CAYOM YEAR 4 - PART I - MOVIE SUBMISSION

[ChD]

The Last of Us

Director: Alfonso Cuaron

Genre: Thriller/Drama/Horror

Release Date: October 30

Major Cast: TBA

Theater Count: 3131

Rating: R-rated

Runtime: TBA

Production Budget: 125M

Plot summary: TBA

Edited July 7, 2018 by ChD

[cookie]

DELAYED

Edited October 16, 2018 by cookie

[Xillix]

 

Silent Hill: Restless Dreams

Release Date: November 25th, Y4

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Horror/Drama

Director: Takashi Miike

Composer: Akira Yamaoka

Theater Count: 3,921

Premium Format: 3D
Shooting Format: Digital 6K (Red DSMC2 Gemini) in native 3D
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP, 4K DCP

Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos

Production Budget: $50 million

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

Running Time: 126 minutes

Major Cast: Max Thieriot (James), Margot Robbie (Mary), Cierra Ramirez (Angela)

 

Plot Summary: Based on the 2001 video game Silent Hill 2.

 

 

Spoiler

 

We begin on a quiet road winding through a forest beneath a steely overcast sky. A single car, a boxy blue sedan, cruises along the empty street. An on-screen caption informs us of the date – April 18th, 1991. Driving the car is a man with dirty blonde hair in his late twenties (Max Thieriot), wearing a heavy green jacket to ward off the unseasonable chill. He is troubled, melancholy, lost in thought. His eyes are looking at the road, but he is paying it little mind. Still, his attention is caught as he rounds a curve and finds himself speeding towards an impenetrably thick bank of fog. Cautiously, he begins to slow down, nearly coming to a stop in front of the eerie, hovering mist.

 

Behind him, in the far distance, is the cry of a police siren. Nearer, though – and drawing closer by the second – is the sound of another car engine rounding the bend. It is not slowing down. The other vehicle, a sporty red coupe, nearly crashes into the sedan. It swerves at the last second, passing the blue car that has slowed to a crawl, the driver honking angrily. The coupe disappears into the fog, but it can still be heard speeding off into the distance. There is no crash or bang, no sign of danger. The siren is getting louder, closing in on the target of its pursuit. The driver of the blue sedan presses his foot back down onto the accelerator, driving forward into the fog.

 

As the vapor thickens into an opaque, milky miasma, the sounds outside of the car seem to fade away abruptly. Up ahead, the coupe’s overworked engine can no longer be heard. Behind, the siren similarly goes quiet. The screen fades to white, revealing the title card -

 

SILENT HILL: RESTLESS DREAMS

 

 

The picture fades back in as the fog begins to thin out. It is still oppressive; the headlights of the sedan can only illuminate the road six yards ahead at most. There is no sign of any other traffic. On the passenger seat, we see an open envelope. The driver’s name is written on it in a women’s careful cursive script – James. The corner of a handwritten letter peeks out from the top. The woman’s voice narrates the message:

 

“In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. Our special place. You promised you’d take me there again someday. You never did. But I’m alone here now, waiting for you.”

 

James stops the car. The road in front of him leads into a tunnel through a hillside, but the tunnel is fenced-off. Closed for construction. He pulls off the road, into a parking space nearby. He’s at a scenic overlook, a tourist stop along the road overlooking Toluca Lake and the town of Silent Hill, Maine. But with all this fog, it doesn’t seem very scenic at all. He can just barely make out the edge of the water past the overlook’s flimsy, rusted railing. James shuts off the car and gathers his things – a small pocket flashlight which he places in his jacket, a tourist’s map of Silent Hill, a few years old, crinkled and torn around the edges, and, most importantly, the letter, which he slides into the back pocket of his jeans. He steps out of his car and wanders over to the railing, peering into the mist as if willing it to part, hoping he can catch a glimpse of the town to prove he is headed the right way.

 

“I got a letter,” James’ voice narrates in a depressed, confused monotone. “The name it was signed with was Mary. My wife’s name. It’s ridiculous. Couldn’t possibly be true. That’s what I keep telling myself. A dead person can’t write a letter. And that damn disease took Mary from me three years ago. So then why am I here? Why am I looking for her?”

 

He looks at the map, his eyes tracing the criss-crossing streets, searching for landmarks, places that hold memories. “Even if she were in town, where would she be? Our special place? But this whole town was our special place.” Something on the map catches his eye, on the southern shore of the lake. Rosewater Park. “Could it be?” he asks himself in his mind. “We spent the whole day there. Just the two of us, staring out at the water. I want to believe it. Could Mary really be there? Alive? Waiting for me?”

 

He stares at the map for a few moments longer, looking for the overlook where he’s standing, trying to find a way into town without the closed road. It looks like there’s a footpath leading down from here, along the lake and through the woods. Sure enough, nearby he can see a set of stairs leading down off the viewing platform. Folding the map carefully, he places it in the largest pocket on his jacket and starts down the stairs.

 

The dirt path is long and lonely. No birds chirp, no squirrels scamper through the grass. It is not completely silent, though. Periodically, there is a loud rustling in the trees – from above, as if something is jumping from branch to branch. But whenever the startled James peers into the foliage, he can see nothing but swaying branches and falling leaves. Still, he is sure something is following him. He picks up his pace, his breathing becoming heavy. Finally, he approaches an old, unmarked wrought-iron gate. It is hanging slightly open. Stepping through he finds a small cemetery on the shore of the lake. To his relief, there are no trees within the graveyard. But there is someone there. A young, dark-haired woman (Cierra Ramirez), wearing a filthy tan turtleneck sweater, crouching in front of a tombstone. Her body blocks our view of the inscription.

 

James approaches her, calling out. “Hello?”

 

The woman gasps, startled, shooting upright as she turns to face him. Her expression only calms slightly as she realizes it’s a stranger. “Oh! I-I’m sorry,” she says, apologizing for nothing in particular.

 

“No, no, I am,” James insists. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just, well… I’m a little bit lost.”

 

“Lost?” The woman sounds confused, almost unbelieving, as if it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.

 

“Well, yes. I’m trying to find my way into town. Silent Hill? Is this the right way?”

 

“Oh,” she says nervously. “Y-yeah. There’s another gate over that way,” she continues, pointing into the distance along the lakeshore. “There’s just the one path.”

 

James thanks her politely as he begins to head in the direction she’s indicated. But she calls out to stop him. “Wait! I… I’m not sure you should go.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“This… town, there’s… something not quite right. It’s always been strange, b-but it’s worse lately. And it’s not just the fog, either...” She stumbles over her words, as if questioning herself internally on everything she is saying.

 

“Is it dangerous?”

 

“I… I think – maybe,” she responds urgently.

 

“Well, thank you,” James says, “But… I guess it doesn’t really matter to me. I’m… looking for someone. Someone very important to me.”

 

“Oh!” the woman exclaims. “Me too! I’m looking for my mama – uh, I mean my mother. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her,” she notes longingly. “I thought my father and brother were around, too, b-but, I haven’t seen them.” She pauses, but then shakes her head and apologizes again. A compulsion of hers. “I’m sorry… it’s not your problem.”

 

“It’s fine. I hope you find them.”

 

“Th-thanks. You too. And b-be careful.”

 

James nods and turns to leave, easily finding the other gate and continuing along the path. The sounds in the trees have not followed him, and aside from the eerie stillness, the absence of people and wildlife, the rest of his walk is uneventful. It’s not long before he arrives on the outskirts of town. But the woman was right – there is something wrong. The buildings are boarded up and abandoned, walls cracked, uncovered windows shattered. The streets are deserted. There are a few empty cars parked along the sides of the roads, but no signs of their owners. No vehicles driving. When James had been here years ago with his wife, it had been a bustling vacation spot. Now it is a ghost town.

 

“Mary...”

 

His wife’s name escapes his lips in a concerned gasp. What happened here? If she was here, waiting for him… then what could have happened to her? James wanders the empty streets in a daze, searching for signs of life. For a while there is no sound but his own footsteps. And then, something else… more footsteps. Lighter, softer, but faster. Faint, at first. The sound of bare feet, flesh slapping against pavement. He follows it to its source. In the distance, concealed by the mist, he spots the dark silhouette of another man, staggering away.

 

“Hey!” James yells. “Wait!”

 

If the figure in the fog hears him, it gives no indication. It vanishes into the mist, leaving James to run after it. He gives chase, but no matter how quickly he sprints, the sound of those naked, plodding footsteps does not seem to grow any closer. Finally, he reaches a dead end. From the wall of gray mist in front of him emerges… a construction site. The other end of the closed tunnel. Tools and construction materials are scattered about haphazardly, left behind. A small radio sits on top of a metal barrel, crackling with static. There are a few long wooden planks nailed over the tunnel entrance, but James can see in – a few feet, at least, until the darkness becomes all-consuming.

 

A voice, fuzzy and indistinct, calls to him over the radio. “James?”

 

Mary’s voice. He can’t believe it. He has to be hearing things, he thinks, hallucinating-

 

“James?”

 

No. It’s real. It’s really her. He runs over and grabs the radio, holding it up to his ear, cranking the volume all the way up to try and make out Mary’s voice buried in the noise.

 

“Where are you?” She pleads. “Please come to me. I’m waiting for you. Do you-”

 

Her voice fades in and out, the static growing louder. Desperately he fiddles with the dial, trying to get her back. “Is that... think… please, James...”

 

Her voice sinks into the sea of swarming noise, drowning away. The static is painfully loud. But not quite loud enough to cover up the other sound, not now that it’s so close. The sound of the footsteps. James turns to look, and sees the figure he’d been following.

 

It is not human.

 

The creature has the general shape of a human, but it is covered from head to toe in a jaundiced membrane, a tight cocoon of rotting skin. Its arms are trapped inside, crossed over its chest as if it were wearing a straitjacket. There is no suggestion of a face on its head, no lump for a nose or sunken eye sockets. Only a mouth. If you could call it that. It’s more of a hole, a filthy wound where the mouth should be, as if a huge drill had been taken to it. Boiling black bile drools out from within. With the sound of gagging and coughing, the thing spits out a stream of the red-hot slime. It splashes onto James’ jacket, and even through his clothing he can feel his skin burning. He drops the radio, and the cheap old thing breaks apart on the asphalt, falling silent.

 

James panics, backpedaling, his eyes darting around in search of something to defend himself with. There is a crowbar on the ground nearby. Working more on instinct than thought, he picks it up, swinging wildly at the sickening abomination. With each impact there is the sound of wet flesh squishing, sliding. Velvet bruises form on the cocoon-skin with every strike, but the thing continues to mindlessly march forth. Finally, James raises the crowbar over his head and slams it down onto the monster’s skull. There’s a damp, muffled cracking sound as it splits open, the thing collapsing to the ground. It twitches for a while, black ooze spurting from its face-hole and cranium, before it suddenly goes still – the life draining from its body with an unmistakably human death rattle.

 

“What the hell – oh my god,” he shouts, unable to look away from the corpse of his bizarre attacker. When he finally turns away, he sees the crowbar in his hand is coated in the black sludge, which is dissolving it away. Startled, he tosses the tool to the ground.

 

Are there more of these things? Are they after Mary? He yanks the map out of his jacket pocket, clumsily unfolding it, searching for his location. He finds the end of the tunnel, where he is. His finger unsteadily traces the route to Rosewater Park, his hands shaking uncontrollably. It’s not too far. Five blocks, past a smattering of shops and the Blue Creek Apartments. He can make it. He has to. If there’s even the smallest chance Mary is there, alive, he needs to find her before another of those things does.

 

James races through the fog-covered streets, eyes scanning back and forth, searching for any sign of another of those inhuman things. It seems almost as if his first encounter has triggered something – he can hear things now, things that always seem to be just outside of his view. Groans, footsteps. As he approaches the entrance to the Blue Creek Apartments building, he spots a shadow moving through the mist, approaching the front door. His muscles tense, fists clenching, already-racing heart skipping a beat. But as he draws nearer, he sees it’s not a monster. It’s that woman – the one from the graveyard. By the time he’s identified her, she’s entered the building, the creaky old wooden door slamming shut behind her.

 

“Wait,” he calls out. But she can’t seem to hear him from inside. His legs come to a stop, but his mind continues to race. He needs to get to the park, in case his wife is there – but he KNOWS where this woman is. The only other human he’s seen. And she seemed to know something about this town, about what’s going on. Quickly he pulls out the map again, taking another look. The apartment building is quite large, and naturally, its exits aren’t marked on the simple overview of the town. But there has to be some sort of emergency exit on the other side, doesn’t there? If there is, he should be able to cut through the building and come out closer to the park. Almost like a shortcut. He can look for the young woman on his way through.

 

His mind made up, he runs over to the door and flings it open. “Hey,” he shouts as he steps into the front lobby. His voice echoes through the filthy room, the furniture torn and moldy, fungus growing up through the carpet. There is only one door leading further into the building on the ground floor of the lobby, and it’s boarded up. She couldn’t have gone through there. Rapidly he makes his way up the staircase to the second floor. He’s forced to slow his ascent as the old, poorly-maintained wooden steps creak and sag under his feet, threatening to collapse. Still, he makes it to the second floor landing. The door leading into the halls lined with apartments hangs open, and he steps through.

 

There are units on both sides of the hallway; no windows, no light. James switches on his pocket flashlight, its narrow, dim beam just enough to reach to the end of the corridor, where it joins with a perpendicular hallway. “Hello,” he calls into the shadows. After a moment of quiet, there is a response, of sorts – though not the kind he expected. A laugh. The laugh of a little girl. Light, quick footsteps sound from the end of the hallway. For just a second, the glow of his flashlight reveals the girl, running down the attached hall. She doesn’t stop or turn to look at him, and she passes by too quickly for him to make out what she looks like.

 

“Hey! Stop!” What could she be doing here? It is far too dangerous for someone like her. James and Mary had never had children, but they’d talked about the possibility. Even though he is not a father, his protective instinct kicks in as soon as he glimpses the child. He runs after her, but by the time he turns the corner, she is out of sight. The section of hall in front of him has four doors to different apartments, all of them open. It also adjoins another perpendicular hall at the end. He can’t hear the girl’s footsteps anymore, and so he is forced to take a guess. One of the doors is open wider than the others. After a moment’s pause to catch his breath, he enters the apartment.

 

As James steps out of the hall and through the door, we cut to a reverse angle. Behind him, down the other branch of the corridor, we can just make out an imposing form in the darkness. It appears human, though it’s hard to be sure – its entire head is hidden, locked inside a heavy, rusted metal box in the shape of an oblong six-sided pyramid. The front of this enormous helmet juts out like a feral snout, hanging over the grimy, oversized white butcher’s smock that dangles down past his knees. In one gloved hand he holds the handle of an enormous knife, longer and wider than a broadsword, but with the distinct shape of a meat-cutting utensil. Its sharp, pointed tip rests on the hallway floor. The thing is simply standing, watching, still and silent.

 

James does not find Laura inside the living room of the apartment. In fact, the room is completely empty, devoid even of furniture or decoration, with two notable exceptions – in one of the far corners sits an old television set, and positioned in front of is is an empty, broken easy chair. “Hello,” he calls again.

 

The television screeches to life, the hissing, snowy static on its screen illuminating the room. James’ hands shoot up to cover his ears – just in time to soften the sudden sound of gunfire from an adjacent room. With a startled shout, James pivots to face the source of the sound – the open door into what he assumes is the bedroom. He waits for the sound to repeat, or for something else – a scream, the thump of a body hitting the floor. But there is nothing. Cautiously, he lowers his hands and passes through the bedroom door.

 

In the center of the room, lying in a pool of blood on the floor, is the body of a man. Relatively young, about the same height and weight as James, face-down. Judging by the state of his clothes and skin, he’s been dead for quite some time. Scattered around the corpse are spent bullets – dozens of them, as if there had been a one-man firefight. The room’s only other contents are… mannequins. At least ten of them, lying on the floor around the perimeter, resting against the walls. A closer look reveals them to be malformed. None of them have a head or torso. Each is comprised only of two sets of hips and legs screwed into one another hip-to-hip, creating the appearance of some kind of mutant four-legged animal.

 

James gasps, looking around the room for any sign of the girl. But she isn’t here. Nothing but the corpse, the bullets, the mannequins – and a hole. A small, fist-sized hole in the wall. As the flashlight beam shines through the puncture, there is a glint of metal. James stops, stepping forward to look closer. Through the hole, which is quite deep, a pistol rests on a wooden beam, part of the building’s framework.

 

Having nothing to defend himself with, James decides to take it. He steps up to the wall, thrusting his hand into the hole. It’s a tight fit, and even with his entire forearm inside, he can’t quite reach the weapon. Blindly he forces his elbow through the narrow opening, leaning into the wall, grasping around. Behind him, one of the mannequins stands up. It hobbles toward him, the top legs flailing upside-down like an insect’s antennae. The squealing protests of the weak floorboards alert James to the thing’s approach. His breath becomes caught in his throat as he frantically waves his arm around behind the wall, fingers feeling along the splintered wood for the gun.

 

The mannequin is nearly within arms’ reach when James finally pulls the gun out of the hole. He takes aim unsteadily and squeezes the trigger. Miraculously, the firearm is still loaded. A few panicked shots later, the thing collapses to the floor, dead. Dead, despite the fact it should never have been alive.

 

James runs out of the apartment. The pyramid-headed thing is no longer in the hallway. He’s no longer concerned with finding the little girl or the young woman. He tries to remember which direction he came in, which direction he needs to go to get to the other end of the building, closer to the park. Suddenly the simple layout of the apartment complex feels like a maze. He runs down the hall, taking a right turn, then another at the end of that corridor when he finds no other path. On the left side of this hall he can see marked door leading to a stairwell. He makes a dash for it-

 

-and the rotting hallway floor caves in beneath him. He tries to grab onto something, but there’s nothing to hold. He falls through the gaping hole, down to the first floor. The layout of the building is different at ground level, and he finds himself landing on a moldy old bed in another apartment. The worn springs in the mattress creak and groan, bouncing him off onto the floor. Wincing at his pains and aches, he forces himself onto his feet.

 

There is someone else in this apartment. He can hear their loud movements beyond the bedroom door. But there is no other exit. Readying his gun, he steps out into the living room. Out here he can tell the noise is coming from the attached kitchenette, which he must pass to reach the door back out into the hallway. James holds his breath as he steps past the interior wall blocking his view of the kitchen.

 

On the other side is the pyramid-headed man. In his crushing grip are two of the ankles of one of the misshapen mannequins. He has it pinned against the counter. The mannequin is flailing, twitching, struggling. Its attacker is crushing it, but more than that. His hips are thrusting back and forth. Though his body is concealed underneath his smock, it appears as though the pyramid-head is raping its victim. James screams, firing off a shot. It ricochets off of the monstrous man’s helmet with a harmless spark.

 

He turns his long metal snout to face James. The thick muscles on his bare arms flex and bulge as he kills the mannequin, shoving its legs up into its hip, destroying the ball-and-socket joints. James runs to the front door, but it’s jammed. The old lock has rusted shut. He tries to shoot the lock out, but the gun he’s found is already out of bullets. The pyramid-head drops the broken, lifeless mannequin to the floor, reaching for his enormous knife resting against the wall. In the living room is a small closet, the kind with the slatted double doors. As the butcher marches slowly towards him, the tip of its knife dragging along the floor, carving a long, ragged gouge in the wood, James is forced back into the closet. Without thinking, he pulls the doors shut. Through the narrow openings in between strips of wood, he can still see the monster approaching. Soon he is standing right in front of the door. James is well aware that the thing could kill him here and now. Shove its arm right through the flimsy door and strangle him.

 

But he does not. The pyramid-head seems to stare at James for several tense seconds, though it has no apparent way of even seeing out of its helmet. Then, with a grunt, it turns, heading for the front door. The beast smashes it open, tearing it off its hinges, and wanders off down the hallway.

 

As he watches him leave, and for a fair time after, James is paralyzed with fear. But as the horrible sound of the blade tearing up the floor fades and disappears, he forces himself back out into the living room, and finally the hall. At the end of the hall is a door with a small broken glass window in it. A bronze plaque on the wall next to it reads “North Lobby.” A way out. He walks towards it, starting slow, gradually accelerating as he becomes more confident that the monster is gone.

 

Opening the door and stepping into the lobby, he is surprised to find the young woman from the graveyard inside. The western wall of the room is an enormous, floor-to-ceiling mirror, and she is lying on the carpet in front of it, staring at her reflection. In her hand is a chef’s knife, its tip pointed upwards, slightly tilted towards her face. She catches sight of James in the mirror.

 

“Oh, it’s you,” she says quietly, uninterested. She does not get up or turn to look at him, only watching his reflection.

 

“Are you okay? Did those – those things hurt you?” James is quite a bit more emotional, despite having just met her. The sight of the knife in her grip makes him visibly nervous.

 

“So what if they did?” she asks. “I’m still alive.” Her tone implies a hint of disappointment at that fact. Her gaze shifts to the gleaming steel edge.

 

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here, or what you’re planning,” James tells her, his speech measured, careful, gentle. “But there’s always another way.”

 

“Is there?” the woman asks dubiously. “You’re the same as me, aren’t you? It’s easier just to run. But… it’s what we deserve.”

 

“No, I… I’m not...”

 

“Sure you are. But you’re afraid of it, aren’t you? Afraid to admit it?” She sees the anguish on James’ face, and her tone shifts. She pushes herself onto her feet, finally turning around to address him. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

 

“It’s all right, miss… what is your name?” he asks, his eyes flicking back and forth between her face and the knife.

 

“I’m… Angela,” she says with some hesitation.

 

“I’m James,” he offers in response. There is an awkward pause as the two stare into each other’s eyes, as if each is trying to read the other’s mind. James breaks the silence. “Did you find your mother?”

 

“Not yet,” Angela says sadly. “She’s… not anywhere.”

 

“Did she live here?”

 

“I don’t...” Angela trails off, avoiding the question. “W-what about you? Did you find… the person you’re looking for?”

 

James lets his question go for now. “Not yet,” he responds, shaking his head solemnly. “I’m… looking for my wife. Her name is Mary. I, uh… I have a picture...”

 

James pulls a small photograph from one of his pants pockets, one he always carries with him. In the picture is Mary (Margot Robbie), before the disease took hold of her. She’s standing in front of a serene lake on a sunny day, smiling warmly at the camera in her modest pink blouse and long white skirt, her dark blonde hair tied behind her head in a neat bun. He holds the picture out for Angela to examine.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says with a shake of her head, indicating she hasn’t spotted her. “W-when was the last time you saw her?”

 

“Three years ago...” he answers, avoiding eye contact now as he speaks. “In a hospital. Just before she… she died.”

 

“Died?”

 

“But… I got a letter. A letter from her. I know it’s her handwriting. I could never mistake it,” he responds. The desperation in his voice suggests he’s trying to reassure himself as much as he wants to convince Angela. “It said she was here.”

 

“And you really believe she could be?”

 

“I don’t know,” James admits. “But I’ve already seen things in this town that I wouldn’t have believed yesterday. You told me there was something wrong with this town – what did you mean? Do you know what’s going on?”

 

Angela shakes her head, placing a palm on one of her temples. “I… I need to find my mama.”

 

“Do you want to come with me? We can look together.”

 

“N-no,” Angela says. “But...”

 

She holds up the knife. “Could you… h-hold this for me? If I keep it, I… I don’t know what I might do.”

 

James forces a smile and nods. “I think that’s a good idea.” He steps forward, reaching out to take it-

 

-Angela screams, backing away and wrapping both hands around the knife’s handle, holding it out defensively with the point aimed at James’ neck. “No! I-I’m sorry! I’ve been bad!” Tears streak down her face, her muscles at once tensed and unsteady, her breaths fast and shallow. “Please, d-don’t!”

