CAYOM YEAR 2 - PART I - MOVIE SUBMISSION

[Hiccup23]

Midnight in the Afghan Valley

 

"War Is Not Glorious"

 

Date- October 19th

Genre- War Drama

Rating- R- strong war violence including torture and for strong language

Theaters- 2,956 theaters

Budget- 35 million

Running Time- 95 minutes or 1 hour and 35 minutes

Studio- O$corp Pictures

Director- Mike McCoy

Actors and Actresses

Specialist Frank Voss- John Boyega

Sergeant Adam Lindahl- Finn Jones

Sergeant First Class Jordan Murel- Gerard Butler

Rasa- Aiysha Hart

Plot:

Spoiler

 

The film begins with Specialist Frank Voss and Sergeant Adam Lindahl boarding a plane to the Afghanistan. Voss and Lindahl sit next to each other. Both do not know each other and Voss is a stranger to the unit. In their limited conversation on the plane ride, we learn that Voss was in the Army Reserve, but volunteered for deployment and was assigned to the unit. Both engage mostly sit in silence, nervous for both their first deployment overseas. The plane touches down in Kabul and both move to a helicopter, which takes them to a remote operation base in the middle Afghanistan. The helicopter flies over the stunning and breathtaking Afghanistan wilderness. Both Voss and Lindahl take in the view.

 

The helicopter lands at the base and both soldiers are escorted to their sleeping area. They are assigned to Sergeant First Class Jordan Murel who is their squad leader. Murel briefs them the ins and outs of the area. We learn that insurgents are numerous in the area and like to strike military convoys and recon groups. They are located outside of the nearby village. Their first route recon mission will be tomorrow morning at 2:00am. Darkness is their ally since the USA has superior night vision abilities.

 

At 2:00am, they roll out. There is tension in the air as they move down the road. Voss is the gunner and nervously scans for IEDs. Lindahl is in the driver’s seat and has white knuckles on the wheel. However the mission is uneventful and the route is free of insurgents and IEDs.

 

They arrive back at the base and after debriefing the route to higher superiors, they get their new mission to recon the village. The following morning, they depart. They arrive at the village and find it empty. After setting up security, they dismount their vehicles and engage with the locals. The locals are wary and nervous around the soldiers. Murel talks with the village elder and tells him they mean no harm. The village elder refuses to give intelligence about insurgents from the village to Murel. As Murel walks away, he says to Voss that he can’t blame the elder. He says Afghan civilians are struck between to walls: insurgents and the US. He says all the Afghans want is peace but often turn to the radicals out of fear and intimidation. He states that they aren’t the enemy. He instead points to the mountains nearby and says the enemy lives there.

 

Meanwhile, Lindahl is still in the driver’s seat of his vehicle. He sees a beautiful girl watching him from a window. He waves and smiles. She shyly smiles and waves. Murel walking toward the vehicle, sees this interaction. He tells Lindahl to avoid personally interactions with the villagers. He says they have a duty to do and they are not hear to make relationships.

 

As they roll out and exit the village, the vehicle ahead of them strikes an IED. The vehicle is thrown and rolls over. Soldiers scream “Get down, get down.” Murel in the passenger seat, grabs Voss and pulls him down so that he doesn’t get struck by shrapnel. He barks orders at a panicked Lindahl. They hear gunfire erupt from the convoy as they convoy launches a counterattack against the insurgents. Voss’s ears ring from the blast as Murel yells at him to get up and shoot back. Voss gets up and fires back at an enemy he can’t see. Suddenly as is quiet. The gun fire has stopped. Smoke rises from the wreckage. There are no survivors. The convoy recovers the vehicle and dead and then moves back. Voss and Lindahl are left numb.

 

Back on base, a shook Voss and Lindahl go back to their tent. They sit in silence together. Numb from what they saw and experienced. Lindahl tries to say something but Voss says he needs to be alone with his thoughts. He goes to shower.

 

The following day, they have a funeral for the fallen soldiers and a helicopter arrives to take the bodies. The base is quiet and everybody walks around with limited conversations.

 

Over the next few weeks, Voss, Murel, and Lindahl continue their monotonous recon missions. They once and awhile discover IEDs on the road but none go off. Voss and Lindahl begin to get bored with the routine of life at the base, especially Lindahl. They visit the village frequently to develop trust with the locals. Lindahl desiring to make friends and frustrated by the lack of personal friendship with his other squad members, begins to interact with the village girl. Her name is Rasa and she is in an arranged marriage with one of the local leaders. Despite, this the two grow close to each other and Rasa becomes the one thing Lindahl looks forward to each week when they visit the village for the weekly check in.

 

Their relationship is soon discovered by Voss who happens to see letters Lindahl has written to Rasa. He tells Lindahl to end it and threatens to tell Murel, but Lindahl aggressively threatens him to keep silent telling him that Rasa his is source of joy and peace in this dull and depressing world. Voss keeps his silence.

 

A couple of days later while out on a patrol in the village, they come up on Rasa’s father beating Rasa. We learn that he has discovered her conversations with Lindahl. Murel tells Lindahl to drive on since they can’t get involved in civilian affairs. An emotional, Lindahl however leaps from the truck and begins to fight Rasa’s father. Murel angrily yells for Lindahl to return to the truck. Anger locals soon gather and begin to attack the patrol. An IED explodes and chaos erupts. Locals begin to fire shots at the patrol. Voss calls back to the base for support. A full on battle begins and the locals are driven back by the QRF forces. 10 locals are killed. 3 soldiers are injured in the blast and fighting.

 

Upon returning to base, Lindahl lies about his relationship with Rasa and claims that he couldn’t see an innocent woman be beaten so he reacted. He is severely reprimanded by Murel who says that Lindahl’s foolish act has destroyed the hard won loyalty of the Afghan civilians.

 

Over the next weeks, the tensions grow. Civilians are armed and dangerous. Nobody is safe anymore. IED attacks happen more than once daily and there isn’t a day without a soldier getting wounded in an IED attack or minor gunfight. The insurgents have entered the village since the soldiers remain mostly sieged in the base. Lindahl has not seen or heard from Rasa.

 

Late one night, Voss and Lindahl are awaken by Murel who announces that they have been selected for a sudden midnight attack on the town to try to control the civilians and thrust the insurgents from the village. They leave the safety of the base and venture into the dark village. They are told to kill anybody who is armed since the insurgents hide themselves in civilian clothes. They leave the trucks and begin to entire the houses to route the insurgents out. Soon gunshots are heard and the shooting begins. People sleeping with weapons are killed. Civilians awaken and begin to fight back. Scream from women and children erupt along with gunshots throughout the clear midnight sky. Murel, Lindahl, and Voss make their way through the streets shooting anybody who is armed. Reports begin to fly that unarmed civilians are being killed and this is confirmed when the trio entire a house and see a soldier massacre a family. Murel asks what the fuck the soldier is doing. The soldier replies that he is doing what he was told to do. Voss whispers something about Rasa to Lindahl. Lindahl turns to bolts from the house. Murel and Voss shout after him. Lindahl runs through the street shouting Rasa’s name. He bolts into her house and sees her sobbing over the bodies of her dead mother and sisters struck by stray bullets in the fight. Lindahl tries to comfort her but she throws him off and blames him for her family’s deaths. She tells him that she trusted him and she thought the Americans were here to help them not kill them. She shouts for Lindahl to leave. She pulls out a knife and tells him to get out and that she doesn’t want to see him in her village ever again. Lindahl leaves. Meanwhile Murel and Voss continue to fight. They witness the sight of dozens of unarmed villagers are shot or struck by explosives as they run for cover or are forced onto the street because they are fleeing their homes do to American soldiers and insurgents raiding them to try to take control of the village. The battle continues into the morning. Murel, Voss, and Lindahl continue to fight. In the middle of the chaos, Lindahl is separated from Murel and Voss. Lindahl runs to find cover in the thick smoke. Suddenly, he is struck by a bullet in the upper leg. He falls to the ground. Grabbing his leg, he realizes he has been shot in the artery. He begins to panic as he tries to plug the bullet hole. Dizzy from the loss of bloody, Lindahl realizes he can’t help himself. He begins to crawl on the ground crying for help. Nobody arrives or can heard him. He begins to gasp and tunnel vision occurs. Struggling to hold on, Lindahl accepts his fate of dying alone in a foreign country. He rolls on his back and dies.

 

The remaining villagers flee to the hills and the insurgents are either killed or taken prisoner. The camera pans over what remains of the village. Smoke and dust rise from it as American helicopters fly in and out to recover the soldiers and the dead. Voss and Murel are airlifted out. Murel looks coldly ahead while Voss looks back down at the village. The camera pans into the village and the screen cuts to black.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2018 by Hiccup23

[Xillix]

 

War of the Gods

Release Date: August 1st, Y2 (Limited - 99 selected IMAX venues)

August 3rd, Y2 (Wide - 4,273 theaters including 390 IMAX)

Studio: Gold Crescent Pictures

Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Action

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cinematographer: Dan Mindel

Music Composer: John Williams

Theater Count: 99 (Early limited release) / 4,273 (wide release)

Premium Formats: 3D, IMAX 3D & Dolby Vision

Shooting Format: 15/65 IMAX film (primary) and VistaVision film (select sequences) (Post-converted to 3D)

Aspect Ratio: 1.44:1 (IMAX film and IMAX with Laser full-size screen showings), 1.85:1 (Non-IMAX showings), 1.90:1 (IMAX Digital showings and IMAX with Laser showings on non-full-height screens)

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP, 4K DCP, 4K Dolby Vision DCP, 2K IMAX Digital 3D DCP, 4K IMAX with Laser 3D DCP, IMAX 2D 15/70 film prints

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Auro 11.1, Dolby Atmos, IMAX 12-Channel (IMAX with Laser DCPs only)

Production Budget: $255 million

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for realistic and fantasy violence, suggestive content, frightening images, and mild language

Running Time: 144 minutes

Major Cast: David Oyelowo (Horus), Anthony Mackie (Ramessu), Idris Elba (Set), Djimon Hounsou (Anubis), Zoe Saldana (Sekhmet/Hathor), Dwayne Johnson (Sobek), Halle Berry (Nephythys), Will Smith (Thoth), Viola Davis (Eset), Jada Pinkett Smith (Ma'at), Angela Bassett (Bastet), Laurence Fishburne (Ahmose), Lupita Nyong'o (Nefertari), Michael Jai White (Thutmose), Denzel Washington (Ra)

 

Plot:

Notes: War of the Gods is set in a fantasy world based somewhat loosely on the mythology of ancient Egypt, as opposed to any historically accurate depiction of the country. The gods are depicted in this film to be human-sized. Those with animal heads are portrayed through advanced facial motion performance capture, with cutting-edge CGI used to replace and animate the actor's heads. Finally, to keep it from distracting you from the plot when it comes up – Anubis has long been described as “jackal-headed,” but zoologists have recently determined the animal on which he is based is technically not a jackal at all, but a form of wolf. This treatment thus refers to him as “wolf-headed.”

 

Spoiler

 

In an animated prologue done in the style of hieroglyphics, the audience is introduced to the legend of the first great conflict between the gods. Set, the god of storms, chaos, and the desert, had triggered a crisis that reshaped the mortal and immortal worlds. In an effort to usurp the throne of the gods, Set had killed the reigning king – his brother, Osiris. This caused a war between his mortal supporters and those of Horus, Osiris' son, over the succession of the divine monarchy. While the humans fought a war in the mortal realm, Horus and Set entered into a contest to prove their worth to the other gods in order to win the throne. In the end, the deciding judge among the gods – Thoth, god of knowledge – found both had resorted to underhanded tactics and failed to address the war between their subjects. He instead granted the throne to Ra, the sun god, Set's surviving brother.

 

The film proper opens during sunset in the city of Edfu, on the banks of the beautiful Nile river. Ramessu (Anthony Mackie), a guard at the nearby temple of Horus, is walking home from the market with his sister Nefertari (Lupita Nyong'o). They couldn't afford much food, and Ramessu is ashamed. He apologizes to his sister, saying his work as a guard is less lucrative than his previous career as a mercenary. Ever since their parents died, he has felt responsible to protect and provide for his sister until she finds a husband. But Nefertari isn't the romantic type; she's a fiercely independent woman who is training to become a blacksmith. In any case, Nefertari is glad for Ramessu's new job; while the lack of funds may make this life less comfortable, he is doing a noble thing that will likely win him favor with the gods and allow him to live eternally in the afterlife.

 

As they enter their home, a modest construction of stone and mud, they find a visitor waiting for them. It's Thutmose (Michael Jai White), a member of Ramessu's former mercenary band. Thutmose reveals he too has left mercenary life behind him in favor of service to a god, but Nefertari is shocked when Thutmose declares he has become a guardian of the temple of Set out in the desert. Ramessu defends his colleague's choice, however. The conflict of the gods was untold ages ago, and ever since, Set has submitted to Ra's rule. He also serves as a protector of Ra, guarding him during the night from the demonic serpent Apep.

 

Nefertari is not convinced, believing it is in Set's nature to be deceitful and malevolent, wondering what good chaos and storms and vast stretches of sand have ever done for anyone. Ramessu counters that storms feed the Nile and let the plants grow, the vast deserts protect against invaders, and that a world of perfect unchanging order would be unbearable. Happy to see his friend coming to his defense, Thutmose not-so-subtly suggests that Ramessu should join him as a servant of Set. Ramessu refuses – he's taken a vow to Horus, and besides, he cannot leave his sister to live in the desert temple. Gravely, Thutmose tells him that he knows where to find him if he changes his mind, and bids the pair goodnight as the sun disappears beyond the horizon.

 

In the underworld, Ra (Denzel Washington), the falcon-headed sun god, and Set (Idris Elba), whose head is that of a unique mythical mammal, are sailing a barge along the river of night. Each night Ra ventures through the underworld on this waterway, the sun only rising as he reaches the end of his voyage. Ra attempts to make conversation with Set, who is standing guard at the front of the barge, but Set rebuffs him. After centuries of the same journey night by night, he says, he has run out of things to talk about. Ra senses something is off in Set's demeanor, but before he can question him, the evil serpent Apep emerges from below the water's surface and attacks the barge.

 

Set leaps into action to defend Ra, who does his best to keep the barge steady and prevent it from sinking. A brutal fight ensues, the demon-snake attempting to trap the gods in its thick coils, spitting venom and baring its fangs. Set wrestles with the beast as he's done every night for eons, his own immense strength a near-match for the creature's, his powerful chaos magic disorienting Apep and keeping the monster from reaching his divine prize.

 

The barge approaches the gate of morning, as the first light of dawn appears in the mortal realm. Ra speeds up his rowing, making a dash for the gate, yelling to Set that he only needs to keep it up for a few more moments. That's when Set declares he's been “keeping it up” for long enough. A true god-king, he says, should be able to defend himself. “Prove your worth, Lord Ra,” he says, before leaping off the barge onto the riverbank, leaving Ra exposed.

 

Ra drops his oar, screaming furiously at Set as Apep closes in on him. The sun stops its rise as the barge comes to a halt, the mortal world half-lit by the pre-dawn twilight. Ra puts up a good fight of his own, blasting the serpent with fire to keep it at bay. Impatient, Set interferes, casting a chaos spell on Ra. We see from the sun god's point of view as his vision warps and distorts, sounds slurring together. Unable to properly defend himself, Ra is captured in Apep's coils, doused with its venom and weakened, struggling but failing to escape. As he curses Set's name, Ra is swallowed whole by the scaled demon.

 

The serpent turns its attention to Set, who only smirks, unfazed. “The sun god's power is within you now, Apep,” he declares, “but only another god can use it. Time to take what's mine.” Set returns to battle with the serpent and easily overwhelms it, with far less effort than he seemed to put into his earlier clash with Apep. As he pins the demon to the ground by the neck, choking it, he mocks the demon for ever believing it stood a chance against him. He could have vanquished Apep at any time – but only now, he says, is the time right. As the demon dies, its body disintegrates into glowing strands of power, which Set absorbs into himself.

 

In the mortal world, panic sets in as the sun fails to rise. Terrified denizens of Edfu gather in the temple of Horus, demanding answers from the guards – including Ramessu – and praying desperately. Horus (David Oyelowo), the falcon-headed god of war and the sky, appears in the temple in a flash of holy light. He commands his worshipers to silence themselves and listen. As all the mortals bow, Horus explains that the situation is uncertain, but is being looked into. He leads the huddled masses in a prayer to Ra, hoping to show their support and empower him if he is in trouble.

 

Back in the underworld, four of the other gods – Sobek (Dwayne Johnson), the crocodile-headed god of the Nile, Bastet (Angela Bassett), the cat-headed god of protection and children, Hathor (Zoe Saldana), human-looking goddess of love, and Ma'at (Jada Pinkett Smith), a human-looking goddess of order and truth who happens to be Ra's daughter, arrive at the river of night. They find Set kneeling on the bank of the river, covered in bruises and cuts which he has inflicted upon himself in the time between scenes. The others demand to know what happened, and Set claims that Apep was too quick, attacking from the rear and killing Ra before he could stop him. In a blind rage, Set says, he had found the strength to finally vanquish Apep – but too late to save the sun god.

 

Ma'at collapses to her knees and sobs for the death of her father, glaring accusingly at Set. Sobek, who was a good friend of Ra's, is furious. He approaches the god of chaos threateningly, cursing him for failing at his duty and proving his worthlessness. Bastet intervenes, saying that Set had been protecting Ra for centuries and more than proven his worth, but that there were close calls before. They had always known this was a possibility. Sobek turns his rage inward, saying he should have been there, that he wouldn't have let Ra die.

 

Hathor brings up the issue of dominion over the sun, and the need for someone to take on the responsibility, asking where Ra's body is so that the power can be transferred. Set says Apep had already absorbed the power, and that it transferred to him when he slayed the beast. Ma'at yells at him for bypassing the law of the gods – the power should have gone to Horus – but Set defends himself loudly, asking what she would have had him do – let Apep rampage around victoriously, without retaliating? Let the serpent consume him as well? Hathor manages to calm everyone down a bit, and at her urging, Set re-enters the river and swims through the gate of dawn.

 

The sun rises in the mortal world, and Horus and his worshipers appear visibly relieved – until, in another blinding flash, a devastated Ma'at appears in the temple and approaches her brother Horus. She declares to the congregation that Ra has died and asks for a moment of silence. Horus, however, demands an explanation. Ma'at relates Set's story – and how he has taken on Ra's power – and a furious Horus vanishes once more into the realm of the gods, leaving his bewildered and frightened followers alone in the temple when Ma'at follows him.

 

Horus and Ma'at arrive at the royal palace of the gods, where Set and Ra's sister Nephthys (Halle Berry), the human-looking goddess of funerals, is overseeing a ceremony to honor Ra. Hathor, Sobek, Bastet, Set, Eset (Viola Davis), the human-looking goddess of nature and another sister of Set's, and Thoth (Will Smith), the ibis-headed god of knowledge, are participating. Set is visibly estranged from the rest of the group, including his own sister, but is playing his part in pretending to mourn. Horus storms in and interrupts the ceremony, accusing Set of letting Ra die intentionally or, worse, killing him. Set denies the allegations and counters by claiming he is as devastated as anyone, as Ra was his brother. Horus points out Osiris was his brother too, and yet Set had no problem with killing him. Set insists he has changed, having dedicated so long to defending Ra, and that his quarrel was never with Ra, but with Horus.

 

When Nephthys tries to stop the argument in order to resume the ceremony, Horus shouts over her and asks where her “bastard son” Anubis is. Nephthys tells him to leave Anubis out of this, but Horus presses the matter. He insists that Anubis was likely in on the plan to kill Ra, saying he's a “tainted demon-child, born of rape and destined to take after his wicked father” – Set, who, yes, is technically both his uncle and his father. Set says Anubis hasn't spoken with him in decades, and Nephthys confirms this. In any case, his duties at the entrance to the afterlife keep him constantly busy, and that is why he couldn't be here, she says. The argument only escalates until finally both Horus and Set storm out of the palace.

 

When Horus returns to his temple in the mortal realm, he finds most of his worshipers have fled in terror and despair at the news of Ra's death, along with all of his guards but one – Ramessu. The human is highly intimidated at being alone with his god, but Horus thanks him for his dedication and faith. Horus warns Ramessu that Set is likely up to something, and it is at this point that Ramessu confides in the god of the sky how his old friend Thutmose had joined Set's forces and attempted to recruit him.

 

Feeling he can trust Ramessu's loyalty, Horus gives him a mission – find Thutmose and accept his offer to join Set's guards. Gather any valuable information he can, and return to the temple, summon him, and report his findings. To protect him, Horus gives Ramessu a medallion bearing his symbol, a stylized engraving of his eye. The eye of Horus represents his ability to see and reveal the truth through the veils of illusion and discord. The medallion contains a piece of his godly power and will help guard Ramessu against any chaos magic he encounters – but he must keep it hidden so as not to be exposed. He will also be able to use it to summon Horus into the temple by placing it upon the altar where offerings are left for him. Ramessu accepts the mission.

 

Set also emerges in the mortal world at his own temple, deep in the desert and surrounded by a raging thunderstorm. Unlike Horus, he is greeted by a huge crowd of worshipers and warriors who cheer his arrival. They are led by Set's high priest, Ahmose (Laurence Fishburne), who approaches the god and bows reverently, congratulating him on completing the first phase of his plan. Set complains of Horus' insolence, and worries he will turn the other gods against him and endanger his plan to take the throne.

 

Ahmose humbly offers his advice – for centuries deceit and manipulation have been Set's strategy, but now, having taken Ra's power, he is the strongest god in existence. Ahmose says that Set's guards, under his leadership, are prepared for all-out war in the mortal realm. He suggests Set himself could win a war among the gods. Set ponders this, and knows that while he cannot defeat all of the others on his own, he may not need to. Thoth, he believes, is more obsessed with knowledge than emotion or justice, and a coward to boot – unlikely to take sides. Ma'at is weak and not a significant threat, and Bastet's specialty is protecting mortals, not other gods. The only worrisome opponents, he feels, are Horus, Sobek, and Eset. If he could recruit just one other god to his side, Set believes, he could win the war. And he knows exactly who to try and sway.

 

Ramessu visits Nefertari at the blacksmith's workshop where she is an apprentice. He tells her about the mission he's been given by Horus, and while she is very proud of her brother, he remains worried for her safety if he is to leave her alone. She reaffirms her faith in both Horus and her brother, expressing her belief they will be able to set things right.

 

Ramessu hopes Horus is wrong and that Set is not actually plotting against him, but concedes it may be a foolish hope. Nefertari surprises him by saying that, though she does not trust Set, Ramessu's desire to believe in the goodness of everyone is more a strength than it is a weakness. She gives him a small dagger she has made at her apprenticeship, telling him to hide it in his armor alongside the medallion from Horus in case of an emergency. The two embrace, and Ramessu departs into the desert.

 

In the underworld, near the gates to the afterlife, we find Anubis (Djimon Hounsou), the wolf-headed god of death. He is judging the souls of recently-deceased mortals, weighing their hearts on a set of scales against a magic feather to determine the weight of their sins. When the feather is heavier, the people are allowed into the afterlife. When the heart is heavier, Anubis tosses it into an adjacent lake of fire and lava, and the condemned soul transforms into a demonic wraith and is banished into the dark, untamed depths of the underworld.

 

Suddenly, Set appears before Anubis, pushing through the crowd of mortal souls and raising a barrier between them and the gods. Anubis is not happy to see his father. Word of Ra's death has spread to him already, and Anubis is rightly suspicious of Set. Set decides not to mince words. He confirms that he allowed Ra to die intentionally. Anubis is shocked and attempts to banish him with a spell, but Set is far more powerful and easily resists it. The two have a brief skirmish, but Set quickly defeats his son, and dangles him over the lake of fire.

 

Set lays out his case to Anubis – centuries ago, he says, a great injustice was done. Osiris was too weak to be the king of the gods, and Set had proven as much by killing him. Horus' challenge was nothing more than the tantrum of an insolent child, and Thoth's appointment of Ra to the throne – when he had not asked for it or done anything to prove his worth – was a travesty. Now that Ra is dead, things can finally be set right – Horus does not deserve the throne, as his bloodline has proven itself inferior with the murder of his father. Ra had no sons. It is time, Set says, for their family to take over. Royalty is Anubis' birthright.

 

Anubis is unconvinced, angrily shouting that he never should have been born. Nephthys had never wanted to bear Set's child, and by the very act of spawning him, Set had condemned his own son. He knows how the other gods talk about him – bastard child, seed of chaos – and thinks they are right. That is why he has condemned himself to reside with the dead. Set encourages him to turn his shame into rage. “If they are so right about you, about your wicked fate, then PROVE them right. SHOW them their fears come to life. Together we can take the palace, and you... you can be so much more. So much greater. You will never need to hide your face again, my son.”

 

Anubis goes quiet and seems to be contemplating the proposition, closing his eyes. Then, without reopening them, he gives his answer. He asks Set to drop him into the lake and kill him, saying that is truly what will set things right. Set scoffs, disappointed, and pulls Anubis away from the shore of the lake, pinning him to the ground. He promises that Anubis will come to see his side of things.

 

After several hours' journey through the stormy desert, Ramessu arrives at Set's temple. At first the guards are hostile to him, with some of them recognizing him as a guard of Horus. He mentions how Thutmose had recruited him, however, and the other guards send for him. Thutmose confirms this and tells Ramessu he's happy he has made the right choice, and “just in time.” He is brought into the temple.

 

Ramessu is placed with a group of several other new recruits and sent into the inner chamber in order to swear his allegiance to Set. Arriving inside, they find the god and his priest Ahmose waiting for them. They begin a ceremony, teaching the guards a chant of devotion for them to repeat. While this is happening, Set, aided by Ahmose, uses his magic to brainwash the guards into his loyal slaves. However, Horus' medallion prevents the magic from working on Ramessu. He pretends it has worked, mimicking the behaviors of the controlled warriors in order to avoid suspicion.

 

Nephthys arrives in the underworld looking for her son, but Anubis is nowhere to be found. The scales are unattended, the souls of the dead caught in limbo waiting for judgment. She realizes immediately that Anubis is likely with his father – whether by choice or force. The goddess sets out to depart the underworld and confront her brother.

 

At the temple, all of Set's enslaved guards are gathered in a grand hall. There are hundreds of them – far more than needed to guard a temple – and it becomes obvious that Set has in fact been building an army. He delivers a speech to his followers, about how his time to rule has finally come, and how no one will be able to stop him once his son joins him. However, he admits, Anubis is being “childishly stubborn.” Luckily, he and Ahmose have devised a plan. Controlling the mind of a god is not an easy task, and has always been outside of Set's ability – until now.

 

A hidden door in the hall opens, revealing Anubis, bound in enchanted chains, struggling uselessly to escape and cursing his father. A shocked Ramessu nearly blows his cover, his urge to help the god of death being so strong. Ahmose leads the gathered army in a series of prayers, a feverish chant to empower their master. Set begins his spell to capture Anubis' mind, the younger god doing all he can to resist. Ramessu bows his head and silently mouths the chant in order to blend in. As the prayers continue, more and more power channels into Set, until finally Anubis' willpower is overcome. He declares his loyalty to his father, who frees him from his chains.

 

Suddenly Nephthys bursts into the grand hall. The guards turn to confront her, but Set commands them to let her approach. After all, she only wishes to speak with her son. Nephthys pleads with Anubis to return to the underworld and forget whatever his father has told him, but the brainwashed Anubis rejects her, saying only his father really loves him, that he would never have existed without him, and that he is destined for greater things. Set admits to his sister his plans to take the throne by force, and offers her the chance to join him so he, she, and their son can reign as a family. Nephthys flatly refuses, which seems to please Set. He orders Anubis to kill her to prove his loyalty, and despite his mother's tearful pleas, Anubis complies.

 

In the palace of the gods, Horus is trying to convince Thoth of the danger Set poses. Thoth, however, is unmoved. The coldly logical god states that Set has a legitimate claim to the throne, one strengthened significantly by the fact that he now possesses Ra's powers. He believes it is best for the gods and the mortals if rule can be peacefully granted to Set. He accuses Horus, as the god of war, of being too quick to anger and start fights without considering the consequences.

 

Frustrated, Horus storms out and finds Ma'at in her quarters sobbing. Bastet is attempting to console her. Horus enters the room and declares to Ma'at that the only way to begin filling the hole in her heart is to avenge their father's death. Bastet, like Thoth, urges caution, reminding him there is no proof Set actually killed Ra. Horus says that if they wait for proof it may be too late. He and Ma'at leave the palace to find Hathor, hoping to trigger a transformation into her alter-ego – the goddess of vengeance, Sekhmet – and secure her aid against Set.

 

Back in his temple, Set announces to his followers that he and Anubis are departing for the royal palace of the gods to issue their ultimatum. He commands Ahmose to lead his army into Edfu and capture Horus' temple, as a symbolic victory and to impede efforts by the god or his priest to organize efforts against him. If they are met with resistance, he says, they should show no mercy. Ramessu knows his sister will not lie down and accept the invasion and becomes horribly concerned for her safety.

 

Set and Anubis arrive at the palace, where they are greeted by a surprised Eset. Set asks for her to gather the other gods, and so Thoth, Bastet, and Sobek are summoned into the throne room. Bastet lies and denies knowing where Ma'at and Horus have gone, sensing from his demeanor that Set is up to no good and not wanting him to be able to stop Horus from seeking Hathor's assistance. Eset asks about Nephthys, and Anubis calmly reveals he killed her for opposing his father. Set declares anyone else who stands in his way will meet the same fate, but that such troubles can be avoided if he is granted the holy throne immediately and without contest.

 

Sobek, enraged, launches the first attack against Set – but finds himself quickly overpowered. Eset and Bastet soon join in the fray, while Thoth cowers and flees. Eset and Anubis fling spells and magic energy, while Set wrestles Sobek and Bastet attempts to heal the combatants on her side. She is the first to fall when one of Anubis' spells sucks the life-force out of her, reducing her to sparkling dust. While Eset begins to gain the upper hand on the god of death, Set overpowers Sobek, pinning him and snapping his neck. When Set and his chaos and fire powers come to Anubis' aid, the father and son utterly dominate Eset, vaporizing her with a combined spell. Set declares victory and seats himself on the throne, sending Anubis to find Thoth.

 

As Set's army marches through the desert, Ramessu sneaks out of formation and makes a run for it, attempting to reach the city first to warn the residents – especially his sister. Thutmose sees him leave and alerts Ahmose, who dispatches Thutmose and a few other soldiers to follow him and see where he's going, telling them not to kill him until they know what he's up to.

 

Ma'at and Horus find Hathor at her temple in the city of Luxor in the mortal realm, where she is leading her followers in a prayer for the peaceful transfer of power to a new god-king. She is sympathetic to Ra's children, but remains committed to the idea of peaceful negotiation.

