11 Hidden Secrets in Fight Club

Updates when new 11 Points go live, plus exclusives, contests & more! (And no spam EVER.)

E-mail address:

Archive Popular Random About Contact Mail List Facebook Twitter RSS

11 Hidden Secrets in Fight Club (part 2)
Posted Monday, September 14, 2009 at 12:01:00 AM - Single-page view

Tyler's FBI warning. Very clever feature on the DVD here. After the requisite FBI warning at the beginning of the movie, the screen briefly changes to a warning from... Tyler Durden.

And yes, I completely see the irony that I spent a good five hours watching this movie, pulling screen grabs, Photoshopping them together and writing this list... something outright condemned by this message. So please don't point it out.
Tyler punched. This is extremely, extremely subtle. But when Tyler is fighting the owner of the bar, when Tyler gets punched in the stomach the Narrator ever-so-slightly doubles over and winces in pain.

It's one of the only times you ever see him visually react to what happens to Tyler. I guess it would be too over-the-top if all of a sudden his face became all bloody here.
Lauren Sanchez. I was caught off-guard when the Project Mayhem guys are watching a news report about them vandalizing a building and the reporter is Lauren Sanchez. I was surprised for two reasons: (1) She's a real reporter here in L.A. and (2) She was also the host of the first season of "So You Think You Can Dance" (until she got pregnant, was replaced by Cat Deeley for season two, and was then never invited back).

OK, so maybe this isn't a hidden secret that David Fincher put into "Fight Club", but it definitely captivated me. And if this is your first time here and you're thinking, "Did this guy really just say a hidden secret of 'Fight Club' is that it features a cameo from the Brian Dunkelman of 'So You Think You Can Dance'???"... then allow me to say, welcome to 11 Points.
Car crash. I have a lot of beef with the car crash... I know they explain on the DVD commentary how a figment of your imagination can drive a car into a ditch... but it's always felt a little too forced to me.

(It's almost too much of a fake out. We're willing to believe the Narrator beat himself up in those first few fights, that he chemical burned his own hand, that he went around the country setting up fight clubs. But that he could have that argument with himself while driving a car off a road? It's just one leap too far.)

Anyway, in the scene, here are two hints that Tyler doesn't really exist. When the car pulls up, the Narrator gets in the driver's door, and Tyler follows through the same door. But when the car crashes and flips over, Tyler gets out of the passenger side... and pulls the Narrator out of the driver's side. Because the car's flipped it's hard to figure that out... damn near impossible in the moment.
Hidden penis. And finally, one of the most famous scenes in the movie is where Tyler and the Narrator talk about secretly splicing one frame of graphic pornography into movies. The goal: Have it enter an audience member's subconscious and make him or her feel unsettled for reasons they can't quite believe.

At the very end of the movie, for one frame... Fincher spliced in a penis. Here it is, in all of its glory. (With my censorship touch, of course. Sorry. I got corporations to please.)