to sci-fi drama and then back to surrealism. However I would not recommend watching 2001 A Space Odyssey as it has not aged well. The film is very dry and ;ractically nothing happens in it. When it first came out it was carried by its then groundbreaking special effects, but at this point all of it's special effects are old hat

From Dusk Till Dawn switches from a tedious drama at the beginming to high octane supernatural action at the end

[Wraith]

The Prestige (2006) starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale.

Two 19th century stage magicians find themselves in a rivalry - one *might be* broadly responsible for the death of the other's wife, and it begins two decades of tit-for-tat where one tries to get revenge on the other by sabotaging the other's show, who then gets back by stealing a trick and making it more famous, with the spiteful acts of violence escalating as the two become more notorious and they both have more to lose....

...And then Nikolai Tesla (played by David Bowie) accidentally invents a lightning-punk cloning machine, turning it into straight-up sci-fi. And without giving too much away, that begets the movie's final twist which is a 'who-dunnit?'-style mystery.

[Aedilred]

The Prestige (2006) starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale.

Two 19th century stage magicians find themselves in a rivalry - one *might be* broadly responsible for the death of the other's wife, and it begins two decades of tit-for-tat where one tries to get revenge on the other by sabotaging the other's show, who then gets back by stealing a trick and making it more famous, with the spiteful acts of violence escalating as the two become more notorious and they both have more to lose....

...And then Nikolai Tesla (played by David Bowie) accidentally invents a lightning-punk cloning machine, turning it into straight-up sci-fi. And without giving too much away, that begets the movie's final twist which is a 'who-dunnit?'-style mystery.

I came here to mention The Prestige, although I'm torn on the extent to which it really is a genre shift. After all, the resulting macguffin really is little more than a macguffin, and the plot remains on the same track: the character-driven story of all-consuming rivalry and revenge; the contrasting approaches of the truculent genius versus the natural showman; the whodunnit, or perhaps, rather, "howdunnit" element (which has been there from the opening scene), etc. We still remain in the same theatres, the same Victorian setting, with the same magicians performing their magic shows.

There is definitely a point at which the film asks you to go with it, but that's in some ways more of a leap of faith (itself appropriate?) than a strict genre shift per se, I think.

[Wraith]

That's fair. I think my main argument is that for the first half of the movie it appears to be a period drama - it's not billed as "based on a true story" but all of the elements that we see could easily be 'real life', and there's a very clear moment where we're shown that it's not either of those things. It could be a genre shift or it could be a twist, or it could be both - it's very much at the point where one blurs with the other, depending on what you were expecting going into it.

The tie-breaker that made me mention it in the end is that if nothing else, it's a very enjoyable and entertaining movie and I recommend it to people to see and decide for themselves if it's just an unexpected twist or a sudden leap into a different genre entirely. :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

I mean, where else will you see Batman and Wolverine in a love triangle with Black Widow, with Alfred as Wolverine's assistant and Jared the Goblin King doing mad science with his lab helper Gollum?

[Grey Watcher]

Looks like a period thriller/horror film then morphs into a musical.

Less a genre shift and more of a medium shift, I'd say. It remains a period thriller throughout, just whether it's told as a straight film or a musical. Of course, having been familiar with the stage musical, I read it more as an oddly constructed musical, since it leaves out a lot of the songs.

Now, on to my own suggestions. I'm going for minimum spoilers, but it's hard to talk about specifics without mentioning at least a little.

This is perhaps a low key example, but it starts out as a reasonably down-to-earth plot in a near-future dystopia that uses surreal storytelling elements (if you break down the first part of plot into bullet points, there's nothing particularly fantastic about it, it's just told with surreal visuals and such). But when the plot twist hits late in the film, it turns into a full on sci-fi thriller. But it does maintain a similar surreal aesthetic and sense of foreboding throughout (with occasional dashes of absurdist comedy to break tension).

Swerves multiple times. Sometimes it's a character driven drama, sometimes it's an ominous mystery/thriller, sometimes it's a madcap farce. An enjoyable ride of a film, but hard to classify because as soon as it seems to be settling into a genre, it changes pretty abruptly.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Steve Soderbergh's movie Side Effects starts out like one of his "straight out of real life" documentary-like dramas, then suddenly shifts gear into being a psychological thriller.

[Glorthindel]

It's hard to put into words, so let me give a couple examples. If you want to see these movies, I highly recommend you not learn anything about them and watch them first. Not even the summary on Netflix (though even the cover of the movie jacket might ruin the first movie, but it's an old one anyhow)

Action/Crime --> Horror
I had no idea it had vampires or anything like that in it, so the shift took me completely by surprise and was awesome. I think the movie would have been so worse if I saw that coming.



Funnily, I knew about this movie, and what its broad "real" theme was before I saw it, but when I did first see it, it was because I was randomly changing channels, and the film had started by a couple of minutes, and I just thought "cool, a George Clooney crime film, guess that'll do", and didn't realise what film it actually was. It was only at the turn point did I realise what film it was that I must be watching!

[ufo]

Cloud Atlas does this really well imo. It's not really a spoiler but I'll explain
The story follows different people in different times of human history. Each person's arc is told using wildly different genres

[Warder55]

For my first post i would like to mention Howard The Duck movie. It starts with an alien who resembles a humanoid human duck getting teleport harpooned to earth. Fish out of water comedy. In the second act a diffrent alien gets zapped to earth. And this one is straight out of nightmares, he inhibits a human and starts mutating, eventually regaining his own horrible form. And he plans to zap his bretherens out of space(yeah, they dont inhibit a planet, they are from outer space) to really cut loose on earth. That alien, called the Dark Overlord really scared me as a kid, i remember it was awesome thou.

[Bohandas]

Action/Crime --> Horror
I had no idea it had vampires or anything like that in it, so the shift took me completely by surprise and was awesome. I think the movie would have been so worse if I saw that coming.



There's action prior to the vampire part? I remember catching the end one day and deciding to watch it from the beginning to see what the setup was but then having to turn it off because the beginning was so boring. What happens in the middle?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

TV Tropes has a page for this (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HalfwayPlotSwitch); might be worth checking out. EDIT: Although it does not appear to be well-spoilered.

For an example I heartily recommend:

Starts as a classic murder mystery. But then, it's revealed who did it, how they did it... and that they're a highly sympathetic character. We then spend most of the rest of the movie rooting for them as the detective works to unravel the case... and then it switches again, as it's revealed that what we knew wasn't the whole story, and there's a murder mystery here after all!