 

Horus asks her what Sekhmet would think, but Hathor says that Sekhmet has no opinion – she only becomes Sekhmet when righteous vengeance is needed, and she is still not sure if there was any evil deed to avenge. Besides, she explains, every time she transforms into Sekhmet, she feels her own personality grow weaker. It is harder and harder to return to normal after each shift. She does, however, agree to accompany the pair back to the palace to serve as an “emotional mediator” in the negotiations as a contrast to Thoth's unfeeling calculation.

 

Ramessu arrives in Edfu, unaware he is being followed. He finds Nefertari at home and tells her to return to the blacksmith's and arm herself. Frightened, she asks what's going on, and he warns her that Set has a mortal army which is coming to invade the city and conquer the temple of Horus, and that they could arrive at any time. As Nefertari heads to the workshop, Ramessu runs through the streets to warn the people. It is then that Thutmose and the other soldiers emerge from hiding and attack him.

 

Ramessu is an incredibly skilled fighter, and using the weapon provided to him as part of Set's army, he quickly dispatches most of the other soldiers. Thutmose, however, has all the same skill and training as he does thanks to their time working in the same mercenary group. The pair are evenly matched. Some bystanders try to help, but are quickly taken out by Thutmose. Just then, the bulk of Set's army arrives in the city. Ramessu yells to the bystanders to forget about him and go defend the temple, and they heed his call. Thutmose gains the upper hand in the battle, disarming Ramessu.

 

Ramessu tries to retrieve Nefertari's dagger from inside his armor, but instead pulls out Horus' medallion. When he blocks a strike with the medallion, and it makes contact with Thutmose's skin, its magic surges into the entranced warrior and breaks Set's spell, restoring his free will. He and Ramessu lock gazes, and just as each realizes what has happened, Thutmose is impaled from behind with a sword by Nefertari, who has returned from the blacksmith's to aid her brother.

 

Thutmose collapses as Ramessu wails in anguish, while Nefertari is terribly confused. With his last words, Thutmose tells Ramessu he must try to use the medallion's power on Anubis. While Ramessu briefly mourns his old colleague, Nefertari demands an explanation. Ramessu fills her in on how Set has taken control of his son's mind, just as he had done with his soldiers like Thutmose – but if the medallion could free his mind, perhaps it could save the god of death as well. Nefertari asks how they're going to get to Anubis in the first place, and Ramessu expresses hope that Horus will be able to help them – but first, he must get into the besieged temple to summon him.

 

In the corridors of the holy palace, Anubis finds Thoth hiding behind a statue. Thoth begs for his life, and Anubis calls him pathetic. Thoth surrenders himself, saying he had been trying to make the other gods see reason and accept Set as their king, and that he is willing to help him secure the throne in any way he can. Anubis brings Thoth to his father, and Set takes deliciously evil glee in forcing the god of knowledge to grovel at his feet. He accepts Thoth's surrender, but chides him for being so atypically emotional about his own life.

 

In Edfu, Set's vast army is easily breaking through the impromptu militia the residents of the city have formed to protect Horus' temple. Ramessu sneaks in through a hidden entrance he knows about thanks to his job as a guard there, and asks Nefertari to stand watch. She refuses, saying her presence in that spot will only make it obvious to the army that there's an entrance, and that she should accompany him inside. Though worried for her safety, he relents. The pair stick to the shadows and race to the altar, but are discovered just as they approach it. Ramessu places the medallion on the altar and prays to summon Horus.

 

In the realm of the gods, Horus' eyes begin to glow, signaling the summoning call to him. He tells Ma'at and Hathor to wait for him to return, saying he may finally have the proof he needs to convince Hathor. Just as Set's soldiers close in on Ramessu and Nefertari, Horus appears in his temple in a golden flash of light. He is shocked to see his temple being ransacked, but quickly takes action. His godly powers are more than enough to turn the tide of the battle, as he dashes through the crowd with incredible speed and agility, felling dozens of soldiers at once. Nefertari, Ramessu, and the surviving militia members join in the fight, and soon Set's army is defeated, with Horus personally killing Ahmose – who was bold and foolish enough to attempt to attack the god with his magic.

 

Ramessu confirms to Horus that Set plans to take the throne by force, and informs him of Nephthys' death and Anubis' enslavement. He mentions how the medallion freed the minds of one of Set's thralls, and his plan to use it on Anubis. Ramessu offers the amulet back to Horus, but Horus tells him to keep it. The battle in the mortal realm, for now, is no longer raging. Ramessu has proven his loyalty and worth, and now he is needed in the realm of the gods. Horus speaks to his followers in the temple, telling them to remain vigilant in case of another attack, and to offer their prayers to him in order to aid in the battle against Set. Then he flashes back into the other realm, taking Ramessu and Nefertari with him.

 

Ma'at and Hathor are shocked by the arrival of the mortals in their realm, but Horus explains times are desperate and desperate measures are needed. When Ramessu confirms Set's treachery – and how he forced Anubis to murder his own mother – Hathor is unable to contain her rage and transforms into her lion-headed alter-ego, Sekhmet. Ramessu tells them that Set and Anubis are already at the royal palace, and while Ma'at optimistically hopes they may have been stopped by the other gods who were still there, Horus is not so confident and Sekhmet is too blinded by her lust for vengeance to consider that possibility. The group devise a plan wherein the gods will attempt to distract or incapacitate Anubis long enough for Ramessu to sneak up to him and use the medallion to free him.

 

When they arrive at the palace, the group is greeted at the front gate by Thoth. Horus demands to know what has happened, and Thoth explains the battle and the deaths of Sobek, Eset, and Bastet. “And,” Horus accuses, “you decided it was only logical to join with my monster of an uncle?”

 

“No,” says Thoth. “Though I did find it logical to tell him I would.”

 

Horus, who has never liked Thoth much, is not sure whether to believe him – and Sekhmet is actively lobbying to kill him just in case. But Ma'at and the humans convince the two to give him a chance. Thoth says Set had instructed him to lie and say he was not even there in order to lure the gods into a trap, and that Anubis and Set will be waiting for them ready to fight. He also shows Nefertari and Ramessu how to find their way into the throne room through the side corridors.

 

As the gods enter the throne room, they find it empty. Knowing Set is watching, Thoth puts on a charade, telling them that Eset will be out to see them in a moment. Suddenly, Anubis' voice echoes through the room. “Spare me the performance,” he says. He emerges from the shadows and attacks Thoth, and when the others go to intervene, Set appears as well, creating a barrier of evil energy that prevents them from aiding the god of knowledge. Set declares that he never trusts a subject until they've proven themselves, so he had Anubis spy on Thoth at the palace gate.

 

Thoth tries to put up a fight but is no match for Anubis, who lays him out and then drains his life force. Set explains that Anubis had never even known he had that power until he had shown him. And the best part, he says, is that Anubis takes the strength of his victims. Now the two of them are more powerful than Horus, Sekhmet, and Ma'at combined. He offers the other gods the chance to bow down and surrender one final time, but is unsurprised – and even pleased – when they refuse. Set drops the barrier, and Anubis joins his father in attacking the rebel gods.

 

Ramessu and Nefertari enter the room, hiding in the corner and waiting for their chance. However, things aren't looking good. The evil father and son have the other three woefully outmatched; Sekhmet and Ma'at together are barely holding their own against Anubis, spending more time dodging his life-draining spells than actually attacking him. Horus is taking on Set one on one, and it's clear that Set is simply toying with him. “You cost me this throne ages ago, nephew,” Set says. “I spent centuries in agony, bowing to your pathetic father, obeying commands he had no right to give. I'm going to make your pain last as long as I can.” After a particularly strong blow leaves Horus dazed, Set gouges out one of his eyes (off-screen to preserve the PG-13), tossing it aside.

 

Ramessu knows he can't wait any longer, and although there's not really an opening, he charges toward Anubis with the medallion. With Sekhmet and Ma'at covering his approach, he manages to dodge the death god's attacks and press the medallion to his chest. Golden magic surges out of the amulet and into the god, and Anubis freezes, looking confused and conflicted. Set turns to look and is distracted long enough for Horus to get a few good hits in. The glow fades, Anubis blinks...

 

...and grabs Ramessu by the neck, tossing him hard against a stone pillar and breaking his spine. The red chaos magic flashes in his eyes, Set's control unhindered. Set laughs a victorious evil laugh and returns to pummeling Horus. Nefertari screams and runs over to her paralyzed and dying brother, who tries to return her dagger to her. She refuses to take it, telling him to bring it with him into the afterlife. He says there is no way into the afterlife without Anubis, but she promises they will save Anubis and avenge him. Ramessu says the medallion isn't powerful enough, but Nefertari has a realization – the medallion was just a piece of Horus' magic. She restates her promise with more conviction as her brother drifts off into death.

 

Nefertari yells to Horus that he needs to get to Anubis, not keep fighting Set. Only his power of clarity and vision through chaos can free Anubis' mind. Set realizes this might be true, and stops playing around, trying to deliver the killing blow to Horus. Ma'at steps in, taking the brunt of the attack and telling her brother Horus that he is the true king of the gods and must prove it once and for all – right now – as the only surviving member of Ra's royal lineage. She manages to struggle long enough before dying to keep Set away from Horus as he tackles Anubis.

 

Sekhmet turns her attention to Set, overflowing with rage and doing a quite impressive job of holding him off as Horus pins Anubis to the wall, channeling his power into the other god. As the spell begins to clear Anubis' mind, Set shouts to his son not to let Horus break their bond. He tells him to remember that Horus hates him, that only he really loves him – to remember the things Horus called him, the way he treated him. Anubis struggles mentally, as if unsure whether or not he wants to be free of his father's influence, the red magic of chaos and gold power of truth shining and flashing alternately in his eyes.

 

Horus apologizes to Anubis for ostracizing him all these years, telling him that the circumstances of his birth are not his fault and that the fact Set had to do this to him proves there was good in him after all. He reminds him that Set forced him to kill his mother, who loved him far more than his father could ever claim to. He says if he doesn't believe his apology, doesn't think he's convinced – now is the time to prove him wrong. Finally, Anubis snaps out of Set's control.

 

The god of death pushes Horus aside, eyes burning with rage at his father. He, Sekhmet, and Horus team up and manage to overpower Set, with Anubis taking the lead. He is pummeled into submission and lies on the floor, battered and beaten, barely conscious. Anubis begins to drain his father's life energy and power. Set begs him to stop, trying one more time to “reach” his son, playing the family card – but Anubis coldly replies, “I'm only doing what you taught me, father.” Set screams in agony as he dies and the last of his magic and divine power is absorbed into his son.

 

The battle won, the gods do not celebrate. The corpse of Ma'at is slumped against the wall. Most of the pantheon has been killed. Sekhmet is struggling internally, fighting to stay in control as Hathor tries to re-emerge. Horus and Anubis are transfixed by the tragic image of the two humans in the room.

 

Nefertari is cradling the body of her brother and sobbing. Anubis thanks Nefertari for her courage and wisdom, and tells her not to despair for her brother. While gods do not age or grow sick, if they are killed they are gone forever. But for humans, this life is not their only one. Ramessu is not gone. He will live on forever in the afterlife – he will see to that personally. He will be waiting there for his sister when her time comes. And in the world of the living, he will be forever honored alongside the fallen gods as a timeless hero never to be forgotten.

 

When Nefertari does not respond, he asks if she hates him for killing her brother, saying he would understand. Nefertari, still unable to bring herself to speak, shakes her head no. Seeing this act of forgiveness frees Hathor from her transformation into Sekhmet.

 

Horus points out that Anubis now has the power of Thoth, Ra, Nephthys, and Set, making him by far the most powerful being to ever have existed. In the interest of peace, and of righting past wrongs in the way he treated Anubis, Horus offers him the throne. Anubis refuses, saying he must return to the underworld. The souls still need their path into eternity, and he must venture down the river of night each evening to raise the sun.

 

Horus offers the share the kingship, to build a second holy palace for Anubis in the underworld. Again the god of death refuses. “When you brought me back,” he says, “you told me to prove to you that I could be a force for good, that I could be more than my origins.”

 

“And you did,” Horus responds encouragingly.

 

“That may be so, Lord Horus. But I feel it will take some time for me to prove it to myself.”

 

Horus nods in understanding.

 

The film ends with an epilogue in which a new temple is opened to the public in the city of Edfu, an honorary memorial with enormous statues of the fallen pantheon members – Ra, Eset, Sobek, Bastet, Ma'at, Thoth, Nephthys, and, at the very center, Ramessu - “the mortal who through virtue became a god in death.” Nefertari and Horus lay ceremonial offerings at the foot of Ramessu's statue as a crowd of hundreds watches in silent reverence. In the afterlife, Ramessu's spirit is accompanied by Anubis, the pair watching the ceremony with pride and honor.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by Xillix

[Xillix]

Night Light

Release Date: February 2nd, Y2

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Horror

Director: Christian Alvart

Theater Count: 2,330

Shooting Format: Anamorphic "scope" 35mm film

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Release Image Format: 2K DCP

Release Audio Format: 5.1

Production Budget: $10 million

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for terror, violence, and language

Running Time: 88 minutes

Major Cast: Shannyn Sossamon (Eliza), Joshua Jackson (Louis)

 

Plot:

Spoiler

 

The film opens in a child's nightmare. A seven-year-old boy, Tony, is lost in a dark forest. Scary noises can be heard all around him. He is being chased. Suddenly a bright light shines through the trees in the distance. Tony makes a run for it, but the monsters, still unseen, are faster than he is. He trips, and as he struggles to stand back up, squinting against the brightening light, he can see the black silhouettes of the creatures approaching him slowly. Suddenly they lunge at the camera, he screams, and the title of the film is shown.

 

He wakes up in a cold sweat and calls for his mother, Eliza (Shannyn Sossamon). She comforts him, telling him it was just a dream and that they can't really hurt him. He remarks that this is the closest they have ever gotten to him. Eventually she manages to calm him down and leaves. When she goes back to bed, her husband Louis (Joshua Jackson) is waiting for her. He asks if it was the same dream, which Eliza confirms. Louis suggests they should talk to the school counselor about it, as he's been dreaming of the same monsters all week.

 

The next day at school, Tony has trouble staying awake because of his poor sleep. In the middle of English class he dozes off and has a dream about the fairy tale they are studying. However, the monsters – still seen only in shadow and silhouette – invade the dream, and he ends up being chased through a torch-lit castle until he becomes trapped in the dungeon with the monsters surrounding him. The teacher wakes him up by closing his book loudly on his desk and sends him to the principal's office.

 

The principal is gentle with Tony, asking if he's having any trouble at home. Tony replies that everything is fine, but he just can't sleep. The principal points out his mother is down the hall meeting with the counselor about him. He suggests that once their meeting is over, Tony should go home with his mother and get some rest for the remainder of the day so he can be well-slept and attentive tomorrow. His mother takes him home and refuses to go into detail about the meeting when asked, only repeating that the nightmares are just in his head and can't really hurt him.

 

Eliza puts Tony to bed early, before sunset, closing his shades. Despite the sunlight still creeping in from the edges of the window, Tony insists she turn on his night light, and she does so before tucking him in and kissing him goodnight. He has another of the dreams about the monsters, but this time he manages to make it to the source of the light. In a clearing in the woods, he finds a house that looks exactly like his own, the light on the porch blindingly bright. He runs into the house and locks the door behind him, the monsters pounding on it and trying to get in.

 

He jolts awake. It's now just past sunset. He glances anxiously around his bedroom and finds nothing amiss. He gets out of bed and leaves his room to head for the bathroom. Suddenly, however, there's a pounding on the front door. Terrified, he slowly approaches it as the knocking becomes louder and faster. Then he hears the voice of his father. “Hello?” he calls. “Eliza? Tony? I left my phone and my keys in the damn taxi!” Eliza appears behind Tony and opens the door, and it is indeed Louis, looking a bit upset but far from monstrous. He gives his wife and son a hug and proceeds to ask for Eliza's phone so he can call the cab company.

 

After Louis makes the call and Tony uses the bathroom, Eliza puts Tony back to bed. The nightmare picks up where it left off, with Tony bracing himself against the front door as the monsters try to break in. He hears a window breaking behind him in the kitchen and runs to his bedroom, hiding under the bed. We see the shadows of the creatures' feet, cast by his night light, crossing over his face as they search for him. Finally, he is found, and a monster flips over his bed to reveal him. Before we get a look at the beast, Tony wakes up screaming.

 

Eliza comes running to comfort him, but Tony is inconsolable as he screams that the monsters are in the room with him. She does her motherly duties, turning on the lights and checking under the bed, in the closet, and so on. She finds nothing. Tony asks if he can sleep in his parents' room that night, but Eliza is hesitant, worried he'll never get over his nightmares on his own if they let him avoid his own bed. She promises that things will get better and ensures him that he only needs to call for her anytime he's scared. Reluctantly, Tony goes back to sleep. If the audience watches closely, they can see a shadow in the corner of his room slowly move, revealing a monstrous arm, just as he falls asleep.

 

For once, Tony has a perfectly peaceful dream. He and his parents are at the park having a picnic. Everything is perfect, perhaps a bit too much so – the weather, the soothing sounds of nature, the laughter of all three family members. Suddenly he is startled awake by a loud bang.

 

Back in the waking world, in his dark bedroom lit only by the night light, he glances over to the source of the sound. The chair in front of the little desk where he does his homework has fallen over. Because of the placement of his bed, the chair and desk are mostly covered by shadow. He looks around cautiously, walks over to the desk, and picks up the chair. As he leans down to lift it, the camera follows him. When he stands back up, the camera tilting up with him, we suddenly see the shadow of a monster standing behind him, from just the waist up. The monster's shadow swipes a claw at Tony's shadow, and the fabric of Tony's pajamas rips on his shoulder where the shadow-creature struck. No skin is broken.

 

Calling for his mother, Tony runs to the door and throws it open. She comes running to see what is wrong. He breathlessly rants about the evil shadow and how it attacked him, showing her the rips in his pajamas. She remarks that he must've scratched himself in his nightmare, but he claims he wasn't even having a nightmare. Eliza tries to convince him it's sometimes hard to tell when you really wake up, and follows him into his room. The two look around together and can't find any signs of monsters.

 

Tony begs again to be allowed to sleep in his parents' room, and Eliza offers a compromise. She takes a spare blanket and pillow from the hallway closet and agrees to sleep on the floor next to his bed for the rest of the night. While Eliza eventually falls asleep, Tony cannot. He sees the blanket slowly sliding off of his mother, seemingly on its own. He yells to wake her up, and as she stirs, groggily asking what's wrong, a monstrous roar is heard and a creature's shadow bolts up from a crouching position and into view. The invisible creature, as seen in silhouette, leaps at Tony and knocks him off of his bed. Eliza runs to him but a second shadow creature grabs her. It is still weak, but she has to struggle and drag it along behind her to reach her son, who is being pinned to the floor and beaten.

 

Louis hears their screams and comes running, throwing the door open and glimpsing the shadows. He takes a swing at the area where one of the monsters should be, but it has no effect. He manages to drag his wife and son out of the room, slamming the door behind them. The creatures pound on the door from the inside.

 

The family spend the next few nights in a nearby motel as they try to contact the church and the local media for help, but they are ignored at best and mocked at worst. Eventually they can no longer afford to stay in the motel, and they have no relatives nearby to take them in. They are forced to return home. When they do, they are greeted by deafening noise from inside Tony's bedroom. They barricade the door and Louis goes outside to try and look in through the window. He sees that the shade has been ripped to shreds, along with most of Tony's bedding. The desk is overturned, the closet's contents have been spilled all over the room, and there are scratches all over the walls.

 

All three of them sleep in the living room that night so they can run out of the front door quickly if the need arises. They have trouble falling asleep, and wind up watching TV until they doze off. Tony has a dream which begins peacefully as he frolics through a meadow on top of a hill, until he trips and rolls down the hillside. When he stands back up, he sees that he is in the forest from his nightmares. He turns around and the hill and meadow are gone. He is completely surrounded by the ominous dead trees.

 

Darkness falls in an instant and the porch light begins to shine nearby. As the shadows of the nightmare monsters pursue him, he runs to his house and slams the door shut behind him, but one of the monster's arms is caught inside and blocks it from closing. The monster pushes open the door, knocking Tony to the ground, and for the first time we see one in the flesh, albeit for a split second and shrouded in darkness. It's humanoid but vaguely reptilian, with small horns, sharp teeth, and a scaly texture on its otherwise human-looking skin, almost like an extreme full-body case of plaque psoriasis. Dark, viscous pus oozes from the cracks between the scales. Note that the creature effects are done practically with makeup. The monster leans down over Tony, and more of them are heard scampering onto the porch. There's an extreme close-up on the monster's slit-pupilled eye, a terrified Tony reflected in its glossy surface.

 

Tony and the rest of the family are startled awake by the couch, on which Louis is sleeping, being flipped over. The shadows of the monsters are swarming through the room, cast by the glow of the TV screen. Havoc ensues as the invisible beasts attack the family savagely, tearing up furniture, scratching the walls, and tossing things about in their feral chase. One of the creatures pins down and attacks Tony, and two more hold back Louis as he tries to rescue his son, biting and scratching him, causing bloody wounds to appear on his body. Eliza is tossed into the wall by another creature, and lands next to the power outlet. As the creatures begin to rip into her, trying to drag her away, she grabs onto the cord of the surge protector instinctively. It comes unplugged and the light is extinguished in an instant. The creatures vanish in the darkness and the attack ceases.

 

The sound of sirens is heard in the distance, gradually growing louder as a cop car approaches, a neighbor having presumably called about the racket. Eliza rushes over to Tony, who is badly injured but conscious. Louis runs outside to flag down the police car as Eliza tries to pick up Tony, but his leg is broken and she has to stop moving him. The cop car pulls up on the curb in front of the house. As it does, the flashing red-and-blue lights on its roof stream in through the window, bright enough to illuminate the room even through the closed decorative curtains. As Eliza breathes a sigh of relief, the shadows of the monsters are projected on the wall behind her and Tony, ready to pounce.

 

SMASH TO BLACK – ROLL CREDITS

 

 

Edited October 30, 2017 by Xillix

[Xillix]

The Knight

Release Date: March 23rd, Y2 (Limited - 15 Cinerama screens only) / March 30th, Y2 (Wide)

Studio: Gold Crescent Pictures

Genre: Fantasy/Action

Director: Doug Liman

Theater Count: 3,809 (including 2 Cinerama film locations and 13 Cinerama digital locations)

Premium Formats: Cinerama (Film and digital versions)

Shooting Format: 3-strip Cinerama film (with Cinemiracle refinements)

Aspect Ratio: Roughly 2.59:1 in "flat" terms - hard to measure the curved panoramic image

Release Image Formats: 2K "Smilebox" DCP, 4K "Smilebox" DCP, 4K rectified DCP for Cinerama screens, 3-strip Cinerama film prints

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos

Production Budget: $120 million

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, suggestive content, and language

Running Time: 102 minutes

Major Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal (Sir Deighton), Daniel Craig (Malleox), Julie Andrews (Queen Elfreda), Ben Kingsley (Lord Merton), Keira Knightley (Kimber)

 

Plot: 

Spoiler

 

The film opens in a small medieval village at the edge of a forest. Peasants go about their daily lives farming, bartering, crafting and the like. Suddenly a local hunter comes running out of the woods, covered in dirt and blood. As other villagers approach him to help, he falls to his knees and begins to transform into a fearsome humanoid beast. Once fully converted, he roars and snarls, attacking the townspeople with his razor-sharp claws. All at once, dozens more transformed hunters and warriors emerge from the woods and overrun the village, slaughtering the women and children and capturing the able-bodied men. With the chaos winding down, a dark mage in an elaborately-embroidered cloak, the sinister Malleox (Daniel Craig), enters the town. He casts a spell on the captured men, who scream in agony. Malleox declares they will serve a far greater purpose for him than they ever could have with their insignificant village lives. All at once, the captured peasants transform into beasts and bow down to their new master.

 

TITLE SEQUENCE

 

In the kingdom's royal city, the esteemed knight Sir Deighton (Jake Gyllenhaal) is training in the castle barracks alongside several other warriors. After they are finished, they visit a local tavern where they joke around amicably and are swooned over by the ladies serving drinks. Their revelry is interrupted by the arrival of a royal messenger. The queen has summoned them.

 

In the throne room, Queen Elfreda (Julie Andrews) addresses the gathered knights. She has received word of the inhuman beasts rampaging through the countryside, and her scouts have determined the next village they are likely to attack. She dispatches them to protect the village, which is the last settlement on the creature's path before the city which is the seat of her personal friend Lord Merton's estate. The queen cautions them to be ready for anything, as black magic is a dangerous and unpredictable force.

 

The knights arrive in the village just ahead of the evil creatures. They are joined in the defense of the village by a few local men with their own weapons who are unwilling to stand aside and let the town be overrun. The rest of the population has been evacuated to Lord Merton's city. As the battle begins, the heroes quickly find themselves surrounded by at least a hundred horrible man-beasts. They fight valiantly, but several are killed while others, including Sir Deighton, are incapacitated and captured. Malleox arrives and begins to turn the surviving knights into his monstrous slaves. However, when he casts his spell on Sir Deighton, the knight somehow manages to fight it off and maintain control of himself. Malleox orders the other transformed knights to kill him, but Sir Deighton manages to break free of his bonds and fight them off. Malleox retreats and Sir Deighton retrieves his weapon. He soon realizes the botched spell has enhanced his strength and agility to superhuman levels, and he is able to cut a swath through the army of beasts and escape, stealing a horse and setting off for the city.

 

Upon arriving, he heads to the castle and demands an audience with Lord Merton. Instead he is greeted by Kimber (Keira Knightley), whom he assumes to be Merton's handmaiden. Through a series of increasingly elaborate tricks, she demonstrates to him - much to his embarrassment - that she is actually the court wizard. Sensing that he has been tainted by dark magic, she has him placed in the dungeon. Kimber reports this to Lord Merton (Ben Kingsley), who confirms Deighton's story of being sent by the queen. Against Kimber's wishes, he commands her to release him and bring him to the throne room.

 

Sir Deighton explains to Merton and Kimber how his fellow knights had been transformed and enslaved, and that he was somehow immune to the spell. Upon closer examination, Kimber surmises that Deighton has no inherent magical ability of his own; he was simply able to fight off the effects of the dark magic through his own iron will. He warns them that Malleox is sure to arrive in the city very soon with his monstrous army, and that preparations need to be made immediately. Merton agrees, but has a suggestion of his own - because of his enhanced abilities, he requests that Sir Deighton attempt a pre-emptive strike, "cutting off the head of the dragon" by locating and killing Malleox before the siege of the city can take place. Kimber will accompany him, as she will be able to help find his location by sensing his dark power. Sir Deighton agrees instantly, but Kimber requires some persuasion.

 

The pair set out under the cover of night, but are lured into a trap by a decoy spell Malleox has created by pooling his forces and their dark energy together in an abandoned fortress. The pair manage to hold their own in the battle, with Deighton's strength and Kimber's spell-slinging slaying many a beast. However, as the sun begins to rise, the beasts turn their attention away from the duo and toward the city on the horizon. Our heroes pursue the beast-army toward the city, where the creatures are met by the full force of Lord Merton's guards and the local militia.

 

An epic battle ensues, the guards at first holding the line but eventually being overwhelmed, allowing some of the beasts into the city. The creatures make a run for the castle. As Sir Deighton and Kimber arrive, they are informed by the guards that there is no one protecting Lord Merton, as he had ordered all of his warriors to the front lines. The pair chase the creatures into the castle as the city guards re-secure the perimeter. They arrive just in time to save Merton's life, managing to kill all of the beasts that made it into the castle. Returning to the city's border, they aid the guards in slaying the last of the attacking monsters. The battle is won.

 

There is a great celebration, but Merton, Deighton, and Kimber are all well aware that Malleox is still on the loose. Sir Deighton says he must return to the royal city to inform Queen Elfreda of what has happened, and Lord Merton sends Kimber with him since her magical expertise may be required. En route to the royal city, however, the pair are ambushed by Malleox. The dark wizard captures Sir Deighton inside a ring of dark magic, which Kimber recognizes as a summoning circle. She attempts to break the circle with her good magic, but is blasted away.

Malleox explains that Sir Deighton's ability to resist the transformation spell has proven he is a worthy host for Endalag, the demon from which Malleox draws his powers. He begins a summoning spell which Kimber continually tries and fails to stop. She turns her attention instead to Malleox himself, engaging him in a magical duel while he is distracted with his incantation. Just as Malleox finishes his spell, Kimber manages to strike a finishing blow, a brilliant blast of white energy reducing the evil mage to a skeleton. However, Endalag is now possessing the body of Sir Deighton. The knight blasts Kimber with hellfire and runs off into the forest.

 

Kimber reaches the royal city and demands an audience with the queen, which she is granted thanks to Queen Elfreda's close relationship with Lord Merton. She warns the queen that, while Malleox and his army have been destroyed, a powerful demon is inhabiting Sir Deighton's form. Just then, a royal messenger enters the throne room to inform the queen that Sir Deighton has arrived in the city. At Kimber's urging, the Queen orders the city guards to try and capture Deighton. 

 

Unfortunately, the order does not spread quickly enough, and Sir Deighton is admitted into the Hall of Treasures beneath the castle. He steals an ancient demonic artifact that imbues him with incredible power. This allows Endalag to shed his mortal body and transform into his true demonic form, a hulking, thirty-foot-tall red beast with a wolf's head, a goat's legs, and a snake for a tail. The huge demon begins to lay waste to the city and the castle, and all the royal guards are completely helpless against him.

 

Kimber confronts the demon and begs Sir Deighton to summon his iron will again and fight off the possession. Endalag replies that Sir Deighton's soul is in hell and his body is no more - there is nothing left of the knight. At first Kimber refuses to believe him, but when she attempts to cast a spell to help free Deighton's mind and soul, she discovers to her horror that it is true. Knowing of the powerful talismans held inside the Hall of Treasures, Kimber races down to the ruined chamber, narrowly dodging powerful blows, venomous snake-tail bites, and torrents of hellfire along the way. She manages to retrieve an ancient holy medallion, and declares that if there is nothing left of Sir Deighton, then there is nothing to stop her from slaying Endalag. 

 

With the power granted to her by the medallion, Kimber begins a spectacular battle of magic and spells with the massive demon. It soon becomes clear that she is outmatched, however. As Endalag declares, no mortal, medallion or not, can destroy him once he has attained his true form on Earth. Realizing this is true, Kimber shifts tactics. Instead of destructive spells, she begins an incantation to seal Endalag within the medallion, surrounding herself with a protective orb of magic to give her time to finish. The enraged demon pours everything he has into attacking her, and just as he manages to pierce her barrier, the spell is completed. Kimber is killed by the demon's final attack, but it is not enough to stop Endalag from transforming into energy and being sucked inside the medallion.