 

James takes a few steps back, and Angela turns and runs out of the room, back into the hallway. She tosses the knife to the floor as she sprints away sobbing. He calls her name, but she is already gone. Frightened and confused, he picks up the knife off of the floor. He may need it.

 

James emerges out onto the street, pulling out his map and checking it against the signs at the nearest intersection. He’s close; just two more blocks to Rosewater Park. The fog remains thick and oppressive. He slides the knife into one of his jacket pockets, keeping it unbuttoned for easy access. But his trip to the park is uneventful. The town is, for now, living up to its name. There is no sign of life, natural or otherwise, as he runs through the mist, past boarded-up storefronts, to the park entrance.

 

The front gate to the park hangs open ominously. Just behind it is a large statue of a seventeenth century woman, her head bowed as if in prayer. James remembers it faintly from his visit here with Mary. The inscription is worn and faded, but he can just make most of it out - “What happened here shall never be forgotten. Jennifer Carroll, 1664-1692. Victim of persecution by the-” the last word is badly damaged. Chipped away, intentionally, it seems. He can make out only a few letters. C---I----N-.

 

Before he can puzzle out what the word might be, his attention is diverted by the sound of footsteps nearby. He looks with a start across the entrance plaza to see the same little girl he briefly encountered in the apartments. She’s very young – under ten years old for sure – with blonde hair tied behind her into a neat ponytail, wearing a striped shirt under a long child’s dress made of denim, overall-like straps looped around her shoulders. In her hands is an opened envelope, the top of a letter peeking out from within. She’s reading it silently as she walks, not paying attention to her surroundings.

 

“Hey you,” James calls out. “What are you doing here alone?”

 

At first, the little girl is startled – but quickly she becomes defensive, angry. “What’s it to you?”

 

“This place isn’t safe. You can’t just wander around without-”

 

“I can take care of myself,” she insists. “A little fog doesn’t scare me.”

 

“It’s not the fog, it’s-” James cuts himself off as the girl turns and begins to walk away, ignoring him. She tucks the letter back into a small pocket in her dress.

 

“Hey! Wait! Who are you? What’s that letter?”

 

The girl stops and turns her head back to James with a spiteful glare. “None of your business,” she shouts. “You didn’t love Mary anyway!”

 

With that, she sprints off, disappearing behind a large stone wall. James gives chase, but has already lost her. The park’s layout is confusing, almost maze-like, more complex than he remembers it. There are walls and hedges and fences everywhere. Try as he might, he can’t seem to find where the girl has gone. Eventually, though, he finds himself at the lake’s edge, on a concrete walkway that rises several feet above the shore below. This is where he and Mary had spent so much time together, watching the water glisten in the sunlight…

 

...And could it be? There is a woman there, here and now. Leaning against the railing, her arms dangling out over the lake, dressed in a too-tight red blouse that exposes her midriff and a pink miniskirt. No. Mary would never dress like that. But then who is it?

 

“Hello,” he calls to the woman, walking towards her. When she turns around, he stops in his tracks like he’s just run into a brick wall. He recognizes the face instantly – as does the audience, from the photograph of Mary. It is exactly the same, makeup aside.

 

“...Mary?” he gasps out in disbelief.

 

The woman (Margot Robbie) smirks and shakes her head. “Do I look like your girlfriend?” Her voice is sultry, taunting and playful.

 

James can only mumble and shake his head at first. His gaze is locked on her face, studying it, searching for some telltale difference… but he can find none. “Mary,” he finally spits out. “My… late wife. You look just like her...”

 

Worried he sounds crazy, he pulls out the picture of Mary and holds it up for this woman to see. She nods and chuckles, acknowledging the resemblance. “You’re right,” she says. “We could be twins.”

 

“And this – this is where we spent the whole day. Right on this spot,” he says.

 

“My name is Maria,” the woman interjects. “I don’t look like a ghost, do I?” James hesitates, and she grabs his hand, pulling it up and placing it on her cheek. “See? Feel how warm I am.”

 

It’s true. She’s warm, solid. Alive. For a second James lets his fingers trace the contours of her face, lets himself pretend it could really be Mary – but then he snaps back to his senses, pulling his hand away.

 

“S-sorry,” he says, still stumbling over his words a bit. “I’m just… confused. I came here looking for Mary, and-”

 

“Didn’t you say she died?” Maria asks suspiciously, cutting him off.

 

“Yes, b-but...” he pulls out his own envelope. “I got a letter. From her. I know her handwriting, and it’s hers. She said she was here, waiting for me in our special place...”

 

“So then you WANTED me to be a ghost,” Maria observes, bemused.

 

“I… don’t know what to expect. With all these… things around here. If those can be real, why can’t she?”

 

This seems to satisfy Maria for the moment. She nods, her expression turning serious. “This town has always been strange. But a couple years ago, something terrible happened here. It’s been worse since. Like the whole place is angry. And when I woke up today… it was like this.”

 

“Have you seen anyone else?”

 

“No. No one… human,” Maria replies, fear creeping into her voice. “What about you?”

 

“Yeah. There’s this young woman, Angela… and some little girl, blonde, maybe eight or nine years old-”

 

“Laura?” Maria asks, suddenly concerned.

 

“You know her?”

 

“I… no, not really,” Maria says, shaking her head slowly, sounding confused. “I guess I just must have… seen her around town.”

 

“She’s wandering around on her own. And she knows something about Mary. But she wouldn’t tell me.”

 

“We need to find her,” Maria urges.

 

“Do you have any idea where she’d go?”

 

“No. Why would I?”

 

“Well – you said you’d seen her around. You know her name.”

 

Maria clutches her head, rubbing her temples like she has a headache. “I – no. I can’t remember,” she says. “You said she knows about your wife? Maybe she’s looking for her too. Where else could she be?”

 

James ponders for a moment before replying. “Well… there was our hotel. Up north, on the other shore.”

 

“The Lakeview,” Maria says with a nod. “It’s still there.”

 

“Then why don’t I head up to the hotel, and you can look for Laura,” James suggests.

 

“You’re just going to LEAVE me?” Maria is furious and terrified at once. “Leave me alone to die? Is that how you treated your wife?”

 

“No, I-”

 

“Then take me with you!”

 

Maria rushes forward and wraps her arms around James in a tight, desperate embrace. Her collected, sensual facade has broken completely. James’ arms instinctively move to envelop her, to return the embrace, but instead he pushes her gently off.

 

“Okay,” he says with a nod. “We’ll go together. We can keep an eye out for Laura along the way.”

 

Maria seems unsure, concerned. They don’t even know for sure if that’s where the little girl is headed. It’s a big town. But if this Mary does know her, and they can find her… perhaps she’d be able to help search for Laura, too. Maria agrees to the plan.

 

It’s a long way to the Lakeview Hotel; the pair will need to exit the downtown area completely and take the lonely road that curves around the western edge of Toluca Lake. James estimates that it will take at least two or three hours. As they exit the park, Maria begins to cough – just a bit at first, but then again and again until she becomes winded and needs to stop walking for a moment. James is worried; she seems sick.

 

“Are you sure you can make it?”

 

“I’ll be fine,” Maria insists. “I’m just hungover.”

 

“If you need to rest,” James offers, “I’m sure we can find someplace safe.”

 

Still she refuses, and the fit seems to clear itself up. The two head west, Maria walking uncomfortably close to James. Every so often as she swings her hands with her steps, one brushes against his body; he gets the feeling this is not accidental. Still, he can’t bring himself to confront her. Their trek is oddly peaceful. The dense clouds of fog seem to dance through the air, and their footsteps keep a regular beat, perfectly synchronized. In the distance, several blocks ahead, they can see the edge of downtown and the beginning of the road to the hotel.

 

The silence is pierced by the deafening, agonized groan of an air raid siren. The fog congeals around them, closing in rapidly. What little visibility remains quickly disappears, the town seemingly swallowed up by a restless gray void. The shade of gray darkens as it fills their vision, the filtered sunlight that had so far been able to penetrate the mist smothered out.

 

“James!” Maria screams. He cannot even see her standing inches away from him. “What’s happening?”

 

As the siren’s wail trails off, there are other sounds now, too – the steady, gentle drumbeats of raindrops on the pavement. And another noise; similar, but subtly different. Sharper, harder. The fog lifts as abruptly as it had engulfed them, leaving behind an impenetrable darkness. James fumbles around blindly, managing to switch on his pocket flashlight.

 

In the beam of weak light he can see immediately that things have changed. The buildings, already abandoned and neglected, are now practically ruins. Walls are damaged or missing, doors hang off of their hinges, roofs have caved in, soaked and weakened by the storm. Though the precipitation is relatively gentle, and it had not been raining just a moment ago, the streets are nearly flooded. A thin layer of cold water coats the road, fast currents flowing down into storm drains as if it’s been pouring for hours.

 

Out of the drains come the source of the other noise. Insects. Huge, horrible, unnatural ones, ones James can’t begin to identify. Half a foot long with tiny, beady, unblinking eyes and hard, filthy shells coated in sewage. Their sharp little feet click along the wet asphalt as they flee the raging river of refuse that flows below the street.

 

James grabs Maria by the arm and begins to run. He scans the buildings nearby, looking for anything reasonably intact, any sort of shelter. The two race past an abandoned car, and from beneath the undercarriage, one of those nearly-human beasts in its fleshy cocoon lurches out at them. Maria shrieks as the armless monstrosity pushes itself along the slick pavement with flailing legs, trying desperately to chase after them. But it is too slow to catch up.

 

On the next street corner James catches sight of a building that seems to have its walls and roof more or less intact. Neely’s Bar, he thinks the sign says, though the printed colors on the sign above the door are faded and bleeding off.

 

“Over there,” he shouts, turning back to Maria and pointing at their new destination. Behind her he sees the disfigured, lying figure spasm helplessly as the swarm of bugs crawls all over it. The insects bite into its outer membrane, burrowing underneath. The monster’s humanoid form becomes unrecognizable as more and more of the pests crawl into its cocoon of rotted skin, black goo spilling out onto the road as they feast. It looks like nothing if not a wet paper bag filled with suffering, dying small animals.

 

James and Maria make it into Neely’s Bar, locking and closing the door behind them. The interior is a mess of broken tables, overturned stools and chairs, smashed bottles and dripping water leaking through the cracked ceiling. The windows facing the street around the corner from the entrance are covered with a large white tarp that has been nailed into place. On the waterlogged fabric, a message is scrawled in what James hopes is only red ink:

 

There was a HOLE here. It’s gone now.

 

“James – what the-”

 

Maria is hysterical, pacing back and forth, her hands clasped closed to her chest. Her cough returns with greater force than before, the fit quickly becoming so bad she cannot find time or air to speak. James looks around for anything to help, somewhere she can sit or lie down, clean water, ANYTHING, but then-

 

A sudden, heavy pounding on the front door. Again and again it comes, in a slow, steady pattern. Each blow is stronger than the last, and the wood begins to splinter, the hinges coming loose. The terrified Maria runs to the other end of the bar, cowering in front of the tarp-covered windows. James backs away slowly, pulling the knife from his jacket pocket. He slows his breathing, trying to focus, to steady his hand, gripping the handle of the blade firmly.

 

The pounding stops. He braces himself for one final, devastating blow, expecting something to smash the door in. But it never comes. After several tense seconds, Maria finds her voice.

 

“J-James? Is it gone?”

 

A terrified James glances over at her, but doesn’t have an answer. He looks back to the door, listening intently. He can’t hear anything outside but the faint sound of the falling rain. But he didn’t hear any footsteps leaving, did he?

 

“I don’t...”

 

“James,” Maria pleads, tears streaking down over her cheeks, “It’s not safe. We need to get-”

 

The blade of an enormous knife stabs through the tarp behind Maria, the rusted metal tearing through her flesh as easily as the soaked fabric. Its sharp, blood-soaked tip bursts out of her stomach, entrails sliding off the sides. James wails in shock as the blade is pulled back through her torso, spilling Maria’s blood all over the floor as her lifeless body collapses. Through the ragged gash in the tarp he sees that pyramid-headed thing from the apartments, struggling with the heft of his gigantic weapon, letting the point fall to the ground with a loud, echoing clang.

 

James freezes in fear, but the atrocity just stares for a moment before turning to leave, dragging the knife behind him. As the sound of the metal scraping against the sidewalk fades off into the distance, James approaches Maria’s corpse, crouching down over it and sobbing. He reaches down and traces his fingers across her face, the face of his wife. Cold as death.

 

The pounding on the front door of the bar returns, and James knows that it won’t hold for long. With one last mournful look at Maria’s body, he climbs out through the torn tarp onto the dark, wet street. A few of the bugs scamper around here and there, but the bulk of the swarm has moved on. He doesn’t want to get any closer to whatever might be waiting for him at the entrance to the bar, so James runs a block north, taking a detour along the way to the road out of downtown. He runs through the storm alone, the cold rain washing the tears from his face.

 

As James rounds the last corner back towards the way to the hotel, his flashlight illuminates a small figure making her way into a large, old building of brick and stone. Laura. As the beam of light hits her, she turns to James and shields her eyes from the glare.

 

“Laura, wait!”

 

Surprised to hear him speak her name, Laura gasps and rushes into the building. The sign over the entrance says it is the Silent Hill Historical Society. James recognizes it from the vacation he took here with Mary. He runs down the street and follows Laura inside, calling her name into the darkness. After a brief search, he finds her hiding behind an overturned display pedestal, beneath a rather disturbing painting depicting the sinking of a tourist ferry on the lake decades ago.

 

“Laura! Are you okay?”

 

She seems equally annoyed and puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not afraid of the dark.”

 

“It’s not safe for you to be alone,” James insists frantically. “With all these monsters-”

 

“MONSTERS?” Laura asks skeptically. “Are you crazy or something? Monsters aren’t real!”

 

“But-”

 

Before the confused James can continue, the frustrated little girl cuts him off.

 

“And how do you know my name anyway?”

 

“I – it was...”

 

James sighs, trying to keep his composure. “Maria told me. She… she said she knew you from around town.”

 

“Huh? I’m not from here!” Laura protests. “Why are you such a liar?”

 

“I’m not lying,” he insists. “She… she thought she’d seen you here. Maybe she was wrong. She – she wasn’t too sure.”

 

“And who’s Maria? Did you run off with someone else already? Did you forget about Mary just like that!?”

 

“No! I could never...” James trials off, shaking his head. “How do you know who I am? How do you know Mary?”

 

“She’s my friend! We met in the hospital,” Laura claims. “She told me all about YOU. And about Silent Hill.”

 

“Is that why you’re here?” James asks. “That letter you had… is it from Mary?”

 

“Why should I tell you?”

 

“...I got one too, Laura.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the envelope. But when he opens it, there is no letter inside. Frantically, he searches the floor, his other pockets, anywhere he can think to. “Where did – no I must have dropped it somewhere… but...”

 

“So you’re looking for her too?” Laura asks. The question snaps James’ attention back to her.

 

“Y-yeah. I think she might be at the hotel,” he says, not terribly confident in that deduction. “You should come with me, Laura. I can’t let you run around out here on your own.”

 

Laura pouts, crossing her arms, but reluctantly nods her head. After one more glance down at the floor looking for his letter, James starts towards the front door with Laura trailing him by a few feet. Suddenly, she stops and gasps.

 

“Did you hear that!?”

 

“What?” James asks. “No. Where?”

 

Frightened, Laura points to the open door to a room across the hall. There doesn’t seem to be any noise coming from within, but she is insistent she heard something.

 

“What if it’s a monster like you said?” she asks, frightened. “It’ll sneak up on us and eat us!”

 

“Fine, fine,” James says. “I’ll take a look to be sure. Just – stay here, okay?”

 

Laura nods obediently, and James steps into the room. It’s a historical gallery of some sort; the walls are lined with old photographs and paintings, while a line of display cases in the center contains a series of odd artifacts; some sort of bizarre religious paraphernalia. But there are no sounds, no monsters. James turns back around-

 

And Laura slams the door in his face, laughing as she scampers off down the hallway.

 

“Laura! Stop!”

 

James runs to the door, slamming against it, but it won’t open. He glances down at the knob. There’s no lock, no deadbolt. He twists the knob freely, but no matter how he turns it or how hard he pushes, the door won’t open. As he pounds on the door, shouting for Laura to come back, he is startled by the sound of a painting falling from the wall and crashing down onto the floor behind him.

 

He turns to look and finds that, in the space where the painting once hung, there is a large hole in the wall. He looks down at the painting, taking note of its subject for the first time. It depicts a series of iron cages dangling on chains, naked men and women trapped inside. One of them is dead, a fresh, gaping wound in his stomach. Standing next to his cage, wielding his huge blood-coated knife, is the pyramid-headed man. The inscription on the frame reads:

 

“EXECUTIONER OF THE ORDER RENDERS PUNISHMENT. UNDATED, CIRCA EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.”

 

As James stares at the grotesque work of art, what remains of the wall beneath the hole crumbles away, chunks of plaster and drywall covering the painting. Shining his light through the opening, James sees a long, dark staircase leading down, and down, and down… he cannot even see the bottom in the dim glow. Anxiously he glances around the room again, searching for any other exit. There is none.

 

With a deep breath, he begins his descent.

 

For what feels like an eternity, James continues slowly down the old stone steps with no end in sight. Finally, though, a door appears at the bottom. It is windowless, made of thick, rusted iron. Stenciled onto the pitted surface are the words “AUTHORIZED PRISON PERSONNEL ONLY.” With no other options, James undoes the filthy old latch holding the door shut and pushes it open.

 

Beyond the door is a labyrinth of bare concrete walls and empty prison cells. He wanders slowly and aimlessly through the halls, searching for a way out, or at least some sort of map or directions on the walls. But he finds nothing except for another staircase, one leading even further down. He has now idea how deep underground he must be already – it feels like miles. But what would a prison be doing all the way down here?

 

As he exits the stairs into the first hallway on the floor below, a familiar voice calls out his name.

 

“James?”

 

With a gasp he pivots on the balls of his feet, head snapping around toward the source of the voice. “Mary!?” he calls.

 

There, locked in a nearby prison cell, somehow, is Maria. She looks exactly as she did when he first met her in the park. There is no sign of their run through the storm, no hint of the narrow hole carved out of her torso. She’s standing there, leaning against the bars of her cell, SMILING at him, as if nothing is wrong at all.

 

“Maria – but… you were dead! I saw it happen! That thing, it...”

 

James can’t bear to finish his sentence as he walks over toward the cell, Maria watching him all the while with a look of mild confusion.

 

“James, honey… did something happen to you? After we got separated in the fog?”

 

“Separated? No, you were...”

 

“Are you confusing me with someone else?” She chuckles, shaking her head. “You always were so forgetful. Remember that time at the hotel? You promised me you’d packed everything when we checked out. But you left behind that video we made, after all that time you spent recording me!”

 

“How do you know about that?” James asks, squinting his eyes, refocusing them, trying to make sure he isn’t seeing things. But the person in front of him doesn’t change. Her clothes, her hair, her makeup… all wrong.

 

“I wonder if the tape is still there,” she continues, ignoring him.

 

“How do you know about that!?” he repeats, frustrated. “Aren’t you Maria?”

 

She flashes a seductive grin, winking at James. “I am… if you want me to be.”

 

“All I want from you are answers!”

 

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” she coos softly. “I’m here for you, James. See?” She reaches a hand between the bars, running a finger along his cheek. “I’m real. Don’t you want me?”

 

James shivers at the woman’s touch. He struggles for words, but can’t find any, can’t even begin to comprehend or accept what is happening.

 

“Find a way to get me out of here, James,” she continues. “I can’t do much while I’m trapped.”

 

Just as it seems James is finally about to reply, the two are interrupted by woman’s shriek reverberating down the adjacent hallway, followed by the echoing sounds of running footsteps. James thinks he recognizes this voice, too.

 

“Angela!”

 

He goes to run after her, but Maria grabs onto his jacket, trying to hold him back. “James,” she says, suddenly frightened, desperate, pleading. “Don’t go! Don’t leave me again!”

 

“I’ll be right back,” he insists.

 

“You ALWAYS say that! And you just keep me waiting!”

 

“Look, I’ve got to help her,” James shouts. “Maybe she can help me get you out of here.”

 

“FINE!” Maria releases her grip on James’ jacket, enraged. “Go run off with her, then! I should’ve known you had someone else!”

 

James sprints down the hall to find Angela. As he reaches the spot where he thinks the scream came from, he finds a sort of bulletin board on the wall. Pinned to it are a series of newspaper clippings – all reports of brutal crimes in Silent Hill and the rest of Toluca County. The crimes of the prisoners? One of the clippings has been ripped off of the board and fallen to the floor. James picks it up an examines it, and quickly realizes the reason for Angela’s scream.

 

THOMAS OROSCO, 39, FOUND MURDERED IN HIS HOME.

DAUGHTER ANGELA OROSCO, 19, MISSING.

 

Before James can read the article itself, Angela screams again, from behind a closed door a few yards down the hall. Dropping the article and drawing the knife he’d taken from her, he rushes over and throws the door open.

 

“No, daddy,” Angela wails. “Please don’t!”

 

James’ vision, and the images onscreen, shift and blur as if some sort of interference is taking place. When it clears, we see Angela cowering in the corner of the small room. The walls are alive, made of bleeding, pulsing flesh. Large metal pistons slowly thrust in and out of gaping holes in the soft, pink walls. Approaching the terrified Angela is a monster with two heads, four legs, and four arms; two bodies melded into one, the larger hunched over the other, lying atop it, both on all fours. They share the same skin, stretched out over their vague features, veins throbbing as the beast crawls toward her in jerky, abrupt motions.

 

James recoils in disgust, but as the thing reaches out to grab Angela, he throws himself at it, sinking the knife into its back. It screams in two voices, a man’s and a woman’s, flailing its eight limbs back at him defensively. James hacks away at the creature as Angela screams something indecipherable. Finally, he drives the knife through the skull of the monster’s male half, and with a final orgasmic moan it crumples lifelessly to the floor.

 

James yanks the knife free and steps away from the horrific corpse, gasping for breath. Angela looks on in horror, but as soon as she is certain it is dead, her expression shifts to a mask of pure, undiluted fury. With a vengeful wail, she rockets up onto her feet and begins to viciously assault the monster’s lifeless form, stomping on the wound in its back, kicking both of its faces until they cave in.

 

“Angela, please, it’s over! Calm down!”

 

Her burning stare locks onto him. “DON’T order me around!”

 

“I’m not ordering you, I just-”

 

“Oh, I see! You’re trying to be nice to me, right?” she retorts sarcastically, her entire body still twitching and quivering with rage and adrenaline. “I know what you’re after! It’s always the same! You only want one thing!”

 

“No,” James insists, raising his hands as if in surrender, shaking his head, speaking as calmly as possible. “That’s not true. I...”

 

“You don’t have to lie! Just go ahead and say it,” she dares him. “Or you could just force me! Beat me down like he always did! You only care about yourself anyway, right? What does it matter if I get hurt!?”

 

“Angela, I – I’m sorry for what happened to you, for whatever-”

 

“Oh sure,” she says, rolling her eyes as tears begin to drip from their corners and roll down her face. “Apologize. Say how sorry you are, how it’ll never happen again. I know not to believe that anymore,” she says, her voice softer now, the inferno inside her cooling down, leaving behind the charred ashes of regret. She turns back to the monster, staring hatefully at its remains. “I believed him for too long...”

