Mood Whiplash/Film: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* Disney movies, especially of the [[Disney Animated Canon]] or [[Pixar]] variety, tend to have a considerable amount of this.

*** {{spoiler|Its been declared she was infertile.}}

*** Then, for further whiplash, right after this tragic image fades away, we see another, purely comedic [[Musical Montage]] set to Habanerna from ''[[Carmen]]'' of Carl getting up in the morning, complete with an [[Overly Long Gag]] involving a stairlift.

*** Also, there's another scene that begins with Carl and Russel having dinner with {{spoiler|Charles Muntz, Carl's childhood hero, that was prepared by his dogs, who also eat the food they prepared off of Russel's plate when his back is turned}}. It ends with {{spoiler|Carl and Russel running for their lives from said dogs after Muntz showed them the helmets of his last visitors}}. Also, all of this is in a ''kids' movie.''

*** And then it's promptly followed by another fairly serious scene (though ''far'' lower-key than the previous dramatic sequence).

*** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj1v5tXs9Jo Heaven's Light/Hellfire]. That is all.

*** To be fair, that was entirely intentional. The contrast was emphasized in order to to make the destruction that much more [[Tear Jerker|heartbreaking]].

*** and also to emphasize that the soldiers were being somewhat shallow and thoughtless at the time.

'''Lilo''': You're one of them? ''(shoves Stitch into the ground)'' Get outta here, Stitch. }}

*** In-story, after Rapunzel has left the tower for the first time, she continually switches from being happy to depressed. "I'm free!"/"Mother is going to kill me..."/"This is the best day of my life!"/"I'm the worst daughter ever!"

*** In the scene where Rapunzel has Flynn tied to the chair, Flynn starts using [[Antiquated Linguistics]] to cheesy pickup lines in the span of one sentence. It's like the scene shifted from something out of Shakespeare to Joey from [[Friends]]. And it's [[Actually Pretty Funny]].

** The Courtship ceremony from ''[[Dinosaur]]'' (which involves lemurs participating in a merrymaking ritual so they can find mates) ends with a meteorite hitting Earth.

** ''[[The Lion King]] 2: Simba's Pride'' features a hopeful, uplifting musical number about how the animal world is one big family supporting each other. Then it switches to a vicious [[Villain Song]] where the [[Big Bad]] sings about how she [[Loves the Sound of Screaming]].

* ''Something Wild'', and ''HOW''. The first half of Jonathan Demme's film is a kooky sexcapade, but when [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|raven-haired Lulu]] turns into golden-haired Audrey, that's when the tone changes - enter Ray Liotta.

** Even Better Example: {{spoiler|In the previous [[Tear Jerker]] as Shaun's stepfather passes away just after giving his last words to Shaun - to the effect that "I've always loved you... look after your mother, Shaun..." - Shaun tearfully begs for Ed to stop the car. Ed obliges... by swerving off the road to ram (comedically) into a zombie, and then pulling a racing-car slide-stop. Shaun calls him out on this though.}}

** Even better example still: {{spoiler|Once they finally get refuge in the local pub, they are quickly besieged by zombies. The bartender comes out, but they don't have any working weapons, and the power just came back on, which turned on the jukebox. So, they use pool cues to hit him in time to [[Queen]]'s "Don't Stop Me Now" before finally knocking him out and discovering the pub's titular Winchester is still activated and there is a box of bullets nearby. Skip forward five minutes, and Shaun's mother admits to Liz (Shaun's ex, although his mother isn't aware of the breakup) that she was bitten by a zombie earlier in the movie, dooming her to death and resurrection. She dies in Shaun's arms as he begs her not to leave him. This is followed by a genuinely tense Mexican standoff over what to do with Shaun's mother - David reckons they have to shoot her; Shaun and Ed are hysterically protective.}}

* The 1984 Chinese movie ''Fantasy Mission Force'', helpfully recapped [http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Fantasy_Mission_Force_1984.aspx here] by ''The Agony Booth'' crew. The movie starts out as crazy low-brow slapstick "humor", with plot twists that make no sense, and then suddenly there are people being bloodily massacred on-screen, including most of the main characters. ''What?'' You can't blame all that on the American dub, or on some cultural humor thing. But don't take my word for it.

* ''La Vita è bella'' (''Life is Beautiful''), starts out as a comedy in Mussolini's Italy, and ends up as a comedy in a concentration camp. See also [[Genre Shift]].

* ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' has [[Christopher Walken]]'s character solemnly explaining how the gold watch was handed down through [[World War I]] and [[World War II]]... and [[The Vietnam War]], where he and Butch's father saved it from being confiscated by {{spoiler|shoving it up their asses for seven years}}.

* ''[[Click]]'' starts off as a typical [[Adam Sandler]] flick. Fart jokes, Rob Schneider cameos, and [[Jerkass]] moments ahoy! {{spoiler|And then, Henry Winkler dies. The whole film starts turning into a rather bleak overview on life.}} However, {{spoiler|the ending was [[All Just a Dream]], and he redeems his [[Jerkass]] self.}}

* In ''Ghosts of the Abyss'', an IMAX film by [[James Cameron]] detailing his return to the Titanic, one of his two probes loses power while inside a stateroom. After almost losing the other probe in a rescue effort, Cameron's team gets both back outside the ship to the tune of "Just The Two of Us." It's the CMOH of the film. Then, as the submersibles are returning to the surface, the camera cuts to a crewman in one of the submersibles who reports the time as {{spoiler|6 o'clock on September 11, 2001. The crew in the submersibles find out about the attacks on the World Trade Center as soon as they get back on board their ship.}}

* ''[[The Land Before Time]]'' goes from the death of Little Foot's mother to a scene in which a bunch of baby flying pterosaurs (including Petrie) fight over a cherry, complete with catchy music in the background. Of course it goes back to Little Foot and his sorrow soon enough, but still.

** Pretty much most Don Bluth movies are like this. Take ''[[An American Tail]]'' for example. Heck, the "No Cats in America" song actually switches moods within the verses. Repeatedly.

* ''[[The Graduate]]'' is a satirical comedy up until the scene where Elaine discovers the truth about her mother and Ben. Things get considerably heavier then.

* Being a pitch black comedy, ''[[In Bruges]]'' does this expertly with some frequency.

* Tyler Perry. His most recent film, ''Madea Goes to Jail'', is the best example of this as the plot frequently switches focus from the comical, over-the-top Madea getting into trouble in amusing ways, to a young prostitute's trials and tribulations that are handled in a dead serious manner. It's enough to give you...oh, you know.

* ''[[JCVD]]'' varies between scenes of a police chief and a doctor being forced to walk through a crowd of onlookers cheering Jean-Claude Van Damme, who they believe to be in the process of robbing their post office (it was his home town, so he was still an icon), and court room scenes of his custody battle over his daughter.

* The final third of ''[[North]]'' doesn't just involve the youthful hero trying to return to his parents -- another kid, his conniving, power-hungry friend from back home, has sent assassins out to kill him. The film has been a light fantasy up to this point, and indeed continues to be, but the plot development is so dark that it invokes this trope nevertheless.

* ''Incident at Loch Ness'' is a documentary {{spoiler|(...but not really)}} about director Werner Herzog attempting to film a project about the Loch Ness monster and the nature of folk tales. Herzog has to deal with the undercutting of assistant-director Zak Penn constantly. Penn is trying to stage things for dramatic effect, such as getting an animatronic Nessie to scare the crew members, much to Herzog's consternation. Then, after Zak Penn draws a gun, {{spoiler|the REAL Loch Ness monster attacks the crew}} and all hell breaks loose.

** {{spoiler|Let me through! LET ME THROUGH!}}

** {{spoiler|That's my son! That's my boy! My BOY!}}

** There's an earlier example of this in the same film, when [[Crazy Awesome|Mad-Eye Moody]] is demonstrating the Unforgiveable Curses. Making the little spidery thing dance and jump and crawl over people? Classroom is in fits of giggles. Making her jump out of the window or drown herself? Hilarity comes ot a screeching halt. See it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBFkA9mAlX4 here].

** In the same film, there's the scene where Hagrid and Slughorn are singing that wizard song and reminiscing about Aragog. In a drunken stupor, complete with Hagrid passing out after Slughorn mentions he once had a fish. {{spoiler|After Hagrid passes out, Slughorn turns to Harry and immediately explains that the fish was given to him by Harry's mother, and the fish disappeared because the magic sustaining it was dead...}}

** Spielberg admitted that in that scene, the intention was laugh - [[Jump Scare]] - nervous laugh ([[Gonna Need More Trope|"You're gonna need a bigger boat"]]). So much that when after a preview had the one-liner being covered by screams, they re-edited so the audience could recover and properly laugh.

* Minor example in the 1946 Cole Porter biopic ''Night and Day'': at one point you get [[Busby Berkeley Number|Busby Berkeley-type numbers]] intercut with scenes of Porter on the operating table getting major leg surgery after his riding accident.

* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', Gordon's hysterically funny TV show and then BOOM {{spoiler|He gets beaten with a stick and Evey gets kidnapped.}}

* ''[[Gold Diggers of 1933]]'' ends with a happy scene of all the lovers finally ending up together, followed by a somber Depression-themed musical number that closes the film. (Had it not been for [[Executive Meddling]], the film would have ended with a happier song, which instead got pushed to the middle of the film.)

** Also, the scene where it's revealed that {{spoiler|Woody Harrelson's character's son, not his dog, is the one who died}} is appallingly sad and actually made this troper get teary-eyed in a damn zombie comedy.

*** The whiplash at this part actually comes when said character then says 'I haven't cried this hard since Titanic!'

* One scene in ''[[All Dogs Go to Heaven]] 2'' features David, a runaway boy with a knack for magic tricks, with Charlie, Itchy and Sasha (Charlie's love interest) singing a bright cheerful song about life on "Easy Street" at a center filled with other performers. However, when David screws up at one point and falls into the fountain, the other folks leave, and then song almost instantly changes to a [[Tear Jerker]]. (Not to mention that scene starts out bright and sunny and next thing you know it's pouring with rain).

* In ''[[The Lost Battalion]]'', the main characters are saved by their side's artillery, complete with heartwarming music and cheering. In an instant, this turns sour as the artillery has been misaimed and is falling right on top of them, killing tons of soldiers.

** The climax of ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' was pointed out by the editor to do this, in a negative way. Due to it being made up of four different conflicts with varying tones, it jumps between sadness at the death of a hero, humour with Jar-Jar Binks, excitement in a large space battle, and nothing in a scene with Padme. This results in all the would-be emotions being negated and in a worse case scenario leaving the audience bored out of their minds. Both the following movies had much less complicated climaxes as a result.

** The second and third prequel movies do a better job at keeping the same general mood throughout except for the climax of ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]''. Anakin is disfigured and has turned to the Dark Side, Padme is dead, the Jedi Order and the Republic are no more, Palpatine has taken over the galaxy,... and we get a cute little funny scene with C-3PO moments before the end credits.

* The party scene in ''Beethoven's 2nd'' takes a dark turn when Ryce's boyfriend attempts to rape her, then goes back to the usual hijinks when Beethoven causes the boyfriend's vacation home to collapse.

* In ''[[The Good Son]]'' when Mark tells Susan that Henry may be a psychopath she slaps him and tells him never to say that again, seconds later she's crying and hugging him. Yay mood swings!

* ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]''. It's all spoofy and crazy and fun and then.... WTF!? The song "I'm Going Home" pops up and it's downhill from there.

** The scholar/narrator/storyteller/whoever deserves a mention as well. He starts out giving straightlaced, nonchalant, neutral descriptions of the situation, lets himself go during the Time Warp, goes back to straightlaced, and at the end delivers a slow, deadpan commentary on humanity that sounds almost like an ill omen.

* The little-seen [[Charlie Chaplin]] non-Tramp movie ''Monsieur Verdoux'' is an interesting version of this: for the first two-thirds it's a merry dark comedy about a dandy who murders a succession of rich wives for their money; there are quite hilarious hijinks as he attempts to kill the most annoying one in a rowboat and also when the current wife shows up at the wedding to the ''next'' wife, etc. It then takes a not-funny dark and philosophical turn when {{spoiler|he's actually arrested for his crimes and sentenced to death. The movie then has a very frank and stern message about the morality of the death penalty.}} Not so hilarious.

* Korean cinema and Asian movies in general tend to do this a lot. There are already a few examples here but others include:

*** ...which itself flip flops from a family drama, to a comedy, to a giant monster movie, to a political thriller, and returns to all of these in a moment's notice.

** ''The [[Heroic Trio]]'' - A goofy Hong Kong superhero/martial arts movie about three women kicking butt. There are scenes of pure slapstick mingled with decapitations, blood sprays, and babies being killed.

** ''[[The Untold Story]]'' (aka [[Bun Man]]) - A supposedly true story about a man from Macau who kills people and cooks them in his dumplings. The film is extremely dark and disturbing except for the scenes taking place at the police station which are on an almost sitcom-level of whackiness.

* ''[[The Cable Guy]]'': "[[Jim Carrey|I]] can be [[Slapstick|your best friend]], or [[Ax Crazy|your worst enemy]]."