 

The movie ends with Kimber's burial ceremony, attended by Queen Elfreda and Lord Merton, as well as several powerful mages from across the land. She is entombed, wearing the medallion, in an enchanted chamber deep beneath a church. A statue of Sir Deighton is erected inside her tomb to watch over her body and honor his memory.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Xillix

[Xillix]

The Maid

Release Date: August 17th, Y2

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Horror

Director: Jennifer Phang

Theater Count: 2,646

Shooting Format: Digital 4.6K (Red Raven)

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Release Image Format: 2K DCP

Release Audio Format: 5.1

Production Budget: $3 million

MPAA Rating: R for violence, gore, sexual content, and frightening images

Running Time: 87 minutes

Major Cast: Camila Mendes (Rosa)

 

Plot Summary:
 

Spoiler

The story follows an eighteen-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant, Rosa (Camila Mendes), who has moved to California following the death of her parents and left her seven-year-old brother back in Mexico with their uncle. She gets a job working as a live-in maid for husband and wife Shu and Luan Teo in a neighborhood heavily populated with people of Chinese-Malaysian descent, the Teos included. The pair have a young adult son, Ah Soon, who is heavily mentally-handicapped, with the mind of a small child. She starts her job during the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, which, as the Teos explain, is considered the "ghost month" in their culture - when the gates of the afterlife briefly open and spirits are allowed back into our world. Luan, who is very superstitious, explains to Rosa that if she leaves the house during this month she must always come back before dark, and if she hears someone call to her from behind while walking alone, she should not look back. Her first night in the house she is awakened by sounds coming from the front door, but upon investigating finds it is only the Teos presenting a ritual offering to the spirits on their front steps by burning paper money.

 

The next day, the Teos leave Rosa alone in the house. As she is cleaning in the bathroom, the door shuts itself behind her. She searches the house for an intruder but finds no one. However, the sudden sound of footsteps leads her to the front door, which flies open in front of her. As she walks outside, she steps in the pile of ashes left over from the Teos' offering the night before. A gust of wind blows up out of nowhere, scattering the ashes all around her as she hears whispered voices coming from all directions. Suddenly she is startled by Ah Soon. He offers her a present cupped in his hands, refusing to say what it is. Ultimately, it turns out to be a live butterfly, which flutters peacefully away. His parents arrive home right behind him, scolding him for scaring her.

 

Ah Soon takes a liking to Rosa, and that night, his parents allow him to play dress-up with her. They use some of the costumes the family is storing for the upcoming neighborhood production of a traditional Chinese ghost month opera. Ah-Soon has Rosa dress in a red silk gown with a red veil over her head and calls her "very pretty." When his father comes to tell him to go to bed, he becomes very angry and argues with him, frightening Rosa. Eventually Shu is able to calm him down, and sends him to bed while suggesting Rosa get some sleep as well.

 

The next morning, as Rosa wakes up and looks out her window, she finds one of the neighbors staring back at her. Frightened, the neighbor suddenly looks away. Rosa goes back to the front porch, where most of the pile of ashes is still sitting, and sweeps it up. Luan catches her doing this and scolds her, saying it's incredibly bad luck. She dumps the ashes back out and prays to the spirits for forgiveness. As Rosa walks back inside, a pale, ashen hand grabs her ankle. She trips and falls, shouting, but when she looks around there is no one there.

 

That night, as she's preparing for bed, Rosa checks in on Ah-Soon to find Luan singing a lullaby to him. She smiles and walks away silently, but is startled by a woman's silhouette moving across the end of the hall towards her bedroom. When she returns to the room, she hears a noise coming from beneath her bed. She looks to discover it is only a plastic bag crinkling in the breeze from the open window. Inside she finds a light summer dress, which she assumes the Teos have left for her.

 

The next morning, Rosa wears the dress. She heads out to the post office to mail a letter back to her uncle and brother in Mexico. Shu catches sight of her in the dress and, though he doesn't say anything, seems confused. As she approaches the post office, Rosa realizes she doesn't have a stamp. A mailman passing by silently offers her one. She accepts, placing the stamp on her envelope, but when she looks back up the mailman has transformed into a horrific rotting corpse. Rosa rises from bed with a start. Looking at the clock, which reads 5 AM, and seeing the unworn dress still neatly folded on a chair, she realizes it was simply a dream. She says the Lord's Prayer and goes back to sleep.

 

After sunrise, Rosa again heads out for the post office, though she does not wear the dress. Shu offers her a stamp from his drawer before she leaves. As she approaches the post office, she looks around nervously. While she does not see the mailman from her nightmare, she does once again catch the same neighbor staring at her. As before, the startled woman quickly averts her gaze and quickens her pace. Rosa mails the letter without incident and returns to the house, where she is scolded by Luan for leaving the house on her own during the ghost month. She says she obeyed all the rules, however, and that Shu knew where she was going. Luan simmers down but still appears concerned.

 

That night, Rosa helps the Teos deliver the costumes to the park where the opera is being performed on a temporary elevated stage. As they are about to leave the house, they hear the sound of sirens. They emerge to see a child's body being taken away by the paramedics after some sort of deadly accident. Riding to the park just after sunset, Rosa stares out the window and watches the neighbors making their offerings to the spirits. She is startled by Ah-Soon, who grabs her while wearing a demon mask and laughs at her fright.

 

They arrive at the park just in time for the actors to get dressed for the performance. As they tend to matters backstage, the Teos send Rosa out into the audience to watch the show. The park is crowded, with most of the plastic chairs set up on the grass already filled by locals. Rosa takes the only open seat in the front row, right in the middle. As the show begins, one of the local Chinese actresses sees Rosa and appears frightened. She performs her part, but cannot stop glancing over to Rosa anxiously. As the actress exits the stage and the first scene ends, the old man sitting next to Rosa turns to her and croaks out, "why are you in my wife's seat?" Suddenly the shriek of an old woman is heard, and Rosa leaps out of her chair. She sees no one, however - in fact, when she checks behind her, she sees that there is no one sitting in the front row at all. Shu arrives and escorts the frightened Rosa out of the audience. He explains to her that it is traditional for the front row at these performances to be left empty, as it is "reserved for the spirits." Seeing she is badly shaken, although she will not explain what she saw, Shu decides to send Rosa home. He gives her the key to the house and money to hail a cab at the other end of the park.

 

As Rosa passes the stage, she is startled by a soccer ball that rolls in front of her and underneath the stage. A young boy asks her to get it for him. Reluctantly, she agrees, hunching down and venturing into the area beneath the performers. It takes a bit of searching for her to find the ball, as the space beneath the stage is dark and filled with boxes for the props and costumes. When she finds the ball, she turns back to call out to the boy - only to see him collapsed on the ground, bloodied and broken, sticking partially out of a body bag. Turning back to the ball, she sees it is now covered in blood. Frightened, Rosa scrambles out from beneath the stage and sees the bag is gone. Arriving back at the house, Rosa's taxi is forced to stop at the end of the street. The scene of the accident is still taped off by the police. Among the tagged evidence lying on the road, she sees the same blood-covered soccer ball. As she enters the house and heads up to her bedroom, Rosa hears footsteps behind her. The voice of the boy calls out to her repeatedly. Terrified, she manages to avoid looking back, even as the boy's calls turn into screams.

 

The next day, Luan and Shu ask Rosa what happened the night before. She explains seeing the ghosts in the front row of the audience, and the ghost of the boy as well. Shu isn't sure what to think, but Luan believes her immediately. She advises her that if she leaves the ghosts alone, they will leave her alone as well. The Teos give Rosa her first week's pay, and Rosa heads out to mail some of the money back home for her brother. While leaving, she finds Ah-Soon eating the food that the Teos have left out as offerings to the spirits. She stops him and offers to buy him lunch instead. He agrees and tags along with her on her trip to the post office, and the two stop at a small restaurant on the way back. Their white waiter is clearly somewhat racist, treating Rosa curtly and answering in single-word responses while taking their order and ignoring Ah-Soon completely. He even spills Rosa's glass of water on Ah-Soon and just walks away, not even acknowledging it. Ah-Soon becomes upset and the pair decide to leave and eat at home.

 

After lunch, Rosa does the laundry. While she is loading wet clothes into the dryer, she drops some on the floor and has to lean over to pick them up. When she stands back up, she is startled by the ghost of a young woman - another Latina, wearing the same red costume Ah-Soon had dressed her up in. Rosa shrieks, and the ghost immediately disappears. A bit later, we see her in her bedroom putting away her own laundry. She finishes hanging clothes in the closet, closing the door and going to the bed where she begins folding more clothes. The reflection of the girl in red is briefly glimpsed in on a mirror hung on the closet door as it silently opens itself. Rosa doesn't notice and continues folding clothes. Suddenly, from underneath the dress she found under her bed, the ghost's hand emerges and grabs her wrist. She recoils in terror and backs away from the bed.

 

The ghost's arms now reach out from inside the closet and pull her in, the door closing itself once more. The ghost wraps her cold, ashen arms around Rosa, who screams and flails. The ghost moans and gurgles, but can't seem to form any words. Finally Rosa is released and the door swings open. When Luan arrives home, Rosa tearfully details the encounter, and while Luan denies knowing anything about the dead girl she says she will make a special offering in Rosa's name that night for her protection.

 

As Rosa prepares for bed, she puts away the last of her clothes. As she's putting away the dress from under her bed, she notices a name written on the tag - "Esther Santos." She considers asking the Teos about it, but they have their hands full calming down Ah-Soon, who's having a temper tantrum. She goes to sleep and has a vivid nightmare - she's in an old apartment building, and if you look closely, you can see that all the signs are in Spanish. There are trails of blood on the hallway floors, and damp footsteps echoing through the corridors. She catches a glimpse of an injured child running down the hall and turning a corner. Following him, she reaches an elevator with a door that is trying and failing to close, repeatedly bumping into something. She peers in and sees the boy, dead, leaning against the corner of the elevator, missing a leg. The severed leg is jamming the door. Worse, she recognizes the boy - it's her little brother.

 

The next day, Rosa is playing with Ah-Soon when she hears him call her "Esther." She asks who Esther is, but Ah-Soon becomes confused and starts to cry and she can't get any more information from him. Later, she is out picking up some groceries for the Teos when she encounters the neighbor who has been watching her. She confronts her and the neighbor, who we learn is named Wati, agrees to meet in the park to discuss things. It turns out Wati was a friend of the Teos' previous maid, Esther Santos. Rosa describes the dress she found with Esther's name on it, and Wati says she is the one who bought it for her.

 

When Rosa asks where Esther is, Wati becomes visibly uncomfortable and says that she simply went missing. Esther was also in America illegally, and Wati never reported the disappearance because she didn't want her to be found and deported. She has been hoping Esther simply ran away. That evening after dinner, Rosa asks Luan about Esther, showing her the dress with her name on the tag. Luan confirms Esther was their maid two years earlier, and claims she ran away. Rosa asks why and Luan says the rest of her family made it across the border and that she left to be with them. She says she doesn't know where they are now. 

 

The next day Rosa talks with Wati again, across the street at her house. Wati tells her that Luan must be lying, because Esther told her that her entire family tried to cross the border together but she was the only survivor of the ordeal. Ah-Soon is watching their conversation from his window. He pulls out a picture of Esther he had stashed under his pillow and begins to sob. When Rosa goes back inside, she can't find Ah-Soon anywhere. While she searches the house for him, Wati, alone in her kitchen, hears Ah-Soon calling her. Startled, she turns and asks how he got in. Rosa hears Wati's scream from across the room and comes running. She finds Wati's dead body lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. She runs back into the Teos' house to call the police. That done, she goes back to looking for Ah-Soon, and finds him in his bedroom laughing to himself, refusing to speak other than occasionally muttering the name "Esther."

 

Rosa is startled by the sound of a drum coming from a storage room across the hall. Ah-Soon begins repeating the name "Esther" faster and faster, in time with the beating of the drum. Rosa enters the storage room and finds a large, red Chinese drum. Looking closely, she realizes something is banging on it from the inside. She takes a pair of scissors and cuts open the top, and inside she finds Esther's decaying corpse, the throat visibly torn open. As she backs away, Esther's ghost, in the red dress, grabs her from behind. The top of the dress comes unlaced, revealing her deeply-slit throat. The ghost turns Rosa around and stares into her eyes, and Rosa falls into a vision of the past. She sees Luan and Shu loading Esther's corpse into the drum, re-sealing and hiding it. She is roused from her vision by the screams of Ah-Soon, who has followed her into the room. She runs past him and flees, only to be met at the front door by Shu, who knocks her out cold.

 

Rosa wakes up that evening in her bed, dressed in the red costume, her wrists and ankles bound with rope. Luan brings her dinner, and explains to her what happened - which we see in a flashback. Almost exactly two years ago, during the ghost month, Ah-Soon - a child trapped in a man's body without understanding it - raped Esther while they were playing dress-up. Esther tried to fight back, and the enraged, confused Ah-Soon slit her throat, killing her. The Teos decided that since she was undocumented, they could simply hide the body and cover up her death to avoid any trouble.

 

While Luan is telling the story, Rosa manages to work her way out of her bonds. She attacks Luan and flees, only to be confronted by Ah-Soon and chased into the kitchen. She grabs a knife and stabs him, but when she pulls the blade out, there is no injury. Shu arrives and grabs her, wrestling the knife out of her hand. Ah-Soon explains, in the broken English and half-formed logic of a child, that after Esther died, he was so sad that he killed himself. But during the ghost month he can come back to see his parents again, and this year, he says, they made his visit special by bringing back Esther too - referring, of course, to Rosa.

 

As Shu holds her, Ah-Soon begins to undress Rosa. It is then that he notices a birthmark on her chest, and the illusion is broken. Realizing this isn't Esther after all, Ah-Soon has another tantrum. Shu releases Rosa to try and control him, but Ah-Soon goes on a rampage, attacking his father and tearing up the house. Ah-Soon kills Shu and Rosa flees, but is chased by Luan, now wielding a knife of her own. As the pair run out the front door, Esther's ghost grabs Luan's ankle just as she had done to Rosa earlier. Luan trips and falls on her own knife, dying. 

 

In the end, Rosa is questioned in the deaths of Wati, Shu, and Luan, and ultimately deported back to Mexico to live with her uncle in the apartment building from her nightmare. Her brother, it turns out, had died in an elevator accident while she was in America.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2018 by Xillix

[Xillix]

 

The Amityville Nightmare

Release Date: October 19th, Y2

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Horror

Director: David F. Sandberg

Music Composer: Benjamin Wallfisch

Theater Count: 3,228

Shooting Format: 3.4K Digital (Arri Alexa SXT)

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 4K DCP

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1

Production Budget: $22 million

MPAA Rating: R for graphic violence and gore, frightening images, language, partial nudity, and suggestive content

Running Time: 108 minutes

Major Cast: Anne Heche (Alice), Jennifer Connelly (Charla), Lee Pace (Lt. Steinberg), Sam Rockwell (Roy), Tony Goldwyn (Chief Carr), John Goodman (Monsignor McConnell), Faye Dunaway (Jacalyn)

 

Plot Summary: An adaptation of the novel Amityville: The Nightmare Continues by Robin Karl Largent.

Spoiler

 

On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, 2017, two eleven-year-old students at the Saint Alomar Academy private Catholic school in Amityville, New York are riding home on the school bus, sitting next to one another. One, Lester Chambers, has lived in Amityville all his life. He is a slightly overweight boy, not especially bright but polite and generally well-behaved. His new best friend is Donald Webster, who moved to Amityville from Brooklyn with his recently-divorced mother over the summer after being expelled from his school in Brooklyn for behavioral issues. He is small and wiry but adventurous and mischievous.

 

The bus passes a street where it usually makes a turn; the road is closed for re-paving. It moves on and takes a turn onto the next street, Ocean Avenue. Donald, who has the window seat and has never been on this street before, stares out the window and takes special note of one house in particular – a run-down, abandoned Dutch Colonial, 112 Ocean Avenue. Excitedly, he turns to Lester and asks if that's the infamous haunted house he's heard about, the one where that guy killed his whole family back in the 70s. Lester shrugs, saying it's no big deal and that no one has lived there for over forty years. Donald teases him, saying he must be scared of the house, and the two begin horsing around. The bus driver glares at them and they stop.

 

The next afternoon, Donald and Lester are kept after school for detention by Monsignor McConnell (John Goodman), the humorless administrator of the academy, for their behavior on the ride home the previous day. Donald speaks out of turn and McConnell slaps him across the face, physically forcing him onto his knees to get him to pray for penance. Since the two have missed the bus, they decide to walk home. At Donald's urging, they take Ocean Avenue on the way back.

 

As they walk past 112 Ocean Avenue, Donald dares Lester to prove he isn't scared by going inside. Lester is hesitant and frankly terrified, but Donald's mocking finally convinces him to agree. The house is locked and boarded up, so Donald kicks in a basement window and Lester climbs in, a textbook slipping out of his slightly-unzipped backpack as he does so. The basement is nearly pitch-black, filthy and pungent, littered with random debris. As Lester climbs up the stairs to the first floor, the fourth step collapses underneath him and he falls on his left side into the space under the staircase. He climbs out, makes it up to the first floor, and opens the front door to let Donald in.

 

Donald points out that Lester's left hand and jacket sleeve are covered in some foul-smelling black goop. Still, he insists they do some exploring. Lester, traumatized, refuses, but Donald makes his way up to the second floor. Lester walks out the front door to wait for his friend, but the door slams itself shut behind him as he exits. He hears a woman's voice sternly warning him - “stay out.”

 

When Donald finally leaves the house, he finds Lester has retreated to the other side of the street. Donald has stolen several old items from the house – a flashlight, a watch, and a leather belt. Donald gives Lester the belt as a reward for proving his bravery. As they walk the rest of the way home, Donald suggests to Lester an easy way to make some money – they'll walk home from school every day from now on, stopping at 112 Ocean Avenue and taking a few things from inside, which they'll stash in the garage. Then every weekend they'll retrieve their loot from the garage and sell it at a local pawn shop. Lester refuses to commit to the idea.

 

Lester arrives home late, just after his father, Roy (Sam Rockwell). When Roy sees Lester walk in with his stained hand and jacket, he angrily demands to know where he's been, clenching a fist. Lester's thirteen-year-old sister, Ellen, walks into the front hall to watch the confrontation. She is followed by Alice May Chambers (Anne Heche), Lester and Ellen's stepmother. Alice watches Roy's anger rise with dread in her eyes. She know how bad her husband's episodes can get. Lester manages to defuse the situation with a made-up story about how he and Donald had walked home down the road being paved and he had fallen into some fresh tarmac – though he does admit to being late in the first place because of detention. Roy is still angry, but a timely, concerned glance from Alice convinces him to let the boy go without punishment.

 

Alice takes Lester's jacket down to the basement where she's preparing a load of laundry. Meanwhile, Lester goes to the bathroom to wash the sludge off of his hand. No matter how hard he scrubs, he can't get the black stain left behind to fade. Ellen barges into the room, accusing him of lying to their father about where he was. She knows the pavement on that street is dry because the bus drove down it that afternoon. She threatens to tell Roy and during the argument the belt that Donald gave Lester slides out from the leg of his pants where he had tried to hide it by tying it around his ankle.

 

Cornered, Lester relents and admits where he and Donald were. He desperately lets Ellen in on Donald's moneymaking scheme and promises that if she doesn't tell dad what they're doing, he'll get her whatever she wants from the house. Ellen greedily agrees. Suddenly, they are both shocked by a terrified shriek from the basement. They rush downstairs and find Alice cowering in the corner, praying. The laundry basket is overturned, its contents spilled onto the floor. The stain on Lester's jacket is smoking, and the jacket itself is twitching like a dying animal. Rapidly, the jacket disintegrates as if eaten away by a powerful acid.

 

That night, Lester puts himself to bed without being told – quite unusual for the boy. Alice enters his room and finds him sweating profusely despite the chilly autumn air in the drafty room. She tells him that although she knows she can never replace his real mother, and though she is not a nun anymore, as she was for such a long period of her life, he may find solace in confessing to her whatever troubles him. Lester ends up telling her the truth about what he and Donald did in 112 Ocean Avenue, and where the stains on his hand and jacket came from. Obviously distraught but trying to keep up appearances for her stepson, Alice leads him in a prayer for forgiveness.

 

At the local police station the next morning, a cold, rainy Friday the 13th, an officer approaches homicide detective Lt. Jerome Steinberg (Lee Pace) carrying a school textbook. The officer explains it was found by a broken window at 112 Ocean Avenue the night before after a couple down the street had called in to report a pair of schoolkids trespassing. Steinberg says he'll return it to the school and instruct them to punish the student responsible.

 

At Donald Webster's house, his mother Charla (Jennifer Connelly), recently divorced, is nursing a hangover. She calls in sick from the law firm where she works but offers no details about her condition or when she plans to be in. She is obviously depressed. She calls for Donald but gets no reply. She enters his bedroom and finds him gone, and glancing at the clock realizes he must have already left for school. On top of his dresser, she sees the flashlight and watch that Donald had taken from the abandoned house. The watch, which is made of gold, catches her eye and she examines it more closely. She has no idea where her son could have gotten something so valuable. Charla calls her widowed mother, Jacalyn, who lives in town. She asks her to come over, but Jacalyn is feeling ill and cannot make it. Lonesome and distraught, Charla begins drinking again.

 

At lunchtime at school, a nun notices the stain on Lester's hand. It appears to be spreading and is roughly twice as large as it had been the night before. Lester is sent to the nurse and simply repeats his lie about it being caused by falling into the fresh tarmac of the recently-paved road, neglecting to mention its apparent growth. The nurse cannot seem to remove or even fade the stain at all. At a loss for what else to do, she wraps it in gauze and sends the boy on his way.

 

After school, the boys walk home and make a stop at 112 Ocean Avenue as planned. Lester refuses to enter the house again and waits on the other side of the street while Donald goes in. Lester looks around nervously to see if he is being watched but notices no one. He stares up at the quarter-moon windows on the house's top floor, which seem to stare back at him like angry eyes. When Donald emerges, he has “liberated” several items – a silver tea set, a wood auger, some dishes, and a large old clock. The boys stash them in the garage, but Lester expresses doubt that the pawn shop owner will be interested in purchasing anything. To prove it to him, Donald decides they will sell something that night.

 

The pair take the auger to Silverman's Pawnshop, claiming they had gotten it with spare lunch money at a garage sale. The store's proprietor, the elderly Leon Silverman, is well aware the story is bogus as it was worth much more than what they would have been able to afford. Still, he agrees to purchase the tool, much to Donald's delight. He pays Donald $10, which seems like an awful lot of money to the boy.

 

Meanwhile, Alice is at the church rectory, speaking with her priest, Father Joseph Bellini. She asks him how she can tell when there are evil spirits present. Bellini chuckles but she insists that she is quite serious. As she explains what had happened in her basement the night before, and the story Lester told her about the house on Ocean Avenue, Bellini's bemused expression turns into one of concern. He offers to visit her house the following afternoon, and Alice agrees.

 

At 9:00 PM that night, Mr. Silverman closes his shop. As he is locking up the gun case, he hears an odd noise coming from his office. He enters the room only to find the auger he had purchased from Donald standing upright and twirling on its own, boring a hole into his desk. After a moment, it stops and falls over onto its side. Puzzled and a bit frightened, but unsure of what he's just seen, he locks the auger in a safe before leaving.

 

Early afternoon on Saturday the 14th, Donald and Lester return to the house. When Donald enters the garage to retrieve the items they had stashed there, however, he finds that they are missing. Reasoning that someone must have seen them hiding the items and taken them for themselves, Donald suggests they simply re-enter the house to find new stuff to sell. Lester refuses to go in at first, only reluctantly following his friend inside when Donald declares there's something he needs to see. As he arrives, he sees that all of the items from the garage are now neatly arranged in the hallway. Donald is excited – and sure that whoever found them in the garage simply returned them to the house. Lester, though, has a strange feeling. He says that he thinks it's some sort of sign.

 

Before he can elaborate, the boys are startled by the sound of footsteps behind them. It's Roy, who has followed his son to the scene of the crime. Furious, but containing most of his outward rage, Roy shuffles the boys into his car and drops Donald off at home. Back at their house, Roy sends Lester up to his room to await punishment. A terrified Lester holds back tears as he listens to the muffled shouting his father is directing at Alice outside his door. Soon, Roy enters his son's room, glaring silently at Lester. He finds the belt from the house on Ocean Avenue and picks it up. Lester knows what this means. He removes his shirt and leans over the foot of his bed. Roy administers a savage beating to his son with the buckle side of the belt. Alice stands at the end of the hall as she hears Roy's enraged screams and slurs and the repeated, hard impacts. Finally Roy emerges from the room, still fuming. He turns back to face his son through the door frame. “Clean yourself up, you son of a bitch!” He slams the door.

 

At Donald's house, Charla and Donald's grandmother Jacalyn (Faye Dunaway) – who has arrived to watch him as Charla is about to go out of state on business - are attempting to reprimand the boy. He is defiant, saying he can't be punished for taking something that doesn't belong to anyone. Charla, drunk as usual, doesn't offer much resistance. She sighs and glances over to her mother. Jacalyn is more stern, stating that the point is that it doesn't belong to HIM. Donald relents and halfheartedly apologizes. Jacalyn declares him grounded for the rest of the weekend. Donald puts on his best look of shame and regret, and his sloshed mother takes his side. She lowers his punishment to a grounding only for the rest of the day.

 

A bit later, a man living in a house on Ocean Avenue across the street from the abandoned horror house sees Father Bellini park in its driveway. Bellini emerges from his car and approaches the abandoned building, and the neighbor loses sight of him as he rounds the corner of the old house.

 

Later that night, while his grandmother is in another room, Donald slips the golden watch he took from 112 Ocean Avenue into her purse. “Let's see who gets caught stealing now,” he mutters to himself as he executes his petty and ill-considered revenge. Meanwhile at the Chambers household, the family is watching television together in the living room. Lester is sitting silently by himself on the floor in the corner. He gets up to go to the kitchen, and just as he leaves the room, he hears his father thank his sister Ellen for telling him what Lester was up to. Furious at his sister and frightened of his father, Lester does not re-enter the living room and instead retreats to his bedroom. Eventually Alice comes to check on him and asks why he returned to that house. He explains he hadn't planned on going inside; they were simply going to retrieve their items from the garage to sell at Silverman's pawn shop. After making him promise never to return, Alice gives Lester a hug and apologizes for Roy's actions.

 

Just after 10 PM that night at the Saint Alomar rectory, there's a knock on Monsignor McConnell's office door. He opens the door and Lieutenant Jerome Steinberg enters. Steinberg informs McConnell that Father Bellini's car was found abandoned in the driveway of 112 Ocean Avenue. The car had been sitting there empty for hours before someone called it in. Steinberg asks if McConnell has heard from Bellini, and he confirms he hasn't. Then Steinberg pulls a small evidence bag out of his jacket pocket. Inside is a Catholic priest's white collar, stained with blood. The button in the back appears to have been ripped out. Steinberg explains this is the only other sign of the priest that was found at the scene, and that he has been put in charge of a potential homicide investigation.

 

The next morning, Lester notices that Donald isn't present at Sunday mass. When he gets home, he calls Lester's house – neither of the boys has been deemed old or responsible enough for a cell phone. Jacalyn answers, and says that Donald is sick and can't come to the phone. When he hears his friend is ill, Lester glances back down at the stain on his own hand. It's getting bigger and showing no signs of fading, but he's concealing most of it with his sleeve. When Jacalyn realizes Lester is the boy who Donald broke into the old house with, she informs him that she doesn't want her grandson talking with him and hangs up.

 

In bed with the curtains closed, Donald is sleeping in a stain of his own sweat. He's having a nightmare – or a vision. We see his dream – the house on Ocean Avenue, the way it was back in 1974, before it was abandoned. A young man, Ronald DeFeo, Jr., is walking the halls at night with a rifle as the camera follows behind him. In a series of abrupt inserts, he shoots his parents, his two little brothers, his little sister, and finally, his teenage sister. Then, back in the main, long shot of the sequence, the gunman suddenly turns around, pointing the rifle straight at the camera and firing.

 

Meanwhile, Lt. Steinberg arrives at the police station. He asks the dispatcher if there have been any developments in the Bellini case, but is told there is no new information. He arrives at his desk and, opening a drawer, sees that the school textbook from Saint Alomar that was found days earlier at 112 Ocean Avenue is still inside. He had forgotten all about such a seemingly minor issue in the course of his usual work. He opens the front cover of the book and finds Lester Chambers' name written inside. He makes a note to check on Lester the following day.

 

That night, a woman answers her phone – it's a call, as we can see on the caller ID, from Leon Silverman. “Gloria,” Leon asks, terror obvious in his strained voice, “is that you?” Gloria is immediately concerned. “Daddy? What's wrong?” In the background of the call, a faint grinding noise is audible. “I-I need help. It's after me. That thing! That thing! It's-”

The call drops.

 

At roughly 4 AM the next morning, Lt. Steinberg arrives at a crime scene. He enters the back door of a house just across the street from Silverman's Pawn Shop. In the living room, a patrol officer is trying to console Gloria, who had driven dozens of miles to come to check on her father. The chief of police, Steve Carr (Tony Goldwyn), is there as well. Carr ushers Steinberg into a room on the second floor. Inside is the body of Leon Silverman, pinned to the wall by the old wood auger he had purchased from Donald. The tool has been drilled right through his heart. His feet are dangling several inches off the ground. His smashed cell phone is lying on the floor nearby.

 

Steinberg searches the house but finds no real clues. All of the doors and windows are locked and secured, save, obviously, the back door, which was locked when the police arrived. Gloria had called them when she could not enter the house and her father failed to pick up any phone calls. There's no sign of forced entry. The coroner confirms Silverman was dead for hours before he was found, and that he was likely killed while he was on the phone with his daughter. Steinberg offers to make the case his top priority, but Carr insists that he will oversee the case himself because he's wary of the inevitable media attention and wants to be in control of the situation. Steinberg is advised to stay on the Bellini case.

 

A few hours later, just after Lester and Ellen have left for school, Alice Chambers calls a local doctor's office intending to inquire about Lester's strange rash-like stain. She is on hold when the doorbell rings. When she answers the door and sees it is Lt. Steinberg, she hangs up and lets him in. Alice immediately knows that the visit is about Lester, but first, Steinberg wants to ask about Father Bellini. He states that other staff members at Saint Alomar had informed him about Bellini's plans to visit the Chambers house on Saturday. Alice explains that he never showed up, and asks what has happened. Only then does Steinberg confirm Bellini is missing, and that he was last seen at 112 Ocean Avenue. He asks Alice why Bellini was supposed to be coming over, and Alice recounts Lester's confessions to her and states that she was worried because of Lester's strange stained skin and the history of that house – though she does not detail the incident with the jacket. She also mentions their plans to store stolen items in the garage and sell them to Mr. Silverman. Steinberg returns Lester's textbook, thanks Alice, and leaves.

 

At the rectory, Monsignor McConnell is fasting and staging a prayer vigil for the safety of Father Bellini. He is on his knees, hands clasped, in front of a single candle in a darkened room. A nun enters and asks him if he needs anything. He turns to look at her and his face is ghastly – pale, tired, and lent an eerie glow by the candlelight. He shakes his head no. The nun asks how long he intends to continue, since he has been at this – without sleep or food – since Saturday night. McConnell simply gazes at her mournfully and turns his head back around, bowing it down once more. The nun, still distraught, decides to leave him be.