 

“Angela, please-”

 

“Give me back my knife,” she demands.

 

“I… no. You told me I should keep it. I don’t think you-”

 

“GIVE IT TO ME!”

 

“Angela, you’ll be safe now. Just come with me and-”

 

“NO!” She points at him accusingly, biting down on her lip until she draws blood. “Y-you stay away from me!”

 

With that Angela bolts past James, out of the room and into the hall. As she leaves, his attempt to give chase is interrupted by another shift of the screen. He becomes disoriented, nearly collapsing. When he regains his balance, the room looks different. More normal. The walls are concrete, like in the halls and cells. There are no pistons, just what seems to be a generator and a fuse box. And the monster that had been lying dead in the middle of the floor has vanished.

 

By the time James steps out into the hallway, Angela is long gone, and James has no idea which direction she went. He decides to keep his promise to Maria and return to her cell, even though he hasn’t found any way to get her out. But when he arrives, he finds her lying on the small prison cot inside – dead. Blood is trickling out of her mouth and nose, he mouth hanging open as if gasping for air. James breaks down, banging on the bars, trying to wake her, wanting to believe she could just be sleeping somehow. He calls her name – then Mary’s – but the only reply is the sound of her blood dripping onto the floor.

 

Down the hall, James hears the telltale scraping sound of a heavy blade’s tip dragging along the concrete. That executioner is near. He must have done this, taken her from him again. But the sound is getting louder, as if he is approaching. For a moment James freezes, looking back and forth between Maria’s body and the dark hallway from which the sound is emanating. He is not sure if it is worth running anymore.

 

But as the executioner’s form becomes faintly visible in the distance, run he does. James turns and sprints in the opposite direction, down an unexplored hallway. The sound of the executioner’s approach is drowned out by banging on the cell bars all around him, as if there is an invisible prison riot suddenly taking place. But every time he glances into one of the rooms, he finds it empty. There are no monsters, no undead criminals reaching through the bars to grab him. Just the cacophony of fists on iron from all directions.

 

He turns a corner and reaches a dead end. No other branching corridors, just a single, ominous door labeled MORGUE, slightly ajar. James hesitates, but heads inside. The room is cold and empty, lined with walls of large drawers – the kind used to refrigerate the bodies of the recently-dead. He shines his light all around the room, finding nothing of note, until the beam falls upon a pair of drawers, side-by-side, close to the floor, with name labels affixed to them.

 

The one on the left reads ANGELA OROSCO. The one on the right, JAMES SUNDERLAND.

 

Slowly, unsteadily, he walks over to the drawers, reaching down. He pulls the one labeled with his name open, half-expecting to find his own corpse inside, to discover he’s been dead this entire time, that he is in hell. Maybe he crashed his car on the way into town, in that bank of thick fog, and hasn’t realized it yet.

 

But the front of the drawer simply falls off as soon as he pulls on it. There is nothing inside. Crouching down as far as he can, he shines his light inside. It’s not a drawer at all; it’s a long, narrow, steel tunnel. It’s just barely wide enough for him to crawl through. The thought mortifies him – but outside the door, he can hear the scraping of the executioner’s knife on the floor again, catching up to him. Once again, he is left with no other option. Pulling the flashlight from his pocket to hold in his hand and light the way forward, he climbs inside.

 

His progress is slow. He can barely move his arms and legs, and the metal is slick, making it hard to get traction. He cannot see the end of the tunnel up ahead, even with his light pointed straight forward. Just as he pulls his feet through the opening and into the tunnel, he hears the door to the morgue swing open behind him. Heavy footsteps and that painful scraping close in on him, approaching the tunnel. The executioner has found him.

 

James panics, hyperventilating, clawing at the sides of the tunnel as he tries to drag himself forward, out of the creature’s reach. The sounds of the executioner’s progress and James’ limbs banging against the cold, smooth metal blend together into a hellish percussion for several seconds that seem to last forever. James is barely inching forward.

 

But then, suddenly, all these noises are drowned out by the siren wailing again in the distance, just as loud and clear as it was back above ground. The metal groans and creaks and breaks, and some part of the structure holding the tunnel up buckles. The entire shaft shifts, angling sharply downward. James slides forward helplessly, picking up speed as he glides down deeper, and deeper, and deeper…

 

James crashes through the cover of an air vent in the side of a building, rolling out onto the ground. Somehow, he is back at street level. He blinks and squints, covering his eyes. To him, the dull, gray light of day is blinding. The rain has stopped, and the fog has returned – though it’s thinner now. He can see clearly for at least a dozen yards. He takes several moments to compose himself as best as he can, climbing to his feet, switching off his flashlight, examining his surroundings.

 

He’s on the shore of Toluca Lake; right in front of him are a set of docks. Along the main dock are a series of those mounted, coin-operated binoculars for tourists, and tied to one of the small piers is a little wooden rowboat, empty except for its oars. It bobs calmly in the water, as if it is waiting for him. Through the fog, every so often as the mist shifts, he can just make out the outline of a large building further down the shore, just around a bend. He walks down to the dock and finds that one set of binoculars is open, as if someone had already inserted a quarter. Peering through the lenses, he is sure he recognizes the building. It’s the silhouette of the Lakeview Hotel.

 

“Our special place,” he whispers to himself, reaching for Mary’s envelope. He pulls it out of his pocket and stares at it for a moment, as if hoping the letter will re-materialize inside of it. “Could it be? After all this?” He gazes at the boat. Someone has left it there for him, he’s sure. “Are you trying to help me find you?”

 

James climbs into the small boat and unties it from the dock, rowing out into the lake. The water is icy-cold; he winces when it splashes onto him. He is stony-faced and silent as he cuts across the lake, the boat gliding quietly through the mist. As he peers down into the dark, cloudy depths, he can’t help but recall the painting of the sinking ferry. Did that really happen? Could there be dozens of people at the bottom of this lake? Right beneath him, even?

 

As if to answer his question, a skeletal face peers back at him from beneath the surface. It is quickly joined by more, countless others, their bony arms reaching up toward the boat as the try to swim upward, gasping for oxygen. James’ rowing becomes faster, sloppier, uneven. But the drowned souls cannot make it to the surface. Their efforts weaken, their movement slowing, and gradually they choke on the water and twitch like electrocuted animals before falling still and sinking back down to the bottom.

 

Once he’s re-established his rhythm, it doesn’t take James long to reach the dock in front of the hotel. As he climbs out of the rowboat, he tips it over, water surging in and dragging it under. No going back that way. He climbs the steps up to the back entrance, marveling at the sprawling old white building. It looks exactly the way he remembers it. In fact, there’s hardly a trace of the neglect displayed by the town’s other buildings, at least on the outside.

 

Taped to the door leading into the lobby from the lakefront is a room key, numbered 302. “Our room,” James mutters – the same one he and Mary had stayed in during their vacation. He remembers exactly where it is. In fact, he peers up to the third floor, his eyes settling on a specific window. That’s where he and Mary watched the sun set over the water on their first evening in town; we see this in a brief cutaway flashback. But the room is dark inside now, and he cannot see anything through the window.

 

As James opens the door and steps into the lobby, he is startled by the discordant sound of several keys on a piano being pressed down all at once. It came from a small restaurant attached to the lobby. From inside he hears a little girl giggling.

 

“Laura?” he calls, stepping into the restaurant. Indeed, she is sitting on the piano bench, a mischievous grin on her face.

 

“I scared you, didn’t I?”

 

“How did you get here on your own?”

 

“I told you, I can take care of myself!” She quickly changes the subject. “You’re here to find Mary, right? Have you seen her yet?”

 

James hesitates before replying. “No,” he decides. That woman in the prison… it was Maria. It had to be.

 

“But she’s here, isn’t she?” Laura asks hopefully.

 

“I hope so,” James confides. “I… found this key on the back door,” he says, holding it up for her to look at.

 

“I knew it! She told me about this place all the time!”

 

“Laura,” James asks. “Your letter… what did it say?”

 

“Wellllllllll...” Laura trails off, unsure. “I GUESS you can read it. But you have to give it right back!”

 

“Of course,” James says with a nod.

 

“And don’t tell Nurse Rachel,” Laura adds. “I took it from her locker before I snuck out of the hospital! I wasn’t supposed to have it yet, but I saw her putting it in there a while ago.”

 

“Snuck out? You mean you just ran away?”

 

“It was easy,” she says proudly. “No one was paying attention! All the nurses and guards were really busy this morning. So I got out and found some dumb guy to drive me into town.”

 

“That wasn’t very smart,” he scolds her.

 

“Well I got here before YOU, didn’t I?” She sticks out her tongue teasingly as she hands him her letter.

 

James chokes up when he sees it. It’s definitely Mary’s handwriting, just like he’d seen in his own letter. The message reads:

 

My dearest Laura,

 

I’m leaving this letter with Rachel to give to you after I’m gone. I’m far away now, in a quiet, beautiful place. Please forgive me for not saying goodbye before I left. Be well, Laura. Don’t be too hard on the nurses. And about James… I know you hate him because you think he isn’t nice to me, but please give him a chance. It’s true he may be a little surly sometimes, and he doesn’t laugh much. But underneath, I still believe he’s really a sweet person. Laura, I love you like my very own daughter. If things had worked out differently, I was hoping to adopt you. If it’s already passed, then happy eighth birthday. I wish I were there to see it.

 

-Your friend forever, Mary

 

That explains it. Laura doesn’t even understand that Mary is dead. She came here thinking she’d just been released… and the “quiet, beautiful place” was Silent Hill. But something is odd. Eighth birthday? Laura doesn’t look much older than that…

 

“Laura,” James asks softly, “How old are you now?”

 

“I just turned eight last week,” she confirms with a smile. “Mary got me some ice cream to celebrate! The doctors said I wasn’t supposed to have it, but she gave me hers.”

 

James falls silent, confusion and sadness and anger washing over his face, fighting for room in his mind. Laura takes back her letter. She can tell he is upset, but has no idea why.

 

“James, what’s wrong?”

 

“It-it’s impossible,” he blurts out. “Mary… she’s been… gone...”

 

“Nuh-uh,” Laura insists. “I saw her last night! Nurse Rachel told me she just left this morning!”

 

James begins to cry, shaking his head and cradling it in his hands. “The doctor – he told me. He said she died… three years ago.”

 

“You ARE crazy,” Laura says in disbelief. “I just met her three years ago! She’s been there this whole time!”

 

“Then why did they tell me she – why didn’t I-” James rambles.

 

“I think you’re confused,” Laura observes. “You were just there last week!”

 

“What!?”

 

“You didn’t visit enough,” she says in a harsh, scolding tone, “But you DID visit!”

 

James just keeps shaking his head, unwilling to believe any of this. It’s just another of this little girl’s cruel pranks…

 

“She left you a letter too,” Laura says. “I found it in the locker. I wasn’t sure if I’d give it to you, but I think you might need it.” She looks at him with a mix of pity, bewilderment and fear as she reaches into her other pocket, only to find nothing. “What? No! Where’d it go? I’ve gotta find it!”

 

She looks around frantically before running back out into the lobby. “You keep looking for Mary,” she calls back to James. “I’ve gotta find the letter!”

 

As Laura runs off into some other part of the building to begin her search, James spends several seconds perfectly still, staring at the key to Room 302 clutched in his hand. He reaches for his own envelope, but the pocket is empty. As if it had never really been there. With a sigh and a nod, he wipes away his tears and sets out into the lobby. He remembers the way to the room from here.

 

He seems almost entranced as he makes his way up the grand stairwell, past the second floor and up onto the third. He takes a left out into the hall. It’s a mess; the wallpaper is torn, the carpet is stained, and most of the doors are boarded up. But not the door to Room 302. It’s pristine, perfect, exactly the way it looked three years ago on their vacation. He slides the key into the lock, and it turns easily. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and pushes the door open.

 

He opens his eyes, and the room, too, looks perfect. The bed is made, the sheets are fresh. Through the window is a picturesque view of the shore. He calls out Mary’s name, but there is no one there to answer. The room is empty. Except…

 

A videocassette, lying on the bed, on top of the blankets. The label reads, in his own handwriting, “Silent Hill Vacation ‘88.” In front of the window sits a small television and an attached VCR. There is a small red standby light lit up on the front of the machine. It still has power. Quietly, James picks up the tape, walks over to the TV set, and switches it and the VCR on. He pushes the tape into the slot, and his finger hovers hesitantly over the play button for a few seconds. Finally, though, he presses it.

 

The screen and speakers flicker to life, and in the fuzzy recording he sees Mary, standing right there in the room, in front of this very window. She is wearing the same pink outfit as in his photograph of her – taken the same day. She smiles and shakes her head at the camera. “Are you taping again? Come on,” she says with a bit of a chuckle.

 

She turns away from the camera, and her husband, to look out the window at the sparkling lake. “I really love it here, you know. It’s just so… peaceful.” She sighs, placing a hand on the window in front of her. “Do you know what I heard the other day? This whole area used to be a sacred place. They said there was some sort of spiritual power in the land. I think I can see why... it’s too bad we have to leave.”

 

She turns back to the camera with a look of longing. “Please promise you’ll take me here again, James.”

 

Before he can answer, Mary begins coughing. James – the one in the video – asks if she’s okay. But she can’t respond, the coughing fit intensifying with every passing second. The coughs become louder and louder, distorting first the sound, and then the video. It shifts and flickers, becoming a cloud of black-and-white-static…

 

When the video fades back in, it’s something else entirely. Security footage, from inside Mary’s hospital room. She’s lying in her bed, a gaunt, ill shadow of her former self. At the foot of the bed is James, in the same outfit he has been wearing for the whole film. The time stamp in the lower right corner of the screen confirms the date – 4/18/91. Today. This morning. There is no sound, but he and Mary look like they are arguing. James’ expression turns dark and cold as he says something to his wife.

 

Then he pulls the pillow out from under her head and presses it over her face.

 

Mary struggles briefly, but she’s too weak to put up much of a fight. James holds the pillow down stiffly, calmly, smothering her. After a few moments, Mary has given up. She is still alive, but she knows she won’t be for long. The VCR winds up and whirs out of control, the TV screen and speakers bursting into static as unspooled tape comes pouring out of the cassette slot.

 

James closes his eyes and sobs, the memory beginning to wash back over him. He cannot even bring himself to switch off the television to stop the blaring white noise. Rapid little footsteps approach down the hall and the door swings open to reveal Laura, drawn to the room by the sound.

 

“Did you find the letter?” she asks enthusiastically. “Is Mary here?”

 

Slowly, as if waking from an ageless slumber, James shakes his head. “Mary’s… gone,” he croaks.

 

“Well where did she go?”

 

“No, she’s – she’s dead.”

 

“You liar!” Laura shouts, upset. “I told you! I just saw her last night!”

 

“You did,” he nods. “And then, this morning...”

 

“This morning she checked out! The nurses told me!”

 

“This morning… I took her from the hospital. After… after I killed her.”

 

Laura doesn’t know whether to believe him. Tears pool in her eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall. Her face is stoic, until James looks at her. In his eyes, she sees the truth.

 

Laura shrieks as her young, innocent heart shatters inside of her.

 

“NO! NO! YOU CAN’T TAKE HER!”

 

“Laura-”

 

Hysterical, she pounds her fists against his chest, sobbing and screaming, her ponytail swinging to and fro as her whole body quakes.

 

“I WANT HER BACK! GIVE HER BACK! I NEED HER! GIVE MARY BACK TO ME!”

 

“I can’t,” he whispers, doing nothing to try and stop her attacks. He deserves worse and he knows it. “She’s gone,” he repeats.

 

“SHE WAS ALWAYS WAITING FOR YOU!”

 

Laura backs away, her arms exhausted, her voice rough and frayed from all the shouting.

 

“You said you loved her!” she exclaims, barely able to force out the words. “She still believed you. I never did, but she still believed you! I KNEW you were a liar! I KNEW! I KNEW!” Laura dashes out of the room, giving James one last profoundly hateful glare before slamming the door shut behind herself.

 

As James suffers a meltdown, practically drowning in his tears, Mary’s voice breaks through the static. It’s the same message he heard on the radio back in town, in what feels now like another life entirely, but clearer, more complete. A telephone call.

 

“James? James? Where are you? I’m waiting for you. Please come to me. Do you hate me now? Is that why you won’t come? You think I’m a burden? Please, James.”

 

He grabs the VCR, pulling it off of the shelf and smashing it into the TV, shattering the screen. The whole unit shorts out, and the static cuts off abruptly.

 

But her voice is still there… coming from behind him now. From the hallway.

 

“James,” she calls like a siren.

 

He pushes himself onto his feet, stomping over to the door. He throws it open. The hallway is different now. Worse. Decayed, rotted. There are holes in the floor, and water cascades down the walls. He hears footsteps in the direction of the smaller stairwell at the end of the hall. By the time he looks, no one is there. But he follows their sound, walking with heavy, plodding, guilty footsteps all the way down.

 

The stairwell is behind a large metal door, an emergency exit. As he pushes it open, he feels reality shifting again, vision blurring, an angry orange glow filling the screen. When it clears, he finds the staircase on fire. Lines of flame burn up and down the sides of the steps all the way up to the next landing. The air is boiling hot and choked with smoke. Standing halfway up the staircase is Angela. When she turns and sees him, her face lights up with delight.

 

“Mama!” she shouts, rushing down the stairs toward James. Her sweater is caked with blood, fresh, still glistening in places, but being quickly dried out by the heat of the flames. “Mama, I’ve been looking for you! Now you’re the only one left. Maybe then… maybe then I can rest.”

 

James takes a few steps back toward the door, but the deluded young woman presses forward after him. “Mama! Don’t go away!” She reaches out and touches James’ face, and only then does she seem to realize who he is.

 

“Oh! I-it’s you! I… I’m sorry.” Her trance broken, her smile vanishes. She doesn’t cry, even as a new expression forms on her face. A look of despair, of resignation. She starts to walk back up the burning stairs.

 

“Angela, please,” James says unconvincingly. “It’s okay.”

 

She stops on the fourth step, turning her head back toward him. “Thank you for saving me,” she says, “But… I wish you hadn’t. Even Mama said it. I deserved what happened.”

 

“N-no, that’s wrong,” James says, reaching out a hand.

 

“Don’t pity me,” she replies in a dull monotone. “I don’t deserve it.”

 

James continues to stare wordlessly, hand outstretched. Angela turns around completely to face him, angered by his attempts to help. “Or maybe you think you can save me,” she remarks bitterly. “Will you love me? Heal me? Take away all my pain? Love me like you loved your wife?”

 

James doesn’t know how to respond. He lowers his arm.

 

“That’s what I thought,” she hisses. “James. Give me back that knife.”

 

He shakes his head.

 

“Saving it for yourself?”

 

“No… I wouldn’t...”

 

Angela ignores his protest, starting her way back up the stairs. He goes to follow her, but the fire begins to spread, flames crossing the steps and blocking his path. He calls out her name one last time, and she glances back, faintly surprised to see him backing away from the fire.

 

“You see it too? For me, it’s always like this.”

 

Without another word, she continues up the stares and around the corner of the fourth floor landing, disappearing from sight. The fire begins to surge down the steps onto the third floor, forcing James to back away and blocking the door. The flames chase him all the way down the stairwell to the basement door. He slams into it, pushing it open just in time to escape the fire.

 

Another disorienting shift in reality occurs as he stumbles through the door. He is snapped out of it by Mary’s voice – or Maria’s – screaming his name. Across the room, Maria is strapped to a bare metal bedframe. The pyramid-headed executioner looms over her, knife at the ready.

 

“Stop!” he screams out to the helmeted beast. “Leave us alone!”

 

The executioner ignores his pleas. With great effort, he heaves his titanic weapon up into the air, taking aim. James and Maria scream in unison as the blade is thrust up Maria’s skirt, splitting her open from between her legs. James falls to his knees, the executioner pulling his weapon free of the ruined flesh in which it is embedded, dragging it along behind him as he walks slowly towards James. Even when he is within arms’ reach, though, he makes no attempt to harm the man. As James looks from Maria’s ravaged corpse to the creature in front of him, a bitter realization sinks in.

 

“I was weak,” he whispers. “That’s why I needed you. To punish me. To show me what I am.”

 

The executioner remains still and silent, waiting.

 

“But that’s all over now,” James continues. “I know the truth. It’s time to end this.”

 

The executioner raises his weapon. James does not move, only bowing his head in acceptance. But the thing shifts his grip, planting the handle on the basement floor. With both hands holding the blade steady, he pushes himself down onto its tip, impaling himself. His limbs twitch as his body slides down the long metal shaft, finally collapsing in a pool of his own blood.

 

“James,” calls Mary’s voice yet again. On the other end of the room, behind the bedframe and Maria’s cleaved body, is the entrance to a corridor. One final, long, solitary walk.

 

As James slowly, solemnly makes his way down the hall, he and Maria’s voices echo around the theater. Whether James hears them in the corridor or is simply remembering them is unclear. It is their last conversation in her hospital room.

 

“James? What do you want?”

 

“I… I brought you some flowers.”

 

“I don’t want any fucking flowers! Just go run off back home!”

 

“Mary, what are you saying?”

 

“Look at me! I’m disgusting! I don’t deserve them! Between the disease, and the drugs, I look like a goddamn monster!”

 

A moment of silence.

 

“Well don’t just stare! I know you don’t want me anymore. Not like this. And that’s all you care about, isn’t it? Laura was right. Just go! Go find someone else, and don’t come back!”

 

“Mary… I don’t… I can’t stand to hear you say these things.”

 

“I’ll be dead soon anyway! The only reason I’m still alive is so they hospital can make money off of me. They’re just using me. Just like you.”

 

“Well if that’s how you feel, then maybe I won’t come back.”

 

Another pause as James closes in on the unmarked door at the corridor’s end.

 

“J-James, wait. Please… don’t go… I didn’t mean it. Please, stay with me… tell me I’ll be okay. Tell me… tell me we’ll make it back. Back to our special place.”

 

As James reaches the door, he speaks the final sentence out loud in tandem with his past self.

 

“I’m sorry, Mary. I can’t do this anymore.”

 

On the other side of the door, he finds Mary’s hospital room. And Mary is there waiting for him, alive, dressed just like she was in the video, in the picture he has of her. She is standing at the foot of the bed, staring right at him, like she’s been watching the door for hours.

 

“Mary?”

 

“Wrong again,” she replies in Maria’s tone and cadence. “Mary’s dead. You made sure of that. But I’m still here, James. And I can be whatever you want me to be.”

 

He shakes his head calmly. “I’m done with you, Maria.”

 

“What do you mean!?” Maria asks frightened and angered. “But I can be yours! I can be here for you! Forever! You can find a way – we can leave here, together! I don’t need to be trapped!”

 

“It’s too late for that.”

 

“Please, James,” she begs. “I’ll never yell at you. I’ll never make you feel bad. That’s what you wanted! That’s why I’m here!”

 

“You may look like her,” he replies, “But you’ll never be Mary. And I didn’t deserve her anyway.”

 

Maria scowls. “Fine, then. I guess you’re right. I guess I’m a monster. Just like she was at the end. Just like you.”

 

James watches as Maria’s body withers before his eyes, her skin turning a sickly yellow, her clothes ripping and falling away like autumn leaves. Her eyes turn black and her hair falls out in clumps, her brittle bones becoming visible through her thin, stretched-out skin. Her fingernails grow and harden, turning into claws. Through it all, only her breasts remain full and supple, lending her the overall appearance of a mocking, sexualized caricature of Mary in her final days.

