The Invention of Spoilers

When the destination became the journey

As a young twenty-something film fan, I read a book my brother got at Christmas about the best horror movies which gave a plot summary of each film and a mini review/essay about why the movie is great. In it, I saw a page on Don’t Look Now, a film I had heard all about and seen parodies of everywhere. The book explained the whole plot including the twist ending. My eyes widened and my hackles rose as I discovered the red-coated figure was a serial killer and not the ghost of a grief stricken man’s daughter. Far from ruining the movie, I knew I had to see it, and when I did, it still scared the bejeesus out of me. The last thing that review did was ‘spoil’ Don’t Look Now, a movie that remains a favourite.

I don’t remember my first encounter with a ‘spoiler warning’ but I do remember the first time anyone cared about the topic. It was 1999 and The Sixth Sense had just come out (only two years after The Fifth Element which I thought meant there was some sort of of Bruce Willis sequel chain going on that I was unaware of). I knew nothing about the film but what I had seen in a trailer (that I had caught before another movie because, yes, it was still the only real way you could see a trailer back then), so I went in ‘blind’. I still don’t care what everyone said in the following months, I don’t see how anyone…