 

That evening after dinner, Roy Chambers is sitting alone in the living room watching the local news. The main story, of course, is the death of Leon Silverman. Alice enters the room and is shocked to learn the man her stepson was involving in his scheme has apparently been murdered. She rushes to Lester's bedroom, where she finds him doing his homework. She demands to know if he had actually sold anything to Silverman. Lester truthfully insists that he hadn't – but he confirms Donald sold him a tool, one which he didn't recognize. Alice describes the auger to him, and Lester confirms it is the item in question. Alice is visibly horrified, and Lester asks what is wrong, but she hurriedly excuses herself from his room.

 

The next morning, Tuesday the 17th, Alice takes Lester for a visit to the doctor to have the mark on his hand and arm examined. After looking over Lester, the doctor takes Alice aside. He informs her that, while he cannot be sure yet, he suspects it may be a form of skin cancer. He has taken tissue samples to send to specialist for analysis and suggests she not tell Lester yet, in case he is mistaken. Though shaken, Alice ultimately agrees.

 

Meanwhile, Lt. Steinberg is in a meeting with two local priests, Father Cannon and Father Chiraldi. He asks if the church has ever investigated 112 Ocean Avenue, and the pair reply that they never took any formal action, despite the claims of supernatural activity. Further, they explain that the process for the church to officially look into the matter is long and complicated. Father Cannon asks Steinberg if he really believes the house is haunted, and Steinberg replies that he's unsure what he believes but that he will take any help he can get in figuring out what's going on. Father Chiraldi says he knows someone outside of the church who might be able to help, and offers to contact them on Steinberg's behalf. Steinberg tells him he will get in touch with him if he decides to accept the offer.

 

By lunchtime, Lester has arrived at school. As per usual, he and Donald sit together in the cafeteria. Donald asks if Lester has seen the news about the pawned auger being used to kill Mr. Silverman. Lester is completely unaware. During recess, the two go to the school library. Donald shows Lester the local news website to prove it's true. Lester is noticeably shaken, for which Donald makes fun of him.

 

That night, at a railroad crossing, Donald's grandmother, Jacalyn, is waiting in her car for a train to pass. She reaches into her purse on the passenger seat with her right hand, feeling around for a pack of cigarettes, when she touches something unfamiliar. She pulls out the old gold watch Donald had planted there. As she examines it, she begins to feel light-headed and dizzy. The camera goes out of focus and the sound becomes muffled. Soon Jacalyn – and the audience – hear nothing but her own suddenly-heavy breathing, and faint, indecipherable whispers. The train passes, but the crossing guards do not lift out of place. Alarmed and disoriented, Jacalyn drives around the barriers. As she crosses the tracks, a train whistle is heard very quietly. It's too late. The second train collides with her car at high speed in a spectacular crash.

 

The next morning, around 10 AM, Lt. Steinberg and Chief Steven Carr drive to 112 Ocean Avenue together in the rain, having obtained a court order allowing a full search of the property. The two briefly discuss the odd fact that the woman who died in a crash last night was the grandmother of one of the boys who had broken into the house, but aren't sure what to make of it. When the pair reach the house, they park the car, walk to the front door, and Carr pulls out the key. Steinberg, however, has already put his hand on the knob and begun to turn. “It's open,” he notes.

 

As he pulls the door open, he is suddenly hit by a powerful gust of hot, putrid air from within the building. A monstrous roar sounds in its wake. Steinberg is thrown off of his feet, tumbling to the ground. A shocked Carr comes rushing to his aid, and the pair take a moment to collect themselves. Gazing through the open door into the house, they see nothing strange – just a dark, dank, run-down old dump of a home. Shaken, but determined to get to the bottom of things, they proceed to enter.

 

Examining the first floor, they find nothing but scattered debris, mold, and a few rats that scurry about and startle them. They ascend to the second floor and continue their search, again finding nothing. As they make their way up the stairs to the top floor, they note it's getting colder the higher they go. When they reach the top of the stairs, they find their answer. An old bedroom – the one with the quarter moon windows overlooking the street – is the source of the draft. One of the windows is open, rain pouring in through it, driven by the wind. The door flaps gently on its hinges.

 

Steinberg walks into the room, and just as he enters, the door slams shut behind him – against the wind. The window quickly follows. For a moment, there is no sound but his shallow breathing. Suddenly, he hears footsteps cross behind him inside the room. He turns but sees nothing. Turning back toward the front of the room, he hears a loud buzzing. Out of nowhere, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of flies have appeared on the windows. A horrible stench fills the air. Overwhelmed, he backs into a corner. The sound of the buzzing seems to grow louder and louder. A framed painting on one of the walls begins to rotate, scraping against the wall as it slowly turns upside-down. Finally it falls to the floor, the glass in the frame shattering.

 

After the sound of the glass breaking, there is a sudden quiet. The flies are all still and silent on the window panes, almost frozen in place. We zoom in tight on Steinberg's face. Suddenly, the voice of a woman – quiet, weak, desperate. “Leave us alone,” it whispers into his ear from right next to him. And then the noise comes back louder than ever. The flies resume their buzzing and launch themselves off of the windows, swarming around the Lieutenant. The door opens – and then slams shut again, over and over, harder and faster each time. Whispers at once too loud to drown out and impossible to comprehend echo all around him. He collapses to his knees, swatting helplessly at the flies. He squeezes his eyes shut – and the silence returns.

 

Opening his eyes, he sees that the flies have disappeared. But his encounter was very real. The painting is still on the floor, shards of glass scattered all around it. Slowly, the door creaks open. A frightened Chief Carr steps in, keeping one hand on the doorknob. “Jesus, Steinberg. What the hell happened? I was shouting for you the whole time. Why didn't you answer? I thought you were dying in here!”

 

“I didn't hear you,” the stunned detective responds. “I didn't hear you at all.”

 

“What? But how?”

 

“I heard what it wanted me to hear.”

 

That afternoon, as Lester leaves his last class, he is pulled aside by a nun, who sternly informs him that Sister Bertha, the senior nun at the academy, would like to see him. Reporting to her office, he is greeted by her dark, judgmental scowl. She informs Lester that the bus driver has noticed he's been missing the bus home lately. Students are not allowed to walk home or be picked up without a signed permission slip from their parents. Sister Bertha declares she will be calling in Lester's father for a meeting about his conduct that Saturday. As he tears up, Lester begins to protest. He cuts himself off when he sees Sister Bertha's hand reaching for a ruler she keeps on her desk. He replies with a “yes, Sister,” as respectfully as he can, as tears begin to stream down his face.

 

The next morning, Thursday the 19th, Lieutenant Steinberg is waiting for someone at a restaurant, reading over his case notes. Father Chiraldi soon arrives and takes a seat. The two greet each other and Steinberg explains his experiences inside 112 Ocean Avenue the day prior. Father Chiraldi informs him that, while he certainly believes him that something “extraordinary” is going on there, they must be careful not to jump to conclusions about the nature of the phenomena. Demonic manifestations are quite rare. If the church is to become involved, an outside expert must first provide them with evidence ruling out any other cause – including more “routine” hauntings. He tells Steinberg he will ask some secular friends of his to help.

 

That afternoon at the station, Steinberg speaks with a truant officer on the subject of Lester and Donald. Donald, she explains, is a fairly typical, if troublesome, case. He acted out constantly at his former school in Brooklyn, and after his parents' divorce and his move to Amityville, began to act out even more. Lester's case is a bit more interesting. The truant officer says that Roy Chambers had almost divorced his first wife for infidelity, but was talked out of it by Monsignor McConnell. After Ellen was born, Roy had been in a bad accident which had required surgery which ultimately left him infertile. When his wife became pregnant with Lester, it confirmed his suspicions that she had been cheating on him. Though he didn't go through with a divorce, thanks to Monsignor McConnell's insistence he remain married, his wife committed suicide soon after giving birth to Lester. She also explains that the nuns at Saint Alomar have confirmed Lester sometimes shows up with cuts, bruises, and other injuries indicative of possible abuse – though none were willing to file a report.

 

That night, Alice has a horrible nightmare. She is approached by a frail-looking woman carrying a blanket-wrapped baby in her arms. As the woman comes closer, she pulls away part of the blanket covering the infant. We do not see it, but Alice recoils in terror. The infant's cries turn into a serpentine hiss. “This is my sin,” the woman whispers. Alice stares, entranced, at the child. Suddenly both women burst into flames. Alice screams as her clothes, then her flesh, gradually burn away.

 

Roy wakes up to find the other side of his and Alice's bed empty. He calls for her, but there is no reply. He gets out of bed and steps into the hall, and hears noises coming from the living room. Entering the room, he finds Alice crouched in a corner, clutching one of Ellen's old baby dolls. Her hands are bleeding. She has clawed the eyes out of the doll and begun tearing away at its face. “I will destroy it,” she repeats as a quiet, crazed chant.

 

The next morning, Alice apologizes for the incident to Roy after the children have left for school. She tries to explain herself, but hesitates, unsure of what to say. In an accusatory tone, Roy asks if it was trouble with Lester that has her so distraught. Though she denies this, his mind is already made up. He tells her – with the hint of a threat – that if Lester is up to something, she is not to protect him. He's already upset enough he has to meet with Sister Bertha the next day. If it isn't one thing with “that bastard,” he says, it's another. After he leaves for work, Alice calls Saint Alomar to ask to speak to Monsignor McConnell. She is informed he is still on his vigil and not taking visitors. She asks if there's been any word on Father Bellini and is once again told no.

 

Meanwhile, Donald and Charla arrive early at the funeral home for Jacalyn's wake. As the manager ushers them into the building, he receives a phone call. He tells them to go on ahead into the room where Jacalyn's casket is being displayed. Shortly after they enter, he hears screams and hysterical sobbing. Rushing into the room, he finds that all of the flowers on display have turned black and withered.

 

Late that afternoon, Lt. Steinberg arrives at a small apartment with Father Chiraldi. Inside, Chiraldi introduces him to husband and wife Vito and Caroyln Messato – he a parapsychologist, she a spirit medium. The Messatos question Steinberg on his encounter inside the house on Ocean Avenue. They ultimately agree to take the case and perform an investigation of the house that weekend.

 

The next morning, Saturday the 21st, Jacalyn's funeral is held. Donald and Charla are in attendance, along with a smattering of extended family, including Charla's aunt Candace who lives a few towns over. As the minister begins his reading, all of the lights in the funeral home go out. The windowless room becomes nearly pitch black. The manager retrieves some candles to illuminate the room. As he lights them, people begin to gasp and scream. Jacalyn's embalmed, made-up body has withered and blackened into an almost mummified state, just like her flowers.

 

That same morning at Saint Alomar Academy, Sister Bertha has her meeting with Roy about Lester's behavior. Alice is also present, but both Roy and Sister Bertha ignore her. Bertha viciously attacks Lester's conduct and academic performance. Roy, livid, makes a sinister promise that she and the rest of the faculty will see a marked improvement in Lester's behavior come Monday. Alice hangs her head, well aware of what that means.

 

That afternoon, Roy beats Lester with the stolen belt again. It is even more savage than his previous “punishment.” He stops not because he is satisfied, but only because he has exhausted himself from the effort. Blood drips from Lester's scarred body onto the floor. Alice has to clean it up and tend to her stepson's wounds. She also tells the boy that Roy has asked her to inform him that he will not be allowed to eat dinner with the rest of the family until Sister Bertha declares he has greatly improved his behavior and grades.

 

At the Webster house, Charla is drowning her shock and sorrow in booze. She is so drunk she does not even notice when Donald sneaks past her and leaves without permission. He returns to 112 Ocean Avenue, retrieving more items from the garage.

 

On the morning of Sunday, October 22nd, Lieutenant Steinberg meets Vito and Carolyn Messato at the abandoned house. As Vito checks his equipment, Steinberg heads over to the garage. He sees a child's footprints in the damp soil leading to the garage door. He peers inside and sees some of the items Donald had stashed inside along the inner wall. The Messatos interrupt his examination to tell him they are ready to begin.

 

As the three enter the house, Carolyn wanders off on her own, exploring the rooms of the first floor. Vito shows Steinberg some of his equipment – two infrared cameras, a cold spot detector, and a super-sensitive audio recorder for electronic voice phenomena. When Carolyn returns to the two men, she confirms that she senses a presence – and that they are not welcome in this house. The trio head up to the third floor, into the room where Steinberg had his encounter. While nothing is visibly amiss, Carolyn appears to go into a trance. She leads the men back down the stairs, all the way to the door leading into the basement.

 

As they open the basement door, they are overwhelmed by a powerful stench. Vito pulls out a flashlight, then hands Steinberg one of the cameras, telling him to keep it pointed at Carolyn no matter what. They descend into the dark cellar, careful to step over the broken step, half-tripping constantly over the scattered debris. Still in her trance, Carolyn informs them that in the closet under the staircase, there is a small door in one of the walls.

 

Vito steps into the closet and finds the door. With some effort, he manages to pry it open. A bright red light shines out from within. Beyond the door is a tiny room, too small to stand up in, painted entirely red. Far more alarming is the fact that, as Vito – and the audience – sees for a split second, some kind of unearthly creature is crouched in the back corner of the red room. Carolyn screams for Vito to shut the door – in a voice clearly not her own.

 

Vito slams the door shut and leaps out of the closet. Suddenly, the basement is engulfed in hellish flames. Carolyn shouts, again in the strange voice, to “get the policeman out!” She is standing perfectly still and stoic in the center of the cellar, surrounded by the raging inferno. Vito shoves Steinberg toward the stairs. The two men race out of the basement, fire following close behind them up the steps as if it has a mind of its own. They run out of the house, tumbling down the steps in front of the door and collapsing onto the lawn. As Steinberg stands back up, Vito yells to him, “For God's sake, don't go back!”

 

Vito gets to his feet, and the two stare at the open front door of the house. Black smoke pours out into the open air. Suddenly from within the burning cloud, Carolyn emerges. She is coated in ash, and her eyes are completely white. Steinberg begins to run for her, but Vito holds him back, warning him not to go near her. Vito snaps away with his camera, and Carolyn opens her mouth slowly. Blood oozes out, boiling and steaming. She begins to hiss, the same hiss heard in Alice's dream. The sound builds into a screeching, deafening crescendo before cutting off. “Go away,” the strange voice calls out from within Carolyn. Vito tugs at Steinberg, trying to get him to flee. But the detective can't seem to look away from the possessed medium. Her skin develops blisters that move and pop and regenerate like bubbles in boiling liquid. The blood flowing out of her mouth turns thicker, darker, until it is replaced entirely by black slime. She laughs, not in her own voice or the voice of the woman from before – it's a child's laugh.

 

Finally having had enough, Steinberg turns to run. The laughter stops, and Vito turns back. He stops Steinberg in his tracks. When the detective looks back at Carolyn, she appears relatively normal. Her clothes are drenched in blood and slime, but her sweat has washed away much of the ash and her skin is intact. Her eyes look normal again, but quickly close. She faints, collapsing to the ground. Behind her, the smoke clears. There is no sign of the fire at all inside the house.

 

Steinberg helps load Carolyn into the Messatos' car, and follows them back to their apartment. After cleaning up his wife and putting her in bed, Vito confesses that this was the single most violent encounter he's ever experienced. Steinberg asks if Vito knows what's going on in that house, and he replies that he's sure it's not a typical haunting. However, he cannot tell exactly what it actually is. Once Carolyn reawakens, he will need to discuss her experiences with her. They will also need to review the audio recordings and photographs. Frustrated and terrified, Steinberg drives home with no answers.

 

The following morning, Vito calls Steinberg. All of the photographs are blank, and the audio recordings are nothing but static, he informs the detective. But Carolyn was able to discuss some of her experiences with him. He says she believes there are two conflicting presences in the house – one that is a sort of guardian, the one that warned them to leave. The other is evil, and it is trying desperately to escape. Before Vito can elaborate, the call drops. Steinberg makes multiple attempts to call him back, but none are successful.

 

That day in the school cafeteria, Donald informs Lester that he went back to the house again on Saturday. Not only did he retrieve some of the items from the garage, he reveals, but he also went back into the house and took some new items, which he stashed in the boathouse out back. Lester asks what the point is – Silverman's store was the only pawn shop in town. Cryptically, with a mischievous glint in his eye, Donald simply tells Lester he has an idea he wants to test.

 

Late that night, Steinberg gets a call from Father Chiraldi. Carolyn, it turns out, is in the hospital in serious condition. The two men meet at the hospital to visit the Messatos and are ushered into the ICU. Vito is holding back tears. He says he had returned home that evening to find Carolyn in a bathtub full of scalding water. She was shrieking and wailing, claiming something was “all over her.”

 

We flash back to the event as it happened. The bathroom is filled with steam. Vito reaches into the bathtub to pull Carolyn out, burning himself in the process. Her entire body is covered in third-degree burns. Worse, she is vigorously scrubbing and scratching at her ruined skin. Part of the skin that remains on her upper arm comes sliding off like a sleeve as she rubs her hand over it, plopping to the floor.

 

Back in the present, Steinberg peers behind the curtain and takes a look at Carolyn. She is completely unrecognizable, her face burnt and warped into something almost inhuman. She is hooked up to multiple IVs and has oxygen tubes inserted into what remains of her nose and mouth. Prompted by a nurse, Father Chiraldi begins to perform her last rites. Suddenly, she twitches and convulses, her heart racing and going into arrhythmia before coming to a sudden stop. She flatlines and passes away, her head turned on its side. A small stream of black slime oozes out of the corner of her mouth onto the pillow.

 

Late in the afternoon the next day – Tuesday, October 24th – Alice, walking home from the store, glances down at her watch. She's running late. If Roy's dinner is not ready when he gets home she knows there will be hell to pay. She had been planning to make a stop at the library on the way back but no longer has time. As such, she instead takes a shortcut - by chance or fate, down Ocean Avenue. As she passes 112 Ocean Avenue, which she has never seen in person before, a powerful sense of foreboding and misery overcomes her. Looking up at the house, she notices the woman from her nightmare staring out at her from one of the quarter-moon windows on the third floor. In some sort of trance of her own Alice puts down her groceries and approaches the house; she cannot resist the urge to enter. The front door, to her surprise, is unlocked. Walking to the bottom of the central stairwell, she looks up to the first landing. The woman from her nightmare turns the corner, starting down the steps. The blanket-wrapped infant is held gently in her arms. As she descends the stairs, she unwraps the baby's face. We see nothing but extreme close-ups – a slit-pupil eye, glowing with a fire inside, a mouth with fanged teeth, a forked tongue slithering in and out.

 

Horrified, Alice reaches out to the woman. “Let me help you,” she chokes out. The woman stops in her tracks. “Get out,” she commands softly. Alice remains frozen still, staring into the evil eyes of the tiny demon in the woman's arms. “GET OUUUUT!” The scream seems to shake the house.

 

Suddenly, the infant begins to grow rapidly, seen in split-second close-ups that reveal very little – only the muscles bulging, the blanket being torn to shreds, black slime spilling onto the stairs, clawed feet landing on the steps and digging into the rotting wood. The creature's shrieking hiss fills the room as hundreds or thousands of flies begin to swarm around Alice. Barely able to see through the buzzing cloud of insects, Alice runs for the door. The demon's heavy footsteps can be heard behind her. The creature is gaining. Blinded, covered in flies clinging to her skin, Alice stumbles out the front door. It slams shut behind her. She blinks, recoiling from the daylight. The flies are gone. She turns to glimpse back at the door, still expecting the horrible beast to come ramming through. There is nothing. Her state of shock wearing off, Alice begins to break down into terrified gasping and sobbing. She tells no one of the encounter.

 

The following morning, Alice meets with the doctor. The results of the analysis on Lester's tissue samples have come back. The good news is that they have ruled out the possibility of cancer. The bad news is that they can find no apparent physical explanation for the discoloration. The doctor suggests, based on Lester's past history, that it may be psychosomatic – caused by stress or mental anguish rather than an infectious agent. Alice is clueless as to what he means, so he fills her in on the fact that, before she married Roy, Lester had spent years in therapy to cope with his mother's suicide. Alice asks why she killed herself, and it's only then that she learns Lester is not actually Roy's son. He suggests she speak with Monsignor McConnell for more information. She calls his office when she returns home, and while she is informed he has ended his vigil, he refuses to speak with her.

 

That night, Father Chiraldi receives a call from Lieutenant Steinberg. He informs the priest that Vito Messato was found dead in his apartment that evening, having committed suicide.

 

The following afternoon, Thursday, October 26th, as Donald boards the school bus home from Saint Alomar Academy, he apologizes profusely to the driver for his previous misdeeds. He offers her a clumsily-wrapped gift, which she accepts with some obvious astonishment. When he takes his seat next to Lester, Lester demands to know what he'd given her and why. Donald cryptically replies that he'll find out soon enough. When she arrives at home that night, the driver opens the gift. Inside is an antique teapot from 112 Ocean Avenue.

 

Meanwhile, Lt. Steinberg makes a visit to the Webster house. He informs Charla that he believes Donald has returned to the old house and stolen more items. Defiant, and emboldened by the glass of wine she's gulping during the meeting – clearly not her first of the evening – Charla insists that if he did anything like that, it was only because “that Chambers boy” had put him up to it. Steinberg warns her that thanks to the disappearance of Father Bellini, the house is an active crime scene, and that Donald could get into very serious legal trouble if he is caught trespassing. He asks to speak with him, but Charla claims he is out at the movies with friends. She promises to talk to him when he gets home. Steinberg leaves, and Charla walks to Donald's bedroom. He's inside, playing a handheld video game with headphones on. Charla gently closes the door and walks away.

 

The next day, Friday the 27th, a party is being held after school hours to celebrate the breaking of Monsignor McConnell's fast. Though there have been no new developments in Bellini's case, the Monsignor has finally been convinced he can better serve his community in the priest's absence while in good health. He is weak and pale, but in good spirits; several members of the Saint Alomar staff and community are in attendance with him – including Donald and Lester's bus driver.

 

The driver serves Monsignor McConnell his favorite tea – in the teapot she had been given by Donald. The Monsignor pours himself a cup, stirs in some sugar, blows on it to cool it, and, finally, takes a sip. He makes a face as he swallows. The tea is strangely bitter. The guests notice and ask him what is the matter. McConnell begins to cough, and a nun stands up and walks over to him to assist. Suddenly, he vomits up a scalding-hot stream of black slime, directly onto the nun's clothes. She shrieks and backs away as McConnell begins to convulse and then collapses out of his chair onto the floor. His lips and the inside of his mouth are horribly burnt and coated in the dark, sticky substance. He is rushed to the ER where he is admitted with severe burns all the way down his throat.

 

The following morning, a requiem mass is held for the Messatos. Steinberg, Father Chiraldi, and Father Cannon are all in attendance. After the service, Cannon and Chiraldi pull Steinberg aside. They explain that before he killed himself, Vito Messato had left detailed documents explaining his and his wife's experiences in the house on Ocean Avenue. Based on their findings, Cannon has agreed to involve the church officially in the investigation. The three men agree to meet and discuss further action that coming Tuesday – which, as Steinberg notes with mild amusement, will be Halloween.

 

At the Webster house, Charla is concerned about Donald. It's almost 11 AM, and even though it's a Saturday, it's unusual for him to sleep in so late. She knocks on his bedroom door and gets no reply. Opening the door, she finds that Donald is not inside. Suddenly she is startled by loud noises coming from the garage. She enters the windowless garage, flicking the light switch. It doesn't work. The noises continue from behind a stack of moving boxes she had never bothered to unpack. She calls for Donald, but again there is no answer. Slowly, she approaches the boxes.

 

Donald's hand shoots out from behind them and slams onto the ground. “Donald!? What's wrong?” She picks up her pace, and just as she reaches the boxes, Donald crawls out from behind them in a jerky, unnaturally fast motion. His mouth is hanging open, an inhuman, roar-like moan echoing from within. His eyes are bloodshot and open impossibly wide, unblinking. “Leave us alone,” he rasps. She reaches for him and he scampers away backwards, retreating into the shadows. She follows him into the darkness, able to hear him moving about, knocking over small objects, but unable to see him. As she walks along toward the front of the garage searching for her son, we catch a glimpse of him, still on all fours, stalking her from behind. Finally, she reaches the front of the garage and presses the button to raise the main door. As sunlight floods into the room, Donald shrieks. When Charla turns around, she finds him curled up in a fetal position on the cement, shaking and crying.

 

In the sunlight, she can now also see several stolen items from 112 Ocean Avenue have been hidden in her garage – chief among them a beautiful, sparkling silver candelabra. Realizing that Steinberg's accusations are true, she begins to panic. After checking over her son – who now appears frightened and confused but otherwise fine – and putting him to bed, she calls Alice Chambers out of desperation. Alice is in the basement doing laundry and cannot hear the phone. No one answers. Overwhelmed with anxiety, Charla attempts to calm her nerves by pouring herself a full glass of vodka.

 

At 6 AM the following morning, Sunday the 29th, Charla is lying awake in her bed. She drank herself to sleep early in the afternoon the day prior and has now woken up much earlier than she intended to. Outside, a thunderstorm is raging. After a particularly close thunderclap, the small lamp on her nightstand goes dark. The power is out. In the hallway outside her door, she hears a loud thump. “Donald? What are you doing up?” Predictably, there's no response. She climbs out of bed in her stained old nightgown and opens her door. The hallway is dark, but when briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning, it is clearly empty. She hears a noise again – coming from the garage. A lump forms in her throat. Before she can build up the courage to enter, she catches sight of something out the window. It's Donald, illuminated by successive lightning flashes, wearing his rainjacket and carrying a package under his arm. He quickly runs out of view. As Charla stares out the window into the storm, still half asleep, she is startled by the power suddenly coming back on.

 

Just a bit later, Lt. Steinberg – also up early, having been roused by the sounds of the storm – gets a call from Chief Carr. Carr informs him that, while he knows it's supposed to be his day off, he might be interested to know that a patrol car has just seen what appears to be candlelight shining out the windows from inside 112 Ocean Avenue. Carr and Steinberg agree to meet at the old house.

 

Steinberg arrives at the house at about 8:30 AM. The storm is still in full force. When he meets up with Carr, the chief informs him that the back door of the house is hanging open and blowing around in the wind. Reluctantly, Steinberg agrees to accompany Carr back inside the house. They examine the first floor and turn up nothing. Passing the stairwell, Steinberg catches a glimpse of flickering light on the second floor before it fades as if moving away. Carr heads up to the second floor and instructs Steinberg to wait at the bottom of the stairs in case the intruder sneaks past him. Steinberg waits anxiously as he hears Carr's footsteps on the floor above him. They are loud and creaky, as you'd expect from such an old, decaying house. It occurs to Steinberg, however, that they are the first footsteps he's heard above him.

 

Suddenly there is the sound of gunfire. Three rapid shots, one right after the other. Steinberg draws his own gun and rushes up the stairs. He finds Carr a few steps down from the second floor landing, his weapon still pointed into the hazy grayness of the hallway in front of him. “What's happening!?” Steinberg shouts. “I don't know where it went,” Carr replies anxiously. “It was right there. I shot right at it!”

 

A single, lit candle is sitting alone on the floor in the middle of the hallway. The flame dances and flickers in the drafty air. The hall appears otherwise empty, though the faint illumination of the flame does not reach all the way to the end. Steinberg tries to shine his flashlight down the hall only to realize it has gone out, as has Carr's. The two stare down the hall, guns ready, listening to the muffled sounds of the storm. From the inky blackness at the end of the hall, a form gradually begins to emerge. Only the faint outline and dullest, most general features are seen – it appears to be a humanoid figure, cloaked in moth-bitten, torn rags, its face hidden under a hood, its stomach bulging. Before it becomes fully illuminated, the candle blows out.

 

Now in total darkness, the two policemen begin to back slowly down the stairs. Suddenly their flashlights turn back on and illuminate the figure, charging towards them with shocking speed. The face remains invisible, but the thing is tearing at the rags covering its stomach as it approaches the staircase. The men backpedal rapidly, nearly falling down the steps, as the thing closes in, shrieking horribly. Its pregnant belly now exposed, the ghoul tears into its own flesh, digging its nails into its navel and ripping its skin open, sending a cascade of blood pouring onto the stairs as it begins to descend. Carr shoots at it again, but the bullets don't seem to make impact.

 

An orange glow illuminates the scene from below as thick smoke rises up the stairwell. Steinberg looks down to see the bottom of the stairs are engulfed in flames, and the fire is spreading upwards. As the phantom continues closing in on Carr and Steinberg, nearly within arms' length of them now, the duo take their chances with the fire, running down the steps that have not yet ignited and leaping through the inferno at the bottom. Landing hard on the first floor, the two are lucky in that the soaking they sustained in the storm prevents their clothes and hair from catching fire. They scramble to their feet and run out the back door, which slams shut behind them. “Call the fire department,” Carr chokes out as they run into the driveway. “No, wait,” Steinberg insists. The two turn around and, once again, the house seems undisturbed. There is no smoke, no heat, no glow. “What the fuck are we dealing with, Steinberg?” asks the exasperated chief.

 

Meanwhile, in her quarters across town, Sister Bertha is holding a messily-wrapped package that has been presented to her by a younger nun. She asks who brought it, and the nun describes a young boy in a yellow rain jacket, soaked to the bone and shivering, who had insisted his gift be delivered to Sister Bertha. He never gave his name. Sister Bertha opens the package to reveal the silver candelabra that had been hidden in the Websters' garage. The younger nun remarks on its beauty, and Sister Bertha places it on a small table, carefully arranging it just so.

 

The following afternoon – Monday, October 30th – Sister Bertha is meant to host a meeting of the Saint Alomar nuns to discuss the agenda for the coming month. Ten minutes after the scheduled start of the meeting, when she has still not arrived in the conference room, the others become concerned. One nun is sent to go check on her. She makes her way to Sister Bertha's quarters and knocks on the door, calling out for her. No answer. She tries the door, but it is locked. She goes for help and the groundskeeper is able to open the door with the master key.

 

Inside they find Bertha sitting at her table, slumped in the chair, dead. A pen is still clutched in her hand, a half-written note on the table in front of her. The last two words are increasingly slanted and distorted. Her dull, dead eyes are still fixed on the silver candelabra at the center of the table, by the light of which she had been writing. As the younger nun approaches her body, Bertha's corpse convulses one last time, a small cloud of black smoke escaping from her gaping mouth. The candles are blown out by a wind with no apparent source.

 

The next morning, Halloween, a mass is held before classes at Saint Alomar Academy. It is primarily for Sister Bertha, though prayers for Monsignor McConnell – still in critical condition – are also included. As the service continues, Lester looks over at Donald. He is grinning wickedly.