 

She attacks swiftly and viciously, scratching and biting at James, clinging onto him like a parasite. He tries to shake her off, but has no luck, her claws digging deeply into his skin, locking her body onto his. A rotting, black tongue slithers out of he narrow, cracked lips, dragging along his face and leaving a trail of cloudy, burning saliva. She forces James to fall backwards onto the hospital bed, her bony hands wrapping around his neck with unnatural strength, choking the life out of him.

 

James’ final victory over Maria is no heroic triumph, no glorious battle or righteous holy ceremony. He fumbles around in his pockets, searching for Angela’s knife. When he finds it, he quickly, instinctively drives the blade into her throat. She releases her grip on him, yanking the knife out of her throat and tossing it to the floor. Blood and bile spurt out of the hole in her esophagus, splattering all over James. Maria chokes on her own fluids, asphyxiating.

 

As she dies, she shifts back into her previous form. James rolls her off of him, standing back up, gasping for air. He looks down at the bed to see the perfect image of his late wife, running out of oxygen, her body shuddering and then falling still as her brain shuts down. James can’t bear to look at her face. He couldn’t even that morning, when the deed was actually done. He averts his eyes, shifting them away, to the pillow. Beneath it, he sees the corner of an envelope. Mary’s letter to him. The real one.

 

Silently, he slides the envelope out from under the pillow, carefully unsealing it. He pulls out the paper inside, unfolding it. The screen cuts to black.

 

After a few seconds of silence, James’ voice begins to narrate an internal monologue.

 

“Now I understand. The real reason I came to this town.”

 

The image fades back in. James has made it back to the overlook where he parked his car. The fog has nearly lifted; he can see part of the town faintly through the mist on the opposite shore.

 

“What was I afraid of?”

 

He walks around to the back of his sedan, unlocking the trunk and opening it up. We see him in a shot from inside, staring back at the audience, at what was locked within. We do not see what he does, but we do not need to.

 

“Without you,” he narrates, “I have nothing. But we can be together here now. We never have to leave. Just like you wanted.”

 

James gently closes the trunk on us. From inside, we hear the muffled sound of the engine starting.

 

Cut to the cabin, in which the film concludes with single long-take point-of-view shot from the passenger seat. James stomps the accelerator down to the floor, and the car lurches forward. He gazes through the windshield unblinkingly as the sedan sails through the flimsy old railing on the edge of the overlook, barreling down the steep embankment below, through shrubs and bushes, until finally slamming into the calm surface of the lake.

 

The windshield shatters, flooding the car with water that seems to pour out into the audience. As the cabin fills with the icy liquid, James makes no effort to escape. Mary’s letter floats up into view, rising off of the center console. On-screen, we watch James drown in real-time as the car sinks to the muddy lake floor. Mary’s voice narrates her final letter to her husband:

 

“In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. Our special place. You promised you’d take me there again someday, but you never did. Well, I’m alone here now, waiting for you.

 

Waiting for you to come see me. But you never do. And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness. I know I’ve done a terrible thing to you. Something you’ll never forgive me for. I wish I could change that, but I can’t. I feel so pathetic and ugly lying here, waiting for you. Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling and all I can think about is how unfair it all is.

 

The doctor came today. He said that he’s been trying to call you to come in, too. It’s not that there’s any real news. It’s just that it might be your last chance. I think you know what I mean. I wish you would come. I’ve missed you terribly. But… I’m afraid, James. Afraid you don’t really want to see me at all. The times that you did visit, I could see how hard it was on you. I don’t know if you hate me, or pity me… or maybe I just disgust you. I’m sorry about that.

 

When I first learned I was going to die, I just didn’t want to accept it. I was so angry all the time, and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That’s why I understand if you do hate me.

 

I asked the nurse to give this to you… after I’m gone. So if you’re reading this, I’m already dead. I can’t ask for you to remember me, but I can’t bear the thought you might forget me. These last few years since I fell ill… I’m so sorry for what I did to you, what I did to us. You’ve given me so much, and I haven’t been able to return a single thing.

 

But I want you to know this, James. I’ll always love you.

 

You made me happy.”

 

As the last signs of life leave James’ body, we fade to black.

 

 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Xillix

[cookie]

Cancelled

Edited October 16, 2018 by cookie

[YM!]

True Love

Studio: Endless Entertainment/Animated by Endless Animation 

Media Rights Capital

Release Date: 7/24/Y4

Genre: Traditional Animation/Live Action Hybrid/Rom-Com

Director: Jennifer Lee

Rating: PG for thematic elements

Budget: $50M

Theater Count: 3,846

Format: 2D and 3D

Runtime: 100 minutes (with a 5 minute short)

 

Cast: 

Auli’i Cravalho 

Cameron Boyce

Donna Murphy

Kevin Hart

Patrick Stewart 

Benedict Cumberbatch 

Hailee Steinfeld

Steve Carell 

Katherine Langford 

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by YourMother the Edgelord

[YM!]

Can You Imagine?

 

Studio: Endless Entertainment (through the Endless Animation division)/Animated by Endless Animation (The movie alternates between two styles of animation. The CG Animation looks and feels like Hotel Transylvania or a CG animated Dexter’s Laboratory. The hand drawn world has a lot more realistic feeling like Paperman)

Walden Media

Release Date: 3/27/Y4

Genre: CG Animation/Comedy/Fantasy 

Director: Genndy Tarkovsky 

Producers: Genndy Tarkovsky and Rebecca Sugar

Writers: Genndy Tarkovsky and Meg LeFauve

Score: Michael Giacchino (the score is a weird mix of both Up and Zootopia. The score has a range of melancholy pieces to upbeat jazzy pieces)

Original Songs:

“Imagine That” by Lorde

“Moving On” by Bruno Mars

Rating: PG for thematic elements, mild action and rude humor

Budget: $135M

Theater Count: 4,135

Format: 2D, 3D, and Dolby Cinema 

Runtime: 108 minutes (including a 6 minute sneak peak at High School Musical 4: Reunion)

Cast:

Alison Brie as Jennifer Anderson

Ryan Reynolds as Kyle Anderson

Iain Armitage as Ethan Anderson

Tom Hanks as The King

Dave Bautista as Earl 

Aubrey Plaza as Judy Smarturhanu 

Chris Hemsworth as Kickoff

Kate McKinnon as The Dark One

Terry Crews as Captain Scaley

Tim Curry as Blazhar, Gurta, Snowflake, Goni and Thork

Teissa Farmiga as Dancypants

Bruno Mars as Mister Funk

Shakira as Songbird

John Cena as Triceratoppler

Billy West as Doctor Screwluz

Aaron Rodgers as Football Boss

Wallace Shawn as Mr. Pencillpushurr 

Pixie Davies as Sasha

 

High School Musical 4: Reunion sneak preview

Spoiler

Blankments Productions 

Endless Entertainment 

 

 

 

We open with Chad in his Spurs jersey with the number 08 on it, walking inside the new East High School, not before he bumps into the new principal, Principal John Bailey (Hugh Jackman), who is so excited although he is dressed professionally, he is rocking a Spurs SnapBack. Chad tries to explain what he’s here for but Bailey offers him a tour of the changed school. Chad reluctantly agrees due to how nice Bailey is. Bailey shows him the updated baseball and football fields as well as the gym court in swimming pools along with some other stuff (including to Chad’s surprise, a delicious school lunch) but Chad asks about the drama department, having not seen it as Bailey explains that singing and dancing isn’t real talent unlike what Chad has, slipping that he’ll cut the drama section soon to focus on raw talent. Chad explains he is here for the reunion concert, Sharpay is putting together, much to Bailey’s disdain. Bailey pulls some slight shade at Chad and points out that Chad is arguably the biggest success at East High and the only reason the drama department was relevant was because of him. Bailey then comments if there’s one thing he’s learned from both his father and real life, that dancing is for losers. Chad asked if has Bailey ever danced or even sung a song, not even in like the musical sense but just like driving or in a shower. Bailey replies not a chance. Chad then says he wants to show Bailey something if that’s okay, challenging him to a game of baseball. As the baseball machine spits out ball making beat, Chad starts singing “I Don’t Dance” which Bailey starts to get sweeped up in the music, unknownst to even himself, he’s very good at it, even using a baseball bat as acane. The music number continues with the whole school drawn to it with tons of students and staff watching, which leads to a dance off between Chad and Bailey, which a student films via a cellphone. The number then ends with the two stopping to catch a breath as a crowd of students watch.

 

Chad: “See I told, you were wrong.”

Bailey: “Look I told you, I don’t sing and I don’t dance.”

Chad (with a smirk): “Well you just did.”

 

Bailey quickly realizes what he’s done with a shocked and angered look on his face.

 

We then cut to a bunch of different scenes (we see Sharpay performing a little bit of Fabulous as people are setting up for the reunion; Carlos (Lin-ManuelMiranda), the main six together again, Troy and Chad reuniting like old times, Gabriella’s step dad and Gabriella have a tender moment, Troy doing a number in his office, Ryan and Callem (Ben Platt) leaning in for a kiss, Kelsi and Ryan having a talk, Taylor and Breonna (Kiersey Clemons) doing election preparations, and finally a scene with the main 6, Kelsi, Callem and Mrs. Darbus along with some students perform a number) as we then finally see the logo forming with various shots of the letters

 

High School Musical 4: Reunion

 

(which lights up as We’re All In This Together plays faintly in the background)

 

6/26/Y4

 

 

Movie

Spoiler

 

Movie:

We open in a traditional animated world, we then cut to high school and a title card says “Sometime in the gnarly year of 1988” in neon colors. The world has sort of a Paperman esque flare in design but very colorful. A sort of jazzy yet melancholy tune plays through a high school. We see Kyle, a young jock (Ryan Reynolds) being celebrated by his classmates however, he notices Jennifer, a nerdy girl (Alison Brie) having trouble with her books. Kyle decides to help and the two fall for each other on first sight and walk to class.

 

We then cut to their marriage. The couple is clearly young but the Jennifer has a bump on her belly. As time progresses, the world gets more muddy in color as we cut through ore things as the melody becomes more melancholy (we see things as the birth of their son, Jennifer’s college graduation and her miserable job, Kyle giving up his football dreams, the firing of Kyle and his rapid denial of job applications and finally we cut to scenes showing the couple growing more distant as the colors become more muddy and gray. The 2D animated world still has color but it is a bit muddy.)

 

We then cut to a stressed Jennifer get ready for work, in a humorous fashion as her husband Kyle is still asleep in his boxer shorts. Jennifer then gets completely ready to go but accidentally forgets her 10 year old son, Ethan. Ethan is extremely excited for school today as it is the big art fair and asks his mother if she’ll be able to go. Jennifer, says she’ll try to but his dad definitely will. Ethan, albeit a bit concerned about his mom’s uncertainty, is excited as his mom has never been to one of his things in a while, gets in the car and hauls in his art project. Jennifer then gives Kyle a list of chores as well as not to forget Ethan’s art fair, to do around the houses while she’s gone and kisses him goodbye. Jennifer before going then asks Kyle to try to get a job, revealing that she’s struggling financially and needs his help. Kyle agrees and hugs his wife goodbye. 

 

Jennifer drops Ethan off to school as she realizes she’s running late to work, we then she her kick it into high gear as she attempts to make it to work on time in a intense race to work, avoiding obstacles in her way like pedestrians, barely making lights, and quickly parks her car via spinning out of control making a perfect parallel park. Jennifer quickly grabs some coffee and clocks in just in time and lets out an exhausted sigh in relief.

 

Meanwhile, Kyle proceeds to clean the house as usual using a series of Pee-Wee Herman esque devices that washes dishes, sweeps and dusts, and cooks dinner, so he can relax and prepare for his job interview. Kyle then shaves himself and gets ready for a job interview with as a referee. It is revealed that Kyle hasn’t given up on his football dreams and hopes to work his way into the big leagues as possibly a coach as he can’t be football player due to it being too late for it. Kyle then drives to the interview in a rickety van, making it on time. Kyle meets up with the football boss and wows the boss with his knowledge and passion of the sport. The boss offers him as a janitor which dismays Kyle a bit as he was hoping to be a coach or something. The boss informs Kyle, he needs a college degree to coach. Kyle asks can he think about it for a while and the boss agrees but warns he needs a decision by tomorrow. 

 

We then cut back to Jennifer whose mundane office job is slowly draining her. Jennifer’s boss, Mr. Pencillpushurr tells her, she needs to work overtime much to her chargin and tries to asks her boss if she can work overtime tomorrow or The sometime else, explains she wants to spend time with her son. Pencillpushurr tells her it’s her family or her job, which sadly silences Jennifer, as she sadly continues her job. We then cut to Kyle driving back home, depressed as we see him driving home, watching a football game nearby. Overwhelmed with nostalgia and his longing, Kyle watches the game from afar with a type of captivated sadness. 

 

We then cut to Ethan at school. It’s around recess and all of the kids are playing but Ethan is in a corner and sketching in his sketchbook but a bully snatches his book, tearing pages and mocking him. Angered, Ethan storms off elsewhere in the school, in his self made safe space, the art room, and working out his anger and sadness through art. Midway through drawing, Ethan feels himself being watched by someone. Ethan turns around to see a girl his own age watching him. The girl shyly introduces herself as Sasha. Sasha explains she’s working on a piece of art herself and was distracted by the piece Ethan made. Ethan, complimented happily shows her the picture. The camera shows a magical realm filled with bizarre abstract concepts, fish with mustaches, caterpillar trains, and a dazzling emerald green sunset, the piece is the most colorful thing in the film by far. Sasha is wowed by the art, and asks Ethan if he’s going to be in the art fair, which he is. Sasha says she is as well and hopes to see him there. Ethan has a smile on his face, as we see him progress through the school day happily as we finally proceed to the art fair. (We then hear a more jazzy, fun upbeat tune playing.)

 

The art fair is very busy and hustling and bustling with throngs of people. The air projects have the most color in the scenes, with Ethan’s under a blanket. Ethan then meets up with Sasha, finally seeing her art project, a painting of a lush jungle, which Ethan admires. The audience gets in their seats after roaming around and the judges call the young artists to the stage, as the children line up quickly. The children show off their projects one by one but Ethan takes a quick look at the audience but doesn’t see his parents, much to his nervousness

 

Meanwhile, it is revealed Kyle went back home after getting caught up with football, only to realizes he’s late to Ethan’s art show and gets into his van and tries to get to the fair as soon as possible. However, his van runs out of gas forcing him to go get gas on foot and takes a jerry can. Back at the art fair, it is finally Ethan’s turn to present his art, which is to be revealed as a full scale painting until the previous painting he made earlier, but more in depth, as we see all different types of creatures, sasquatches made out of clay, giant airborne pirate ships with lizard people, a pack of hot dog wolfs, a giant crystal beach and finally two people standing at a peak looking on top of a mountain, one of them being an Indiana Jones esque figure and the other a scientist super heroine. Ethan dubs the piece “Pure Imagination” and the audience and the other students love the piece and let out a thunderous applause. Pleased, Ethan looks through the audience one more time but doesn’t see either of his parents, which has him a bit more dismayed. The judge then goes on stage to declare Ethan’s piece, the winner of the art fair and announces to have the piece put up at the local museum. Ethan, although somewhat happy, his piece won, misses his parents. Sasha and a few other students in the contest then goes up to congratulate Ethan for winning. Ethan thanks them for their praise but is still saddened. Sasha offers that they can hang out sometime which Ethan accepts. Sasha then leaves with her parents as do the other kids and their parents as Ethan waits for his. Jennifer finally makes it to Ethan, apologizing for not making it, but asks where is his father. Ethan says Kyle didn’t make it yet, Kyle humorously bursts through the door, out of breath saying he made it. Jennifer is instantly annoyed with Kyle asking why wasn’t he there. Ethan interrupts them by revealing his art won first place and will be put in the museum. Jennifer and Kyle congratulate their child and try to keep happy for him. The two parents then keep an angered silence at each other during the car ride home during a rainy night.

 

As Ethan gets ready for bed as both of his parents tuck him in, he gets ready to go to sleep, only to hear his parents arguing angrily about what happened, slowly growing much more personal when Kyle reveals he got the job but didn’t accept which cause Jennifer to fume as she needs the help financially whereas Kyle is mad at Jennifer for always treating him like a child, the two both end the fight with both of them discussing how sick they are living like this. Ethan, knowing how angry his parents have been at each other for the past few years is worried that they’ll divorce and both mean the world to him. It is revealed through flashbacks that both Jennifer and Kyle beside the drama were Ethan’s rock and had fun together and that recently the three haven’t spend much family time together. Blaming himself, Ethan questions running away for a bit until his parents are happy together.

 

Later that night, Ethan prepares to run away, grabbing a raincoat, water and dry food, some necessities like a flashlight and pillow, some art tools and lastly a photo of his family and leaves behind a note for his parents. However as Ethan opens the door, he accidentally sets on the alarm system which wakes both of his parents. Ethan turns off the alarm quickly and runs off into the night. Kyle immediately grabs a baseball bat and Jennifer goes to get Ethan somewhere safe but realizes he’s not in his room and alerts Kyle. The two then see Ethan’s runaway note and go out to look for him, and get into Jennifer’s car with Kyle driving. The two are closing in on Ethan as the thunder roars. Suddenly, a multi-colored, CGI portal opens in front of the three and Ethan trips and goes unconscious and gets sucked inside. Jennifer tells Kyle to step on it as the portal shrinks and the two desert the car to go in after Ethan. 

 

We then cut to Jennifer and Kyle fall down the portal as their bodies change from a muddy colored, realistic 2D art style to a colorful, cartoony CGI art style. As the two continue their descent, they hit smack dab on the ground. The two then get up and take a lot at the world around which looks exactly like Ethan’s painting but with a cartoony CGI art style. Jennifer immediately ask where they are only to be startled by a fish with a glorious white handlebar mustache. The fish introduces himself as Earl. Kyle asks Earl where are they. Earl explains that they’re in the world of Imagiland. Earl quickly points out the two aren’t from their judging by their weird, non abstract features. Kyle snickers to himself that the talking magic fish with facial hair finds them weird. Jennifer then tells Earl, they’re looking for their son, Ethan Anderson. Earl immediately recognizes the name, explains he is their creator much to shock of the parents. Earl reveals he doesn’t know where they are but he knows someone who might be able to help. Earl whistles and the caterpillar train from before comes crashing down in comic fashion. Jennifer, Kyle and Earl then get on the train as the former two are in both awe and confused about the world around them. The caterpillar train takes them to a steampunk village as the three leave their stop, Earl leads the way as they finally settle on a small cottage, claiming the smartest mind in the world lives here, and explains you two are going to love him. Earl rings the doorbell using his flippers and the doormat the three are standing on vanishes and leave a hole which all three fall down into a slide system (Earl is calm as both the parents are screaming in terror). The three then enter a laboratory filled with crazy contraptions, living potion vials, and kooky animal hybrids like a Donkehum (part donkey, part hummingbird) or a Frogphin (dolphin body with frog legs). The three then see an old scientist (Think Professor Farnsworth from Futurama with wrinkly light blue skin, gorilla arms, and bird like talon feet with Dexter’s haircut from Dexter’s Laboratory) creating a formula to make chocolate rain. Earl introduces them to Dr. Screwluz, who due to old age sees the three but has trouble hearing them. Earl then talks loudly and slowly that the three of them need his help finding the creator, Ethan. Jennifer and Kyle proceeds to tell their story as Screwluz does some calculations on the chalkboard. Dr. Screwluz confirms he doesn’t know where the creator is but it is most likely (he says it’s a 99.999999999999999 (briefly stops for water) 999999999999927% chance he’s at the Royal Court due to their projectory so The King of Imagiland might have seen him. He then goes to grab a map from a treasure chest pulling out items (some of which from past Endless movies, like the Gauntlet of Midas, Vakama’s mask, an Aku Aku replica, Kim Possible pager, the Scarab, along with a half eaten pizza, broken machine parts, animal legs) until he finds it. He warns the three that they’re many dangers along the way and ask if they’re sure they want to do it. Without hesitation, both Jennifer and Kyle agree. Earl shakes his head no until he sees the parents agree. Screwluz wishes them luck and the three leave.

 

Meanwhile, Ethan awakes in a grassy field, wondering where is he. Ethan then decides to roam around for help and sees a man who looks like a bit like his father in a superhero costume with a football theme (Kickoff) fighting a triceratops themed villain (Triceratoppler). Ethan goes to see what’s happening, hiding behind some bushes. Kickoff throws football like bombs at Triceratoppler who takes the blows like nothing. Triceratoppler then charges at him with red energy as does Kickoff with brown energy, clashing with each other. Triceratoppler then gains the upper hand and hits Kickoff square in the jaw. Triceratoppler is about to finish him but Ethan intervenes by throwing a rock at Triceratoppler’s head, distracting him, causing Kickoff a chance to knock him out cold. Kickoff thanks Ethan for helping him, but then recognizes him as the creator, much to Ethan’s confusion, until Ethan recognizes him as one of his drawings. Kickoff then says he has to show him to The King and gets his giant football ship and takes off in the air. The two then fly to the Kingdom, which amazes Ethan. The kingdom is composed of his most beloved pieces of art with a childlike flair, even some of his first pieces ever. The two then approach a castle made entirely of Lego like bricks with a huge throng of artworks around them. The two then exit the ship and the crowd cheers. The two are then approached by Judy Smarturhanu, a scientist/Laura Croft esque adventurer who looks similar to Ethan’s mother. Judy happily greats Ethan, and Ethan recognizes her as well. The three then hear a trumpet noise and a chariot of chocolate horses appear. A blue teddy bear with a crown comes out of the chariot. Ethan then recognizes him as the first thing he drew, his old teddy bear, Snuggles. The teddy bear confirms it is him but prefers to be called The King. The King then escorts them Inside the castle to his secret office. (All of the chairs including The King’s throne are rotating chairs, which Ethan starts spinning in for fun). The King asks Ethan how did he get here, and Ethan explains he was trying to run away. The King, sympathizes with his creator offers him asylum, on the condition he helps save their kingdom, much to Ethan’s confusion. Judy explains that The Dark One, a being who came out of what they called nowhere, has been terrorizing them for years. The King reveals his fortress is in the Island of Fears, which no man, woman, child, creatures or bobble-headed people has made it back from. Ethan is very unsure but Judy and Kickoff promise to join him to make sure he’s safe and reassure him that since he created all of this, he can do anything. Inspire, Ethan agrees and the three head off in Kickoff’s football ship. 

 

 

Kyle, Jennifer and Earl attempt to embark on their quest only to realize the caterpillar train they have taken is asleep. Realizing they need another form of travel, Earl gets an idea, and takes them to a local television station. (Jennifer questions the fact they watch television, Earl retorts that although they may be imaginary, they’re not monsters, only to correct the statement remembering they are some monsters but not uncivilized ones, only to remember some are and back it up with everyone loves TV.). We go inside the TV station and it’s pretty hectic inside. We see a huge variety of creatures getting ready for some kind of music contest. A executive zombie rushes the contestants and Jennifer and Kyle to the stage, and Earl is then cast off to a studio audience, an group of robot monkeys. We then see a bird like woman on a podium, the woman introduces herself as Songbird, the host of Dancing To The Stars, a dance show where contestants dance and sing for a chance to win the Punk Rock Plane, a state of the art jet with defensive capabilities. Backstage, we see Jennifer panicking as she not only can’t dance but has stage fright, as Kyle comforts her reminding her to keep a cool head and they’re doing this for Ethan. We see a man with a microphone tip head, wearing shades and a huge reflective disco ball like afro, along with tons of gold jewelry along with a woman with beamed note like pants walking by the duo to gloat, introduces themselves as Mister Funk and Dancypants, the past winners of the show. Kyle disses Mister Funk which infuriates him, swearing a savage beatdown and he and Dancypants breakdance away from the parents. We then see pairs fail miserably and are catapulted elsewhere. Mister Funk and Dancypants step on the stage, as Mister Funk begins to sing “Moving On (think a jazzy song about a person after a breakup going on to bigger and better things) as the two dance. The audience cheers except for Earl, who is then threatened by the robot monkeys built in banana guns, who reluctantly lets out an applause. The two are not catapulted and walk backstage, taunting the two. Jennifer is terrified but Kyle reassures her, she can do it, noting her deterministic personality and that she never quits, which cheers her up a bit. Having an idea, Kyle immediately knows what song to play, as the two are rushed on stage.

