- 8 hours ago
If you're getting bored of something, just turn it upside down and make something different instead.
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00:00So, when it comes to 99% of movies, genre is pretty much black and white. Based on the
00:06story and the setting, there's a certain number of tropes and archetypes that are expected
00:10to feature, and even the most innovative examples tend to stay pretty close to at least a few
00:15conventions. The more genres you try to add into the melting pot, the more difficult it
00:19becomes to balance them successfully, and in plenty of cases, trying too hard to bring
00:24something new to the table can definitely backfire and leave the whole thing a mess.
00:28However, there have been more than a few titles over the years where it appears that the main
00:33creative team simply decided to just down tools halfway through, tear up the script,
00:37and set the rest of the narrative in another genre entirely. And that's what we're here
00:41to talk about today. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 movies that
00:45completely switched genre halfway through.
00:4810. Hancock
00:49Now, on paper, Hancock had the potential to be a phenomenal deconstruction of the superhero
00:54genre, with the focus being placed on an all-powerful being who, by all intents and purposes,
00:59was a bit of a dick. Unfortunately, this was during the time when star Will Smith was steadfast
01:04in his refusal to deviate from his established screen persona during the summer months, so
01:08despite a hugely promising first act, the movie soon devolved into the standard tropes that we'd
01:13seen a thousand times before. Hancock makes the switch from exploring what forces a superhero
01:19into becoming an alcoholic layabout with no interest in saving the day, to a formulaic
01:24tale of two characters with the same powers, using them in a third act showdown heavy on
01:29visual effects. The tonal change was clearly a studio-mandated one, and it sinks the whole
01:34movie down as a result.
01:369. Hot Fuzz
01:37From a box office perspective, Hot Fuzz was by far the most successful of the three flavours
01:42Cornetto trilogy, earning more in theatres than Shaun of the Dead and The World's End put together,
01:47more on that later. And a lot of that had to do with the third act venture into Michael
01:51Bay territory, making the movie a lot more accessible to international audiences. The
01:56first half of the movie is every bit the charming and irreverent British comedy that we come to
02:00expect from Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, but it still came as a surprise when the action
02:06movie references directly led to a pivot towards the kind of high-octane action and shootouts that
02:11you usually expect to see in a Hollywood production with ten times the budget. But you don't hear
02:16anyone complaining because this film was brilliant.
02:198. The World's End
02:20Now let's take a look at the closer of the Cornetto's holy trinity, because we're back
02:24with the next collaboration between Edgar Wright, Nick Frost, and Simon Pegg with The World's End,
02:29which went full-on apocalyptic sci-fi after spending the first half setting both the stage
02:34and the character dynamics. The coming-of-middle-age comedy draws a surprising amount of pathos among
02:39the laughs, with Simon Pegg's performance in particular one of the best of his career. But it still
02:44came a little out of the blue when Wright decided to go for broke and transform his tale of long-lost
02:49friendship into a full-blown alien invasion epic. It isn't like the laughs didn't stop coming,
02:54but the blue-blooded replicants give the filmmaker the leeway to drastically increase the level of
02:59violence without alarming the censors. And after zombies and buddy-cop movies, science fiction
03:03seemed like the next logical step for the Cornetto trilogy.
03:077. The Prestige
03:08Watching The Prestige for the first time, you get drawn in by Christopher Nolan's meticulous attention to
03:14detail and an intriguing mystery narrative that seems poised to answer more and more questions
03:19as the story progresses. But eventually, we discover that the movie is a lot more than just
03:23your average standard period piece. The rivalry between Hugh Jackman's Robert and Christian Bale's
03:28Alfred gets more and more intense. And with each new reveal, we're as stumped as the magicians
03:33themselves as to how they keep pulling off such impressive feats of both personal and professional
03:38sleight of hand. The introduction of David Bowie's Nikola Tesla hints at something far more fantastical,
03:43and the twists and turns do not stop coming as the prestige heads deeper and deeper down the
03:48sci-fi rabbit hole.
03:506. The Babysitter
03:52The Babysitter is the best-reviewed movie of MCG's entire career, with the director usually
03:58associated with big-budget and generally terrible studio blockbusters finding a new lease of creative
04:03life in the most surprising of places thanks to Netflix's low-budget horror comedy. All of the
04:08set-up leans so heavily into the established formula for the teen comedy that the eventual
04:12descent into madness comes spectacularly out of the blue, as a 12-year-old kid with a crush
04:17on his babysitter discovers that along with all of her impossibly attractive friends, she
04:21just happens to be part of a devil-worshipping cult intent on making a sacrifice. It might
04:26come out of nowhere, but the tonal change ultimately makes sense in the context of the movie, as the
04:32Babysitter reveals that the influences on its sleeve are less John Hughes and more John Carpenter.