 

That evening, Lt. Steinberg, Father Chiraldi, and Father Cannon have a meeting in Cannon's study. Cannon asks Steinberg about his experience in the house with Chief Carr on Sunday. He remarks that it was worse this time, more intense. Chiraldi offers that it will probably only get worse. If the force – or one of the forces – in that house is determined to keep him out, it will resort to increasingly drastic measures. Cannon brings up Monsignor McConnell, suggesting they involve him in the matter. Steinberg reveals to him what he has uncovered about McConnell's involvement with Roy Chambers around the time of his son's birth and first wife's death, and how it ties into the events at the house through Lester's trespassing. In any case, Father Cannon says they should be able to begin their own investigation soon.

 

The next morning, Wednesday, November 1st, dawns cold and gray with gentle flurries of snow. After sending Donald off to school, Charla takes another look in her garage. She notices the candelabra she saw the other day is no longer there. She also takes note of the other items she suspects came from 112 Ocean Avenue – an antique clock with a slightly scratched glass face, and an old leather jewelry box. Finally at wit's end, she decides to call Lt. Steinberg. She tells him about the strange things in her garage and how she is now certain he was right that Donald had continued stealing from the abandoned house. She asks for Steinberg to come speak with her son that evening, and he agrees to stop by her house around 6:30 PM.

 

Early that afternoon, Father Cannon visits Monsignor McConnell in the hospital. After briefly wishing him a speedy recovery, he informs McConnell of the fact the chancery intends to investigate the house on Ocean Avenue. McConnell is quite flustered. Because of the burns and scarring in his mouth and throat, he has great trouble speaking – but he insists with all the force and vigor he can that the idea of demonic activity in the house is nothing but nonsense. He doesn't relent even when informed the police are involved as well. When Father Cannon mentions two boys from McConnell's school had been stealing from the house – and that an item they took was used to kill Silverman - McConnell insists it's some sort of conspiracy to defame him and his institution.

 

McConnell warns Father Cannon that if he proceeds with an official investigation, he will humiliate the church when it is inevitably proven a hoax. It is at this point that Cannon brings up Alice Chambers' involvement in the matter, stating he has read her personnel files. McConnell becomes more enraged, saying Alice is dangerously unstable and that he had been looking to reassign her even before she left the order. Cannon questions his opinion of her, implying he merely resents her for leaving. McConnell threatens to report Cannon for insubordination, but Cannon is not concerned. He gives McConnell a copy of the notes Vito Messato made on the house before he killed himself, suggesting he read it so he can hopefully realize the error in his thinking and help solve the problem instead of denying it. McConnell yells and grunts incomprehensibly at Father Cannon as he leaves.

 

In the library at school, Donald and Lester are sitting together at the same table. Donald reveals to Lester how he had given Sister Bertha a candelabra from 112 Ocean Avenue right before she died. He doesn't bring up the teapot, unaware it was involved in McConnell's injury. Still, he is now convinced – between the candelabra, the auger that killed Leon Silverman, and the watch that killed his own grandmother – that the items from the old house are cursed. Lester is obviously horrified. He doesn't believe Donald's theory, not really – at least, he won't let himself admit he does – but he realizes that even if it isn't true, Donald had intentionally tried to kill Sister Bertha. Lester had always hated her too, but this was several steps too far.

 

The two kids begin a heated argument, catching the attention of the librarian. She smacks Lester's hand with the edge of a ruler, right on the horrible black stain that refuses to go away. When she tries to do the same to Donald, he grabs the ruler and throws it off to the side. She slaps him hard across the face and literally drags him to Monsignor McConnell's office, commanding Lester to accompany them.

 

The librarian and the administrator substituting for McConnell angrily demand to know what it is the two found so important they had to shout about it in the library. Donald remains defiant, but Lester cannot let his actions go unpunished. He explains how they Donald had stolen from 112 Ocean Avenue, and had a “crazy idea” about the items he'd stolen being cursed – though a savage glare from Donald stops him in his tracks before he mentions how he'd given one to Sister Bertha. The administrator declares that McConnell had instructed him that Donald was all out of warnings. He announces he will call his mother immediately and inform her that Donald has been expelled. He warns Lester that he will be punished as well. As the two boys are escorted out of the office, Donald whispers a veiled threat to his former best friend.

 

Just before 6:30 PM that evening, Lt. Steinberg arrives at the Webster house as promised. He rings the doorbell, and after an uncomfortably long wait, Charla opens the door just a crack, peering out with a squinting, bloodshot eye. Her breath is heavy with the scent of alcohol, her words slurred. When Steinberg tells her he has come to speak with Donald, Charla croaks out her miserable reply. “It's too late for talk, Lieutenant. Much too late.” She closes the door and refuses to open it again, even as Steinberg, concerned, continues knocking.

 

Shortly after 8 AM the next morning, Charla calls into her office claiming she will be late to work because she needs to take Donald to the doctor. Donald, of course, is not in fact sick. Her boss tells her that he understands things have been tough with the recent death of her mother, but warns her that a round of layoffs is coming soon. He reminds her she has a meeting that afternoon, and her report has not yet been filed. This, obviously, does little to calm her.

 

After downing a shot for courage, Charla goes to Donald's room to confront him. She says her aunt Candace has agreed to help them return all of the items he stole to the house on 112 Ocean Avenue. Donald is defiant, saying there's no point in returning anything since no one lives there. The two get into a profanity-laced argument which ends with Charla slapping her son across the face, and him locking himself in his bedroom. Charla calls Candace and asks her to come over as soon as possible.

 

The two women load all the stolen items into the trunk of Candace's car. Charla returns to Donald's room and demands for him to come out. She can hear him moving around inside, but he refuses to answer. She continues to pound on the door until suddenly, a hot breeze blows it gently open as if it hadn't been locked at all. She finds Donald sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, his jaw agape, his eyes white and featureless, a hissing sound escaping his throat. Without interrupting the hissing, a voice – not Donald's – intones, “leave us alone.”

 

The boy begins to crawl towards his mother in a series of awkward, jerking motions. Terrified, Charla grabs the hockey stick propped up against the wall by the door. Donald crouches like a predator about to pounce on its prey, and Charla slams the stick down on his back. The boy retreats to the corner of the room, grunting angrily. As he cowers in the corner, face buried in the wall, his normal voice returns, groaning and sniffling as if he is crying. Cautiously, Charla approaches him. “Donald,” she whispers, “is that you?”

 

The boy whips his head around and roars in the deep, booming voice of a demon. His eyes have gone red – not bloodshot, but completely crimson. The boy's body begins to bloat and deform, his skin peeling off and revealing a scaly hide underneath, yellowed fangs growing in his mouth, his hair falling out and dissolving into dust. Black slime oozes from his tear ducts. He lurches toward his mother, his limbs elongating with each movement. Candace yanks her niece out of the room and slams the door shut. The two brace themselves against it as the thing that used to be Donald bangs against it. Each impact is harder than the last, the thing's size and weight rapidly increasing.

 

Just when it seems the door is about to come off its hinges, the pounding stops. After a few tense moments of silence, Donald can be heard screaming in his own voice. Candace, horrified, backs up to the wall of the hallway and slides down into a sitting position, nearly fainting. Charla throws open the door, even as Candace screams to her that she shouldn't. Behind the door, Donald looks human again – but he's terribly contorted, his arms and legs tied in a knot of sorts, his back arched impossibly. He screams in agony as he comes untangled, his bones audibly cracking and popping in and out of place, his face streaked with the dark liquid. As his body finishes its unfurling, the boy falls unconscious.

 

Several minutes later, Charla and Candace are having a heated, terrified argument. Candace wants to call a doctor, a priest, the police – anybody. Charla, on the other hand, insists they proceed with their plan to return the stolen items to the house on Ocean Avenue. She is now convinced the stories of the evil in that house are all true, and that the objects are tainted or cursed somehow, exerting a sinister influence on her son. She is unwilling to wait around for someone else to help and thinks taking the things back to where they came might be their only chance to free her son. Unwilling to leave Donald alone for any length of time, she declares he must come with them.

 

Several hours later, at about 3:15 PM, Candace, Charla, and Donald arrive at 112 Ocean Avenue. They are watched by a police officer in an unmarked car across the street, who takes their photographs with a zoom lens as they enter the house through the unlocked back door with the box of stolen items. Charla instructs Donald to put everything back exactly where he found it. Donald is silent and sullen. Suddenly the door closes behind them. Charla and Candace turn to look at it, and Charla runs to the door, trying and failing to pry it open. Candace, frightened, calls out to her niece. Donald has disappeared, even though neither of them heard him moving anywhere on the creaky old floors.

 

Hearing a noise from the second floor, Charla rushes up the stairs, followed behind by Candace, who is slowed by her age. The extinguished candle from Carr and Steinberg's encounter is still sitting alone in the middle of the hallway. As Candace catches up to her niece, she watches as streams of blood begin to trickle down the walls of the hallway and screams in horror. An unseen force grabs Charla by the foot and begins dragging her down the stairs, away from her aunt. Charla tries to get a hold on the steps, but blood is now gushing out of and over them too, making them too slick to grab. Down on the first floor, she is pulled down the hall to the basement door, which flies open on its own. The force tosses her down the stairs into the cellar, and she finally comes to a stop on its grimy floor with several awful bruises and bleeding wounds.

 

The basement door slams itself shut and the room goes dark, lit only by the dim sunlight through the small, filth-encrusted windows. Faintly, Charla can still hear Candace's terrified screaming all the way up on the second floor. This is soon drowned out by the sound of a roaring fire springing to life in an instant. An orange glow shines out from the open closet door underneath the stairs, and she hears the pained shriek of a child. As she struggles to her feet, the scream mixes with a hissing sound.

 

Suddenly a horribly-burnt arm shoots out from the closet door, grabbing onto the door frame. A charred, blackened boy drags himself out of the closet, sliding along on his stomach. Most of his flesh is seared away. The bones in his legs are exposed, all of the skin and muscle having burned to ash. It is clear that in this state he should already be dead. The boy turns his head to look at Charla. What remains of his face is just barely recognizable as Donald's. He stretches an arm out toward his mother, chunks of hardened, charcoal skin coming loose and falling to the floor. As Charla watches speechlessly, a small, clawed, scale-covered hand grabs Donald's leg and drags him back into the closet. She runs after him and peers into the closet just in time to catch a split-second glimpse of the demon scampering into the tiny hidden red room, disappearing into the flames. The door closes behind it, and Charla blacks out.

 

Hours later, Charla is at the police station being questioned. When she, her aunt, and her son had failed to emerge from the house after almost an hour, the police officer on watch had gone in to look for them. He discovered Charla unconscious in the basement, but could find no sign of Candace or Donald. Charla, in shock and barely able to speak, is unable to say where they could be. She claims to have no idea what happened to her aunt. Of her son, she simply repeats, “it took him from me.”

 

The following day – Friday, November 3rd – Lester is pulled from class to speak with Lt. Steinberg in the Monsignor's office. Steinberg asks Lester when the last time he saw Donald was, and what they had talked about. Lester tells the lieutenant about how Donald had believed the stolen items were cursed, and how he had given one to Sister Bertha before she died. He also confirms he hasn't heard from Donald since. When Steinberg tells him that Donald was last seen entering 112 Ocean Avenue the previous day, Lester becomes very frightened and goes silent for a moment. Finally, weakly, he squeaks out - “Do you believe in haunted houses, officer?” Steinberg can't bring himself to respond.

 

Later that afternoon, Steinberg and the officer who had found Charla in the basement return to the old house to make another search. Obviously anxious, Steinberg convinces the other officer to search inside the house while he checks the surrounding area, including the garage and the boathouse on the river in back. Steinberg discovers nothing out of the ordinary in his search. Inside, the other officer finds all of the items Donald had stolen lined up neatly in front of the living room fireplace. He doesn't remember them being there they day before when he had found Charla. He proceeds to look around the rest of the first floor before descending into the basement.

 

It doesn't take him long to find the closet under the basement stairs, and, once inside, he quickly finds the tiny door in the closet wall as well. Opening it up, he at first sees nothing – but he is overwhelmed by the powerful stench of decay. Shining his flashlight into the cramped compartment, he sees the left wall of the red chamber has begun to crumble. Something beyond the wall reflects the beam of his flashlight – dulled, rusted metal. The officer pulls out his baton and uses it to whack away at the wall, which comes apart easily. As the last of the fragile barrier collapses, he is shocked to find a skeleton hidden behind it.

 

The room, it seems, was originally about a foot wider. In the space sealed off by the added wall are what look, at first glance, to be the bones of a small child. But they are horribly deformed – the teeth are fangs, the limbs too long, the head elongated like a snake's. The skeleton is bound to the wall by rusty shackles around its wrists and ankles.

 

The coroner is called to the scene to examine the remains. He finds traces of fecal matter on the floor of the tiny red room, and removes the skeleton to examine it more closely. He declares it to be human, but more deformed than any he has seen before. The coroner says the child was likely eight to ten years old. He was probably confined to the hidden room and malnourished for his whole life, severely stunting his growth. He estimates the remains date from the early 1900s at the latest, before the house in its current form had even been built on the lot.

 

That night, Alice Chambers has the dream about the strange woman again. She reaches out to Alice, saying nothing. This time, she is not holding the child. But there is still a sadness and a fear in her eyes.

 

There are no developments in the searches for Father Bellini, Donald, or Candace the next day. That night, however, Alice Chambers has another nightmare. She is in her own house, wandering the halls, when she turns the corner into the dining room. There she finds Roy's first wife sitting at the table with her food. Beside her are one-year-old Lester and three-year-old Ellen. None of them acknowledge Alice.

 

Roy walks into the room from the kitchen, carrying two cups of coffee. He places one in front of his wife before sitting down with his own. His wife thanks him for making the coffee while she kept an eye on the children, but he doesn't respond. As she takes a swig, the wife remarks that the coffee tastes strange. Dismissively, Roy suggests she should buy a different brand next time. Alice gasps, and suddenly Roy seems to notice her. He glares straight into her eyes as his wife begins to cough and choke. Alice starts to back away, and Roy's first wife falls out of her chair and collapses onto the floor. The thud of her head on linoleum seems to wake Alice from the dream.

 

The next morning - Sunday, November 5th - a prayer for the safe return of Donald and Candace is held at the mass Lester and his family are attending. This is the first Roy Chambers hears about Donald's disappearance. When the family return home, he interrogates Lester about Donald. Lester finally admits to Roy for the first time about how he and Donald had broken into 112 Ocean Avenue.

 

Roy reaches a state of pure rage beyond anything he has ever experienced. He sends his children to their rooms and escorts Alice to their shared bedroom. There he accuses her of knowing about Lester's activities all along. When she confirms this, he begins attacking her like a wild animal. He punches her, kicks her, and tosses her around. As he throws her to the ground, her arm slams into the corner of a table and her wrist breaks. He kicks out one of her teeth, which she swallows trying to hold in a scream. The beating continues until Roy sees Lester peering in through their cracked-open bedroom door. At this point he chases Lester back into the boy's bedroom. Alice sobs as she listens to Lester, for the first time, screaming and wailing in pain as Roy pummels him.

 

That night, in her dark bathroom lit only by the moonlight streaming through the window, Charla Webster sits in her bathtub sobbing. She's holding a kitchen knife in her right hand, the blade hovering over her wrist. The water filling the tub is still and cold. She presses the serrated edge of the knife to her skin, squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip. For a few tense seconds, she contemplates her actions. Finally, with an angry shout, she tosses the knife across the room. It never hits the floor.

 

“What's the matter, mom?”

It's Donald's voice. Charla turns to see a vision of her son, the way she saw him in the basement of 112 Ocean Avenue – charred to a crisp, a living, moving corpse. His eyes are pure white, contrasting against the blackness of his skin and exposed bone. He is clutching the knife in his hand.

 

“Don't you want to come be with me?”

 

Charla gasps and attempts to climb out of the tub, only to realize the water has turned into thick, sticky black slime. As the specter of her son slowly approaches, tendrils of goo shoot up out of the tub and wrap around her arms, pinning them to the rim of the tub palms-up. She screams and struggles as Donald arrives at her side. Slowly, painfully, he slits his mother's wrists, smiling and hissing all the while. As her blood streams down onto the tiled floor, Charla Webster blacks out. The last thing she sees is the ghastly visage of what was once her son. The knife drops to the floor, and Donald is gone. The water is back to normal. Charla lies still in the bathtub, looking exactly as if she had committed suicide.

 

Meanwhile, Alice Chambers has been hiding away in her sewing room for several hours. She hears Roy walking down the hall and peers out the door to see him enter their bedroom, closing the door behind him. Alice breathes a sigh of relief. Quietly she walks to Lester's room. She'd had the chance to patch him up earlier, but the bandages that cover much of his body are becoming soaked with blood. She tells him she will buy more first thing in the morning. The two embrace, and Lester begins to cry silent tears. Cradling him in her arms, Alice assures him things will get better.

 

After kissing Lester goodnight, Alice heads to the bedroom. Roy is not asleep. He is sitting in bed reading his bible. Hearing her come in, he raises his head and glares at her. His anger has clearly not subsided. “There is no place for a woman who will not stand by her husband in this house I have dedicated to God,” he intones menacingly. For a moment it seems as if he is going to get out of bed. Instead, he places his bible on the nightstand and lies down. He commands his wife to get into bed and turns off the light. Alice climbs into bed slowly in the darkness. As she pulls up the covers, Roy shifts his body away from hers. Alice has just closed her eyes when she is disturbed by a ghastly moan.

 

Reopening her eyes, she sees the woman from her nightmares standing in front of the bedroom door. The phantom moans in pain, clutching at her belly. Her skin is then torn open from the inside, the demon-child emerging and dropping onto the floor in cascade of blood and black liquid. Quickly, the creature begins to grow just as it had when it had chased her out of the house on Ocean Avenue. Soon it is a hulking monstrosity, with crimson eyes, fangs dripping black saliva, and a forked tongue slithering in and out of its gaping mouth.

 

The thing climbs onto the bed, crawling over Roy, its sheer weight crushing his body. It reaches for the nightstand and grabs the belt Lester had brought home from the house on Ocean Avenue, hanging from the drawer handle and still stained with the young boy's blood. The demon wraps the belt around Roy's head, covering his mouth and stifling his screams. Slipping the end through the buckle, the evil thing pulls it tighter, and tighter, and tighter. Roy's skull fractures, his whole head turning bright red, the veins in his eyes swelling and rupturing. With a final pull on the end of the belt, Roy's head caves in, blood erupting out and spilling all over Alice and the bed. Alice shrieks, and Lester comes running. When Lester throws open the door, the woman's ghost and her demon-spawn are nowhere to be seen.

 

The next morning, Monday, November 6th, Lt. Steinberg and Chief Carr pull up to the Chambers house, now an active crime scene. The body bag containing Roy Chambers is wheeled out on a gurney, and the policemen stop to examine it. When the bag is unzipped, Carr nearly vomits. The two proceed inside. Lester and Ellen are bawling as a grief counselor attempts to console them. Alice is asleep in Ellen's bedroom, having been sedated. Steinberg and Carr remark on her injuries, especially the broken wrist. Carr suggests Alice could have murdered Roy in retaliation for the abuse he committed against her and Lester. Steinberg says he doesn't believe she could have been strong enough to crush Roy the way he had been killed even with the use of both hands. When police first arrived on the scene, Alice had been incoherent. They will need to wait for her to wake up before they can hear her explanation of what happened.

 

Lt. Steinberg decides to check in on Charla Webster and is the first to find her body. When the coroner arrives, he quickly rules her death a suicide. Candace and Donald remain, in the eyes of the police, missing.

 

The next day, Roy Chambers' sister arrives from Buffalo to look after Ellen and Lester. As she examines Lester's wounds, she takes note of the strange black stain on his hand. He dismisses it as harmless. Besides, he explains, it has started to fade over the past day. She moves into a motel with the children, not wanting them to stay in the house where their mother and father had both died.

 

Across town, a nun from Saint Alomar is leaving the hospital after visiting Monsignor McConnell. As she exits the building, she is passed by a man entering who she is certain she recognizes. She turns and calls out to him. “Father Bellini? Is that you?” The man continues walking and does not acknowledge her presence.

 

Meanwhile, Alice Chambers has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of her husband. She is being interrogated at the local jail. From behind the two-way mirror, Lt. Steinberg watches. She repeats her story about the demon killing Roy to the interrogator when suddenly she seems to lock eyes with Steinberg, even though she should have no way of seeing him.

 

Early in the afternoon, Father Chiraldi and Father Cannon arrive at 112 Ocean Avenue. The pair enter the house and conduct a search, but they do not see, hear, or feel anything unusual. Cannon is perplexed. Chiraldi, however, has a theory. “In his notes, Vito Messato said his wife had sensed that one of the forces in this house was trying to keep the other contained,” he notes. “If that child was the evil presence – and the police removed its body... what if it got exactly what it wanted?”

 

“And what would that be?” asks Father Cannon.

 

Chiraldi pauses before replying fearfully. “Freedom.”

 

At the hospital, a nurse enters Monsignor McConnell's room peering down at a clipboard. When she looks up at the Monsignor, she finds he has been carved open from his throat down to his groin. His innards are blackened and coated in slime. His eyes remain open, staring in frozen horror at the space beside his bed.

 

The film closes on a shot of 112 Ocean Avenue at sunset. The quarter-moon windows on the third floor reflect the orange glow of twilight, staring into the audience like a pair of leering eyes.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2018 by Xillix

[Xillix]

 

Ultraman

Release Date: July 4th, Y2

Studio: Gold Crescent Pictures

Director: Michael Bay

Theater Count: 3,877

Premium Formats: 3D & IMAX 3D

Shooting Format: 6.5K digital (Arri Alexa 65 with IMAX branding) / 8K Digital (Red Weapon 8K VV) (Some scenes) - In native 3D

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 / 1.90:1 (Some scenes, IMAX version)

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP, 4K DCP, 2K IMAX Digital 3D DCP, 4K IMAX with Laser 3D DCP

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos, IMAX 12-Channel (IMAX with Laser DCPs only)

Production Budget: $170 million

MPAA: PG-13 for fantasy violence, language, and suggestive content

Running Time: 130 minutes

Major Cast: Mark Wahlberg (Pvt. Jacob Wheatley/Ultraman), Amy Adams (Cmdr. Alice Green), Kate Beckinsale (Marissa Wheatley), Josh Hartnett (Pvt. Earl Winslow), William Fichtner (Controller Arvanis), Michael Taber (Ryan Wheatley)

 

Plot Summary: Based on the long-running Japanese television franchise.

Spoiler

 

It is sometime in the not-too-distant future. First contact has been made with aliens, and they are neither friendly nor intelligent. Enormous space monsters of unknown origin appear repeatedly, but infrequently, to terrorize Earth. In response, the United Nations has formed the SSSP (Strategic Scientific Security Program), an international military organization which develops weapons and other technology to battle the monsters and maintains a global force of soldiers reserved for that purpose. One such soldier is new recruit Private Jacob Wheatley (Mark Wahlberg), a former US Marine who was discharged for medical reasons after being badly wounded by a terrorist bomb in the Middle East. No longer able to serve as a footsoldier, he was accepted into the SSSP and trained as a fighter pilot in an advanced laser-firing hyperjet.

 

The film opens as Jacob is on leave, back home in New York City with his concerned wife Marissa (Kate Beckinsale) and rebellious, resentful teenage son Ryan (Michael Taber), who feels Jacob is throwing his life away for personal glory and doesn't care about his family. His leave is canceled when a huge reptilian-looking monster attacks Tokyo and he is called in as part of the reinforcements for the badly-losing SSSP forces. Under the direction of Commander Alice Green (Amy Adams), Jacob's entire squadron is sent into battle. Arriving in the skies over Tokyo with his onboard gunner, Private Earl Winslow (Josh Hartnett), Jacob discovers Tokyo has been almost completely destroyed, with thousands of people unable to evacuate. All the forces which have been sent in to battle this monster so far have been annihilated or forced to retreat. 

 

As they enter the battle, the hyperjet pilots are informed that they are there to provide air support for a classified new weapon. It turns out the "weapon" is a gigantic humanoid mech meant to engage the monster directly on its own level. The fight rages, the hyperjets buzzing around the monster and mech like insects, ineffectually shooting laser beams at the beast and performing dizzying aerial maneuvers to avoid being knocked out of the air. While the jets don't seem to be much help, the mech appears to get the upper hand over the monster. Suddenly, though, the monster retaliates with more force and power than it has ever displayed. It rips off the mech's arms, crushes its guns, and then tears a hole right through the thing's core, ripping out the huge energy cell that powers it. The defeated mech collapses to the ground and the jets are ordered to retreat, but Jacob takes a huge risk and orders Earl to fire their lasers at the energy cell the monster is holding. The cell explodes and vaporizes the monster, and while his fellow pilots cheer him, Jacob winds up in a heap of trouble for his reckless actions, and he and Earl are suspended from the SSSP.

 

Sent back home to be with his family as he awaits a final decision from the SSSP as to his punishment, his wife and son plead for him to resign from the force voluntarily. He refuses, however, insistent that he did the right thing. Ryan is especially hard on him, saying that he didn't know what he was doing and could have caused an explosion that would have destroyed the entire city. Defensively, Jacob replies that the monster would have done just that if he hadn't stopped him. Ryan tears into his father for what he calls his "god complex," saying that "no matter what you may think, you're not a superhero."

 

Over the next month, as Jacob remains on suspension, monster attacks become more and more frequent. Finally the source of the trouble is revealed when a huge space-fortress on the edge of the solar system, commanded by the alien Controller Arvanis (Willaim Fichtner in heavy alien makeup), makes contact with the SSSP. A warmongering alien civilization, the Zetton Empire, have been testing the potential resistance of Earth's civilization. They intend to conquer and colonize Earth, enslaving the human population, and Arvanis has been sent to oversee the operation as the emperor tends to matters in the Zetton home galaxy. The monsters are genetically-engineered warriors created by the Zettonians with DNA harvested from the native species of other conquered planets. Arvanis informs the SSSP that the emperor has granted him more resources for the invasion and that the monsters will continue to come at a quicker and quicker pace, faster than the SSSP can handle them. He offers the governments of Earth one day to formally surrender, an offer which is, of course, refused.

 

Sure enough, the pace of monster attacks increases rapidly and the SSSP is frequently unable to destroy one monster before another arrives in a different part of the world. All suspended soldiers, Jacob and Earl included, are re-enlisted to bolster the SSSP's desperate efforts. The pair, and Commander Alice Green's entire squadron, are sent to Beijing when a birdlike monster attacks. The SSSP notices this monster is behaving differently than the others, as if it's searching for something specific. It seems to sense whatever it's looking for in the rubble at the edge of the city. Making a daring maneuver, Jacob and Earl's hyperjet collides with the monster, with the two ejecting just in time. As they parachute down into the ruins of the city, they drift apart. Jacob has the misfortune of landing right under the monster. As he tries to flee, he stumbles upon a glowing blue gem of some sort.

 

When he touches the gem, he hears a strange voice in his head that tells him to press the stone to his heart. Jacob begins a frenzied, humorous conversation with the voice in the gem, which tells him there is no time to explain, but that he must bond with Jacob if Earth is to be saved. Reluctantly, Jacob obeys. Energy surges out of the gem and into his body as the life essence of a powerful alien warrior merges with his own. Instructed by the voice of the other entity, Jacob transforms into a huge, 150-foot-tall, red-and-silver superhero. With coaching from the voice in his head, Jacob does battle with the monster, discovering that he has super-strength, the ability to fire energy beams and form forcefields with his hands and arms, and the capability of flight. Earl and the rest of the SSSP watch in awe as the giant warrior knocks the monster from the sky, breaking its wings and forcing it into a ground battle.

 

A gem much like the one Jacob found on the ground is embedded in the hero's chest, glowing bright blue. Suddenly, however, it begins to flash red. The voice in Jacob's head informs him that he must finish the fight quickly, as the gem measures their energy levels. Maintaining the superhero form drains their energy quickly, and this is accelerated if they are injured. The red flashing means energy is running low. If they are ever depleted of energy entirely, both Jacob and the alien entity will die, their shared body turning to stone. Jacob manages to kill the monster just in time, reverting to his normal human body in a flash of light. When he is eventually found by other members of the SSSP, he alleges that he was knocked out upon landing and missed the events of the battle completely.

 

The press dubs the giant warrior "Ultraman," and speculation runs rampant as to his identity. The SSSP puts out an open call for the hero to come forward, but the voice in Jacob's head advises him against it. Jacob learns that the entity he has merged with, who has a name which "a human mind could not comprehend" and so allows Jacob to call him "Ultra," is a member of the Space Garrison - an intergalactic peacekeeping organization that has long been at war with the Zetton Empire. Normally existing only as energy that Ultra likens to the idea of a human soul - which, he insists is a silly and unrealistic concept for a carbon-based lifeform - Ultra's race seeks out hosts from species across the universe to allow them to unlock their full warrior forms. He was sent to Earth to find a host in order to battle the Zettonian invasion, and by chance, Jacob is now that host. Jacob asks when the rest of the Space Garrison is coming but is informed there will be no backup. Earth is just one of thousands of planets under assault by not only the Zetton Empire, but countless other evil forces. The Garrison is committed to offering protection to everyone they can, but that means their resources and forces are stretched extremely thin.

 

The next time that Jacob and Earl are deployed, this time to fight a vaguely mantis-esque monster in London, Jacob sneaks away from the hyperjet launch strip, unaware that Commander Green is watching him as he leaves. Earl is assigned a replacement pilot and Jacob transforms into Ultraman, engaging in a vicious but ultimately victorious battle against the monster. Commander Green has a surveillance jet's camera zoom in on Ultraman as he transforms back into Jacob, discovering his identity.

 

Jacob is confronted by Commander Green and does his best to explain, while fully acknowledging he doesn't quite understand all the details either. Thankfully, Green is sympathetic and convinces the higher-ups in the SSSP to cover for him. He is officially transferred to a non-combat role, but is in fact shuttled to and from his battles by an elite, highly-classified team of SSSP scientists who also use the opportunity to study him, though they don't make much progress in that field. There's a montage of Ultraman engaging in a long series of battles all over the world, winning each one. Now deployed to every monster battle on the planet, Jacob doesn't get to see his family at all - which they cannot understand given his highly classified role and their belief he's not even in the battlezones.

 

Eventually - inevitably - a monster, this one resembling a humanoid shark and amphibious, attacks New York City. Once again Ultraman heads into battle, but he is distracted by worrying about his family since they live there. During the fight, the apartment building where his family lives is partially destroyed by the monster. He stops in his tracks to rescue the people inside, including his son Ryan - his wife happened to be out running errands. Unable to fight back as he carefully grabs the people and takes them to safety, he is badly beaten by the monster and his gem starts flashing red. Ultra's voice in his head tells him he needs to finish the fight immediately, but he's worried the collateral damage will kill the fleeing apartment-dwellers. Ultimately, seeing his son looking up to him (literally!) and cheering him on gives him the motivation to take the risk and kill the monster at the last possible second. He is forced to transform back in the middle of the street, in front of the people he rescued. His son goes up and hugs him and apologizes for being a jerk, but Jacob says he understands why he felt the way he did. The people he saved agree not to reveal his identity.