 

Kyle gets ready to sing Remember The Time by Michael Jackson and starts to dance.

 

 

Jennifer immediately recognizes the song, as it is what played during their first dance together. The two dance separately and then build up the dance and do a sort of tango together. The song ends and an enormous applause is heard, even Mister Funk and Dancypants are impressed. Songbird declares them the winners and Mister Funk and Dancypants congratulate them. Kyle grabs Earl as the two get into the plane and fly away. The three celebrate their victory, with Jennifer unlike before is much more energetic and upbeat, claiming it was the first time she’s had fun in a while with him which Kyle agrees. The two then recall fun memories from the past, only for Earl to feel a bit left out humorously, reminding them of the map. Kyle ask where they are and Earl reveals they’re in the Sea of Skies, a gigantic floating sea in the sky. Earl warns that although it’s beautiful, navigating the sky sea is treacherous but at least they’re on the right path.

 

Suddenly, the three hear a loud thud against the plane, realizes it’s a giant meatball. The three look up to see a giant pirate ship filled with lizard pirates. We then see their captain, an alligator with an eyepatch, and Mr. T like get up. Captain Scaley, speaking in third person gives a monologue about their puniness and that they’ll give them all their goods or else. Captain Scaley, commands his crew to plunder the ship. The lizards pirates using ropes swoop down onto the ship. Earl attempts to lose the pirates flies away. Captain Scaley pursues them as fast as possible in the pirate ship, shooting meatballs at them. Gaining an idea, Jennifer remembers that the ship has a plethora of weapons, and that Earl will pilot and attempt to shake Captain Scaley while Kyle and Jennifer take care of the pirates. Kyle and Jennifer go to the weapons closet and find it stacked with slapstick gadgets like freeze rays, pie launchers and bee bombs. The two grab the weapons and face off the lizards in a slapstick like fight, with lizards getting frozen, 5 foot tall pies throwing them off the ship and humorously a swarm of bees hauling some of them away (the bees sting one of the pirates causing him to inflate and turn into a ball.). Earl attempts to shake Captain Scaley, and attempts to use an anvil cannon to knock Scaley out of the sky. Scaley dodges the anvils and fed up, goes and fires alligator head grappling hooks to hold the ship in position and he and the remnants of his crew make it inside.

 

Scaley and his crew celebrate with a sea shanty as they’ve caught Earl, Kyle and Jennifer. Jennifer says the three need to find a way out of their which gives Earl an idea. Earl asks what’re they going to do them which Scaley actually doesn’t know but assures them it’s the most awful thing imaginable times 10 squared. Scaley quickly runs off to have a meeting with the crew to discuss what to do with the prisoners. One suggest they creat a death trap, which Scaley dismisses as most death traps, the trapee escapes. Another member suggest they eat them, only for Scaley to smack the member as it’s way too dark and disturbing. An Steve Urkel like member suggests throwing them overboard as the pirates go into a huge argument. During the commotion, Jennifer breaks free from her chains and frees the others as they attempt to find an escape boat but as soon they get near one, the Urkel lizard notices they’re missing, and the pirates chase after them. Kyle manages to get to the control panel to activate a self destruct button, which enrages Scaley, who attempts to stop the ship from exploding as Kyle slinks off with Jennifer and Earl to an escape flying boat as the ship explodes with the lizards safely parachuting down. Scaley vows veganance on the three only to be eaten by a sky shark. The three celebrate their escape only to realize their boat is out of fuel, causing them to crash from the skies. Earl then uses his mustache to create a shield of hair around them to protect them from impact as they hit the ground.

 

Meanwhile, Ethan, Kickoff and Judy arrive at the Island Of Fears, which is an ominous looking island filled with black sand. Ethan is nervous but Kickoff and Judy comfort him, but suddenly the sandy ground starts to shake as we see goofy clowns pop up from the ground. Ethan reveals he has a fear of clowns, and is petrified as Kickoff and Judy (using her scientific gadgets) fights through the clowns but are outnumbered but refuse to let Ethan get hurt, going out of their way to protect him. Ethan is too afraid to move but decides to fight back, emitting blasts of lights from his hands which evaporate the clowns. The three are the able to defeat the clowns with much ease. Kickoff and Judy are both in awe with Ethan’s abilities, asking how he did that. Ethan realizes since it’s an island of fears perhaps if he overcomes then he can fight them. Judy is still unsure about going any further, worrying that Ethan will get hurt but Ethan refuses to give up. The three trek onto the island and go inside a vibrant yet eerie jungle, the colors are bright and vivid but theirs an air of tension around them. We then see The Dark One, a mysterious figure in a cloaked hood drop down from the treetops, armed with a purple horned staff. The Dark One, in a deep ominous voice, warns them to leave the island for their own safety but Ethan refuses to listen and charges at The Dark One, only for The Dark One to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Ethan, ignoring the ominous warning continues to trek onwards. The three then are confronted by a pack of troll esque bullies from school, who literally use their words/insults as weapons. Judy attempts to fire a set of mini missles at the pack who dodge them easily. Kickoff then tries throwing a football bomb at them, which has little to no effect on the bullies. Ethan tries using his new powers but they don’t work either. The bullies then start to savagely taunt them, making jabs about Ethan’s family, drawing and his social life which is more than effective enough for Ethan. Judy then gets an idea to ignore it, much to Ethan’s shock. Kickoff explains she’s right, and it gives the bullies no power. Ethan decides to give it a try, and the three ignore the insults, which cause the bullies to shrink into mouse like size. Ethan thanks Kickoff and Judy for the helpful advice, revealing he’s always had troubles dealing with bullies. Judy and Kickoff console Ethan, reminding him as long as he knows he’s great, a bully has no power. The three make it out of a jungle and see a gigantic hole in the ground. Knowing the climb down would take to long, Judy suggests they should attempt to build a way down. Ethan begins doodling on some sketches which spring to life, making a climbing vehicle to hold them. Kickoff and Judy seems a bit worried but hide it asking if the machine is safe. Ethan says there’s only one way to find out, and the three climb down into the hole.

 

Meanwhile, Kyle, Jennifer and Earl have landed in a strange tundra landscape. Both Kyle and Jennifer are freezing from the cold air but Earl asks if either of them has a knife or something to cut with. We quickly cut away to show Earl has made them clothes using his mustache hair, which disgusts Jennifer, Kyle says at least they’re warm but does ask how has he been able to grow such rapid mustache hair, and Earl comments that they literally fought lizard pirates hours ago. Jennifer asks Kyle if he has the map, which Kyle checks his pockets to revealed he’s lost it. Jennifer lashes out at Kyle for being irresponsible as always and the two go at each other. Unbeknownst to them, a pack of yetis surround them and take Earl. Jennifer and Kyle attempt to chase after Earl only to for the two to lose the yetis in the blizzard and fall down in a hole in the ice and are caved in.

 

Underground, there’s a certain beauty to the scenery. Icicles hang from above and crystals on the ground floor, it’s surprisingly warm as well. Jennifer suggests they should head on their journey and find an exit. Kyle is somewhat reluctant, not wanting to leave Earl for dead. Jennifer ignores it as they came here for Ethan. Kyle still says it’s the right thing to do as Earl has been helping them. Jennifer, annoyed eventually agrees but first they need to find a way out. The two walk around the underground ice cave looking for an exit back to the surface for a few hours. Kyle notices a small pool of water and out of thirstiness, decides to drink some of the water, which is delicious and invigorates him. Kyle grabs some and puts it in a canteen for both himself and Jennifer. Kyle offer Jennifer some water who also finds it delicious. The two then find a huge pool filled with the water and right at the end of the pool, a hole with light shining through. The two parents are ecstatic to find an exit after hours of searching. Jennifer suggests they swim for it much to Kyle’s reluctance, as he can’t swim but Jennifer insists on helping him, showing him the basics. The two finally step in the water, only to find out it’s shallow. The two then rush to the exit as Kyle accidentally splashes Jennifer, who actually decides to splash him back having a playful splash fight. Much to Jennifer’s surprise, she notices Kyle growing younger to when he was a teenager. Kyle also notices Jennifer has also become younger. Jennifer deduces that the water must have needed youth properties, while Kyle admires his body. Suddenly the two change once more into children as Kyle becomes chubby with a pair of braces and Jennifer sports pigtails. The two quickly realizes something is wrong and make a run for the exit not before quickly turning into toddlers with the water become more and more deep. Jennifer, now with a lisp says if they don’t leave some they’ll be reduced to nothingness and die. Kyle panics and starts crying but Jennifer tells him not to be a baby, which he ironically turns into. Jennifer then drags Kyle to the exit but she herself turns into a baby. The two babies try to get out of the pool Jennifer gets stuck, but Kyle refuses to give up helps gets them to the exit, as they slowly transform back into adults. 

 

Jennifer thanks Kyle for helping which he in return he thanks her for the swimming help, Jennifer has an epiphany that if the two want to get Ethan back as well as for Ethan’s sake, they need to stop fighting as it only make things worse which Kyle agrees too. Jennifer also apologizes for being difficult to Kyle as well but Kyle also apologizes for his behavior as well. The two then reach an fragile icy lake, and see the yetis in the distance. The two work together to navigate the ice using Kyle’s athletic techniques and safely cross the lakes and chase after the yetis. However, the two are outnumbered but tackle the biggest yeti, who to their surprise begs them to stop and they mean no harm. Kyle asks why did they take Earl away, and the yeti reveals that he knew Earl in college and wanted to invite him for dinner. Earl then remembers the Yeti as Blazhar. Blazhar apologizes for the whole confusion and offers for them to stay at his village for supper, which the three accept.

 

We then see cut to yeti village, it has vast clusters of igloos and huts, crystal like skyscrapers and wolf powered vehicles. The three then head to Blazhar’s hut and meets his family, his wife, Gurta, his rebellious son with a blue mohawk, Snowflake, his daughter, Goni, and his uncle Thork, who all humorously look and sound like Blazhar. The dinner is composed of walrus gut soup as the appetizer, frost crusted penguin (humorously a penguin frozen in ice) with an iceberg wedge salad and for dessert, ice cream. Kyle is somewhat unsure about the food but surprisingly Jennifer loves the food. After some catching up with Earl, Blazhar asks what brings Jennifer and Kyle here. Jennifer explains they’ve come to bring back their son, Ethan back home safely. Kyle explains he lost the map and they crash landed here from the Sea of Skies and they’re looking for the king. Blazhar immediately realizes their the parents of the creator and says luckily and convenient for them, the King’s palace is very close by, explaining all they have to do is sled down Death Peak. Jennifer asks why is it called Death Peak, and Blazhar says they couldn’t call it Doom Peak due to a patent. Blazhar then explains that after they cross Death Peak, they will reach a cozy and homey like area, and if they find the right piece they’ll reach the king’s palace. Blazhar then lets them know that Death Peak is the least dangerous at the morning, and invites them to spend the night at his village, revealing it’s the last day of the Snow Festival. Kyle asks what is the Snow Festival and Earl reveals it’s the most important yeti holiday, remembering his Spring Break at the Snow Festival, claiming it was wild. Kyle and Jennifer decide to join in the festivities for the day as they have nothing else to do.

 

Meanwhile, Ethan, Kickoff and Judy have finally reached the depths of the chasm. The three then see a gigantic marsh down below filled with giant mushrooms. Judy analyzed the ground and sees that the ground is lethal. Judy suggests it’d be best for them to give up the quest. Ethan refuses to give up though and sit on a mushroom thinking of an idea, only to sprung up into the air. Seeing how the place is littered with mushroom, Ethan suggest they bounce on them to get to the end. The three have fun bouncing from shroom to shroom until they safely reach the shore. The three then notices a giant mountain with The Dark One’s fortress on top. The three celebrate with glee and prepare to climb the mountain. Ethan also strikes up a conversation with the two telling him about his life and he’s having more fun here than back where he lived. Judy suggests that perhaps when the quest is over Ethan should stay here but Ethan refuses at first much to Judy and Kickoff’s confusion, noting that he ran away but Ethan says he did but admits he still misses his parents. Kickoff gets a bit defensive and asks aren’t they enough. Ethan explains to them how great his parents are and reminisces anout some of the fun memories they shared. Kickoff then reminds him that his parents forget about his art fair and not to mention didn’t always have time for him. Ethan tries to come up with a reason to defend them but Kickoff keeps on denting it in, saying that without them he’s nothing but stop and apologizes noticing Ethan start to tear up. Judy explains that yes while his parents are good, they are better promising all and any time they’re needed, they’ll drop anything. Kickoff also says living here he has no problems with bullies or the other awful things in life and he’s safer here than out in the world by himself. Ethan is still unsure but likes the proposition, and says he’ll think about. However, Ethan pauses for a moment and asks how does Kickoff know about why he ran away, admitting he told them he did but not why. Judy, however points out the three of them are here at The Dark One’s fortress. (think your traditional spooky evil castle, complete with cliched lightning strikes and vultures.)

 

 

The Snow Festival had multiple events, all of which Kyle and Jennifer partake in, such as sled races, ice cream eating contest (humorously gives Jennifer a cartoony balloon belly after winning), snow sculpting, figure skating, and who can make the biggest fire, having fun, connecting with each other in the first time in what feels like to be years. The couple then sees is a game called Iceball, which is basically football with ice. Kyle immediately rushes to play and aces the game and quickly becomes the best player, loving every second of it. Jennifer happily cheers on Kyle for his skills. However, Kyle notices a father and son yeti arguing over something. Curious, Kyle and Jennifer decide to silently listens in, the father is scolding his son on not being in the family business of ice hauling in order to pursue a writing career. The son tries to explain it makes him happy but his dad scolds him that he won’t make and he might not being making money. These comments ignite a fire inside Kyle, who blows his cover to defend the yeti son and calling the dad inconsiderate and that there’s more to life. The yeti father stunned for a moment, apologizes to his son for his behavior and reconciles, as the son thanks Kyle. After the conversation, Kyle walks away in the distance, only for Jennifer to go after him. Jennifer is wowed by Kyle’s passion and defensive nature towards others but notices Kyle crying a bit. Kyle explains (through flashbacks in the Paperman esque 2D style) that in high school, he wanted to go to football as Jennifer knew but Kyle reveals that his father was vehemently against the idea even despite his skills, knowing he wouldn’t make it and forbid it. Kyle still tried but the comments got to him and he gave it up. It is also revealed that is why Kyle was so depressed and unwilling to move on from his football dreams, as not only did he want to be happy but prove his parents wrong. Jennifer consoles him surprisingly, which he thanks her for. Jennifer also revealed that she gave up her dreams too, revealing after college, she wanted to go into the field of journalism but she never had the courage, especially after the two of them and Ethan were a family and settled for her miserable job. Jennifer admits that while she was able to provide, she regrets her decision. Kyle asks does she regret meeting him or having Ethan which Jennifer says no immediately as those two provided her life with such joy and admits she doesn’t say it as often. Jennifer encourages Kyle to follow his dreams but Kyle says he admits he’s probably a bit too old now, and does decide to take the job as a janitor at the arena, hoping to build a way up and more importantly help provide for them, admitting he should’ve done more to help with her and Ethan. The couple share a warm embrace and a tender kiss as Jennifer notices something in the distance as she and Kyle see a glorious sunset in the distance, as the light fading illuminates the snow, crystals and ice. The two then head back to Blazhar’s hut for the night as they see Earl talking about what a blast he had with Blazhar. Kyle and Jennifer remind Earl not to stay up too late as they are going to get Ethan tomorrow but Earl refuses reminding them he’s not a child only to fall asleep mid sentence. The two then go to the guest room and get a good night sleep to prepare for tomorrow. 

 

Ethan, Kickoff and Judy then decide to come up with a plan to scale the castle. The three take a peek inside to see the inside with a handful of guards. Ethan thinks it’s simple enough that they can fight them off but notices a leaf fall into the building and a state of the art defense system activates. First, the guards jump and beat up the leaf, then lasers shoot at the leaf, then a hole appear from and an alligator jumps out and chews up the leaf and spits it out, then acid is sprayed at it, and finally it is placed next to a comical black fuse bomb underneath a large dome, that blows up. Then a huge set of giant but comically large camera surround the building forcing them to hide. Judy says she has a way to take down the security system and throws a sphere at the castle. The sphere grows eight little legs and starts hacking the castles defense system as well as the cameras. Kickoff then goes inside at takes care of the guard, beating them up so badly, that words fly out with “Pow!”, “Wham!”, and finally grabs the “Ker-plunk!” word and beats a guard with it. The three then walk around the castle and search for The Dark One. Ethan then notices a room with a box in the middle, and guessing it’s probably something evil, he decides to take and the three rush inside the room, only for a net to hold and capture them. The Dark One then walks into the room with a cup of coffee in hand, only to be in shocked to see the heroes. He gloats of how easily he caught them. Ethan asks what’s in the box, and The Dark One reveals it’s for him, opening the box to show, it’s a potion. The Dark One says it’ll keep him safe from but before he can finish the sentence, both Judy and Kickoff quickly break the net. Ethan assumes that whatever it is he doesn’t want it, and that it’s probably evil. The three then fight The Dark One in a epic battle, Judy uses her inventions to attack The Dark One while Kickoff unleashed a set of punches as Ethan blast rays of light. However interestingly enough, the attacks do little damage to The Dark One, who spews smoke from his cloak hole creating ten copies of himself, splitting the gang up as he escapes with the box. Ethan decides to go after The Dark One as Kickoff and Judy fight his clones, who prove to be more than a match for them (Kickoff attempts to bodyslam some of the clones only for one to left him up via telepathy and hurls him into a wall. Judy uses her gadgets like mini missle launchers and stun lasers to attack the clones.). Ethan chases after The Dark One, hurling balls of light at him, who dodges them. Strangely, The Dark One makes no attack to seriously harm Ethan. The Dark One is then cornered by Ethan. Desperate, The Dark One holds and restrains Ethan using purple beams of magic as Ethan tries to break out using his light powers but The Dark One easily overwhelms him and attempts to fed him the potion, saying it’s for his own good. Ethan cries out for help, which cause Judy and Kickoff to go into overdrive and give a sure and swift beating to the clones and rush to Ethan’s side. The Dark One is distracted temporarily which gives Ethan, the opportunity to break free with his light powers. Kickoff then tackles The Dark One into a wall, and throws a football bomb to injure him, Judy then uses a energy draining lasso to stun him as Ethan blasts him with light and the three defeat The Dark One, Ethan celebrates but The Dark One explains he was only trying to protect him, which piques Ethan’s curiosity. Judy and Kickoff warn Ethan not to listen to The Dark One’s lie, only for him, to pull off his cloak to reveal himself as Snuggles but without his crown. Snuggles reveals that The Dark One took his place and identity as the King of Imagiland years ago and exiled him here. Snuggles also reveals The King wanted to trap Ethan here. Snuggles pull out the potion saying it will bring him back to the real world but Kickoff destroys the potion and Judy kills Snuggles. Ethan is shocked by all of this and The King steps out of the shadows. The King reveals that what Snuggles aid was true but he is also Ethan’s first drawing, showing his true form, a bunch of colorful line squiggles with eyes and a mouth. Kickoff and Judy turn into squiggles and join The King. The King wants revenge on Ethan for abandoning him and not being fondly remembered as Ethan rejected his “love”, as he disliked it. The King that then reveals he sent him here and created duplicates of Kickoff and Judy to lure him into his trap and that he wants Ethan’s powers as the creator. Ethan refuses this and attempts to run away but The King claps his hands, and the clowns, his schoolmates and the bullies, and twisted forms of his parents taunt and terrorize him, destroying his self esteem and willingness to fight back. The King then knocks out Ethan and takes him back to the castle. Ethan gains consciousness back at The King’s castle as he is hooked to a machine as his powers are being drained and turned into a golden elixir. The King gloats about his villainous plan, knowing Ethan’s parents, are on their way, much to the surprise of Ethan, who is touched his parents came for him. The King also reveals he sent them separate ways to avoid his evil plan being foiled. Ethan, realizing he made a mistake of running away, which The King rubs in further, saying Ethan will always be a weak, useless dog and it’s a miracle, his parents love him. The King then says he’ll eliminate them first, and consumes Ethan’s powers, but has a special plan for Ethan as his hands glow a black aura.

 

Back at Blazhar’s hut, Jennifer, Kyle and Earl suit up and get ready to descend Death Peak. The three wave goodbye to their yeti friends and enter a huge sled. Jennifer is unsure after realizing how high up they are, questioning if there’s another way but Earl wasn’t listening and cause the sled to slide down. All three of them scream in fear as they rapidly descend down the mountain. The three however are about to collide near a tree until Earl suggest they use bobsledding techniques which allows them to safely maneuver the mountain despite many close calls such as nearly hitting trees and some wildlife, but hit a large rock which split the sled into three parts and are forced to split up but they all manage to land safely. The three then approach what looks like to be their home, as they search for the right thing but not before Jennifer notices the family photo they took a year ago, but it’s not a perfect one, as Ethan is in a mess of art tools, Jennifer’s hair is messy and her glasses are broken and Kyle’s broke an arm reminiscing about their trip to a museum for an art workshop, sure they caused chaos but she fondly remembers that one as they had a lot of fun. Jennifer rounds up Kyle and Earl and says she think she found the entrance. Jennifer then goes to touch the painting which sucks the three of them inside.

 

The three then find themselves at The King’s kingdom which seems eerily deserted, as they walk to the castle. The three head inside the castle only to be trapped in a giant cage. The King introduces himself to them, threatening to kill them. Earl insists they mean no harm and just are looking for Ethan. The King says he knows that and he’s coming to finish them shortly much to the parents confusing as The King walks to his throne as their cage breaks and releases them. Suddenly, a hulking LEGO block monster with lime green eyes, bursts through the wall, and The King reveals it’s Ethan now, gloating how the creator is in his rightful place, as a lapdog. Filled with rage, Kyle charges at The King only for Ethan to swat him down like a mere housefly. The King then orders for Ethan to destroy his parents, which he complies. Ethan charges at his parents who are horrified and in shock, and attempt to run away but using LEGO like bricks, Ethan barricades the door, trapping them. Jennifer and Kyle tearfully try to talk Ethan out of his rampage, reminding him of good times which has little to no effect. Earl, attempts to wrap up the monster Ethan with his hair to constrict him, which fails and he is hurled aside and knocked out. Ethan then grabs his parents, trapping them in slimy goo before preparing to finish them off, but before he can do that, Kyle asks if he and Jennifer can have some final words with their son, which The King allows. 