04:385. Million Dollar Baby
04:40The boxing drama has always been one of the sports movie's best sub-genres when handled correctly,
04:46but Million Dollar Baby upends the archetypal nature of the story on its head by making the
04:51pugilistic nature one of the least important aspects of the narrative. A lot of people would
04:55have no doubt been expecting a female-driven spin on the Rocky formula that would follow our
05:00determined heroine on a quest for redemption. Instead, a nasty accident during a fight leaves
05:05Hilary Swank's Maggie paralyzed and Million Dollar Baby morphs into a sombre drama that reflects on
05:10uncomfortable ideas like euthanasia and mortality, instead of relying on the genre's staple of training
05:16montages and improbable comebacks.
05:194. Psycho
05:20Alfred Hitchcock definitely was no stranger from pulling the rug out of unsuspecting audiences,
05:25and despite such a legendary career, he never managed to do it better than he did here in
05:30Psycho. As well as providing one of the earliest campaigns to encourage people not to share
05:34spoilers that would have blown the reveal, that the biggest name in the movie was about to be
05:38subject to one of cinema's most iconic death scenes, the idea of Psycho itself as a slasher
05:43seemed to come out of nowhere. All of the build-up and payoff made it seem as though we were in line
05:48for a crime thriller, as a big stash of money is stolen and our heroine goes on the run,
05:53holding up in the Bates Motel. That being said, underestimating the master of suspense
05:58was definitely a fool's game, and the detour into horror territory became yet another classic example
06:04of Hitchcock toying with people's expectations and their emotions.
06:083. Sunshine
06:10Sunshine remains one of Danny Boyle's most divisive movies, and definitely bombed at the box office
06:15for good measure after earning $32 million worldwide, but we should have known better
06:20than to expect a straightforward sci-fi with the genre-hopping Boyle at the helm and Alex
06:25Garland on scripting duties. It's a psychological and existential space story to begin with,
06:30but as the crew of the ship begins to unravel, it becomes clear that something sinister is afoot,
06:35but it would be safe to assume that not a lot of people were expecting Sunshine to reveal itself
06:39as a slasher movie, with a murderous and skinless Mark Strong picking them off one by one.
06:44Splitting opinion right down the middle, some people thought that it ruined the movie,
06:48and others thought that it was a welcome change of pace after the exposition-heavy first half,
06:53but one thing that everybody agreed on was they never saw it coming.
06:572. Predator
06:58With his reputation as the action genre's biggest star firmly established following the Terminator,
07:03Commando, and Raw deal, audiences were expecting a standard Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle based on
07:09the marketing for Predator, which focused on the uber-macho ensemble of veteran soldiers.
07:14So far, so familiar. And as we were introduced to our cast of memorable supporting characters,
07:19they made their way through the jungle, blowing shit up and gunning down an army of faceless goons
07:22in the process. However, one heat-vision shot of a massive claw later, and Predator the film was
07:28turned upside down. The invisible extraterrestrial picked off the team one by one, and what had
07:34initially seemed like a standard Arnie goes on a one-man rescue mission soon pivoted into hard sci-fi
07:39that saw the big Austrian facing off with an eight-foot-tall alien with mandibles and a blood
07:44lust for human trophies instead. 1. From Dusk Till Dawn
07:49Close friends and frequent collaborators Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez found their
07:53respective success through very different mediums, with the former fame for his razor-sharp
07:58writing and reliance on the crime genre, while the latter was a jack-of-all-trades willing to try
08:02his hand at almost anything. From Dusk Till Dawn best sums up the differences between them,
08:07with Tarantino writing and Rodriguez directing a movie that showcases both of their filmmaking
08:12personalities. The first half is a classic Tarantino crime thriller full of whip-smart
08:16dialogue and astute in-character observation, but as soon as the unlikely travel buddies show up at
08:22the titty twister, all bets are off. As soon as we see our first set of fangs, From Dusk Till Dawn
08:27goes completely batshit insane and never lets up, with the wild genre flip resulting in one of the most
08:33deranged and gloriously enjoyable B-movies of the 1990s.
08:37And then we go my friends, those were 10 movies that completely switched genre halfway through.
08:41I hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the
08:44comment section below. As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter
08:47at RetroJButTheOIsA0 and the same for Instagram, RetroJButTheOIsA0.
08:54But before I go, I just want to say one thing, hope that you're treating yourself well my friend,
08:57because we can all go through periods in our life where we feel like we need a change and you know
09:01what, as we explore today, sometimes changing genres or changing tacks in our life is not a bad thing.
09:06It can sometimes take a lot of work and can feel like an uphill struggle, but trust me,
09:10if you feel like you can do yourself better, if you feel like you can achieve your best life by
09:14changing direction, then I encourage you to do so. Just try and do it in a healthy way and at your
09:19own pace, alright? Big love to you. As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome,
09:23never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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