 

A horribly-frustrated Controller Arvanis receives an ultimatum from his emperor - defeat Ultraman and capture him to be used for their monster-making genetic projects, and soon, or else he will be publicly executed for his failure. The emperor sends their most fearsome monster yet to aid in the task; a beetle-esque monster dubbed the Zetton X. The monster is sent directly to the world SSSP headquarters in Rome, launching an attack on the leadership of the program. All the might and technology of the SSSP is unable to harm it. Ultraman enters the battle but is quickly overwhelmed. Large, glowing energy sacs on the monster's abdomen simply absorb all of Ultraman's energy attacks, making the monster stronger and able to retaliate with his own incredibly powerful laser beams. It demonstrates the ability to teleport short distances in flashes of light, disorienting and flanking the hero. Once it has worn down the hero considerably, the Zetton X monster grabs Ultraman and bites him, draining the energy out of his body directly like a vampire. The gem on Ultraman's chest flashes red, but he finds he is unable to transform back into his human body while in the monster's grasp. Just as he is about to pass out, Zetton X freezes him in a crystal prison, trapping him barely alive in suspended animation. The giant crystal shimmers and disappears as it is teleported onto Controller Arvanis' space fortress. Left unopposed, the monster destroys the SSSP headquarters, and several important members of the administration along with countless soldiers, guards, and scientists are killed.

 

On the space fortress, Ultraman is released from his crystal prison but trapped in energy restraints as alien scientists examine him. Controller Arvanis appears personally to gloat, saying Ultraman's DNA will be used to create a monster ten times more powerful than he ever was, which will be used in the final conquest of Earth. But then, in the tradition of big feel-good superhero stories, Ultra - the alien entity - realizes that Jacob's desperation, his love for his planet and his family, and his raw willpower - his "soul," as he finally calls it - is raging, deepening the connection between him and Jacob and serving as a new reserve of energy. Ultraman breaks free of his restraints and rampages through the fortress, gradually destroying it. Controller Arvanis attempts to fight him in a deadly war-machine, but Ultraman manages to destroy the machine and kill Arvanis with little trouble. As the fortress implodes around him, Ultraman transforms into a beam of light and shoots back to Earth like a comet.

 

The Zetton X monster is laying waste to the city of Rome when Ultraman lands in front of him, re-solidifying and launching a powerful blast of energy at the monster. At first it seems the monster has been destroyed, but when the smoke clears, it turns out it managed to absorb this attack as well. The creature metamorphoses into a second, more powerful form, growing wings and thicker armor and taking on a generally more menacing appearance. The battle rages on land and in the sky, with each combatant seeming largely unfazed by the other's attacks. Ultraman lures the monster out of the city, and the fight only intensifies in the mountains. Finally, though, Ultraman manages to puncture and destroy the energy sacs on the monster's body, severely weakening it and leaving it unable to absorb his attacks. A triumphant beam of light from Ultraman's fist vaporizes the monster just as his gem once again begins to blink red. Transforming back into his human form, Jacob collapses onto the ground, his own life-force badly depleted from his efforts.

 

He wakes up two weeks later in an emergency underground SSSP facility, having finally regained enough energy with the aid of the scientists and doctors there. He is told that whatever he did very nearly killed him, and that he would likely not survive doing it again. Thankfully, there has been no sign of further aggression from the Zetton Empire. The scientists confirm that Ultra is still inside of him. Left alone in his room, Jacob converses with the alien entity in his head, asking if his time as a hero is up. Ultra explains that once he has bonded with a host, they are bound for the length of the host's life. He will only be released if Jacob dies while in his human form. Jacob asks if that means he's been drafted into the Space Garrison, and Ultra replies that, technically, he has. However, the policy of the Garrison is that hosts remain on their home planet as often as possible. Ultra says that it's only a matter of time before some other force of evil sets its sights on Earth, but Jacob takes solace in the fact he can go back home to his family. Just as he thinks this, Commander Green enters his room and asks if he's ready for visitors. It turns out she's gotten security clearance for Jacob's wife and son, and they run up and embrace him tearfully as he professes his love and declares he will protect them no matter what.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2018 by Xillix

[Xillix]

American Dragon: Jake Long

Release Date: April 20th, Y2

Studio: Rising Crescent Pictures

Genre: Family/Fantasy/Action

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Theater Count: 3,503

Premium Formats: 3D & IMAX 3D

Shooting Format: Digital 3.4K (Arri Alexa SXT) - Post-converted to 3D

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 / 1.90:1 (Some scenes, IMAX version)

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP, 2K IMAX Digital 3D DCP, 4K IMAX with Laser 3D DCP (Upscaled from 2K master)
Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos, IMAX 12-Channel (IMAX with Laser DCPs only)

Production Budget: $110 million

MPAA Rating: PG for fantasy violence and rude humor

Running Time: 98 minutes

Major Cast: Ryan Potter (Jake), China Anne McClain (Trixie), Ty Simpkins (Spud), Jackie Chan (Lao Shi), Morgan Lily (Rose), Steve Carrell (Professor Rotwood), Kelly Hu (Susan), Liev Schreiber (The Huntsman), Seann William Scott (Jonathan), Steve Buscemi (Fu Dog)

 

Plot Summary: Based on the Disney Channel cartoon.

Spoiler

 

The film opens with an animated sequence, done in a style emulating ancient Chinese painting and calligraphy. It explains how the world today is still full of magic and mythical creatures; they have simply split off from human society as people have become more industrialized and dependent on technology. All around the planet there are communities of magical creatures, most of whom simply want to live in peace. Very few humans know of their existence, and most of those who do are members of the sinister Hunstclan - a group dedicated to slaying all mythical beings. For thousands of years, dragons - who have the ability to take human form - have been revered as the guardians of the peace between the magical and mundane worlds. In each nation on Earth, one dragon from a prestigious bloodline is declared the chief protector of their region. For decades, one of the greatest was the Chinese Dragon Lao Shi Luong. This, we are told, is not his story. Instead, it is the story of his grandson - the world's first American Dragon.

 

After the title sequence and opening credits, we see Jake Long (Ryan Potter), a 16-year-old New York City high school sophomore, during a typical day of classes. On either side of him sit his two best friends, sassy but golden-hearted Trixie Carter (China Anne McClain) and dim-witted but friendly Arthur "Spud" Spudinski (Ty Simpkins). They're listening to a lecture from their mythology teacher, Professor Rotwood (Steve Carrell). Rotwood is regarded by the students - and most of the faculty - as a loon, who fully believes in the existence of every mythological subject he teaches about and has wild conspiracy theories regarding their true natures. The students all laugh at him - most because they "know" magic doesn't exist, and Jake because Rotwood's theories are all completely incorrect. Jake, being a bit of a troublemaker, decides to mock Rotwood by asking him a series of ridiculous questions about dragons, humiliating him further in front of his class as Jake manages to coax more and more absurd statements out of him. Jake winds up getting after-school detention for his troubles.

 

During detention, the principal asks Jake why it is that his grades have been slipping over the past year. He says that he's been going through some major changes lately, with his body and his life outside of school. The principal suggests talking with the school counselor but Jake insists they wouldn't understand.

 

After detention, Jake arrives at the Canal Street Electronics store where he is scolded by its owner - his grandfather Lao Shi (Jackie Chan), whom he calls "Gramps" - for being an hour late to training, saying he needs to take his responsibilities seriously. Jake tries to defend himself by mentioning he'd have been on time if not for his detention, but Lao Shi points out it is his fault he got detention in the first place. Suddenly a second scolding voice chimes in - that of Fu Dog (voice of Steve Buscemi), their intelligent pet Shar Pei who can talk and walk on his hind legs. 

 

The three proceed to the rooftop where they begin their training. With a cry of "Dragon Up," Jake transforms in a burst of flame from a human teen into a red-and-yellow, winged, bipedal dragon. Today he'll be practicing his fire breath. He has trouble conjuring it up when he needs to, ultimately producing a whole lot of smoke and very little flame. Lao Shi, disappointed, says they will need to try again tomorrow since they are already out of time.

 

Back home at dinner, Jake's father Jonathan (Seann William Scott), a normal human who has no idea he married into a family of dragons, notices Jake's frustration and asks him what's wrong. He complains about training and when Jonathan asks what kind of training it is he does with his grandpa anyway, Jake nearly slips up, causing his mother Susan (Kelly Hu) to glare at him in alarm. He hastily claims he is training in "you know, like, electronics stuff." His little sister Hayley, also a dragon, chuckles at his sloppy cover-up.

 

The next day at school during lunch, Jake notices a new transfer student - Rose (Morgan Lily) - who he's instantly taken with. He goes over to flirt with her - despite the advice of Trixie and Spud - but is interrupted while introducing himself by the football team captain, Brad. With all his macho posturing, Brad makes a fool of himself and offends Rose, who decides to move to a different cafeteria table. Brad doesn't get the hint and tries to follow her, and Jake forms his dragon tail, using it to sneakily trip the jock. As he watches Rose walk away, Jake notices that she has a birthmark on her right wrist which looks strikingly like a dragon.

 

Late that night, long after their normal training session, Lao Shi calls Jake and tells him to meet him and Fu Dog in Central Park, where a large number of magical creatures live hidden in secret. Two huge male minotaurs are having a feud because one of their sisters is dating the other, whom the brother doesn't like. Lao Shi says this will be a chance for Jake to practice his mediation skills, which are just as important as his fighting abilities. Jake fails spectacularly in his attempts to make the minotaurs see eye-to-eye, and the situation quickly devolves into a fight that could draw unwanted attention. Transforming into his dragon form, Jake attempts to break things up and at first holds his own against both foes by outmaneuvering them with his agile flight. He becomes overconfident, though, and is eventually knocked out of the air by one of the minotaurs. The beast puts him in a choke hold, and Jake passes out, overwhelmed by the minotaur's horrible body odor.

 

Suddenly, the Huntsclan appears. They are led by the mysterious and deadly Hunstman (Liev Schrieber), who wears a dragon's skull as a helmet and wields a magical scepter. Lao Shi and Fu Dog manage to drag Jake into hiding before they notice him, but the clan is able to capture the minotaurs. Lao Shi himself transforms into a long, blue, Chinese-style dragon. He is badly injured by the Hunstman, who blasts energy orbs from his staff, and a pony-tailed female warrior who the leader refers to as "Huntsgirl" and his niece. Fu Dog manages to rouse Jake just in time for him to swoop in and rescue his grandfather, creating a wall of flame between him and the Huntsclan members and retreating. Returned to his home to rest and heal, Lao Shi warns Jake that the Hunstclan must be up to something unusual. Normally they would have slain the minotaurs on sight, not captured them.

 

The next day at school, Jake manages to start up a conversation with Rose about her dragon birthmark. She says it runs in the family, and that her uncle, who she just moved into the city to live with, also has it. Jake may not be a great student, but he's also not a complete idiot, and this sets alarm bells ringing in his head immediately. To his horror, however, Trixie and Spud arrive and invite Rose to hang out with all three of them that afternoon at the skate park, and she accepts. Though Jake's interactions with her become increasingly awkward thanks to his suspicions, it is clear that Rose has taken quite a liking to him. She drops several hints that she would like Jake to ask her to an upcoming school dance.

 

When Jake tells his grandpa about the situation with Rose, Lao Shi insists that he pursue the relationship in order to try and learn everything he can about her and the Huntsclan. Over the next week, he and Rose begin to spend more and more time in each other's company. He asks about her parents, and she tearfully informs him they died when she was an infant. When asked who she had been living with all this time if she was just now moving in with her uncle, Rose says she was raised by nannies in her uncle's employment, explaining he was a very rich and powerful man. Jake asks if he will meet her uncle one day, but she says he's very secretive - and that he wouldn't like him anyway. In truth, she admits, she's not sure how she feels about him herself. Jake eventually explains some of his family history as well. The bit about his grandfather moving to New York from Hong Kong in the late 1970s catches her attention. Obviously troubled, she asks if his name is Lao Shi. Jake confirms this and asks why it matters, and Rose claims he's someone her uncle once knew.

 

Ultimately, Jake asks Rose out to the dance at the urging of his grandfather. Lao Shi and Fu Dog will spy on the event in case of any Hunstclan involvement. However, when Jake arrives to pick Rose up - on her favorite bridge in Central Park, by her request - he finds her waiting for him as Huntsgirl. The Huntsclan ambushes him, and while he transforms and attempts to fight them off he is ultimately overwhelmed by their numbers as well as the Huntsman's incredible strength and magical attacks. He is captured, and Huntsgirl is ordered to knock him out. She hesitates and the Huntsman does it himself. The Huntsman scolds her as the clan leaves, and she hangs back, looking at a tree and pulling out a blade.

 

Lao Shi and Fu Dog arrive late to the park, after Jake has already been taken, thanks to Fu Dog's sudden need to "do his business" outside. They find a note carved into the bark of a tree by the bridge, informing them that Jake has been taken to the Huntsclan's lair in a series of hidden caves and tunnels beneath the Statue of Liberty. In the lair, Jake awakens inside a magical cage made of unicorn horn, which prevents him from transforming into his dragon form. The Huntsman appears to gloat in clichéd villainous fashion. He reveals the enchanted skull of the first dragon to exist on Earth is buried in the tunnels, and that the Huntsclan plans to use it in a ceremony that will wipe out all magical creatures on the planet. Strong creatures like the minotaurs had been captured and enslaved to help dig it out. Rose had been sent to attend Jake's school because they had discovered the American Dragon was likely a student there; learning he was the grandson of the former Chinese Dragon confirmed it was him. Jake has been captured to be used a sacrifice during the ritual, which requires the blood of a dragon.

 

Unseen, Rose - in her Huntsgirl garb - approaches Jake's cell and stops in the tunnel outside when she sees that the Huntsman is there. Jake asks why the Huntsman had left Rose to live with caretakers until now, and he reveals she is not actually his niece at all. When Hunstclan operatives discover a child has been born with the dragon birthmark, they abduct the infant from the hospital and raise it in their training camps. Those with the birthmark are said to have the greatest power and skill for slaying magical creatures. Rose was led to believe she was related to the Huntsman in order to ensure her loyalty to the clan. Rose begins to cry and runs off.

 

Lao Shi and Fu Dog arrive in the lair just as the ceremony is about to begin. In a huge cavern, the ancient dragon skull has been placed on a sacrificial altar. With the Hunstman leading the ceremony and hundreds of clan members amassed to watch, Jake is hauled out in chains and brought up to be sacrificed. Lao Shi transforms and charges into battle in an attempt to free his grandson, while Fu Dog attempts to provide comedic distraction. The elderly dragon is obviously outmatched, but in the chaos, Rose manages to free Jake. Jake transforms, and he, Lao Shi, and Rose begin to turn the tide of battle. Still uttering the magic incantation, the Huntsman fights furiously to protect himself and the skull, the power in his birthmark merging with the mystical energies of the artifact, transforming him into a demonic monster. The three are unable to overcome him in battle, but Rose manages to distract him just long enough for Jake to knock the skull out of his hand. The artifact drops to the ground and shatters, releasing all of its magic at once. The botched incantation corrupts it, and a tide of purple energy surges through the cavern. Our heroes manage to escape, Jake stopping to carry out Rose, who had planned to sacrifice herself and stay behind. The energy wave turns the Huntsman and the members of his clan to stone.

 

In the aftermath, Rose feels devastated by everything that has happened, and extremely guilty for her lifetime of service to the Huntsclan. She is also depressed that the only family she's ever known is gone. Jake says he cares about her, and that she clearly cares about him, so in a way, they are family now. She did the right thing and now her life belongs to her. Lao Shi says he has contacts in the magical community who will take her in so she has a place to live, and while Rose is worried she won't be accepted, she reluctantly accepts with no other choice. Jake suggests she could use her skills and knowledge of magical creatures to help him defend the peace, but she isn't sure she's ready to take such an important step, nor that the magical creatures would trust her enough. 

 

As Jake comforts her, Fu Dog, ever the goof, starts playing sappy romantic music. He and Lao Shi leave the two teenagers alone, and Jake says they can worry about the future tomorrow. He asks her to dance, and the movie ends on them slow-dancing and going in for a kiss.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Xillix

[Xillix]

((Delayed to Y3))

Edited December 18, 2017 by Xillix

[cookie]

Timmy's Winter Vacation 2

 

Studio: Fine Films Inc.
Genre: Family/Adventure
Director: John Schultz
Producer: Eod Nohj
Bugdet: $20m
Release Date: January 19th
Theater Count: 3,109
Rating: PG
Runtime: 87 minutes (1 hour, 27 minutes)
Cast: Same cast as the first film

Previous Film's Gross (DOM/WW): $56,820,348 / $87,517,947

 

 

 

It's been one year since Timmy won the affection of his crush after completing the skiing challenge. However, in the opening the girl moves out of town and Timmy is obviously a bit upset about it. To cope he goes skiing on a small hill nearby even if it's nothing like the ski slopes from last time. During a skiing session though he comes across Wilson again from last time, and Wilson asks him how he's been doing since last they saw. Timmy tells him it's been up and down, his crush has left town and his mom and dad are starting to drift apart for reasons he himself can't really comprehend. It's been stressing him out and it's hurt his performance in school. Wilson says he's sorry and leaves. Timmy decides to follow after him though just to see where he's from (since he never found that out in the last movie) and sees Wilson walking into the woods and disappearing behind a rock. Confused, Timmy scours the place only to find nothing. He goes home where we see him interacting with his family (where there's clear animosity between his mother and father). Later that evening Timmy finds out his mom and dad are planning to separate and that makes him sad. The next day we see him skiing in the tiny slope again, now in a downer mood, and Wilson appears again. Timmy tells him about the situation between his parents and Wilson again apologizes before leaving. This time Timmy watches him more closely and discovers that Wilson enters an invisible house. He catches Wilson in the act and Wilson is shocked he's been found out, but since Timmy's a friend he asks him to promise not to tell anyone. Wilson reveals that he is a "Time Hopper", an inter-dimensional being that uses his house as a dimension/time-hopping machine and he travels between places and times. He and many other Time Hoppers have a sworn duty to keep the universe in balance but must not interfere in the time stream for else it can pull in its seams. Timmy, oblivious to what Wilson just said, asks if they can use the house to travel back to before his crush left town so he can try and convince her to stay. Wilson repeats what he just said and says it's out of the question, and asks Timmy to leave and forget he ever saw him or the house. But because Wilson is as stupid as rocks, Timmy deceives him which results in Wilson being locked out of the house and Timmy uses its functions to travel back in time without him.

 

Timmy travels back to the point just before his girlfriend leaves and makes his way up to her and manages to convince her and her family to stay, which pleases Timmy. Timmy lets the rest of time play out and we're back in the present where now Timmy's girlfriend is still around and his parents are still together. However, he starts noticing that the world around him is starting to act strange: Timmy is blamed for tossing a rock through a neighbor's window even though he has no recollection of doing that, neighborhood pets are starting to act in strange ways and in one scene a car is randomly phasing through another. The time displacement starts escalating and soon Timmy finds himself in a world that while it looks like his own it isn't familiar to him at all. No one seems to know who he is, not even his immediate family and all sorts of strange things start happening. Timmy realizes he maybe should've listened to Wilson and goes back to the invisible house to travel back and set things right (even if it means losing his girlfriend) but as he's about to do that a portal opens and he and the house are sucked into it. Timmy reemerges on the other side of the portal where he's brought before the Time Council, a council of Time Hoppers who all happen to be reindeer. The reindeer tell Timmy that since he's messed with things he's not supposed to the council is sentencing him to eternal imprisonment in the dark edge of the universe. Timmy pleads to them, saying he's just a kid and didn't know what he was getting into, but the reindeer don't buy it. Suddenly Wilson appears and frees Timmy by causing chaos inside the council (this includes among other things dropping berries all over the place which attract the reindeer).

 

Once they escape Wilson explains to Timmy that he had a backup time machine and had been chasing him through time for a while, only locating him when he was brought to the Time Council. He tells Timmy that the two are going to travel back to the point where Timmy messed up the time strain and set things right before all of time collapses in on itself. This makes Timmy realize something he should've thought of long before: if Wilson says it's forbidden to mess with the natural flow of time, why did Wilson help him out in the skiing competition last year, and how come all the Time Hoppers in the council were reindeer and he was the only human there? Wilson is silent for a moment, before turning on Timmy revealing that he had lied to him this whole time: he's not a Time Hopper, in fact there are no human Time Hoppers (they're all reindeer). He had killed a reindeer Time Hopper and stolen the machine from him, and since he hates what the world has become he goes through time and tries to create scenarios that weren't supposed to happen in hope that the time strain would be so messed up that it would collapse in on itself. This includes helping Timmy win the skiing race last year when the flow of time suggested he wasn't supposed to. However for some reason all his attempts to make time collapse in of itself have been a failure, for regardless of what he does it seems to have no ill effect on the time flow. It is here where Timmy realizes that Wilson's actions HAVE made an effect on the time flow; namely that karma has afflicted Timmy with his girlfriend leaving and his parents separating for reasons he cannot comprehend. What Timmy did however was upset said correction so time is taking more drastic means to fix itself and that is what's causing it to fall apart. Wilson says he won't let Timmy go back and fix things (in fact he was taking Timmy to a few seconds ahead in time from where Timmy first changed the time flow so he couldn't stop himself) and in his mind time should collapse. Wilson tries to grab Timmy but Timmy outsmarts him and knocks him out with a hockey stick.

 

Timmy sets the machine on the point where his girlfriend was about to leave town, and he notices that he doesn't have a whole lot of time left since the strain of time is starting to collapse in of itself. He travels back to the point where he messed things up and tackles himself before his past self can convince the girl to stay. He duplicate Timmy's argue back and forth for a bit but future Timmy tells past Timmy that it isn't worth it, no amount of pleading and messing with time is going to change things and they both just have to accept the inevitable. The girl leaves without noticing either of the two Timmy's but this doesn't seem to fix anything, in fact the entire universe continues to collapse on itself. The universe goes black before Timmy wakes up in his bed. He sighs in relief for it turns out the whole thing had been a dream. A comic titled "The Man Who Displaced Time" is seen lying on his desk. His parents are arguing outside his room, and he walks out to confront the two of them. He hugs them both, saying that he hopes they can work things out. His parents stop arguing and tell him that no matter what happens they'll still love him and everything's going to be alright. A little while later he makes contact with his crush over Facebook and the girl tells him that even if they're ways apart they can still keep contact, and Timmy agrees. In the film's last scene, Timmy seemingly spots Wilson walking past his house, but convinces himself it is just a mirage. We pan over to Wilson who smiles and walks away before the movie ends.
 

 

Edited October 31, 2017 by cookie

[Xillix]

Torrential

Release Date: March 9th, Y2

Studio: Gold Crescent Pictures

Genre: Disaster

Director: Roar Uthaug

Theater Count: 3,395

Premium Formats: 3D & IMAX 3D

Shooting Format: Digital 8K (Red Epic-W as primary, Red Weapon 8K VV for select scenes) - In native 3D

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 / 1.90:1 (Entire film, IMAX version)

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP, 4K DCP, 2K IMAX Digital 3D DCP, 4K IMAX with Laser 3D DCP

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos, IMAX 12-Channel (IMAX with Laser DCPs only)

Production Budget: $60 million

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for peril, blood, and language

Running Time: 92 minutes

Major Cast: Norman Reedus (John), Jennifer Garner (Kelly), Nick Robinson (Carter), Ciara Hanna (Lindsey), Vernon Wells (Father Price), Kevin Costner (Mayor Bloom)

 

Plot Summary:

 

Spoiler

 

The small town of Riverbank, Wyoming sits just a few miles downstream from a major dam. For years there has been a dispute between the local and state governments on who is responsible for paying to maintain the dam. The town's corrupt mayor, Montgomery Bloom (Kevin Costner), refuses to budge during negotiations, and the structure is allowed to degrade. This, of course, turns out to be a problem when the area experiences a torrential downpour from a major storm system that lasts for several days. The town, with its mostly flat terrain, has been flooded by the river many times before. As was the case in those events, the kindly local priest Father Price (Vernon Wells) invites members of the community to shelter in his church, which is on slightly higher ground.

 

As the storm continues and the river begins to overflow, even with the strained dam attempting to control things, the Meier family - father John (Norman Reedus), mother Kelly (Jennifer Garner), and teenage son Carter (Nick Robinson) - make plans to meet at the church. However, when hours pass without their son showing up as the water continues to rise, John and Kelly go out looking for him. They find him back at their house in his second-floor bedroom, making out with his girlfriend Lindsey (Ciara Hanna). Lindsey is a troublemaker who's been grounded and forbidden from seeing Carter ever since being caught shoplifting.

 

As Carter's parents confront the couple, the dam bursts. A huge wall of water surges into town. Back at the church where over a hundred people are gathered, Father Price is leading a prayer when his voice is drowned out by the roar of the rushing water. The parishioners panic and run for the exits, the chaotic stampede quickly devolving into people climbing over the pews and trampling those who've fallen in the aisle. It's all for naught, of course, as the wave is impossible to outrun. Father Price turns away and prays quietly to himself, and in the movie's biggest "money shot," the fifteen-foot surge of filthy floodwater smashes through the ornate stained glass window at the front of the church and sweeps him and the churchgoers away, rushing water and shards of glass flying out into the audience.

 

The water quickly overtakes the entire town. The Meiers and Lindsey are still on the second floor when the surge slams into the house. As the bottom floor fills with water that keeps on rising up the stairs, the four make a desperate escape out the window to climb onto their roof. From the top of their house they are devastated to see the whole town is covered in ten or more feet of water, including the church. Bodies of the dead worshipers float by their house. One, barely alive, reaches out for help, but they cannot reach her.

 

The Meier house is old and sustained severe structural damage from the impact of the water. It begins to collapse beneath them, and they are forced to jump off and try to swim for it. The current is too strong to fight and they are washed away to downtown, where a live power line has been downed by high winds. They float towards it, but manage to grab onto the fire escape of the three-story town hall building just in time. Climbing into the building, they find Mayor Bloom unharmed, holed up in his third-floor office. A furious John blames him for the likely hundreds of deaths caused by the failure of the dam he refused to maintain. Bloom says he was trying to do what was best for the town and that if they'd paid for the dam taxes would have gone way up. The family accuses him of caring more about his re-election chances than the townspeople's safety. 

 

Outside, the storm is growing in intensity as night falls. A nearby multi-story home that had so far survived is washed off of its foundation and collides with town hall. There is a family trapped inside on the top floor. The Meiers and Lindsey scramble to rescue them while Mayor Bloom cowers. The screaming of both families finally convinces Bloom to approach and try to help. There is a small child in the other house refusing to come out. After a bare minimum of effort, Bloom panics and gives up. He loses his footing and falls into the water. As the house shifts, he swims out of the way to avoid being crushed between the two buildings. However, he can't fight the current and is swept right toward the downed power line and electrocuted to death.

 

The house continues shifting and is about to float away. Lindsey makes a daring rescue and manages to pull the child out, but falls into the water while handing him over. Her leg becomes tangled on a cable and she is dragged underwater. The Meiers manage to get her out just before the house drifts off, but she's not breathing. John tries CPR but she won't start breathing again. He gives up, but Carter takes over and manages to save her.

 

Eventually, as the storm weakens, rescue teams arrive and airlift the survivors out of town. Most of the buildings are irreparably damaged. The Meiers note they need to find a new place to live, and Carter jokingly suggests the top of a mountain.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2017 by Xillix

[ChD]

To The Moon

 

Director: Pete Docter

Genre: Animation/Drama/Science Fiction

Release Date: July 6

Major Cast:

Tom Hanks as Johnny Wyles

Rachel McAdams as River Wyles

Zoe Saldana as Dr. Eva Rosalene

Jeremy Renner as Dr. Neil Watson

Theater Count: 4,055

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 130

Production Budget: $175M

Plot Summary:

 

 

 

We fade in to see a clear night sky, the full moon clearly visible, along a multitude of stars. We may or may not notice that there are a few stars around the moon that stand out - they shine brighter - forming a rabbit with the moon representing its tummy.

 

The camera moves backwards until it ends up behind a bench, on a cliff next to the ocean. The bench is placed nearby an abandoned lighthouse. We can hear the waves crashing against the base of the cliff. There are two people sitting on that bench: a young man and a young red-headed girl. They are standing in silence, just holding hands.

We then fade to different shots. It becomes obvious after a few moments that they are growing older, but despite time passing, they always sit on that bench, holding hands. At one point, the woman disappears from the man's side, and a tombstone appears right next to the lighthouse.

The shots progress, the man becoming older and older, until a young woman appears by his side. We stop. They are both looking in the distance. She turns towards him and asks him something that we cannot make out. A few moments pass, and he nods slowly. She nods back, stands up and leaves him.

A few moments later, the man stands up and heads over to the tombstone. He sits next to the grave, placing a hand on it, and starts crying.

In the next shot, we find ourselves on the very same cliff, in front of a tall and beautiful two story house with a magnificently multicolored garden in front of it, situated next to a small forest. The sound of ocean waves and birds singing fill the surrounding, making this place seem like a small paradise.

Two people are walking toward the house on the gravel path that originates from beyond the forest. These two people are Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, the latter struggling to carry a rather large metalic suitcase. While Neil is constantly complaining about the weight of that suitcase, Eva is looking around, mesmerized by the place.

After snapping at Neil and telling him to stop moaning, Eva approaches the door and knocks. A young woman answers and lets them in after them introducing themselves as being employees of Sigmund Corp., an agency that uses technology to build artificial memories for people on their deathbed, so when they die, they do it with their wishes fulfilled, although in real life they never did fulfill them.

The young woman introduced herself as Lily, Johnny's caretaker. They asked her a few questions about Johnny, but she admitted that even though she was living with him, since her job required her to do so, she didn't know much about Johnny because he was a very private person.

All she knew was that Johnny Wyles is an old and retired widower who lost his wife a few years back, and who came to the realization that his time was coming too and he never managed to do the one thing he always dreamed of: go to the moon.

Because artificial memories would start a conflict with the patient's real memories when they woke up, this procedure needed to be done with the patient having not much time left, so when Neil and Eva arrived at Johnny's house, Johnny was already on his death bed, constantly watched by a nurse.

Dr. Eva decided to start setting up the machine upstairs and asked Neil to look for mementos. She leaves, and Lily asks Neil what these mementos were supposed to be so Neil explains that they need to use objects that link two of Johnny's memories between them, making travelling between them possible. They only needed real mementos at the beginning because once they entered his latest accesible memory, they could get the mementos from there, making it easier to travel between them. She asks Neil if he needs any help, which he kindly refuses.

Neil proceeds to check the house, but finds nothing interesting until he ends up in the basement, in front of a locked door. He tries opening the door forcefully, but then settles for heading back upstairs and asking Lily for the key. She hands him and key and he heads back downstairs.

He enters the room, turns on the light to reveal that the entire room was filled with paper folded rabbits. They were simply everywhere  - the floor, on the table, on the chairs around the table. What stood out in the room was a toy platypus that was on the ground next to one of the chairs. He takes one paper rabbit and the platypus and heads out.