 

Kyle and Jennifer apologize to Ethan for missing his art fair, and admit they won’t always be there but promises they’ll do a better job to try. The King, knowing it’s one of the cheesy “hypnosis broken by love speeches” tells Ethan to kill them but Ethan refuses and listens. Kyle also admits their fighting recently has yes become a problem and working on that and assures Ethan they’re not getting a divorce. Jennifer says that yes, recently things haven’t been the brightest but they’ll find ways to deal with them, so that way it’s better for everyone, as she lovingly looks at both Kyle and Ethan. Both of them speaking at the same time say no matter what happens in life, they will always love Ethan, no matter what. Kyle says they even love him now as Ethan is trying to kill them. Kyle also assures Ethan that he is a fantastic person, no matter what others say, claiming there’s a irreplaceable spark inside of him. Ethan lets goes of his parents as they go up to hug him which he returns. Ethan’s eyes turn back into a brown as he breaks free from the corruption and turns back to normal. Ethan apologizes to his parents for running away and admits he should’ve been more understanding. Jennifer assures Ethan he has nothing to apologize about.

 

The King admits that scene right there was touching and he did tear up a bit but reminds them he’s still there prisoners and the only way out is through him. The King then conjures up all the adversaries the Andersons faced (Lizard Pirates, Kickoff, Judy, the clowns, the guards and the bullies) and orders them to destroy the Andersons. The family quickly grab Earl, who regained consciousness and run away (Kyle and Jennifer introduce Ethan to Earl), breaking down the LEGO barricade using Earl’s mustache. The three try to run away but the kingdom becomes more dark and dangerous as they get closer to an exit but are trapped and cornered by The King and his cronies. The King prepares to finish them off but Ethan stand up for his parents, causing The King and his cronies to laugh, reminding Ethan that he’s powerless but Ethan refuses to give up, charging up with energy and gains back his powers, much to the surprise of everyone, especially The King. Ethan explains The King he created this and he can uncreate him, not to mention he helped make him stronger, by realizing to accept himself. The King, furious, orders his minions to kill Ethan. The minions, obeying their master, charge at Ethan but are blown by Ethan’s light energy. The King then tackles Ethan as the two clash through the air, inside spheres of yellow and black energy respectively. The battle goes on for a while, as a multitude of punches, kicks and beams of energy are hurled but The King gains the upper hand and is about to finish Ethan but Ethan fires a giant wave of energy at The King, subduing him. The allies also defeat the villains as well and our heroes celebrate. Ethan stares down The King, who asks if he’s going to finish him but Ethan refuses, much to The King’s shock. Ethan explains he sees his own insecurities inside The King, and takes pity on him and forgives him due to that in that like himself he wanted to be love and everyone deserves love. Ethan goes up and hugs The King, who tears up a bit and apologizes for his actions, and decides to redeem himself.

 

Ethan and The King using their abilities revives Snuggles and The King gives up his power as well back to it’s rightful owner. The King apologizes to everyone for his behavior which to his surprise is accepted and forgiven. The King makes up for his sins by doing voluntary community service. Kyle asks Snuggles how can they get back to their world. Snuggles says now that everything is right, they should be sent back on their own. Snuggles says some words to Ethan to encourage him to keep drawing as Jennifer and Kyle say goodbye to a very sad Earl, who hugs them with his mustache saying he’ll miss them. The parents promise to remember Earl as the Andersons fade away into dust and into the wind.

 

We then cut back to the traditionally animated world but this time with much more color. The Andersons wind up back home, and realize they’re running late, the family rushes and hurries to get ready not before they leave, proclaiming their love for one another. We see over the course of the month, the Andersons are able to pay off the bill swimmingly thanks to Kyle working. Jennifer finds a nice journalism job that pays more than her boring office job which she takes without question. Kyle also is finds joy in his custodian job at the football arena, and that his boss is so impressed, he promotes him as a commentator. Ethan heads back to school with a much needed confidence boost and make more friends than before. 

 

Ultimately, the Andersons have much more time together as a family and bond closer, doing trips together, like a football game, amusement parks, an art museum, they even by a goldfish as their family pet, which they name Earl. The film concludes as The Andersons finally watch the sunset together over the hill as Ethan announces he loves his family. We then show the drawing Ethan made in Imagiland, complete with him and his parents, and all of the characters in the movie and we also see The King turned from a ball of squiggles into a rainbow. 

 

We then go to the credits as Lorde’s Imagine That (it’s an upbeat song with a lot of whimsy that is meant to inspire the audience to go out and follow their passions) plays as we see the Anderson family doing various things together along with some of the CG characters in 2D Animation and vice versa.

 

End Credit Scene: Earl walks on screen thanking everyone for coming to see the film but reminds them not to leave the theater so messy, commenting that it’s a rude thing to do. We hear Blazhar offscreen asking Earl if he’s ready for another round of iceball, which Earl excitedly accepting and says goodbye to the audience.

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by YourMother the Edgelord

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Delayed

Edited October 16, 2018 by cookie

[ChD]

Transistor

Director: Duncan Jones
Genre: Science Fiction

Release Date: July 10

Major Cast: TBA

Theater Count: 2945

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Runtime: TBA

Production Budget: 100M

Plot: TBD

Edited September 7, 2018 by ChD

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@Xillix The dates for the De Wit project are off. It opens in 4 theaters on March 27th, then goes wide on April 3rd.

[ChD]

5 centimeters per second

Director: Taichi Ishidate

Genre: Drama/Romance

Release Date: June 5th

Major Cast: TBA

Theater Count: 2801

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 110 mins

Production Budget: 50M

Plot: TBA

Edited July 14, 2018 by ChD

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Delayed

Edited October 16, 2018 by cookie

[Xillix]

Jaws: The Return

Release Date: July 3rd, Y4

Studio: Red Crescent Pictures

Genre: Horror, Disaster

Director: J.A. Bayona

Theater Count: 4,015

Premium Formats: 3D, Dolby Cinema & IMAX 2D + 3D
Shooting Format: 35mm anamorphic Panavision (above-water shots, 2D-3D conversion), 5K digital Red DSMC2 Gemini (underwater shots, native 3D)
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 / 1.90:1 (Underwater shots in IMAX)
Release Image Formats: 2K DCP, 2K 3D DCP, 4K DCP, 4K Dolby Cinema DCP, 2K IMAX Digital DCP, 2K IMAX 3D Digital DCP, 4K IMAX with Laser DCP, 4K IMAX 3D with Laser DCP
Release Audio Formats: 5.1, 7.1, Auro 11.1, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, IMAX 12-channel
Production Budget: $85 million

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

Running Time: 118 minutes

Major Cast: Felicity Jones (Candace Jeanne), Richard Dreyfuss (Dr. Matt Hooper), Sam Neill (Mayor Hamilton), Samuel L. Jackson (Freddie Pryce), Amy Adams (Kelsey Craig), Willow Shields (Kira Jeanne), Zackary Arthur (Garrett Jeanne)
 

Plot Summary:

The fifth entry in the Jaws franchise based on the novel by Peter Benchley, though it does not directly refer to the events of any of the prior sequels to the first film.
 

Spoiler

We open at sunset, on a yacht off the southern coast of Brooklyn. The ship passes by Coney Island, its occupants - a group of rich teenagers - marveling at the twinkling lights on the boardwalk and amusement rides. One of them, a girl named Teresa, pulls out her phone to take a picture. She climbs up onto the railing along the edge of the deck to take a selfie. She leans back more than she should, one hand on the railing, one holding her phone. She dangles out over the dark, chilly water, her hair streaming behind her in the wind... and she snaps the picture without a problem. As she's re-steadying herself on top of the rail, though, she receives a phone call from her mother. The sudden ringing and vibrating of her phone startles Teresa, and she slips right off the rail into the sea. Her phone drops onto the deck of the yacht, where one of her friends picks it up and answers. Everyone else gathers around and watches Teresa resurface, laughing and recording video. One of the boys lowers the boarding latter for her, and she begins to swim for it, but the boat is still motoring on ahead.

 

Cut to beneath the surface of the water. The familiar John Williams theme begins its ominous melody as Teresa's flailing legs come into view. Through the shark's hungry eyes, we see it approach her from below. Teresa begins swimming for the ladder, but she's fighting the current. Someone yells to the young man driving the boat to stop the motor, and he obliges - but it continues to drift forward through the water on inertia. Most of the teens don't seem too worried about Teresa, even though it's clear from her uneven strokes she's not an especially gifted swimmer. The distance between her and the yacht is still growing. But the space between her and the shark is rapidly shrinking. From below, we and the shark close in.

 

Just as the music crescendos, Teresa's friends watch from the yacht as she is jerked beneath the surface. The boy on the phone with Teresa's mother hangs up and drops the phone as he and the others race over to the railing to look for her. Someone yells to the driver to turn the ship around. As he spins the wheel, Teresa's upper body emerges from the troubled water, blood mixing in with the foamy surge around her. She screams in agony, flailing her arms, trying to paddle - but she begins moving backwards, her body being dragged away from the boat by the savage predator. One of her friends dials 911, and another throws out a life preserver, which lands several yards away from Teresa and bobs uselessly in the waves. Again she disappears under the red water, her friends calling out her name. One arm reaches back up out of the depths - only to spasm and flop over like a falling tree, severed at the elbow. Quickly we cut back to the devastated teens, crying and screaming, Teresa's phone is still on the deck of the ship, her mother calling back, unaware her daughter will never pick up...

 

JAWS: THE RETURN
 

The opening credits play out over footage of an oceanographic survey, in which marine scientists onboard a boat are tagging and releasing various ocean animals for tracking. As the credits come to an end, one member of the team is having a conversation on a satellite phone. Putting the caller on hold, he heads into the ship's cabin to speak with none other than Dr. Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss). He informs Dr. Hooper that there's been a shark attack near Coney Island, just a few dozen miles away. Now someone from a New York news program wants to interview Hooper about it.

 

Dr. Hooper semi-reluctantly accepts the call, warning the reporter right off the bat that he's too busy for a full interview but that he can make a brief statement. The reporter asks him to comment on the danger great white sharks pose to humans. Dr. Hooper first asks for clarification - are they sure it was a great white attack? The reporter admits he's making an assumption. Hooper's statement urges the public to be calm, pointing out if it was a great white, it would only be the third fatal attack by one in the past decade in the entire country. He says sharks, regardless of species, do not seek out humans as prey, and that attacks are generally rare, isolated incidents.

 

Inevitably, the reporter asks about the series of fatal attacks in the waters off Amity Island back in the 1970s. Hooper, clearly frustrated, reiterates that those events were unprecedented, and represent an extreme outlier. He hangs up before the reporter can continue his line of questioning. He practically shoves the phone back into the hands of the other scientist, who cautiously asks if Dr. Hooper wants to turn the boat around and take a look at the area of the attack. Dr. Hooper says he doesn't want to go on a wild goose chase, and they have work to do. Their expedition continues as planned.

 

Cut to Amity Island, later that same day. The Jeanne family - mother Candace (Felicity Jones), teenage daughter Kira (Willow Shields), and young son Garrett (Zackary Arthur) - are getting settled into the beachside hotel where they're spending their summer vacation. Garrett is eager to get out onto the beach as soon as possible, and his boundless energy is annoying his older sister. The two begin having an argument which their mother has to break up, making them promise to behave themselves for the week. "It's a vacation," she says, "it's supposed to be relaxing."

Meanwhile, Mayor Hamilton (Sam Neill) is having a meeting in his office with businessman Freddie Pryce (Samuel L. Jackson). Amity isn't drawing in as many tourists as it used to, even without any recent shark problems. As such, the mayor is working closely with Freddie on the opening of a new attraction he hopes will boost the local economy. The Amity-Pryce Amusement Pier, as it's called, is a huge pier on the western coast of the island, extending out over the ocean. It's filled with rides, shows, games, and carnival food in the manner of the famous piers in Wildwood, New Jersey. Opening day is July 4th, Independence Day - two days from now. Pryce is checking in with the mayor to coordinate police presence, press coverage and the like. Both men are confident it will be a smashing success, and Pryce already has plans for future expansion - he wants to make Amity "the Coney Island of New England," in his words.

 

Out on the ocean, off the southwest beach of the island, two fishermen in an old, beat-up boat are trying to get their engine to start back up after it's stalled out. To the rescue is Amity's Chief of Police, Kelsey Craig (Amy Adams). She pulls up alongside them in her small police watercraft and boards their boat, responding to their call for help over the radio. She recognizes the pair - Joe and Ralph - who have a reputation as drunkards who aren't terribly bright even when they're sober. She offers to check their engine for them and, sure enough, she finds the boat is simply out of fuel and the pair were too drunk to check. She puts them in handcuffs for operating the vehicle while under the influence, dropping anchor to keep the boat in place so it can be retrieved the next day, and takes the pair back ashore.

 

Candace, Kira, and Garrett have finally made it to the beach. Garrett has just finished a sandcastle, and Kira is tanning on a beach towel with earbuds in as she listens to music on her phone. Candace is sitting under an umbrella alternating between reading a book and watching her kids. Garrett asks his mom permission to go swimming, which she grants as long as he doesn't go out too far. An excited Garrett runs over to Kira, pulling out her earbuds and trying to convince her to come swim with him. Kira's not interested and decides to try and scare him for interrupting her.

 

"I don't think we should," she says in a mock-concerned tone.

 

"What do you mean?" her brother asks.

 

"Don't you know? This place is surrounded by giant sharks. Hungry ones."

"Nuh-uh!"

"It's true," she says, pulling up a web search on her phone and showing Garrett a glimpse of an article about the infamous shark attacks in the 70s. "This beach is like a buffet for them. And a kid like you would fit just right in their mou-"

"Okay, that's enough!" Candace interrupts. Garrett is beginning to freak out a bit, so his mother tries to calm him down and reassure him the ocean is safe. "That happened forever ago, honey. I was a little toddler. Younger than you are. This island has been safe for a very long time."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Well... okay," Garrett says, still seeming a bit on-edge. "But... the water looks pretty cold," he says as an excuse. "I think I'll just make another sand castle for now."

As the sun begins to set, Dr. Hooper and his crew continue their research project, moving northeast. They're off the coast of Connecticut now, and Hooper is a bit distracted from his work. People have been calling about the shark attack all day - just like every time one's happened in the past forty years or so - and while the rest of his crew has stopped actually giving him the phone, he still hears its incessant ringing. "How the hell do these people always get my number," he wonders aloud, frustrated, as he hears another call in the background. His mood is only worsened when a team member informs him that an oncoming storm is likely to slow their progress, and that they may not reach port before nightfall.

 

Cut to that night, off the shores of Amity. Two young twenty-something lovers, Amanda and Carl, are having a romantic moment to themselves out on a small boat with an outboard motor. While they're happy to have the isolation and privacy, Amanda isn't terribly receptive when Carl rather clumsily implies he'd like to make love in the boat. All the rocking and swaying and drifting hardly seems conductive to the process, after all, and there's not exactly a big comfy bed on here. Disappointed, Carl decides to go for a swim to "cool off," literally and figuratively. Amanda stays in the boat, watching him through a pair of binoculars they have onboard.

As she's scanning the sea with them, she notices the dark shape of the drunkards' abandoned fishing boat against the night sky. She calls out to Carl to try and point it out to him, but he's now too far away to hear her over his own splashing. She gives up and sighs, continuing to gaze around with the binoculars. That's when she sees it. The shark fin, piercing the dark surface of the water, coming right at her. She drops the binoculars, trying to restart the motor - but before she can reach it, the massive shark slams into the little boat, flipping it over and dumping her into the sea. As Carl continues to swim about obliviously, the shark feasts on the helpless Amanda, the churning water turning a deep red as she shrieks, disappearing beneath the surface.

 

That finally, barely, gets Carl's attention. He turns back and sees the empty boat bobbing upside down in the water. He calls Amanda's name out into the night with no reply. No reply but the reappearance of the dorsal fin piercing the surface of the water life a knife, barreling towards him. Panicked, the young man screams for help, turning and swimming away as fast as he can. He spots the abandoned fishing boat nearby. He thinks he can make it. Every muscle in his body cries out in protest as he pushes them to the limit, forcing his way through the gentle waves. He has no time to glance back behind him. He just swims, and swims...

 

Finally, he reaches the boat. We see a close-up of his hand shooting up into frame, grabbing onto the railing on the edge of the deck, gripping it like a vice. A splash. A scream. A splattering of blood. When the camera pulls back out, only his severed arm remains clinging to the railing, bitten off just below the elbow.

 

The next morning, the island town is abuzz with excitement for the holiday and the opening of the new amusement pier the next day. More tourists are arriving by the boatload, filling the beaches and seaside hotels. Around 11 AM, the Jeanne family returns to the beach, and little Garrett, reassured by his mother the night before, finally builds up the courage to go into the water. His sister Kira is still unenthusiastic about the whole vacation, but even she begins to enjoy herself just a bit when she spots a cute guy hanging out nearby.

 

As Chief Craig attends yet another town hall meeting on the impeding grand opening of Pryce's pier, two of her deputies head out to retrieve the abandoned fishing boat. Their friendly banter is quickly halted when they spot Carl's disembodied arm still dangling from the railing. They place an urgent call to Chief Craig over the radio, forcing her to excuse herself from the meeting. From her deputies' description of the scene, it doesn't take long for her to come to the obvious conclusion about what has happened. As soon as the meeting is over, she pulls Mayor Hamilton aside to explain. To his credit, he believes her immediately. Determined to avert another disaster, he authorizes the chief to close the beaches while he digs through the old town files for a phone number...

 

Dr. Matt Hooper and his team have just left port when one of his crew brings him the phone. At first, Hooper refuses to take it, assuming it's more newspeople in search of a story. But he's convinced to take the call when told it's from the mayor of Amity. Mayor Hamilton explains the situation - the severed arm, the missing boy and girl. The medical examiner is still checking out the arm, but no one can come up with a more credible explanation than exactly what they'd all feared for decades - another killer shark. Hamilton reminds Dr. Hooper that he "owes him a favor," and, reluctantly, Hooper agrees to head straight to the island.

 

Chief Craig and the rest of the Amity PD are circling the perimeter of the island, shutting down and evacuating the beaches. As they arrive at the beach on the northeast shore, where Candace Jeanne and her children are, Chief Craig gets on the megaphone to explain the closing of the beaches. She carefully avoids mentioning anything about a shark, insisting only that it is a matter of public safety. She wants to avoid a panic.

 

While the confused and frustrated vacationers slowly retreat from the ocean, lifeguards heading in to retrieve those too far out to hear, we see through the shark's eyes from under the sea. It is approaching the beach, lured by the frantic splashing of hundreds of bare, dangling limbs poking down through the waves. The huge fish swims ever closer, rising from the depths. It zeroes in on a pair of kids, out too far, splashing away at one another in a play-fight. As the swimmers around them start to filter back toward shore, they remain oblivious. The shark accelerates, rapidly closing the distance between its hungry maw and the children. Ten yards... nine... eight... seven...

 

A lifeguard on a jet ski reaches the kids, helping them climb onto his watercraft just in time. The shark slows down and turns, diving back down into the darkness of the sea before it breaks the surface.

 

Back on shore, the Jeannes have packed up their things and are making their way back toward the hotel. The situation is reasonably calm - no panic, just throngs of disappointed and perplexed tourists grumbling and mumbling as the police direct them back inland. Kira, eyes fixated on her phone screen, tells Garrett she had been right about the sharks after all.

 

"For God's sake Kira, would you stop scaring your brother? It's not a shark. They would have said something."

"Of course it's a shark, mom. What else would it be?"

"Well, it could be an algal bloom or something."

"Oh, right, algae. How terrifying. Someone call the health food store."

"It can be toxic in the right conditions."

"Well everyone on Twitter is saying it's a shark."

 

"Kira, I thought I told you I didn't want you on Twitter anymore."

"Everybody's on Twitter, mom. The PRESIDENT'S on Twitter."

"That's the problem."

Late that afternoon, Dr. Hooper is dropped off on Amity Island by his team. He sends the crew back out to continue the research mission in his absence. Hooper meets with the mayor, medical examiner, and Chief Craig to take a look at the arm. He quickly confirms it's a shark attack, though he can't be completely sure of the size or species from just the arm. The rest of the body - now correctly assumed to be that of Carl - and Amanda's body still have not been found. He tells the mayor to close the beaches and is pleasantly surprised to find that they've been closed for hours. Hooper suggests keeping them closed for at least two weeks, or until the shark can be found and positively identified. It's most likely, he says, that the shark has already moved on - but given the history of the island, it's better to be sure. He offers to aid the police department in their efforts to hunt the creature. Mayor Hamilton accepts the offer and asks what Hooper needs.

 

"I need a boat, Mayor," he replies. "A very, very big boat."

 

That evening, the first of the patrol boats go out in search of the killer fish. With no official word on the reason for the beach closings, or any timetable for their reopening, many tourists are already leaving the island early. With Hooper and Chief Craig out on the water, Mayor Hamilton holds a private meeting with Freddie Pryce. Mr. Pryce is concerned about the opening of his pier in the morning, but Mayor Hamilton assures him this situation won't affect it.

"The way I see it, your pier is going to help the situation, Mr. Pryce. With the beaches closed, we need something to occupy the tourists. Somewhere to put them while we... sort things out."

"To be clear," Pryce asks, "This IS another shark, isn't it?"

"...yes," the mayor admits candidly. "Why? Are you concerned?"

"Hell no," Pryce responds. "Unless it's a goddamn sharknado. My pier's twenty feet above the water. No freaky fish is gonna hop up there for a snack. No matter how good the corn dogs are."

"And I'm sure they'll be delicious," the mayor nods politely.

 

"I'm just wondering," Freddie explains. "Given the situation. It'd be a shame if the pier were to reach capacity, don't you think? I mean, if the people have nowhere else to go."

 

"You can handle it?"

"So what if the lines for the rides get a little long? Just means people buy more drinks to stay cool standing out in the sun."

Freddie Pryce places a heavy stack of cash on the the mayor's desk, sliding it over towards him. Mayor Hamilton pockets it and smiles. "Well then, Mr. Pryce," he says. "I thank you for your service to the town of Amity."

In the middle of the night, Chief Craig and Dr. Hooper are out on the ocean together, patrolling the shore for the shark. The flagship for the operation, onto which Hooper has installed sonar equipment borrowed from a Massachusetts university on short notice, is a large luxury yacht that Craig had recently impounded from "some drug peddler with more money than brains." The pair have a conversation about what happens when they actually find the shark. Hooper says he'd rather drug it and capture it than kill it, but admits that may not be an option. "I don't want to be naive idealist who gets everyone killed," he admits. "No matter what happens, though, I am not going down in a shark cage."

"Well," Craig responds. "That makes two of us."

The night patrol turns up nothing, and the following morning - despite the concerns of some members of the police department - the Amity-Pryce Amusement Pier opens for business. Huge crowds turn out for the festivities, which include a performance by the local high school band, a mini-parade, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mr. Pryce and Mayor Hamilton. Predictably, the pier quickly becomes overcrowded, the lines for rides and shows spilling out past their designated queues. A small sign at the pier entrance stating the structure's occupancy limit is completely ignored. As the camera zooms in on it, we can hear the supports creaking and straining to support the extra weight of all the displaced beachgoers.

 

The Jeanne family is one of hundreds of families in attendance, though the three are becoming frustrated at the tightly-packed space and the hour-plus waits to do just about anything. As Kira is grumbling and complaining to her mother, Garrett finally spots a ride with a relatively short line. It's called the Zipper, an intimidating metal contraption consisting of small, two-person cages in which riders are locked in a seated position. The cages rotate freely, flipping around and upside down as they revolve around an oblong central wheel, which itself is also spinning.
 

Garrett asks his mother if he is allowed to ride, and she's unsure - she doesn't want him throwing up, after all. But he swears he can handle it, and besides, the line looks like it won't take more then ten or fifteen minutes. There's just one catch - as a sign in front of the queue entrance notes, single riders are not allowed. Garrett begs his mother to ride it with him, but she flatly refuses. She'd like to keep her breakfast where it is.