* One of the best comedic moments in ''[[True Lies]]'' is probably the "Battery, Aziz" scene - the terrorist Aziz is making an angry and frightening threat video, when the camcorder runs low on battery. The cameraman lowers the camera, looks pained and apologetic, and explains "battery, Aziz!" Aziz, dumbfounded, snaps at him "then go get another one, you IDIOT!"

* In ''Barney's Version'', the first two-thirds are more or less a romantic/sex comedy (albeit a dark, rather mean-spirited one), and then takes a very gloomy turn when {{spoiler|Barney cheats on Miriam, loses her to another man, develops Alzheimer's and finally dies.}} [[It Got Worse]]. A lot.

* ''[[Twister]]'' has one that might be more for a character than the audience. Late in the movie, when the chasers are taking shelter from an approaching F-5 tornado, the high winds cause a hose to break and whip around near the huddling group. One of the characters manages to grab the hose, bellowing a shout of triumph as he holds his prize. A second later a hubcap flies through the air, slicing across his forehead and needless to say darkening his mood.

* ''[[Dagon]]'''s slow pacing and dramatic mood is interrupted by a flashback to a surprisingly dramatic depiction of the town's corruption by inhuman forces.

* The ''entire film'' of ''[[The Secret of Kells]]'' qualifies as this, such as going from scenes of happy forest antics to a scene filled with [[Nightmare Fuel]] in a matter of minutes - and sometimes even ''seconds''.

** And then, it reaches [[Tear Jerker]] levels when Johnny Five writes "{{spoiler|dying}}" on a brick wall.

* The Bollywood megamovie ''3 Idiots'' has an orbital one. Our heroes are fixing a desperate senior's flying camera, to help him to a graduation. The small chooper flies up to the window of the senior, while our heroes are singing and dancing. {{spoiler|And then we can see on the tiny screen that the senior hanged himself.}}

* Toward the end of ''[[Cabin Fever]]'', the main character is passed out in jail, having a dream about himself and his girlfriend happily skipping through a flowery meadow with happy music. Which then smash-cuts to a shot of her horribly rotted face and loud screaming.

* One of Johnny's lines from ''[[The Room]]'' contains this. Granted, it's more to do with the words themselves, as Tommy Wiseau's tone is the same throughout:

* ''[[Prince of Egypt]]'' at one point went from all the firstborns being dead to Moses' sister singing 'When You Believe'. Dude! all the firstborns are dead, can we cut the showtunes? *sniff*.

** ...But the Hebrews have just been released from generations of bondage, so you can't blame them for wanting to celebrate their newfound freedom a little, and the "[[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|When You Believe]]" is ''hardly'' the peppy musical number the above point makes it seem to be.

* Averted in ''[[Mystery Team]]'', thanks to it being a [[Black Comedy]]

* ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' and [[Kung Fu Panda 2|its sequel]] have made an art form out of this. At any point in either movie, you could be laughing, crying, cheering, or any combination of the three.

* In a German Film ''Stahlnetz: PSI'' a little girl is kidnapped, locked up and left to die and the police struggles to find her in time. The the help of [[Power of Friendship]], and some supernatural thing they do and then her best friend meets her:

- I still owe you the solution for those Math questions...|I already got an F for them. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Doesn't matter...]] }}

* Pretty much every Shane Meadows film ever made features one of these. A notable example is ''[[This Is England]]'': Shaun is having a great time with his new friends, but when Combo returns from prison, things start to get ugly. A particularly devastating use of this trope is when Milky, stoned with Combo, shares pleasant stories about his family, which cause Combo to get increasingly agitated, racist and then beat the crap out of him.

* In ''How to Deal'', we see a high school boy score a soccer goal and dance around happily, while his teammates crowd around him and his girlfriend cheers from the stands. Suddenly he drops to the ground, and seconds later we learn he died of a heart defect. It's so ridiculously abrupt as to almost cause laughter.

* The Israeli film ''Distortion'' starts like a romantic comedy, with a couple meeting in person for the first time in a cafe. Moments later, the cafe blows up.

* ''Avere vent'anni'' begins as what appears to be a typical sexploitation comedy, but ends with {{spoiler|the two female leads being brutally raped and murdered.}}

* Likewise for ''Looking for Mr. Goodbar'', which ends with {{spoiler|the main character being raped and killed by a man she picked up in a bar, made all the more tragic by the fact that she was finally beginning to turn her life around.}}

* ''[[The Godfather]]'' uses this extensively for dramatic impact, snapping from violence to peacefully pastoral scenes, and vice versa, culminating in a series of murders intercut with a baptism.

 

{{reflist}}