When he reached upstairs, he stumbled into Lily's children, who were playing the piano. They notice the rabbit and platypus in Neil's hands and ask him why he entered that room. Neil asks from where these paper rabbits came and they say they were in that room since before they moved there and that there are more in the nearby lighthouse.

Neil nods and heads towards the lighthouse. He notices a tombstone next to the house. Neil checks it out and sees it simply read "In memory of River Wyles", so Neil assumes this is where Johnny's wife is burried. He enters the lighthouse and notices that it's in an extremely good shape for an abandoned light house - like someone took care of it.

Upstairs, he finds more rabbits, but one of them stands out simply because it was made out of multicolored paper while the other rabbits were made of white paper. He takes it and heads back to the house.

The plan was to enter Johnny's latest accesible memory and talk to his projection. They want to ask him why exactly he wanted to go to the moon and when that desire started. Using that information, they can do their job.

His latest accesible memory was him sitting on the bench with Lily, watching the sunset. Neil and Eva talk to his projection and they already encountered a problem - Johnny does not know why he wanted to go the moon, which means they have to gradually walk backwards through his memories and see when and why that desire started, then make the necesarry changes.

They collected the mementos as they always do before doing another jump.

The first leap backwards sent them to a more recent memory. It was a rainy day and Johnny was outside, talking to River's tombstone. He kept mentioning someone named 'Anya' and that he decided to take care of her just like River always wanted to, even though he did not understand why. Johnny expressed his worry that once he was gone, there would be no one around to watch over her.

Even thought they weren't supposed to watch the memories, Neil was rather curious about Johnny's story after the discoveries he made while looking for mementos earlier. Despite Eva trying to convince him not to do that, Neil was stubborn and convinced her as well.

The next leap backwards sent them in Johnny's bedroom, where River lay in the bed, looking very ill. Her hair was a bright red. Next to her in the bed was the toy platypus Neil had found. The bedroom was also filled with paper rabbits, just like the ones Neil found in the basement room and the lighthouse.

River called Johnny, who came upstairs in a hurry. He went over to her and she handed him the multicolored paper rabbit. She looks at him, tears in her eyes, and weakily asked if he remembered now, but Johnny looked at her, confused, and then slowly shook his head. She forced a smile and asked him if he could play that song on the piano because it helped her relax.

He smiled and nodded. He sits at the piano and starts playing the song. Neil immediately recognized the song as being the one Lily's kids were playing earlier in the living room. He went behind Johnny and looked at the sheet - the song was named "For River".

The next leap sent them to the light house. They look around the area and notice that the house wasn't finished, but under construction. They found Johnny resting outside the house talking to one of his friends, Isabelle. He admits that he is worried about River's condition and the fact that they don't have enough money for her treatment and to finish the house. He mentions considering lying to River by telling her that they had enough for both.

Isabelle warns him that it is not a good idea to lie to River, and that it was better to tell her the truth. Johnny snaps and tells her that he has the right to be selfish for once in his entire life. He wants to keep River alive because he knew that she would choose the house over her own treatment, and she would end up dying. He stands up and heads back to work.

The next jump sent them next to the light house, where they found Johnny and River reading the note that says the light house had been abandoned and was out of function. River is sad that the light house had been abandoned, but Johnny told her that with their situation being stable, they could move here and watch over her every day.

The next jump sent them in Johnny's bedroom. Johnny wakes up and finds a paper rabbit in the middle of the room, on the floor. He takes it and looks at it before starting to look for River. He finds her in the room where Neil found all the rabbits. She is folding paper rabbits. Johnny asked her if she cut her hair - which she had - but she ignores him and continues making paper rabbits, like she is hypnotized.

Neil and Eva got to the conclusion that this was probably the day when River started acting weirdly.

The next leap sent them to a memory where Johnny and River are sitting on a log next to the light house. River asks Johnny if that is really the reason why he approached her back then, and Johnny admits that it was and that he told her because Isabelle said it was a bad idea to keep it a secret.

The next jump sent them in a pub where Johnny, Isabelle and another friend of Johnny's are sitting at a table and talking about River. Johnny mentions that even when they are in the same room, she isn't quite 'there'. She's very absent all the time.

Johnny asks Isabelle what the matter with River is, to which Isabelle says that even though they have the same condition, that doesn't mean they are the same person for her to know what's going on with River. Johnny agrees with her, stating that Isabelle is more normal compared to River. Isabelle claims that she actually envies River, but also pities her for being different. In the end Isabelle changes her mind and claims that she only envies River because she was herself, while she was diagnosed when she was a child and acted being normal. She's been an actress her entire life, and right now, her normal self got lost somewhere deep within her.

Another jump sends them next to the lighthouse, on a quiet evening. Johnny and River are both sitting on the ground in silence, their backs against the lighthouse, holding hands. A few moments pass before Johnny breaks the silence and asks River if she feels any different now that they have rings on their fingers. River smiles and shakes her head, then asks Johnny if he does. He says he does, but he believes that it's probably just the responsibilities that are coming towards them right now that make him feel different.

Johnny then asks River what she thinks about the name 'Anya'. River looks at him and asks if he wants to name her like that, to which he says yes. She happily kisses him on the cheek and rests her head against his shoulder, saying that Anya is a great name.

Johnny takes her hand and they go into the lighthouse, going all the way to the top, where they proceed to dance through the night, until the sun starts rising from beyond the horizon. At sunrise, they headed downstairs, said their vows and they were officially married.

Thinking that they saw the most important part of the memory, Neil and Eva start looking around the place for mementos. The area is filled with tables and sharply dressed people. As they look around, they stumble upon Johnny and his mother, who keeps calling him Joey. Nick finally asks Johnny why his mother is calling him Joey, to which Johnny says that Joey was his grandfather's name, and since he died, his mother liked to call him that.

Neil and Eva resume their search for mementos and end up nearby a road. They see River there, looking at Johnny as he walks to the middle of the road to check up on a rabbit that had been hit by a car. He sadly returns to River and tells her that the rabbit is dead.

Neil and Eva start suspecting that this might be the reason she started making all the paper rabbits, but they quickly dismiss the idea because it seems abnormal to obsess over some random road kill, especially after so many years of it happening.

Having found the mementos, they proceed to jump again, ending up where they left off - the middle of the road. There's another dead rabbit. They then realize that they're next to a ranch and see River and Johnny. They head to where they were to see Johnny helping river up on her horse, and then getting up on his. They start riding the horses around the place. Eva suggests that they follow him, but Neil insists that he does not like horses and wants to stay as far away from them as possible. He suggests that they just look for the mementos and leave as far as possible, to which Eva reluctantly agreed.

Another jump sent them to a waiting room. There is no sign of River or Johnny, so they enter the doctors office, where they find both of them. River is sitting down, shocked, while Johnny listens to the doctor, who explains River's condition to him. He says that if she would have been diagnosed as a kid, she wouldn't have to worry now. He recommends them a book and asks if there are any problems with their relationship, to which River instantly answers with a solid 'no'. The doctor's last recommendation is equine therapy. He tells them there's a small ranch nearby, just north of his office.

They both move into the waiting room. River sits down and Johnny asks the assistant to silence the clock ticking because it is bothering River. Despite River stating that it did not bother her, the assistant mutes the clock.

The next jump sends Eva and Neil in a movie theater. They are sitting in the row behind Johnny. Neil quickly comments on the movie being extremely stupid and asks himself how anyone could pay a ticket to see this. Eva, ignoring Neil, pays attention to Johnny and notices that he is very sad. Only a few moments pass before Johnny stands up and leaves.

Eva drags Neil out of the movie to follow Johnny. They find him outside, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. Eva tries to come up with theories as to what happened, but Neil simply states that he probably had been stood up by someone.

Knowing too well that this place is too strange for Johnny to use mementos, Neil and Eva arrive to the conclusion that in order to progress, they need to get something from Johnny to use as memento, which means they will have to be visible. Just as they are about to proceed, River exits the theater, looking around. She notices Johnny.

She walks over to Johnny and sits down next to him. Johnny asks her where she had been the whole time, to which River says that she was in the theater, watching the movie. She says they were watching the movie together and then he just got up and left for no reason. Johnny says that it isn't true, since they were not watching the movie together. River says that they were in the same room, watching the same movie at the same time, meaning that they were watching it together. River takes Johnny's hand and they both enter the theater, with Eva and Neil closely behind. They notice River's toy platypus, which they grab to use as a memento to travel further back.

This jump brought them to the school where Johnny and River went together. They see River sitting on the stairs, next to her toy platypus. She is reading a book about lighthouses. Johnny is just around the corner, talking to Nick, who is trying to convince Johnny to go and ask River out. Despite Johnny insisting that he did not want to, Nick pushes him towards River forcefully. Awkwardly, Johnny manages to ask her out for a movie.

Neil and Eva proceed to start looking for mementos. After a while, they end up in the school cafeteria, where they find Johnny, Nick and Isabelle sitting at a table, talking about River, who is a few tables away, eating alone. Nick is making fun of River's weirdness while Johnny is defending her. Nick asks what Johnny sees in her, to which Johnny replies that she is different and that's why he wants to be together with her. He just doesn't want to be another typical kid in another typical sea of people.

Isabelle suggests that Johnny wants River for what she has, not for she was. Johnny admits that, saying that he has everything under control. The memory ends with Nick admitting that what he said was cold, even for him.

The next memory features Johnny waking up as his mother enters his bedroom. She helps him off of his bunk bed and tells him she's going to work and that he should lock the door behind. She kisses him on the cheek and leaves for work, with Johnny leaving for school shortly afterwards.

After getting all the mementos, they proceed to jump to another of Johnny's memories, but they are greeted by a very unpleasant surprise. For some unknown reason, Johnny's memories are breaking down, making Neil and Eva unable to travel further. They have no other solution but to leave his memories and try to re-form them.

They exit his memories and then link the memories in the machine. They send the desire to become an astronaut, hoping it would have effect, and then they enter Johnny's latest memory, where there is supposed to be a change...

But there isn't.

Eva and Neil realize that this means they have to get access to Johnny's earlier memories. They just lack a way to do that. After some thinking, Eva comes up with another solution: maybe in order for him to become an astronaut, he needs provoking.

They enter his memories again and start putting up subliminal things that could make Johnny wish to become an astronaut. They change the movie he saw with River to a movie about the moon. They disguise themselves as people from NASA and go to Johnny's school, where they talk about missions and how they want to recruit people. They try numerous other things, but not a single one work.

After all this, they decide to take a break until the next morning, hoping that Johnny would last until then.

Eva goes to sleep while Neil stays on the phone with his boss all night long. Eva wakes up the next morning and finds Neil in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He looks tired. He says he spent the whole night up trying to find a solution, and mentions that there's something that they did not know at the beginning, something hidden. Johnny apparently has hidden medical records. Neil hands Eva the file and she starts looking through it. When Johnny was young, he used to take enhanced beta blockers, even though he didn't have a heart condition. Neil then explains that beta blockers have a certain side effect on memories, and that is why they can not access them.

Eva admits to being confused as to why Johnny would take beta blockers and wonders if the memories were the main reason for him to take those beta blockers. Neil says that they need to do their job and that he will reconfigure the machine so it would enter the memories that are under the effect of beta blockers.

They try again, this time successfully accesing his memories. They are on the street, in front of Johnny's childhood house. They look around and see two versions of Johnny running around the street. Neil mentions that the memories are probably overlapped because of the beta blockers.

They see Johnny's mother talk to the baby sitter and then gets in her car, mentioning that she is late for work. She starts backing out off the drive way and Neil and Eva have to watch in horror how Johnny, who is playing ball in the street, is hit by the car. They both run over to Johnny and then Neil realizes something: how can he see this memory if he is unconscious?

Neil didn't even get to finish his thought. Johnny appears from behind the house and runs toward the little boy that looks exactly like him. In tears, he falls on his knees and asks his mother why she hit Joey.

Neil stared blankly at everything, confused and shocked at the same time. Eva comes up next to him and softly tells him that Johnny had a twin brother and that she suspected it when she saw that Johnny had a bulk bed in his room.

Neil, still shocked at what he saw, proceeds to just skip through the memories, not wanting to see anything from them. They take numerous jumps and end up at the memory where Johnny meets River.
Neil stopped at this moment, saying that this memory must be important and that they need to check it.

Johnny and Joey, together with their mother, are at a festival that takes place on the same cliff where Johnny would eventually build his house on and live with River. They have lots of fun and when it got dark, Johnny asks his mother if she would let him go watch the stars. She says he can, so he goes at the edge of the cliff, where he sits down and looks up at the stars.

He hears someone approach from behind, and when he turns around he sees a young short and red-headed girl. She wants to turn around and leave, saying that Johnny was on her spot while doing so, but he stops her and tells her they could star gaze together.

They get along really well. While star gazing, they identify a bunny through the starts, the moon representing its tummy. Johnny asks River what she really thinks the stars are. She shyly says that she thinks they are light houses, stuck at the far end of the sky.

When Johnny's mother calls for him to leave, he gets up and asks River if she will be here next year. She says she will. Johnny asks what would happen if for some reason she wouldn't be there. She laughs and points at the moon, saying they would meet on the rabbit's tummy.

This is when both Neil and Eva realize what they have to do in order to make Johnny want to go to the moon: they have to remove River from his memories.

Neil starts protesting against that, saying that it was not worth it because they clearly saw from his memories: River was Johnny's life, and it would be too brutal to just remove her. Eva says that it is their job and that they have to do it. Neil says that she is always the more heartfelt person from the two of them: she has to see that he would lose more than he would gain. She says she understands where he's coming from, but she insists on having to do their job. Neil's voice cracks as he tries to argue against, but Eva apologizes as she grabs Neil and teleports him to another memory.

Alone, she finds River. She is ready to press the button and remove her from Johnny's memories. She stops, thinking about it. She hears Neil teleport back to this memory, yelling at her not to do it. Eva tears up as she whispers 'I'm sorry' and presses the button. Neil arrives next to Eva in time to watch River fade out.

Eva collapses and starts crying. Neil grabs her and they exit Johnny's memories. As protocol states, they have to stay with the patient until he dies so they would know the work was done. As soon as they exited his memories, Neil takes of his helmet and walks out of the house.

Neil goes to the bench next to River's tombstone. He takes a good look at the tombstone and smiles a sad smile. He looks up at the moon and is surprised to see the rabbit Johnny and River saw as well. Hours go by as he sits on that bench, looking at the stars. The sun starts showing up from behind the horizon when soft footsteps approach him. Neil did not turn around to see who it is. Eva sits down next to him, covered with a blanket, and rests her head against his shoulder. She tells Nick that Johnny had passed a few moments ago.

We now see the outcome of Johnny's life with the desire of him becoming an astronaut. At school, when Johnny is asked by a teacher what he wants to become when he grows up, Johnny enthusiastically replies with "Astronaut!"

The original song starts playing at this point.

What follows is numerous scenes of Johnny studying hard and sending letter after letter to NASA to be accepted as an astronaut. We see him progressively growing up as he keeps sending those letters, becoming sadder every time he sent one and did not get a reply.

Then he gets a letter back. He has been accepted. We see him celebrate together with his mother, who congratulates him.

The next scene features him going to the NASA headquarter. He goes through the training to become an astronaut. The announcements that he will take part in a mission to the moon follows.

Before the launch, he is in a relaxation room at the headquarters. He sees a piano and sits down. He starts playing a song we know and have heard before... "For River".

We see him board the rocket. The rocket takes off and we see that Neil and Eva are on a bridge, in the distance, watching the take off. We then get a shot of him in the rocket, looking out the window at the moon as it approaches quicker and quicker.

At that point, the screen fades to black as the original song comes to an end, and the last thing we hear is Johnny exclaiming "Houston, I'm on the moon!"

The End.
 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2017 by ChD

[Ezen Baklattan]

No Despair.

No Fear.

No Choice.

 

THE SIMULATION

Director: Alex Garland

Composer: Nicholas Britell

Genre: Sci-Fi/Drama/Thriller

Release Date: June 22nd, Y2

Major Cast: Dan Stevens (Arthur), Joseph Gordon Levitt (Chris), Lupita Nyong’o (Nadine), Ben Foster (Ridley), Diego Luna (Tomas), Rebecca Hall (Valerie), Liam Neeson (Kovisson)

Theater Count: 3,726

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language, some violent content including disturbing images, and thematic material

Runtime: 135min (2hr, 15min)

Production Budget: $125 million

 

200 million Americans are living their dream lives in paradise and squalor - and there isn't any mistake to it. As two denizens of this new nation discover, there's a reason everything has been perfect in their lives, and it will change everything they thought they knew.

 

Spoiler

We begin by seeing a white room, where two people in business attire, Tomas Artera and Valerie Hunter, sitting by a desk, speaking to the camera in turns. “Welcome to your placement interview. We’re going to ask you a variety of questions to ensure you enter the proper state based on your wants and desires. This decision cannot be undone, so please take the time to verify that you have made the correct choice. Are you ready? Very well then, let’s begin.”

 

The opening credits play over various people, notably extras, giving their answers. Artera and Hunter may prompt them for more information, but they all describe their dream lives. Some give simple answers of having a great job and family in the city, while others say that they want to live in the future or live in the 1950s. The prompts end, with the interviewers saying, “Thank you for your thoughtful answers. Please return to your quarters and we will have your placement set very soon, priority of course given to those with a higher grade on the background check. You do seem trustworthy, though, so I imagine it will be very soon for you. Have a great night.”

 

THE SIMULATION

 

In a nice Chicago apartment, two people wake up, Nadine and Chris. They cuddle with one another and wish each other well in getting ready for work. Their cat, Hugo, enthusiastically greets them as well. As the two leave for work, Nadine points out how everything seems to be going well for them, and they wouldn’t give this life for anything. Chris, after a pause, agrees. They eventually leave for work. Walking around, the city has a very futuristic designed, mixing great deals of greenery with futuristic city planning. Nadine works as a media librarian at an elementary school, while Chris works as a curator for an art museum.

 

Their days go by continuously, and strangely well, just has every day before. It almost goes by like clockwork, as if they live the same days repeatedly. Yet, the two don’t seem to mind, nor do the others in their situation. As the weekends, with everyone in the Windy City feeling clean, happy, and truly satisfied with their lives, the city goes to sleep. As Chris and Nadine lay in bed, Nadine admits that she wants to have a baby. “So many people have this paradise, let’s give another bit of light to it.” Chris smiles to her, asking if she thinks they’re ready. “If we want something, we have to take the chance when it is presented.” Chris smiles. The computer soon zooms out to see a bunch of people sleeping in the city, and then to several people at computers.

 

We then see that several people are controlling the lives of every person in the city, akin to a game of The Sims. Through a montage, we see them discussing the best route of action on how to give these people good lives, and then one person being fired after having their controls do cocaine. This scene almost has a surreal, humorous tone to it. We eventually focus on one controller, Arthur, who seems to control Chris and Nadine, among others. A supervisor comes up to him, asking if he realizes what creating a child within the simulation will require. Arthur says that he understands, and he takes a walk outside the room and we see the scope of their operations.

 

Rooms deal with all kinds of cities, settings, time periods, and fantasies, all of which have people controlling them inside. It forms a massive campus, known as The Central, with “controllers” working and living there 24/7. The Central itself is inside a dome. Everyone also seems to have a small chip implanted into them. Arthur arrives at the Department of Procreation. Arthur drops out a few necessary forms, feeling mildly annoyed at the excessively bureaucratic processes needed to let these people live. He vents to his co-worker, his dormitory roommate, a worker in security, admitting that he has doubts about all of this. He feels unhappy having to control everyone every day of his life, while his roommate assures him that with all the technology they have, that so many people are able to live their dream lives. “Their?” Arthur asks. His roommate tells him that he’ll feel better in the morning. These feelings will just crash away once he wakes up. His roommate goes to sleep. He accidentally left his pistol by the bed.

 

The next day comes, while Chris and Nadine undergo their typical “rituals,” in a gradually tense montage that ends with Chris leaving work. Arthur, carefully controlling the area around Chris, taps into the mind of a person driving a nearby car. He does the same thing with Nadine. After focusing, and having a moment of doubt and unease, he closes his eyes. Each car is programmed to hit Chris and Nadine in the crosswalk. While the “simulation” goes silent, with everyone in panic and shock, the workers berate Arthur for deliberately creating harm to his creation, threatening to call the supervisors. Someone dials in a medical force, which actually just controls the doctors of each world. We see people in the simulation come to get Chris and Nadine.

 

Chris and Nadine wake up next to each other, relieved to see that the world around them is okay. However, once they adjust to their senses, they see everything around them in pale, bland designs. Everyone is wearing a grey jumpsuit, next to grey walls, floor, and furniture. Nadine looks around, trying to get to a window, where she sees that the entire world around her is like this. She is just confused at first, thinking it is all a dream, but Chris is far more lost. He begs for a doctor to help him understand what he is seeing, but they tell him that hallucinations are normal under the medications that they have given, almost in a robotic manner. While the workers are watching the situation unfold intensely, Arthur’s computer blocked off, a co-worker tells him that someone always tries to rise up - it never ends well for them. Arthur, in a bold move, tells her that it’s not worth the risk. He runs to push away the doctor, eventually getting into their speech command. The simulation doctor tells Chris and Nadine the way out of the dome, and how they need to escape.

 

Chris and Nadine, realizing that they aren’t fully in a good shape to start running, just as the workers realize that their chips had fallen out. Arthur had angled the crashes perfectly so it would knock out the implants that allowed the workers to control them. In a mode of urgency, the workers return to their stations to have their controlled citizens try to stop Chris and Nadine from escaping at all costs. Arthur takes out his pistol, stolen from his roommate and threatens to shoot, allowing Chris and Nadine to buy time and get to the ground level of the hospital, albeit in bad shape. A taxi driver appears at the front, calling out Chris and Nadine. The driver happens to be controlled by Nadine.

 

We eventually cut to an intense chase through the city, where various people are trying to stop the taxi through a variety of means, from trying to trigger more car accidents to throwing things at the car. Eventually, Arthur is restrained, and an angry mob surrounds the taxi in an underground Chicago tunnel. The driver, before entering an unconscious state from being uncontrolled, calls out, “The sewer....hold your breath.” He also throws them a powerful swiss army knife before going under. Realizing that there is a dive-able distance to the Chicago river, and how the car is right next to the railing, they climb onto the roof of the taxi and jump into the river.

 

In an intense struggle, they find the sewer entrance, using the knife to cut a weak point in the pipe to get in. After it seems like they will lose air, they eventually find their way to an air pocket. Arthur is seeing being escorted out of the room by two guards, each grabbing an arm. He rants to them about the cruelty of what they were doing, secretly recording the message into his watch to notify Chris. This confuses the guards when he says Chris’s phone number. Chris receives a voicemail with Arthur’s message, at which point they realize it’s not a dream. “Everything we did, our whole lives, they existed in that chip?!” Nadine says, close to crying. “Chris. We have to get out of here. We need to find out the truth about why we’re here. The person who sent this message, they must know what’s going on. We need to find this person. They must have the answers we’re looking for.” Chris is still convinced that this is all just a dream or a hallucination, and that they just need to snap back to reality, but he says it in a way depicting utter denial and confusion. Chris finally calms down, but then says that they need to keep swimming.

 

They eventually swim to a large facility, realizing it controls the water and power of the dome, soon seeing an exit door. Chris feels nervous, but Nadine promises that they will take these steps together. They smile at one another, realizing that their love for one another was real, and they open the door. After walking through a tunnel off air, surrounded by lights, they reach the final door, leading to the outside world. Closing their eyes, Chris and Nadine open the door.

 

Shockingly, the world outside is gorgeous: A blue sky, green grasslands, and a decent bit of flora and fauna. It’s clear that few humans have touched this world. It is juxtaposed to the large, grey dome right behind them. Having nowhere else to go, they spend time exploring the area, almost marveling at the world they never knew, the world that was truly real. Nadine especially feels this way, but Chris is trying to find any source of food or shelter. Eventually, Chris finds what seems to be a campground. Chris believes that the camp inhabitants should be back soon, while Nadine worries if they were killed, or if it’s a red herring. She seems anxious to keep moving.

 

Eventually, we see people arrive in the camp, seemingly back for a ration run. Chris mocks Nadine after being proven correct, but is quickly silenced once a gun is pointed to his head. The man believes that the two are intruders sent to seek their food, but Chris angrily retorts. As the man and Chris keep arguing, Nadine tries to make peace, but struggles. It ends when Chris asks the man if they had anything like was in the dome. Silence fills the air....”so you’re a simulee too.” He takes down the gun, introducing himself as Ridley. He calls to others, saying that they’re simulees too. They come out to great them. They are all wearing the same jumpsuits.

 

Dinner comes, and Ridley, along with his daughter Iris, describe the situation. Everyone had decided to escape their simulations in a situation similar to Chris and Nadine, but can still remember what they did. Ridley apparently lived in a near future situation and saw aliens and great deals of technology on a great basis. Others have been in various situations, some more mundane then others. They had been living in this little shanty town with the resources they were able to make out from the dome before everything went south. Everything was in dull, gray packages, but they had to take what they could get.

 

We then cut to Arthur in the The Central, being pushed inside a kind of prison cell, ironically with more vibrant colors.  “You will stay here until the process of refreshment comes. We require 40 hours to get the resources ready.” Arthur, now fully confident in his decision, says nothing, but looks on with confidence. He is able to communicate with another cell via morse code, whose prisoner did the same thing Arthur did. The prisoner begins to panic in morse code, seeing President Kovisson arrive. Elias Kovisson was the head of the simulation program, and if he was seeing you, you know you screwed up badly. He taps on the glass in Arthur’s cell.

 

“You’ve made a big mistake, haven’t you? Few people have pulled the stunt you just did, but in the best case scenario, they wander the wilds of America and die of starvation, never finding the truth. At worst, they come, they attack us, and the world we spent nearly 400 years creating goes to SHIT!” Arthur’s confidence begins to fade. “The refreshment process is supposedly very painful. Enough to make people avoid stepping out of line. Hopefully you realize this and can remedy your mistake in the future. That would be great.”

 

Arthur, in a moment of panic, lashes at him about the control that they put the simulees under. “We only give them OUR idea of what’s best for them. We don’t stop to think we might be wrong!” Kovisson smacks the glass, sending a frightening vibration. “I hope that we never be in this position again.” Kovisson walks away, feeling a bit more uneasy than what he felt like when he came in. He walks by a control room and sees the lives of millions being controlled.

 

We cut back to everyone at the shantytown falling asleep for the night, staying inside tents. Chris, however, can’t sleep. Realizing he left his phone in the campground, completely devoid of service but still showing memories of the simulation, he goes to get it. Looking through everything again, he sees everything in the grey colors. The memories and love he had with Nadine was real, even if little else was. Eventually, he looks under where Ridley was sitting, and he had left a map there. It shows all of the domes, as well as the location of The Central. By his calculations, it would only be a two hour walk.

 

“That doesn’t belong to you,” a voice calls from behind. Ridley appears, pointing a gun at Chris. Chris asks if they’ve done anything on the knowledge of being so close to The Central; Ridley is told that he had known this for years, but before he can continue, Chris berates him. Ridley then pulls up a video on his phone, and we cut to people trying to get into The Central from the outside, and violent force is used to subdue and kill the protesters. A few were even driven to various domes and re-inserted into the system. Ridley, beginning to break down in fear and panic, having lost his wife (and Iris’s mother) in the commotion, is terrified to strike back ever again. Chris, understanding this completely, looking to Nadine sleeping. “It’s not the best, definitely not the same living conditions under the dome, but we can say with confidence that it’s our own home and our own choice.” They return to bed.

 

The next day, we see Nadine bonding with various villagers, helping them hunt for food. Nadine had been a vegetarian, but seeing how this might not have been her call, is willing to try meat again. He body lost its conditioning to meet, so it humorously does not go well. Then, Nadine admits to Chris that she wasn’t really sleeping and overheard Chris and Nadine. Nadine suggests that the one way this revolution could be successful would be to have support from inside The Central. It is here that she realizes that someone tried to break her and Chris out, eventually helping the others realize the same.

 

Back at the prison courtyard, Arthur is corralled is examining the guards. They seem to be acting stranger than normal, and the chips in the back of their neck seem to be making bizarre sounds. Other prisoners begin to notice this too, while Arthur sees a guard drop to the ground. After a pause, he gets up and shoots fire at other guards. An all out prison war begins.

 

The guards open fire on the others, causing a massive panic and prison riot. Everyone is trying to escape with the guards seemingly at war with themselves. After a very intense scene with some close calls, Arthusr manage to escape, running through the campus much as Chris and Nadine ran through Chicago. Arthur comments on this, jokingly, but panics once he injures his arm. Arthur tries to run, but struggles from having spent most of his life sitting and controlling people. He does manage to eventually find a car used for hunting down runaway simulees and returning them, and he successfully escapes after several close calls. While trying to comprehend the situation, he is finally free.

 

Using a device to find Chris and Nadine, whose phone numbers he has recognized and can track, he manages to do so. They see a Central truck arrive, much to their panic. Realizing that everything they worked for will have been lost, they say a prayer. Chris and Nadine share a moment of love, recognizing this may be the end of their chapter together. Suddenly, Arthur steps out of the car, in shock to see Chris and Nadine. He is overjoyed, hugging them, saying how he finally gets to meet them. “Everything I’ve known all of this time has been true.” Nadine, comprehending the situation, gives him an awkward hand shake.

 

Arthur then tells everyone the truth about the simulation. It began around 400 years ago in an effort to end a massive burst of war and overpopulation. People were forced into domes to begin new lives based on their “entrance interviews” (reference to the beginning of the movie), but as generations changed, the interviews ended, and everyone became forced into one way of life. The controllers were much in the same, hand picked by the leaders of the Central, forming a dynasty of control, they were conditioned and taught on the proper ways of life to control everyone. Seeking a new mode of life, and realizing the flaws of their system, Arthur wanted to rise up and create a new life for their world, which had begun showing signs of reality and lies blurring together and every year repeating itself.

 

Ridley becomes particularly intrigued, realizing that there IS support from within the Central. Arthur reveals that there can be hope for a new way of life, and that after doing a drone scan, there are several more camps scattered around. As the days go by, *in a shot of fast motion* several different escaped simulees arrive at the central triggered by Arthur holding a beacon. Nadine rallies the crowd, planning a strike on the Central with Arthur and Chris at his side. With these people living in poverty, they are eager to fight, but lack the firepower to do so. Arthur says that it won’t be an issue, recalling the guards. After getting into a fight with Chris, Arthur becomes confident that resistance is growing inside The Simulation.

 

Cutting back to the Central, we see several people talking about Arthur, realizing the dull routines their lives have become, and how miserable their creations may truly be. Realizing all of this, we see several people begin to plot their own resistance. One worker is able to identify Arthur from his cell phone, where they are able to create a plan to revolt.