"Kira, go on the ride with your brother."

"Why do I need to do it?"

"You've been complaining about being bored since we got to the island. This'll finally be some excitement."

"It looks more like a torture device."

"Well would you rather keep walking around the pier and bumping into sweaty strangers while your brother shoots daggers at you with his eyes?"

"Ugh," she relents, grabbing Garrett's hand and heading toward the line for the Zipper. "Fine."

"Thanks Mom," Garrett calls back happily.

"Why are you thanking her?" the annoyed Kira asks. "She's not the one climbing into this death machine for you."

Hooper and Craig have been out on the yacht since before midnight. They're just about to head back in to switch out shifts when they get a blip on their sonar. A very large, very fast blip. Headed for the pier. Hooper gives chase while Chief Craig calls to the other patrol boats to meet by the pier. She also calls the mayor, who's wandering the pier with Mr. Pryce. She warns him that the shark is headed their way. Mayor Hamilton acknowledges her but seems unconcerned. "At worst, your guests will get a free marine life show," he jokes to Freddie.

 

By the time Kira and Garrett are being loaded onto the ride and locked into their cage, the shark, Dr. Hooper, and every boat in the Amity PD are converging on the Amity-Pryce Amusement Pier. Just as the Zipper starts spinning, the guests packed onto the pier begin to notice the police presence in the water around them. And then someone spots the shark, its huge body a barely-visible shadow under the surface of the water, dorsal fin poking up just above the shimmering waves. Someone screams and points. With all the noise and tightly-packed bodies, the message becomes unclear. More screams spread as people along the edge of the pier spot the aquatic beast. Soon panic sets in.

 

Chief Carr notices the commotion above the water. She calls out to any units still on land to head to the pier to get the situation under control, but the police radio channel is a chaotic chorus of shouting voices as officers try to coordinate their positions and relay the movement of the shark. The stomping of thousands of stampeding feet is badly straining the pier's support structure. Metal creaks, bolts loosen, beams buckle. Candace Jeanne tries to reach the Zipper, pushing her way desperately against the crowd. In the confusion below, two police boats collide. One is pushed off-course, into the supports for the pier.

 

The impact is too much for the structure to handle. The supports begin to give way, the pier collapsing into the water. Concession stands and rides tumble down into the sea, dozens of people falling down with them, some crushed under the debris or pinned to the ocean floor. The police boats are forced to pull back as the structure falls apart. All of the frantic splashing and struggling, and the blood mixing into the water from the injured victims, only serves to attract the shark. On the still wildly-spinning Zipper, Garrett and Kira watch as their mother falls into the water, losing sight of her as their cage flips over. Then the ride itself, and the section of the pier beneath it, topples over into the ocean.

 

As the last of the debris splashes down, Chief Craig orders all units to turn back and rescue victims. But the shark is already there. From beneath the surface we see through its eyes as it weaves between the sinking wreckage, overwhelmed by the chaos unfolding around it. Directly above, a survivor climbs on top of a floating plank of wood, trying to paddle to shore. To the shark, it looks almost like a seal. The beast lunges upward, snapping its enormous jaws shut around the poor young man, his screaming, bleeding body vanishing below the roiling water as the shark re-submerges.

 

The Zipper, like the other heavy, metal rides, is sinking quickly to the ocean floor. Thankfully, they are close enough to the shore that the water is relatively shallow, twenty or thirty feet deep. But the riders, including Garrett and Kira, are all trapped inside their cages, locked from the outside. The children shake the door, trying to pry it loose, to no avail. Through the murky depths they see their mother, still alive. She spots the ride and swims towards it as fast as she can - but she has a deep wound on her hip from the collapse. As she frantically races toward her children, she leaves a thick, cloudy trail of blood behind her. The shark catches the scent, spitting out the dead body of its prior victim and beginning its pursuit of Candace.

 

The kids try to signal to their mother, but she does not understand them - and her resolve is only strengthened as Garrett runs out of air in his lungs, beginning to gag and drown. She reaches the ride as it hits the bottom, clinging onto the cage her children are in and unlocking it. But the shark is just a few yards away, closing fast. As she pulls open the door, Candace is finally alerted to its presence. Just in time, she swings herself around into the dense criss-cross metal structure of the ride, the gaps too small for the enormous shark to swim through. It smashes into the door of the cage, slamming it back shut and caving it inward. The angry, hungry beast thrashes and bites, trying to reach Candace. Garrett has passed out, and neither his mother nor sister will last much longer. None can escape with the creature so close.

 

Kira leans over and kisses her unconscious brother on the forehead. Then, with a powerful kick, she launches herself out of the unlocked cage and into open water. She thrashes around, pounding on the shark's sandpaper-like skin, making herself as much of a distraction as she can. Candace looks on in shock and despair as the predator whips its head around and bites into her daughter's torso. Blood spewing up through her throat, the teenager mouths one final word - "go." As the shark swims off with its prey grasped firmly in its razor-sharp teeth, Candace swings back around to the front of the cage, grabbing onto her son and pulling him out. Desperately, she kicks toward the surface, approaching the bottom of a huge boat - Craig and Hooper's commandeered yacht. Her vision begins to blur as her brain screams for oxygen. Another drowning woman reaches for her leg, grabs on, but she kicks her hand loose. Finally she breaks through.

 

Gasping for air, she screams up toward the deck, her son cradled in her arms as she struggles to get his head above water. Chief Craig throws a rope over the side and reels them in. As soon as they are onboard, she begins CPR on Garrett, fighting to revive him. The engine is off, the yacht floating among the panicked vacationers scattered throughout the water. Dr. Hooper helps a few other people onto the deck, then instructs the uninjured ones to take over the rescue efforts of plucking people from the water. He heads into the cabin and re-emerges with a grenade launcher.

 

"Where the hell did you get that?" Chief Craig asks, catching a glimpse out of the corner of her eye as she continues to try and revive Garrett.

 

"Boat's not the only thing I got from impound," he replies almost casually. Rapidly he walks to the bow, grabbing a bucket of chum from off the deck. He finds an area without any people still floating around, and dumps the fish guts in all at once, yelling to people nearby to swim away. With forty-plus years' worth of pent-up aggression, he readies his weapon, taking aim at the baited red water. He screams out into the sea, calling the shark.

 

Finally, Garrett comes around, coughing up water. Chief Craig helps him sit up and Candace wraps him tightly in her arms, sobbing. He says nothing, half-awake and in shock. The chief leaves the woman to be with her son, rushing over to Hooper's side. Just as she arrives, something begins to break the surface of the blood-filled water. She draws her service pistol, as if that will do any good, pointing the barrel at...

 

...Freddie Pryce, who coughs and gags as he surfaces, fish guts dangling off his shoulders. He screams for help, treading water, trying to shake the entrails off of him. Then, suddenly, the shark bursts out from the water behind him, chomping down and dragging him under. Chief Craig fires her pistol but it is, predictably, not effective. Hooper fires off a grenade and, while the resulting boom is impressive, it misses the shark. Hooper spots the shark swimming away, back toward the flailing victims of the collapse, Pryce's dead body floating up to the surface as the shark releases it.

 

Desperate to end this before anyone else is killed, Dr. Hooper grabs a knife and cuts himself, then climbs over the railing of the boat and dangles over the water. Holding onto the railing with one hand, his grenade launcher readied in the other, he allows his blood to drip into the water, kicking and splashing the surface, trying to draw the shark's attention. The ploy works, the shark turning to come after him. As it closes in, he hoists himself up a bit - with help from Chief Craig, who's followed him over - and forces the shark to rear up out of the water, its huge, toothy mouth open wide.

 

Hooper pulls the trigger, and the grenade fires into the shark's maw. He tries to make a badass quip... but the grenade, naturally, does not explode immediately. The shark clamps down and drags him under, the Chief's grip on him slipping. The man and beast disappear under the surface, and moments later, the grenade explodes. The yacht rocks and shakes as bloody chunks shoot out of the water (and screen, in the 3D version). The shark is dead, but so is Dr. Hooper.

 

It takes hours for the Amity police to finish the rescue operation, and the search for bodies trapped beneath the rubble will last for days. The film closes with a montage of the rescue efforts, divers searching for bodies, traumatized survivors - including Candace and Garrett - being ferried back to the mainland, and, finally, Mayor Hamilton being arrested by Chief Craig for corruption and manslaughter by negligence. The final shots show the once-prosperous vacation town virtually deserted, the beaches open but empty, the wreckage of the pier a chilling reminder of the tragedy.

 

Edited September 25, 2018 by Xillix

[Blankments]

Reality Shift

 

Director: Peter Atencio

Genre: Comedy/Satire

Release Date: February 7

Major Cast:

Robert Downey, Jr. as Mark Flamed

Randall Park as Mike Chen

Kristen Schaal as Keira Quail

Michael Pena as Adam Torres

Shameik Moore as Tanner Pine

with Kelly Marie Tran as Rachel Nguyen

and Wallace Shawn as Paul Jones,

(Cameos by Jack Black, Michael Cera, Tina Fey, Zach Galifianakis, Keegan-Michael Key, Tobey Maguire, Melissa McCarthy, Trevor Noah, Amy Poehler, Seth Rogen, Kenan Thompson, and Jessica Walter.)

 

Theater Count: 3,623

MPAA Rating: R for violence, drug use, strong language, and sexuality

Runtime: 101 min

Production Budget: $60 million

Music by: Christophe Beck

Plot Summary: A crazy reality show producer teams up with a hitman to kidnap people and make a 24/7 reality show about their life in captivity.

 

Plot:

 Mark Flamed was on the top of his game. He is creator and host of the hit show "Legacy," where people compete to become the longest lasting on an island. However, in recent years, his other shows has decreased his brand name. We go through "Pet Swap," "Human Pac-Man," "Mark Flamed's Protege," and "So You Think You Can Make A Better Reality TV Show Than Me," all of which become worse and worse received. The executive of DBS, Paul Jones, has had enough of Mark Flamed's flops, but Mark convinces him of one more show, his magnum opus.

 
"Babies With Broadswords" premieres with Mark happily hosting the bloodbath. Mark introduces the psychopathic parents, John and Mary, (Melissa McCarthy and Tobey Maguire) that gladly donate their children. John says that she loves fighting, and Mary says he just wants his child to be famous. The babies fight and end up chopping off each other's heads. John and Mary then sue DBS, but Mark and Paul happily point out that they signed waivers and they have no grounds to sue.
 
Unfortunately though, the first episode was broadcast live, and the FCC charges a massive fine to DBS. Paul is pissed at Mark, and says Mark can have more shot at a show, or else he's canceling "Legacy!" Mark then goes home to his mansion, depressed at how he has to deal with Jack Black living at the mansion next door. Before Mark pulls into his driveway, Jack Black invites him over to a weenie roast, but Mark says no, he has work to do. Jack Black shrugs, and then says he met an interesting guy earlier this week; a mustached hitman, Mike Chen, who specializes in kidnapping, not murder. Mark tells Jack Black to leave him alone; he's having someone come in the morning to put mines in his front yard so Jack Black can't annoy him.
 
Mark then makes himself some popcorn and gets ready to watch the season premiere of "Legacy." He cheers everytime he does something; after all, he's awesome. However, during the show, we see Mike break into Mark's house, smiling. Thankfully, Mark isn't an idiot, and as soon Mike reaches Mark's TV room, Mark promptly pepper-sprays him. Screaming in terror, Mike listens to Mark's question asking who sent him, but Mike answers that he just wanted to be famous. Mark slaps Mike, and asks him what he means, and Mike blubbers, saying maybe "Confessions of a Psycho Kidnapper" would be good.
 
Mark thinks, saying it'd be a good show, but too many audiences these days would rather have conservative shows that stupidly follow the law. Mike looks around, and tells Mark he has a nice place. That's when Mark gets his genius idea; he's already having his house booby-trapped for Jack Black, so why not have Mike kidnap four random people, dump him in his house, and do a "Truman Show" meets "Big Brother" thing where there is 24/7 coverage of four people living together? Mike says it's an utterly stupid idea, but Mark asks him if he wants a show or not. Mike thinks for a second, and then tells Mark he'll be back in the morning with four people.
 
Keira Quail works the pharmacy at a local Walgreens. An older woman (Jessica Walter) gives her trouble when she asks where the applesauce is. Keira tries to explain that applesauce is not a medicine, and is thus not in the pharmacy, but then the woman calls her a hippie liberal. Keira won't take this, and yells at the woman to just shut up. Her manager (Michael Cera) calls her over, and tells her that as this is a business, the customer is always right. Keira asks what if someone asks for arsenic pills, and her manager sighs, saying they have to give it to the customer. Keira looks her manager, appalled, and promptly quits her job. Storming out of the Walgreens, she hails a cab, and when one pulls up, she gets inside. Her driver asks her where to, and she says home. The driver looks at her weirdly, and knocks her out. We see that the driver was Mike in disguise.
 
Adam Torres is a bartender at, well, a bar. He doesn't particularly like dealing with the drunks, but he took the job solely so he'd get unlimited drinks. However, a drunk (Seth Rogen) begins giving him a particularly hard time. Adam tries to get him to leave the restaurant but he refuses, instead choosing to lick Adam's face. Adam promptly calls 911 to get an officer to come arrest this man for disturbing the peace. However, a cab pulls up and Mike walks out of the cab. Adam grabs Mike, asking him if he's the police officer. Mike looks at Adam oddly, but says yes. The drunk goes up to Mike, hugging him and calling him his father. Mike promptly tases the drunk, and Adam thanks Mike profusely. Mike looks at the drunk, saying he won't do, and then tases Adam. Mike then carries Adam's unconscious body to the car and throws him in the back with Keira.
 
Mike then decides to get the last two reality show contestants at a local college. We see Tanner Pine studying hard at UCLA's college library. The librarian (Zach Galifianakis) walks up to him and tells him it's closing time. Tanner asks for a few more minutes; he's deep into 13th century English literature. The librarian begins hyperventilating and tells Tanner he needs to leave NOW. Tanner looks at the librarian in terror, and grabs his books. Tanner runs away, but the librarian screams at him that he didn't check out the books, he's stealing. Tanner runs out of the library, but the librarian is chasing him. He runs across the street, but is promptly hit by a cab. Mike runs out of the cab, scared he killed him, but it's easy to see that Tanner is alive, but unconscious. Mike loads Tanner in the car, and begins driving off into Sorority Row.
 
Two sorority girls that are way too old to be in college are showing off their sorority to new inductees. One girl, Rachel Nguyen, asks why they're still in college. The first girl (Tina Fey) says that once you're in this sorority, you never want to leave. The other girl (Amy Poehler) agrees, saying that sometimes, people says sororities are like cults, and they're exaggerating, but with this sorority, it's the truth. Rachel is slightly weirded out by this, and she excuses herself to use a public campus bathroom. She walks into... the men's restroom. Utterly embarrassed, she runs out straight into Mike. Mike looks at her, and says she'll do. Rachel asks him what that means, and he promptly tases her, knocking her out. He then attempts to drag her to his cab, and finds near impossible. After about five minutes though, she's in the cab and they are off.
 
Meanwhile, Mark pitches his idea to Paul, who says it's utterly stupid. Mark asks him why, and Paul says it is much too sadistic a show to air. Paul then tells Mark he's had enough of his stupidity, and if he doesn't leave his office right now, he'll cancel "Legacy." Mark leaves grumbling, but then comes up with a horrendous idea. He goes to the central control room, which is being protected by a security guard (Kenan Thompson). Mark offers the security guard a chance to have his own TV show, but the security guard denies it, saying he has his own priorities in life to move to Russia after he gets enough money here to become a star dancer. Mark looks at him oddly, and then pulls out a credit card. He hands the card to the guard and says spend as much as he wants. The guard cheers and leaves the room open for Mark's taking. Mark promptly deletes every show the network has.
 
Paul, in his office, is watching his station on TV when it suddenly goes black. Paul quickly calls up various people, asking them what to do with his suddenly black station. Mark then strolls in and points out that he has a live-show 24/7 ready-for-airing within twelve hours. Paul grimaces but realizes he has no choice but to air Mark's new show. Mark gives himself a high five while Paul looks on in bizarre fascination. Mark then excuses himself and calls up Mike. Mike says he has the four contestants and Mark once again gives himself a high five. Mike says he's just arrived at Mark's mansion, and Mark tells him he'll get to be co-host. Mike begins freaking out at this, but Paul then yanks Mark off the phone saying he needs to do press for the next twelve hours on their vacant station.
 
Mark gladly spins a yarn of epic proportions on national television, saying that throughout all of his reality TV making, he's always wanted to make a 24/7 show, and this is it: "Watch Out!" The show will air for at least a season, which will be how long it will take for DBS to make new scripted programming. Mark pitches the show to the audience: Four people have been "kidnapped" by a deranged host and must live together for the rest of their lives with the host being their only link to the outside world. The show is recorded with Mark's state-of-the-art HD security cameras, which are really just cameras Mark put up to take videos of himself. If they try to escape, well... Mark shows a video of a stuntman (Keegan-Michael Key) walking up to Mark's mansion. The stuntman poorly acts, saying "Oh boy, how I'd love to crash that show and become instant celebrity." He then walks into the mansion's yard, and blows up. Mark continues, saying that's right, the entire yard is loaded with mines, with only the host with a electromagnetic pulse in his pocket to turn it off. Mark then proudly says the show begins NOW!
 
Mike begins speaking, saying hello to America and that he's so happy to finally have a reality show. Now, it's time to meet the contestants. He pulls out a bag, and dumps Keira, Adam, Tanner, and Rachel on the ground to awake them. They ask what's going on, and Mike says they've won a free vacation! Tanner looks at him oddly, and asks him if he's lying. Mike says yes, he is. Adam asks what's going on, and Rachel promptly tells everyone that she is going to watch the news first. Everyone looks her oddly for this bizarre proclamation, but she turns on the TV, seeing that they are on the TV. Keira asks Mike what's going on, seeing her action mirrored on the TV. Mike begins speaking, that they're on a new reality show seeing how long human beings can go living in a house with three total strangers and with no contact to the outside world. Adam bluntly says that's stupid, and he is going to leave. Mike smiles, and points out Jack Black, who is coming the front door to extend an invitation. He promptly explodes a mine, flying up his dead carcass into the air. Tanner throws up as Keira looks on in disgust.
 
We then show a montage of Mike introducing them to their new living quarters. Mark watches on from his control room in utter hope the show is a success. It is. Millions tune in for the 24/7 show, saying it is easily their favorite show currently airing. Keira, Adam, Tanner, and Rachel live in fear of Mike who shows psychopathic tendancies quite often, demanding they bow to him and massage his feet. Rachel refuses to do anything, but the other three follow Mike's orders since they do not want to be murdered on national TV. We see the four also grow closer together in a weird form of Stockholm Syndrome. They begin looking for a way to escape the show and return to their normal lives. Meanwhile, Mark does several interviews, happy to be back at the top of his game. Being smarmy, he says that he will have Mike join him in an interview on the six-month anniversary of the show. The contestants plan their escape for this day.
 
The day arrives and after Mike leaves via helicopter, they enact their plans. Tanner takes a pill that Adam and Keira have developed to allow his body to send out signals to turn off the mines. Tanner then leads the charge out. Unfortunately, the pill has a side effect of being a laxative, and Tanner screams in agony as he craps throughout the entire minefield. Adam tells him to shut up, and Keira says Adam is adorable. Rachel looks at them insanely, and tells them that she has nowhere to go to, and love is disgusting. She promptly commits suicide by walking away from Tanner's cleared out mines and blowing herself up! Keira, Adam, and Tanner look on in disgust, but then shrug, saying they never really liked her. They make it through the minefield and run off the place where Mark and Mike are being interviewed.
 
Unfortunately for Mark and Mike, the explosion of Rachel came in as breaking news in their interview. Mike begins crying as Mark says who cares about Rachel. The interviewer (Trevor Noah) asks Mark if he's insane, and Mark explains, no, that's Mike's job. The three contestants burst in, and the interviewer switches to talking to them, congratulating them on the escape. Mark realizes he needs to escape with his money or the FCC will kill him for the murder of Rachel on live TV, but Tanner won't let him. Tanner punches out Mark while Mike wakes up and goes into cardiac arrest. Adam and Keira kiss, saying that they've secretly loved each other the whole time. While they are celebrating, Mark escapes into the woods to live happily ever after as well.
 
During the credits,  we see clips of Mark Flamed's new show, "Surviving the Wilderness" as he slowly gets more and more comedically injured. However, as he gets more hurt, the ratings go up, so he's one happy camper.

[Blankments]

Khanh Bernarda Alba

 

Director: Asghar Farhadi

Genre: Foreign Drama (Iran)

Release Date: March 13; March 20; March 27; April 3

Major Cast: 

Leila Hatami as Bernarda Alba

Niki Karimi as Darya

Unknowns.

 

Theater Count: 4 (3/13); 423 (3/20); 716 (3/27); 1124 (4/3)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements and disturbing images

Runtime: 99 min

Production Budget: $1 million

Music by: Sattar Oraki

Plot Summary:

Upon her second husband's death, domineering matriarch Bernarda Alba imposes an eight-year mourning period on her household, as per her family tradition. Bernarda has five daughters, aged between 20 and 39, whom she has controlled inexorably and prohibited from any form of relationship. The mourning period further isolates them and tension mounts within the household.

 

After a mourning ritual at the family home, eldest daughter Asieh enters, having been absent while the guests were there. Bernarda fumes, assuming she had been listening to the men's conversation on the patio. Asieh inherited a large sum of money from her father, Bernarda's first husband, but Bernarda's second husband has left only small sums to his four daughters. Asieh' wealth attracts a young, attractive suitor from the village, Abdul-Aleem. Her sisters are jealous, believing that it's unfair that Asieh, plain and rather sickly, should receive both the majority of the inheritance and the freedom to marry and escape their suffocating home environment.

 

Youngest sister Adela, stricken with sudden spirit and jubilation after her father's funeral, defies her mother's orders and dons a green dress instead of remaining in mourning black. Her brief taste of youthful joy suddenly shatters when she discovers that Asieh will be marrying Abdul. Darya, Bernarda's maid, advises Adela to bide her time: Asieh will probably die delivering her first child. Distressed, Adela threatens to run into the streets in her green dress, but her sisters manage to stop her. Suddenly they see Abdul coming down the street. She stays behind while her sisters rush to get a look—until a maid hints that she could get a better look from her bedroom window.

 

As Darya and Bernarda discuss the daughters' inheritances upstairs, Bernarda sees Asieh wearing makeup and a green dress. Appalled that Asieh would defy her orders to remain in a state of mourning, Bernarda violently scrubs the makeup off her face. The other daughters enter, followed by Bernarda's elderly mother, Farzaneh, who is usually locked away in her room. Farzaneh announces that she wants to get married; she also warns Bernarda that she'll turn her daughters' hearts to dust if they cannot be free. Bernarda forces her back into her room.

 

It turns out that Adela and Abdul are having a secret affair. Adela becomes increasingly volatile, defying her mother and quarreling with her sisters, particularly Elmira, who reveals her own feelings for Abdul. Adela shows the most horror when the family hears the latest gossip about how the townspeople recently dealt with a young woman who shamelessly delivered and killed an illegitimate baby.

 

Tension explodes as family members confront one another and Bernarda pursues Abdul with a gun. A gunshot is heard outside, implying that Abdul has been killed. Adela flees into another room while the family awaits the outcome. As Bernarda and Elmira enter, Elmira says Abdul escaped with his life, and Bernarda remarks that as a woman she can't be blamed for poor aim. Immediately she calls for Adela, who has locked herself into a room. When Adela doesn't respond, Bernarda and Darya force the door open. Soon Darya's shriek is heard. She returns with her hands clasped around her neck and warns the family not to enter the room. Adela, not knowing that Abdul survived, has hung herself.