 

The campers, led by Chris, Ridley, Arthur, and Nadine arrive outside the Central gates, with the simulees awing at its presence. Arthur tells everyone that there could be bloodshed waiting for them inside, but he promises that there are people willing to fight back. “Whatever happens, I apologize for all we have done, and I wish to create a new, better life.” In his voice, however, there is a good bit of desperation and uncertainty. Chris and Nadine share one final kiss before going in, realizing that there may be no turning back from this. The door opens.

 

A few people are waiting for them inside, where they are able to quickly guide them to a safe haven with weapons that they can use, as well as medical spaces. These mainly consist of the workers in Chicago, having known and been close to Arthur. “I hate your guts, but you’re making a bold choice that could make things better. Fingers crossed.” one says, jokingly. Suddenly, they are ambushed by soldiers. Ridley agrees to stay and hold the line, while Arthur leads Chris and Nadine to Kovisson, to confront him once and for all to end this.

 

The Central erupts into a war zone, with soldiers fighting against both past simulees and controllers. Many are realizing they fought against the same people that determined their entire lives, but are fighting against a common enemy either way. In the commotion, right before the trio are able to reach Kovisson, Chris gets shot. He falls to the ground, struggling for air. Nadine begins to panic out of sadness, begging for him to be alright. Chris, however, insists on keeping going, feeling that he is still capable of safe travel. They also see the Tomas and Valerie, where they are revealed to be androids running the screening process from several years ago. They look untouched for hundreds of years. Walking through this hall, they eventually reach Kovisson's office.

 

Arthur begs him to end all of this, seeing the suffering it has caused. “This might have been good - we could have given these people what they wanted, but not anymore. We need to end The Simulaton!” Kovisson refuses, seeing all of the bad that humanity had done before the simulation, and sees it as a necessary evil to prevent things like this from ever happening. He even cites the chaos outside as proof that the simulation is the only thing keeping humanity civil. As Arthur tries to convince him that humanity can still be good, we see Ridley amidst the chaos, pulling something out of his pocket. He had a miniature bomb. Finding the headquarters, and not realizing that the trio is inside, he runs away and activates a code. 

 

A massive explosion occurs, and a huge gaping hole in the window of Kovisson's office appears - debris slashes Kovisson's upper chest, leaving him badly injured. As Nadine and Arthur go to help him up, Nadine finds something horrifying. In the event of an insurrection, Kovisson had controls that would release a toxic gas inside the dome (those inside buildings would be protected) and with the chaos of war, everyone was in danger - both the revolutionaries and controllers. Chris manages to get to a control system and make an announcement that they need to escape immediately or risk death. As chaos and terror continues to spread as people try to escape, something amazing begins to happen - the simulees and controllers are working together to escape the dome before the poison spreads. 

 

Looking at Kovisson, Arthur refuses to save his life after his role in enslaving the nation, but Nadine tries to convince him. Eventually, they are able to carry Kovisson out and get him to safety, but Chris's wounds worsen. Realizing that the gas will spread to the outside world and kill everyone before they can get far, someone will need to be inside to completely close off the dome and trap the gas. Chris, realizing that the wounds may kill him anyway, agrees to make the sacrifice. Arthur tries to stop him, but he refuses. Nadine too begs him to come with her, and they can finally live the life they dreamed of. Chris insists that they already did. Sharing one final kiss, they leave Chris in the control room, as he shuts off the dome. As poisonous gas floods into the room, he collapses to the floor, smiling, as the dome closes and the screen fades to black.

 

The next part of this movie has no dialogue. We see two eyes open, as people are camped outside of the dome. Kovisson realizes that they had saved his life. Nadine helps him up, as he looks to the crowds of people with Arthur smiling at him. Kovisson looks into his pocket and sees a phone-like device, containing files of information regarding control of the simulation, potentially starting everything over again. Looking at everyone, finally at peace with one another, and he grabs the device. He walks to a nearby cliff, dropping the device into the water. The camera follows it as it crashes, fading once a large wave comes to hit it.

 

THE END

 

[Ezen Baklattan]

Tommy ain't happening, but this is!

 

The Terrible Plight of Freddy Zapper

 

Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Comedy/Romance/Musical

Date:  September 21st

Theaters: 3,186

Director: James Bobin

Executive Producer: Tim Burton

Cast: Ben Platt (Freddy Zapper), Zendaya (Chasity), Taron Edgerton (Logan), Garrett Clayton (Wendel), Anna Kendrick (Queen Evollove), Jeremy Irons (Professor Weisgye), Allison Janney (Polly), John Malkovich (Roger), Jane Lynch (General Nilator), Johnny Depp (Ed Wood - cameo)

Original Songs: Benji Pasek and Justin Paul (The songs have a cheesy, 50s feel - they don't have a modern flair like THE GREATEST SHOWMAN)

Rating: PG for scary images, crude humor, some language, and sensuality

Runtime: 107min (1hr, 47min)

Budget: $40 million

 

Note: The visual design is meant to give a very campy and stylized look of the 1950s. The visual effects in the film are also meant to look somewhat dated, but a step up from what would have been seen in the time period.

 

Setting: West Virginia, 1958

 

Spoiler

The first shot of the film shows a night road somewhere in West Virginia. All of the sudden, a car drives down the road, playing “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard at a very large volume. In the stylish car are four teenagers, two of which are stereotypical 50s jocks, and the others are two girls in pink dresses, much like many other girls in the time period. They are singing along to the music as they cruise down the road, also gossiping about high school matters, primarily the upcoming Prom, with a theme of “The End Of The World.” They all continue to gossip, until one of them sees a flying saucer falling from the sky towards where they are driving, and they all begin to scream. The UFO comes closer, and we zoom into the teenagers’ screams. Fortunately, the UFO lands off  of the road, causing a sigh of relief from the teenagers. One of the teenagers asks if anyone else saw a string attached to the UFO as it fell, but no one else noticed it. The wonder if they should go to the UFO, but they realize from the horror movies that they saw that it’s probably not a very good idea, so they drive away from the scene. However, we zoom towards  the UFO, where we see the door open and an ominous light comes from inside, and we see a hand come out of the UFO.

 

We then see a typical suburb in the 50s, albeit very stylized and campy. We see the alien, who turns out to be very human like other than the fact that he has seven fingers on each hand, limping through the neighborhood, trying to find anyone who has a flux transmitter version 800. He knocks on several doors in the neighborhood, and many people throw him away, if not scream at his seven-fingered hands. He then finds a house of two parents, Roger and Polly. They suspect that this is rather just a drunken teenager, so they decide to let him stay in and their house while they call the police and return him to his parents. Polly asks the young man what his name is, and the alien tells her that his name is Freddy Zapper. Polly notes that this is a very strange last name. She has never heard the last name “Zapper” before. Roger mocks her for noticing that before the fact that he has 14 fingers. She notices them, and she freaks out. Freddy tells her to calm down, performing an apparent mind trick on her to make her do so. Freddy says that he comes from an alien world, and that he needs to hide out here so that that evil woman doesn’t find her. Polly tells her that she’ll help him, as she walks away to talk to Roger. “He’s more drunk than we thought.”

 

At the town’s local police station, the police have no way of identifying Freddy Zapper. There is no kid in the area that resembles him, even ignoring the fact that he has seven goddamn fingers. The police, with little idea of what else to do, decide to enroll him into the local high school, and they request that Roger and Polly care for Freddy Zapper for now. The police then try to detect for alcohol in Freddy’s system, but the find very little, because the tests that worked for humans do little good for aliens like Freddy. However, no one is still convinced that he is an alien, and they presume that he is just senile. Meanwhile at the high school, dominated with the consistent theme of over the top 50s campiness, we see a musical number begin in the halls, where all of the students discuss the UFO crash that happened last weekend. (“No Way!” ) The song has the feel of a 50s doo-wop song. The song also gets humorously melodramatic as they hypothesize that communists may be coming to destroy them.

 

All of the sudden, we see Freddy walking down the hallways, wearing black gloves to conceal the oddity in his hands. The next scene is the school’s crazed science professor, Professor Weisgye, lecturing the students on the possibility of alien life, and how he is confident that they exist. He is very passionate about this subject, speaking in a loud, confident voice with a thick accent. He soon introduces Freddy as a new student in the class, while most of the class seems rather uninterested in this new kid. When the teacher asks where he is from, Freddy says that he is from the planet Zedurod, and everyone laughs at him. The teacher begs him not to play with his feelings like that. Freddy tells them to be quiet, and he’s telling the truth. As he says more about his absurd life, one of the students throws a spitball at him, but Freddy vaporizes it using an alien gun that he keeps in his pocket. Needless to say, this shut up everyone in a snap.  Freddy soon drops a ball of smoke, making everyone forget about what had just happened.

 

Pretty soon in the hallways, Freddy finds two students, each one looking rather nerdy, being tormented by a bully as everyone laughs at them.  Freddy tells the bully that the domination of weaker specimen need not be emphasized, and that he should stop. The bully soon realizes that he’ll have to talk some sense into this new freak, too. The bully walks off of the screen, and we hear several students cringe as they hear the sounds of brutal punches. On the floor, the bully soon falls, feeling defenseless and running away. One of the students says that they now have to keep with their conformist attitudes and mock the bully now. Everyone cheers and runs in that direction, leaving only Freddy and the two nerds. However, there is a beautiful girl who takes a look at Freddy with a smile. Someone calls her, revealing her name as Chasity. Chasity soon runs along to meet her friend, but she adds that she buys what Freddy was saying.

 

Both of them thank him for coming in when he did. They introduce themselves as Logan and Wendel. They also say that they’ve heard of what Freddy did in the classroom, and they can already tell that he’s just like them. Logan says that they can’t reveal their secrets now, but they’ll have to meet outside of the abandoned grocery store at 7 o’clock sharp, and Freddy agrees to this. The two soon walk through the hallways, as Wendel tells him about what goes on here, especially when the school spontaneously bursts into musical numbers. Freddy tells his parents that he’s going to go to a school dance, following what he believed most Earth kids did after school, but the parents buy it. Freddy soon goes to the abandoned grocery store (It’s literally called “The Abandoned Grocery Store.”) and Logan and Wendel are waiting outside. They’re both glad that Freddy showed up, and that they have to show him something.

 

They go out to a field, right in front of a full moon. Logan tells Freddy that he knows that he’s not like the other kids. Freddy slightly panics, wondering how they knew. Logan says that it was pretty obvious that his hands were messed up, even looking weird with the gloves on. Logan takes off the glove and sees seven fingers. Logan smiles and says, “You may be a freak, but join the club.” Suddenly, Logan and Wendel begin to transform. Logan becomes something like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, complete with white eyes and green, scaly skin, although his clothes are still intact. Wendel becomes a vampire, with pale skin, green eyes, and sharp fangs. Freddy freaks out, but Logan tells him to calm down, putting his scaly, webbed hand on Freddy’s shoulder.

 

Both of them were cursed long ago to become monsters every full moon (It’s not just werewolves.) They eventually learned to control their powers and not attack people. They soon break into a spontaneous musical number about their lives as freaks (“We’re Messed Up”) The song is very comedic and pokes fun at 50s lifestyles and monster movies. For example, Logan feels awkward about eating fish, and Wendel must always wear SPF 10000. Logan tells Freddy to meet up with him and Wendel after school the next few days, and they can hang out. Logan also knows a few nooks and crannies that he can sneak into.  Freddy soon goes home, telling Polly and Roger that he’s made some new friends, and that they don’t sell drugs. They’re rather just a swamp monster and a vampire. Polly smiles, saying that it’s nice that he made friends, believing that he’s just making it up. Freddy goes to his room for the night, while Polly & Roger begin to become convinced that Freddy may really be an alien. That or he has a mental disorder.

 

Meanwhile, on a distant planet with aliens done in a tacky 50s style, we see one human-like alien with sharp colored skin, black lips, hair like a flame, and a sinister red dress. Her name is Queen Evollove. She sits in a spooky chamber, waiting for news to come. All of the sudden, one alien comes up to her, saying that he has regrettable news. Freddy had landed on a far off planet called Earth, and he has already captured the attention of a beautiful girl, Chasity. Evollove looks at the crystal ball showing Freddy and Chasity on Earth, and she screams, destroying the crystal ball. She says that if she couldn’t have Freddy, then no one else can. The only way that she can ensure Freddy’s downfall is to destroy the Earth, and she soon starts laughing maniacally. One of the alien knights says that she is being melodramatic, but he is soon vaporized into dust, cutting to the smoking hand of Evollove.

 

The next day at school, Freddy hangs out with Logan and Wendel, who are once again in their normal human appearances. However, Logan brings a soup made of insects and Wendel has a bottle full of blood at lunch. Freddy is grossed out, but he does admit that human food is rather strange. At the science class, Professor Weisgye continues to go off on his crazy lectures, while Chasity glances at Freddy once again. Another girl whispers to Chasity, and she writes a note down, somehow not using a pen, asking her to pass it to Freddy. Once he receives it, he is dissapointed that it just says that his shoe is untied. Even worse, Weisgye catches on, asking Freddy to reveal his note to the class. In a pause, Freddy soon digs around in his bag, retrieving another amnesia bomb, activating it. It’s once again successful. However, Chasity tells her that smoke bombs aren’t always the most reliable, but it’s a good thing that it worked. Freddy smiles as she walks away surprised that the bomb didn’t affect her.

 

Freddy, Logan, and Wendel are seen at a nifty 50s diner, where Logan says that the human food is actually quite awesome. Freddy and Logan enjoy a burger, fries, and a milkshake, while Wendel still needs to mix blood into everything that he heats. Freddy wants to thank them for being good friends and helping him settle into this planet. Logan says that with the team of a werewolf, a sea monster, and an alien, then the world was at their disposal. They toast their milkshakes, while someone familiar is in the background: Chasity. Wendel mutters how her geographical location is often convenient for Freddy. Freddy soon gets up to talk to Chasity. Chasity tells him that she had never seen someone quite like Freddy, and that there was something she loved about him.

 

Freddy smiles and nods, but he looks on in horror at his two friends, never having been with a human girl before. The two, however, nod excitedly. Freddy looks back at Chasity, and he tells her that it’s nice of her to notice that. “May I have this dance?” Chasity asks, much to Freddy’s confusion. The jukebox turns on as she flips her index finger upward, and an original Elvis-esque song, "A Night of Rock", begins to play. Freddy plays along and dances to the music with Chasity and the other kids. Chasity is impressed by Freddy’s moves on the dance floor, looking almost like Elvis Presly. The night soon passes, and Chasity tells Freddy how much fun she had, and that she hopes to do it again. She smiles, asking Freddy if he would want to go with her to the school prom, which Freddy believes to be a night of teenagers using their hormones to create feelings of love. Freddy accepts, believing this to be rather interesting opportunity.  Chasity kisses Freddy on the cheek, leaving him immensely wide eyed.

 

Meanwhile, back on the distant planet, Queen Evollove is watching the conversation between Chasity and Freddy unfold rather quickly on another crystal ball. She gets so angry that she just can’t control herself anymore. She enters a rather sinister song, with a tango-like beat and the hint of scary guitar sounds. She sings, (“He’s All Mine,”) about how she’s going to unleash a wrath of alien monsters on the Earth, taking back Freddy and destroying the planet. Above all, she wants to kill Chasity. How she had the nerve to date the one man whom she was destined to be with, and how that little wench thought that she could take her! “I WILL DESTROY HER!” Evollove shouts in a melodramatic, campy manner.

 

The next scene is a montage set to the song, (“The Wonderful Montage Musical Revue,”) in which all of the major characters participate. Freddy, Logan, and Wendel continue to become close friends, while he continues to realize that he may be in love with Chasity. Another part is Chasity singing a love song for Freddy, and how she’s hoping that her love is not some form of bestiality. In addition, Roger & Polly are curious about the truth of their adopted son, Professor Weisgye is sill obsessed with aliens, and Queen Evollove plotting her revenge, but criticizing the audience for making her sing about what he had just sung about. She is, however, preparing for her epic attack on the planet.

 

The next scene shows Freddy in the school hallway, talking to Logan and Wendel. Freddy tells them that he finally has something to tell him, but he has to do it outside of school. Freddy tells him to come to his house , because his parents will probably want to know, too. He’ll also invite Chasity, because he finds that he does love her. He senses that there is danger coming, and he needs to rally his friends to fight this imminent horror. This is the most that he can say at the moment, because shouting “WE’RE GOING TO BE KILLED BY A LUSTFUL, SADISTIC, ALIEN! TELL YOUR PARENTS THAT YOU APPRECIATE THEM.” After a pause, Wendel simply says, “Fair enough.”

 

At the house at night, Roger and Polly are talking about what Freddy might be trying to tell everyone. Is he actually a girl? A communist? A European teen sensation? Whatever it was, it was going to be a big deal if Freddy wanted to tell everyone at the same time. Logan, Wendel, and Chasity soon arrive at the home, as Polly uses her maternal instincts and makes hot chocolate for the three of them. Freddy soon comes up to confront everyone, sighing and breathing heavily. He tells everyone that as they might have guessed, he really is an alien. Everyone can buy this, considering the fact that he has seven flipping fingers on each hand. Freddy truly had to reveal his reasons for coming to Earth.

 

Freddy tells everyone that since they’re at least half convinced that he’s from another world, that they’d be willing to hear him out. Freddy was a young alien duke in his home planet, but he was being forced to marry the queen of the nation, Queen Evollove. Evollove had not one nice bone in her body, and her only intent was to take over the entire universe and enslave all living creatures. Rather than marry her, Freddy knew that he had to get away from this planet, soon taking a IFO (Identified Flying Object) off of the planet, where he landed on a planet that only a few aliens had been to before: Earth. Most of them stole bodies and abducted cows, but none of them were ever on the run from a psychotic alien queen. At the moment, everyone is staring at him blankly.

 

Freddy says that he needs serious help, because he has a bad feeling that Evollove is finally mobilizing her forces to attack Earth and take Freddy back. Freddy tells everyone that if this threat is destroyed, than the universe will finally be safe again. After a pause, Logan asks if they’re getting into a mess that they aren’t even convinced will happen, they don’t have a certified plan for, is likely to lead to them being severely injured, and is probably a fool’s errand. Freddy nods sadly. “In that case, I’m with you to the end.” Wendel also agrees. Polly and Logan also side with them, while Polly wonders if Roger was the one drinking. Chasity walks up to Freddy, saying that she’ll join him. Freddy tells Logan and Wendel that now’s probably a good time to show Roger & Polly who they really are, and the four walk out, leaving Chasity & Freddy.

 

Chasity tells Freddy to sit down, revealing that her parents didn’t want her to date Freddy. They thought that he was too bizarre, and her father always wanted her to date a football player. Freddy frowns, but Chasity places her finger on her lip, saying that she could care less about what they say. Soon a song picks up between the two, a slow waltz with a bit of mellow funk element to it. The song is called, “A Moment For Us.” During the song, there we see household objects floating around the room, orbiting the two young lovers, Freddy is confused, but Chasity isn't. As the song ends, we hear Polly’s scream. The objects crash to the ground, and Roger and Polly rush out to the back door to see what is going on. Freddy half expected her to be freaked out by Logan’s black lagoon creature-like appearance and Wendel’s vampire-like appearance, but what he actually saw was far worse: A legion of UFOs hovering over the town.

 

As people in the town look up to the sky and see the UFOs clear as day, everyone begins to panic hysterically, while one of them shouts out that the commies are attacking. Meanwhile, we see Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi on a bench. Ed Wood tells Bela Lugosi to stay here, and whatever unfolds would make a really good movie. The local police department informs the military, which should be arriving in town soon. However, the UFOs are already touching down to the ground, beginning to unload the “armies” of aliens, while Queen Evollove tells every one of them to find Freddy Zapper and to vaporize everyone else. This just ads to the hysteria of the situation as people try to hide from the alien invaders, all of which are wearing green makeup and tacky costumes. However, Professor Weisgye is excited by the going ons, telling everyone else how he knew that aliens existed, and that he will die a happy man.

 

We soon see forces in the military mobilizing, while they are being led by a tough, female general in normal military attire. Her name is General Nilator. Nilator tells everyone that they’re having to face aliens for the 9^th time this decade, and that they’ll have to bring their finest weapons into the battle. She says that there is no time for falling short, and their failure here today could cost the entire universe. As she finishes her campy St. Crispin’s Day Speech, she orders an officer to commence a time jump to get to the town in West Virginia right away. The officer flips a large switch, transporting a series of military trucks and tanks into the town.

 

The tanks and the soldiers fire against the aliens, creating a battlefield of chaos along the city streets and fields, while the terrified townspeople can do little else but sit and watch. Queen Evollove is off of the UFO and onto the ground, destroying tanks with nothing but a blast of energy from her fingertips, laughing as she does so. Meanwhile, back at Freddy’s house, he’s giving everyone orders. He tells Roger and Polly to stay here and not die. Logan and Wendel will stay here and protect the suburb. Chasity tells Freddy that she’s coming with him to confront Evollove. Chasity says that she is perfectly capable of defending herself, and that it’s easier to say than do. Freddy says that he hopes that she’s right, as they go out into the city.

 

The two run down the street, but they are stopped by some of the alien soldiers. One of them sets up a large beacon which Evollove notices and gives a dark smile, “I’ve got you now, you traitorous scum.” Just as the soldiers begin to attack, Freddy is able to use his powerful combat skills against them, much like how he handled with the bully. However, Chasity casts magical spells against the men, causing great damage to her enemies, eventually defeating all of them. All Freddy can do is stare at her blankly. “Oh, yeah, I kind of forgot to mention that I’m also a supernatural freak, of the witch variety.” She adds that she was too scared of having him judge her because of it, but it appears that since he and his two friends are both odd characters that she would fit in just fine. Now, it was just a matter of being surprising and cool.  Freddy smiles with a slight laugh.

 

Meanwhile, we get a look at some of the other battles. General Nilator is commanding her forces in the army to not hold back their attacks, even though the odds are looking a bit grim. The aliens keep coming, and the men can’t hold up much longer, and neither can the tanks. However, in a surburb in chaos, the sea monster and the vampire are struggling to keep the civilians safe, dealing with many aliens while trying to keep cool, humorously failing. To make matters worse, Evollove finds Freddy and Chasity thanks to the beacon, and she soon creates a giant blast of energy, around the area, making a force field that leaves the three trapped inside.

 

Evollove yells at Freddy for crushing her heart, and now she’s making him pay for what he’s done. Freddy insists that her heart was always broken, and that she was truly a despicable being. Evollove fakes offense at that remark, and she offers Freddy one last chance to take her hand, offering him a levitating ring. Freddy nods to Chasity, who uses her magic to turn the ring into dust. Evollove frowns, soon going on an all out attack on the two lovers. Freddy is knocked to the ground, while Chasity and Evollove duel as the town becomes a bigger mess, with more panic everywhere.

 

Freddy regains his consciousness, but he sees that even Chasity’s powers are not enough to hold up against Evollove. She soon breaks the barrier so that the world can see her kill the last line of Freddy’s love. Freddy soon has an epiphany. Evollove wanted to control the universe with Freddy because there was still an inkling of love left in that body of hatred and cruelty. They didn’t have to destroy her, but they had to destroy the bad part of her. Freddy soon stands up, asking Evollove if he can have just one more moment. She sighs and nods, telling him to make it quick. Freddy soon looks towards Chasity and nods, and Freddy yells, “Hit it!”

 

What begins is another musical number, with more jubilant rock and roll elements. All of the heroes join in song to tell Evollove about how (“You've Gotta Love”) It’s not long before Freddy convinces everyone in the universe to join along, and everyone begins to sing the song about how loving others and having friends is much more fun than destroying the world. While the song continues, Evollove finds that she is becoming gradually weaker, and that she cannot believe that she is being defeated by a musical number, above all things. Freddy does an epic guitar solo near the middle, which finally gives him the power to send a blast of light to Evollove, engulfing her in a mysterious light as she screams.

 

All of the sudden, the light clears up, and we see a beautiful woman with a glorious sunrise in the background. She is wearing a blue dress, and long, beautiful black hair, and so on. This is the new Queen Evollove. She thanks Freddy for finally stopping her evil crusade and changing her into a nice person, and she apologizes to everyone for nearly destroying the whole universe.  She then says that she’s going to fix her damage by magically restoring the town to its former glory, and giving Freddy a blessing for being with Chasity. “You two make a lovely team, and I look forward to seeing how well you do in the future.” Evollove soon takes her army back on the UFOs, and they depart, prompting massive cheering. Roger and Polly soon come out to greet their adopted son, telling him that they rehearsed for that large musical number for many weeks, and it certainly paid off.

 

Freddy and Chasity are easily appointed as the king and queen of the prom, while Logan and Wendel also gain the love of several girls, who are in love with their magical secrets. Logan smiles, telling the girls that “Everyone loves a bizarre character.” The night goes by greatly, as Freddy and Chasity share a kiss which causes everyone to cheer. The camera soon zooms away from the prom, cutting to some space ships in the sky. Queen Evollove is looking outside of the window. “Love’s Better Than Hate, huh? I can’t believe that they were actually convinced that I became good. Now I've got the element of surprise going for me. I’ll have him back, and I’ll kill Chasity, even if it’s the last thing I do." She soon looks at the camera with a dark smile, blasting it away with red lasers from her fingertips.

[Bastien]

 

Release Date: May 4th, Y2

Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure/Action

Director: Patty Jenkin

Composer : Christophe Heral

Theater Count: 4,301

Format: 3D, IMAX 3D & IMAX

Production Budget: $191.5 million

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence

Running Time: 114 minutes

Major Cast: Amber Midthunder (Jade), Jussie Smollett (Secundo) John Goodman (Pey'j)

 

Plot:

TBA

Edited November 1, 2017 by Bastien

[Bastien]

 

Release Date: September 7th

Genre: Action Horror

Director: Andres Muschienni

Composer: Disasterpeace

Theater Count: 3,801

Format:  IMAX

Production Budget: $31.5 million

MPAA Rating: R-Rated for Violence, bloody violence, nudity, sexual references, drug use, language

Running Time: 112 minutes

Major Cast: Kevin Bacon (Freddy Kruger), teenage cast

 

Plot:

TBA

[Bastien]

 

Release Date: September 7th

Genre: Drama

Director: Angelina Jolie

Composer: Deborah Lurie

Theater Count: 4 (Nov 21th), 25 (Dec 14th), 225 (Dec 25th), 700 (Jan 18th), 1903 (January 25th)

Production Budget: $108.2 million

MPAA Rating: R-Rated for Violence, nudity, sexual references, language

Running Time: 140 minutes

Major Cast: Shailene Woodley (Amava), Ruth Negga (the priestess), Nicole Kidman (the teacher), Angelina Jolie (Cleopatra), Isabelle Huppert (the threat), Léa Seydoux (Jeanne d'Arc)

 

Plot:

TBA

Edited November 1, 2017 by Bastien

[Bastien]

Release Date: November 16th

Genre: HeroicFantasy

Director: Nicolas Bary

Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Format : 3D & IMAX & IMAX 3D

Theater Count: 4 082

Production Budget: $141.2 million

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for fantasy action sequences

Running Time: 122 minutes

Major Cast: Abraham Attah (Oscar Pill), Kalama Epstein (Ayden Spencer), Hugh Grant (Alistair McCooley), Moss (Charles Vandervaart) Naomi Harris (Oscar's mother), Yara Shahidi (Violette Pill),  Jamie Lee Curtis (Mrs Withers), Russell Crowe (M. Brave), Will Smith, Marianne James (Lumpini)

 

Plot:

TBA

 

+

The Adventures of Oscar Pill, rerelease :

November 9th for $2 only on participating theaters (240 theaters)

 

OSCAR PILL : the DOUBLE feature 

November 13 - 14 - 15 and 16th only

Rediscover Oscar Pill 1 in an extended cut (+8 minutes) immediatly followed by Oscar Pill 2 ! (only on 150 IMAX theaters)

Edited November 1, 2017 by Bastien

[Xillix]

Race Rage

Release Date: August 31, Y2

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Action

Director: Boaz Yakin

Theater Count: 2,405

Premium Formats: 3D

Shooting Format: Anamorphic "scope" 35mm film - Post-converted to 3D

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1

Production Budget: $25 million

MPAA Rating: R for action violence, blood, and language

Running Time: 87 minutes

Major Cast: Jeremy Renner (Louis), Thomas Jane (Kyle), Scott Adkins (James)

 

Plot Summary:

In the near future, the economy is in shambles and the middle class has disappeared. Only the ultra-rich and the impoverished remain. When a powerful energy company announces a cross-country race with a $10 million prize, former stock car racer Louis (Jeremy Renner) signs up in hopes of making enough money to support his family for the rest of their lives. However, he soon discovers the race is rigged and that the company intends James (Scott Adkins), a former teammate of Louis' who sold out to become the company's spokesperson, to win. When Louis refuses to throw the race, the company hires Kyle (Thomas Jane), a criminal getaway driver, to kill Louis during the race and make it look like an accident. As the race goes on, the company sets up several perilous situations into which Kyle is supposed to force Louis. The body-count rises as other racers accidentally wind up killed in the staged "accidents," but Louis manages to escape each one. By the end he and James are neck-and-neck as the finish line approaches. Kyle catches up and begins resorting to any means necessary to kill Louis. James eventually has a change of heart, helping Louis wreck Kyle. The movie ends with James offering to let Louis win the race, but Louis refuses to take the offer, instead saying they will make the home stretch a fair competition.

 

Edited November 2, 2017 by Xillix

[Xillix]

From a Black Sky

Release Date: June 1st, Y2

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror

Director: Steven Quale

Theater Count: 2,909

Premium Formats: 3D

Shooting Format: 3.4K Digital (Arri Alexa SXT) - In native 3D

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1

Production Budget: $20 million

MPAA Rating: R for violence, gore, nudity, and language

Running Time: 93 minutes

Major Cast: Elisabeth Shue (Sheriff Lori Meyer), Aubrey Peeples (Jessica Meyer), Aaron Eckhart (Deputy Wayne Kirk)

 

Plot Summary:

An alien scouting ship crash-lands in the forest outside the small, rural mountain town of Galileo Peak, Montana. Several members of the local police go to investigate, and all but one deputy, Wayne Kirk (Aaron Eckhart), are slaughtered by the hideous, vicious extraterrestrial pilot. He radios in to warn the sheriff, Lori Meyer (Elisabeth Shue), that the thing is headed into town, only describing it as "some kind of vicious animal." The alien, which can jump ten yards at once, run at high speed, and climb walls, quickly makes it to town and begins to massacre the inhabitants. Sheriff Meyer ends up having to rescue her teenage daughter Jessica (Aubrey Peeples) when the alien attacks her and her boyfriend at a cliffside makeout spot. The boyfriend is brutally mauled, but the two women make it out alive. When Deputy Kirk makes it back to town, he, Lori, and Jessica try to set a trap for the alien. The creature manages to escape, killing Wayne in the process. Just when the alien is about to kill Lori, Jessica shoots it dead with Wayne's rifle.

 

In a mid-credits scene, we see inside the barely-functioning spaceship that some sort of emergency beacon has been activated.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Xillix