 

The closing scene of the film shows Bernarda characteristically preoccupied with the family's reputation. She insists that Adela has died a virgin and demands that this be made known to the whole town. No one is to cry.

[Electric]

Title: Our City: Growth

Director: John Lasseter

Genre: CGI Animation

Release Date: Friday, April 24

Major Cast: Zach Braff (Matt), Ben Foster (Jeff), Sarah Silverman (Annie),

Kristen Bell (Felicia), Paul Rudd (Marcus), Meryl Streep (Trudy), Jon Lovitz (Hank), Danielle Panabaker (Tracy),

Kay Panabaker (Stacy), Evan (Steve Carell)

Theater Count: 4,092

MPAA Rating: PG (Some tense scenes, mild language)

Runtime: 112 minutes (106 minutes, plus 6 minute intro cartoon)

Production Budget: $150 million

Format: Mixed 2D/3D, 2D for "real life" 3D for "Our City"

Plot Summary: 

Spoiler

Six Minute Intro Movie -- Death of a Strawberry:

 

The simple story of a strawberry that fears its fate. A strawberry starts out in a field with many others, dreaming of becoming part of a fruit salad or a nutritious snack. But the real story is he is placed into a strawberry glaze and put on funnel cakes at an amusement park. At first he hates this, he is ruining someone's health. But as he is eaten by a child, he is satisfied knowing he made someone happy. The End...

 

Movie:

 

It's been eight years since the events of Our City, The boys and their sister have grown up. Jeff is heading to college in the fall, and Matt is a high school sophomore. Their annoying little sister is in 8th grade, and still annoying.

 

All the toys they used to play with have been put in closets, boxed away. Now the boys spend most of their time playing video/computer games and their little sister likes to gossip with her friends.

 

The first scenes re-establish the characters. Jeff is playing Varsity baseball (He's good enough to be the starting third baseman on a high school team, but would probably have a bench role on any decent NCAA team.) Matt is going to his classes, his teachers all impressed by his level of intellect that rivals most college students.

 

And one Friday evening in May, Annie has her friends over. Two sisters, Tracy and Stacy.  Tracy is 15, and Stacy is 12. Annie finds herself mediating mundane arguments between the two sisters.

 

But the focus quickly shifts to the two boys. The shots here establish the new house. Jeff and Matt each have their own bedrooms, as their mom got a much better job and they were able to afford a 4 bedroom house. But on weekends, they sleep together in Matt's room on a bunk bed, just like old times.

 

Jeff begins to wonder as the two sit in their beds talking before they go to sleep. 

"I wonder what happened to those people from our city we built as kids," he says.

"I don't know if that was real. I mean, I think it was, but maybe it was just our imagination," replies Matt, who has gotten more logical and less creative since his childhood years.

"I am sure it was real," Jeff insists.

 

That night, as the two of them fall asleep, the room begins to change around them. The movie morphs from 2D to 3D as the focus changes from the "real world" to "Our City". The city looks much different; it's clear that it's been more than eight years since the prior film.

 

At first, we don't see any familiar faces. The city has grown a lot. Instead of being a cozy hamlet, it's become a large city with suburbs of its own.  Jeff and Matt are floating above the city, as if they are observers in some sort of video game, rather than part of the city itself.

 

We shift back to 2D, and the boys are still asleep. But the city has built itself in their bedroom, much bigger than it had been in the first movie.

 

There is giggling coming from down the hall; the three girls are playing a game of Truth and Dare.

 

Tracy is the one being challenged. "Truth or Dare?" Annie inquires. "Truth..." Tracy says, looking nervously around the room.

 

"What boy do you like at school the most?"

 

Normally an innocuous question, Tracy doesn't want Annie to know they both like the same guy. "Dare, then," she replies.

 

"I dare you to go into the boys' room and KISS one of them!" Annie giggles.

 

"Um... OK." Tracy nervously walks across the hall.

 

She walks into the boys room, expecting to see the two of them. But instead she sees a large model city. As she walks in, the same effects from before occur once again. It shifts from 2D to 3D as she, Tracy, is transported to Our City. 

 

We now see something we haven't seen before: The city's name is St. Elbert, we see that on a sign that states the population of the city: Population: 398,202.

 

Now Tracy, Jeff, and Matt come down to the city, and they are sitting at a cafe.

 

"Where are we?" Tracy asks.

"Well," explains Jeff. "This is a place Matt and I created with our imagination, a city we made when we were kids."

"It feels so real," she says.

"I think it is," he replies.

 

Quickly, they are greeted by Felicia, Marcus, and Hank. They have all aged a lot, as time passes much faster in St. Elbert than it does in the kids' world.

 

Now the three of them (Felicia, Marcus, Hank) have formed a business partnership that has become very successful. It is Hank that explains the conundrum. "When the children who created our world lose faith that it existed... things get worse here. People get sick, the economy fails. Matt's doubt is what caused us to send out signals to draw you to us once again."

 

Tracy is confused. "Why did I get involved?"

Hank explains once again. "You have faith too. You and your sister have a great bond and great imaginations. If I remember correctly... the two of you built a little farm town when you were younger. It exists here, in this world. We can drive there today!"

 

The six of them pile into a minivan and drive to the outskirts of St. Elbert. Another 30 minutes and they are surrounded mostly by farmland, with a few stores and houses forming a "town center".

 

"I remember this..." says Tracy, as she looks around.

 

The boys are unfamiliar with this farm town (Trasta), but they can recognize various toys in the design of the town.

 

"We have two more to bring," says Marcus.

 

And as the six of them stop by a local market, Annie and Stacy are shopping there.

 

All five of the children realize that their belief helps these towns thrive. At this point, we take a quick "break" to zoom out to ImaginationLand, where the cities and towns created by many children have come to life. There are no "SimCity" worlds here; all the towns created have been made by real toys, by children playing, not through computer games.

 

We snap back to the real world, observing Trudy mumbling in her sleep. We get a sense that the Imagination world is trying to bring her, but being older, it barely effects her. But we do get some flashbacks to her childhood. She had an imagination back then too, and we observe a few quick clips of her relationship with her husband, and her decision to be independent and not remarry after her divorce.

 

The next day comes, and all the kids are sleeping in, even more than most teenagers do, which is A LOT. 

 

But they are still in the Imagination Land. The three people from St. Elbert explain the problem to them. "Reality is the problem," explains Marcus. "As people become too involved in their real lives, their imagination suffers, and the worlds they created struggle more than ever before. That is why we called you here today, to bring imagination back once again!"

 

But they observe the world around them, and it's more than just metaphysical problems. There are strikes happening. Matt observes this. "It's not something that can be solved through belief in your world. There are fundamental economic problems that could be solved through incorporating Keynesian economics along with Friedman's theories on interest..."

 

The film turns this into more of a "sight gag" as to not lose the attention of its viewers, with Matt showing everyone supply and demand charts and everyone agreeing with him as he explains his policy ideas.

 

We see an immediate impact of his idea. Some of the small farm towns are upset, but the bigger cities thrive even more. They give more money back to the towns in trade, and everyone benefits.

 

But Annie begins to lose focus on this world. As she begins to drift back to "reality", we can see people around her getting sick. "Snap out of it, Annie!" shouts Tracy, and suddenly the people getting sick are well again.

 

They stay with the ImaginationLand people for a few more days, everyone offering advice. For such a thriving city and astute businesspeople, Marcus, Trudy, and Hank seem rather naive regarding basic concepts.

 

But the kids realize Marcus is right... their belief in these worlds helps them thrive. "The moral is... well that's a cheesy thing to say," Marcus says. "What I mean to say... bring out your toys more often. Live, laugh, love... yeah, that sounds right."

 

All five kids are woken up by Trudy. "It's 1 PM!" she shouts. "Get up... you'll ruin your sleep schedules!"

 

"And I have a date tonight... you kids play nice, I trust you all to look after yourselves... don't know how late I'll be out."

 

The kids look happy... one rule their mom had, was they could play video games as much as they wanted when she wasn't there, since she didn't want them to avoid temptation too much. 

 

We now see Trudy on a date with Evan, and he is a very exuberant man. He is an inventor, inventing toys and gadgets all the times.

 

During this time, the kids are all playing nicely together, taking turns playing various 2- and 4- player games. 

 

A few weeks later, Evan comes home with Trudy and shows the kids various toys he has made. Even though they are normally meant for younger kids, all the teens are entranced by his creative ideas. As they play with Evan's toys, we observe their imagination worlds thrive even more.

 

Some final shots reveal the truth; Evan is actually Hank... the imagination world has grown so powerful that the people from St. Elbert are becoming real. The final shot shows a real meeting between the real Hank/Felicia/Marcus.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2018 by Electric
adding a plot

[YM!]

Barry Brookshire and The Case of The Soul Key

 

Studio: Endless Entertainment 

21 Laps Productions

Original Film

Release Date: 9/4/Y4

Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Comedy/Horror

Director: Alex Hirsch

Rating: PG for thematic elements including sorcery, mild brief language, and some scary images 

Budget: $115M

Theater Count: 3,874

Format: 2D, 3D, and Dolby Cinema

Runtime: 118 minutes

Cast:

Finn Wolfhard as Barry Brookshire 

Millie Bobby Brown as Penny Copper

Tom Hiddleston as Rex

Sasha Lane as Selestia 

Daniel Radcliffe as Duke Bloodstone

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Shard

Kate Winslet as Aquafina

Dwayne Johnson as Death

Evangeline Lily as Kristen Cooper

Sadie Sink as Nikki

Caleel Harris as Jake

 

Spoiler

 

We open in a small town in Oregon. Penny is an optimistic, bubbly and somewhat insecure young girl who has troubles fitting in at her new school having recently moved from Wisconsin after the loss of her father. Penny’s mother, Kristen has become overprotective as a way of coping and moved to Oregon to be closer to family. Penny is an avid writer but never had the courage to show her work. Penny does however befriend the loner Nikki and the prankster Jake. The three plan to hang out on Friday night at the mall. Kristen allows her to go but warns her she must come back by when it gets dark outside. The three goof around the mall and having fun together (Jake even sets up a few small pranks on the mall cop). Eventually the three find an old bookstore. For some reason Penny is drawn to it, but Jake and Nikki don’t want to go inside. Penny promises to be out in five minutes and will catch up with them. Inside the store has a wide variety of books about spells and fantasy creatures, weird wands and objects and a owl like clock that almost seems alive. Penny stumbles open a boy her own age looking through the store. The boy introduces himself as Barry Brookshire. The two strike up a conversation as Penny asks why he’s is in the bookstore. Barry says he lives here and asks how is Kristen and talks about how great she is. Disturbed, Penny asks how does he know her mom. Barry then equally awkward says he knows she just moved here so she doesn’t know what’s what. Penny then says she has to leave as it’s late. Sensing what he calls “potential” in her, Barry gives her a card with his number on it and waves goodbye. Penny immediately throws the card away after she’s far enough away from the store. 

 

As soon as Penny meets back up with her friends, she sees the incoming sunset, she tells her friends she must leave. Nikki and Jake insists that she should stay. Penny agrees, arguing one night out couldn’t kill her. The three play a prank on a mall cop involving the sensors which causing them to get chased by mall cops. The three split up and leave the mall and Penny grabs her bike and hides in a nearby forest. Suddenly she notices something weird, it’s quiet almost too quiet. She suddenly hears the leaves rustling but no animals, but she feels a hand is put on her shoulder. She screams only to realize it’s the tree she’s behind but suddenly wooden like gremlins burst out of the tree. She quickly hops onto her bike and speeds away as the wooden gremlins chase her, making a speedy way back home. But as she’s about a yard away from home, the ground starts to tremor and a man with a blood red cape and scythe like staff jumps out of the ground levitating. With a British accent, the man introduces himself as Duke Bloodstone, and demands Penny to give him the Soul Key if she wants to live. Penny explains she doesn’t have it or know what he’s talking about. Angered, Duke tells his gremlins to attack her but Kristen in a wizard like costume pulls out a wand and rushes in to defend her daughter. She fires a blast of lilac energy which causes the gremlins to turn into harmless house plants. Duke in a sarcastic way happily greets Kristen, commenting she has a lovely little home and family and says if only Eric was around to see it. Kristen is immediately offended by the last part and promises as long as she is alive he’ll never get the Soul Key, shooting a blinding purple beam that temporarily stuns Duke’s senses. Kristen gives the Soul Key, a small yellowish green key to Penny and creates a decoy for herself and tells her to run as she faces off Duke in a magic brawl. Penny refuses to leave. Blasts of lilac and blood red beams collide with each other, as Kristen and Duke fiercely brawl. Kristen creates a small blue shield around herself as Duke attacks with orange rays which weakens her, using the last of her magic, she transfers some of her magic into Penny and sends her away teleporting to parts unknown. Duke tired of her games breaks her shield and kills her and excitedly grabs the key only to realize it’s a fake. Duke whistles an upbeat almost Disney like tune which summons Shard a gargoyle like man. Duke tells Shard to go after Penny and bring him the Soul Key.

 

Penny finds herself in the same bookstore from earlier but to her surprise, the bookstore is floating in the clouds, instead of the local mall. Penny is then greeted by Rex, a neurotic man with elf like ears and satyr like legs. Penny is immediately startled by Rex and humorously grabs a staff and beats him with it until Barry comes out and explains what’s happening and who he really is. Penny then goes to beat Barry out of fear assuming both of them kidnapped her and accidentally fires bolts of green energy at random periods. Penny freaks out even more about her new powers but Barry calms her down by handing her a simple wand which calms her powers. Barry reveals that he is from a line of the greatest detectives of the paranormal, supernatural and mythical forces, the Brookshires and he is perhaps the greatest. Rex snarks that it’s not only self proclaimed but Barry also has no magical powers. Barry quickly bites back in a defensive tone and says that he relies on his own skills and that the only power Rex has is enhanced hearing. Rex adds in that he is a good friend of her parents. Barry then explains that the Copper family have been the most powerful wizards in history and that Duke Bloodstone is an evil warlock and former apprentice of her father who killed father as he had something Duke wanted. Penny is taken aback by this and asks a multitude of questions, asking if she is a wizard, what was Duke after, and how can she stop Duke. Barry confirms she’s a wizard and that Duke is after two powerful artifacts, The Soul Key and The Lock of Fate. Both artifacts are so powerful when united together, the user can control life and death itself. Penny asks if her mother is okay. Barry and Rex are visible unsure but both assume the worst. Penny cries in response to this but Barry promises that he and Rex will help her stop Duke, reunite with her mother and master her art of wizardry. Barry asks her if she has the key by any chance. Penny pulls the key out of her pocket which illuminates a green color. Barry then says if they want to find more information about both artifacts and they must head to the magical realm. 

 

 

Barry then tells Rex to prepare some tea and biscuits. Rex brings out a purplish tea and golden crackers. Penny is confused by the biscuits and was expecting the other kind. Barry quickly explains that biscuits means crackers or cookies. Penny then comes back they should just call them by their original name. Barry snarks it’s not his fault she isn’t fancy. The three take a big sip of the tea. Penny asks how is it supposed to bring them to the magical realm. Rex says she’ll see soon. The room strangely starts to bubble and sickly bright colors burst around them creating a portal which the three fall into. Penny is completely panicking as Barry and Rex are calmly snacking on the crackers. Barry offers Penny a cracker but she is too panicked to even consider one but he shoves one into her mouth anyway as the three of them fall from the sky but thanks to the crackers levitate slowly towards the ground as Penny gets a full bird’s eye view of the magical realm. The realm below them looks like the city of London mixed with traditional fairy tale and magical elements. We see a bunch of elves in business suits heading to work, a group of teenage witches using their wands to create some graffiti, and a group of wizards in a pub like places creating elixirs while we also slowly see the three descend. Penny asks what the hell was in the tea and crackers. Barry explains it was drug free and they were things one needed to cross into the magical realm. 

 

As the three descend from the air, Barry says they must head to the Archives in order to find the whereabouts or hints about the Lock of Fate. However, when the three arrive at the Archives, a small black cube building, the guards refuse to let them inside due to their lack of credentials even when Barry reveals Penny is from the line of the Cooper family which allows them entry or the fact he is a Brookshire which frustrates Barry. The three leave the building disappointed as Barry raves angrily almost as if he’s having a tantrum about how unfair this is. Penny asks is their anyone else who could help. Rex says there’s one person but Barry adamantly refuses to even see her. We then cut to a dark alley and see a black door that reads “Keep Out at all costs!”. Rex says he’ll keep look out while the two head inside. Barry asks why couldn’t he have done look out. Rex retorts that he is an adult and wouldn’t belong there not to mention the blaring noise inside. Penny asks Barry what’s so bad about inside the place. Barry ominously says you’ll see soon. The duo walk inside to a dimly lit building and head downstairs as the area they’re in darkens, and the noises are almost music like. The two reach the basement to see a giant rave for teenage witches and wizards. Penny is immediately captivated by the fun and scenery and fits in like a charm whereas Barry humorously is out of place socially as he looks for her. While dancing, Penny accidentally bumps into a green skinned teenage girl. Penny apologizes but simultaneously unintentionally offending her, and the two get into a dance battle which Penny loses but the girl congratulates her and introduces her as Selestia. Barry eventually catches up with Penny not before expressing his anger at Selestia. Selestia reveals she was a more successful rival in the detective field but quit to pursue more fun things in life which sets him off in a rant commenting on how is she’s so great why is she at this dump, saying it’s a shame she quit so early and promises to visit her on the streets. Selestia retorts unlike Barry, she is having fun. Penny attempts to talk her about the Soul Key which immediately catches Selestia’s interest. Selestia teleports the two outside and meet up with Rex. Penny tells her of their predicament. Selestia becomes deadpan serious for a bit, knowing how dire the consequences would be agrees help the trio with not only the heist but on their journey. 

 

Using her teleporting spell, Selestia manages to sneak the trio into The Archives. We see inside The Archives which is basically a huge library mixed with a MC Esher painting. After searching through the library, Rex finds the book on Artifacts of Power. After scrolling through the book, Barry finds the article on The Lock of Fate. We then cut to a traditionally animated cutscene (in the vein of The Three Brothers from the Deathly Hallows) with Barry narrating the story, revealing that a wizard attempting to reunite with his love made both artifacts that’d allow the user to control the flow of life and death. The wizard revives his lover to much success but over time the wizard becomes corrupted with the power and decides to take over the world. A group of the world’s most powerful magic users come together to defeat the wizard only barely winning, with only one wizard standing, a member of the Cooper family. The Cooper ancestor decided to keep the key under protection, whereas the whereabouts for the lock are unknown. Rex asks how will they find the lock then, but Selestia reveals the two are magically linked to each other meaning that it’s possible that if the key was on Kristen, the lock might be nearby. Barry suggests they go back to Penny’s house to search for clues but before they can do that, Shard bursts in and swoops up Penny and the key as he flies out of the Archives.

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2018 by YourMother the Edgelord

[YM!]

Bullets and Lyrics

Studio: Infinite Studios

Cube Vision

Release Date: 2/14/Y4

Genre: Musical/Romance/Drama

Director: Damien Chazelle

Producers: Ice Cube and Damien Chazelle

Writers: Damien Chazelle, Andrea Berloff, and Jonathan Herman

Score: Justin Hurwitz

Music by: Kendrick Lamar, Lin Manuel Miranda, and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements, a brief rude gesture, violence and language

Budget: $50M

Theater Count: 3,762

Format: 2D

Runtime: 131 minutes 

Cast:

Shamiek Moore as Tyrone Phillips

Zendaya as Megan Harris

Zac Efron as Keith 

Ice Cube as Jaylin Phillips

Kendrick Lamar as Cassius Harris

Taraji P Henson as Tanya Phillips

Kanye West as Shay Jackson

Lil Yachty as Dwayne Fitzgerald 

Travis Scott as Donovan

Forest Whitaker as Mr. Leto

Drake as Big Donald

Hugh Jackman as James 

Edited July 24, 2018 by YourMother the Edgelord

[Blankments]

Sir Thymes Time

 

Director: Chris McKay

Genre: CGI Animation/Adventure/Comedy

Release Date: November 25

Major (Voice) Cast:

Elijah Wood as Sir Thymes

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Yakkity Yak

Anna Kendrick as Jesse's Girl

Mindy Kaling as American Pie

Jane Lynch as Mrs. Robinson

Bill Hader as Hound Dog

Eden Sher as Soul Sister

Oscar Isaac as Despacito

Ian McKellen as the Wayward Son

with Christopher Lloyd as Fonzie

and Charlize Theron as Stacy's Mom

 

Theater Count: 3,829

MPAA Rating: PG for brief language and some crude humor.

Runtime: 107 min

Production Budget: $135 million

Music by: Lorne Balfe

Additional Formats: 3D and IMAX 3D

 

Plot Summary: Sir Thymes is a song character who, after being ignored, goes on an epic quest from the jukebox to the local radio station to find out who his "artist" is.

 

Plot:

 

A man orders his food, and then goes to the jukebox to pick a song. He sees a song with an interesting title, “Sir Thymes Time,” and decides to pick it. The chorus to this original song begins playing, and we go inside the jukebox to see a dancing clock to this song’s beat. The song soon fades out to him narrating.

 

 

He says that he is Sir Thymes, of the famous novelty song “Sir Thymes Time.” At least, he thinks it’s a famous song, he doesn’t know. He lives inside the jukebox of Fonzie’s Diner, and is one of the most played songs there. It’s nice for his daily workout, being forced to dance to his song as it plays, and he’s glad he’s not an overplayed song. However, Thymes laments that he does not know why he exists. Unlike the other six characters that live inside the jukebox, Thymes does not know his artist, leading him to frequent existential crises. Yet, Thymes usually does not care since he has six friends that stick together and hang out after hours.

 

Thymes begins introducing them to us. There’s Yakkity Yak, a talking yak, who is the oldest character in the jukebox, and the only other novelty song who Thymes knows. His song is by the Coasters. American Pie, an attractive talking pie, has the honor of being the longest song Thymes knows. Her song is by Don McLane. There’s also Jesse’s Girl, a nice girl with a little attitude. Her song is by Rick Springfield. Mrs. Robinson, an old snooty lady, is generally the leader of the seven, since everyone is afraid to talk back to her. Her song is by Simon & Garfunkel. Sgt. Pepper is a man who often tries to find love and fails, so instead, he comes up with ideas for the group. His song is by the Beatles. Finally, there’s Hound Dog, who is sometimes the group pet, but is also the coolest member of the group. His song is by Elvis Presley.

 

Thymes laments he doesn’t know who he is, but has often wondered just who made him. All of the song characters can leave the jukebox easily, but they fear leaving, because if the jukebox is turned on without them, their records could get taken out and shattered, which would cause them to vanish forever. Thymes concludes his opening narration by saying that no matter what happens, he was never to leave the jukebox... until now.

 

SIR THYMES TIME

 

Years past, and new songs are added and removed, but the seven characters remain there. Oddly enough, there is a trend against using song characters recently, much to the confusion of Yakkity Yak. All of the songs remain popular throughout the years, although all of them slowly begin losing popularity, especially Thymes. However, there comes a time when none of them are played more than once a month, with the exception of Jesse’s Girl, who remains popular. All of them won’t lose hope, since they are all classic songs... except for “Sir Thymes Time,” who no one has ever recognized.

 

One day, Thymes snaps. A young girl is about to pick him for the very first time in two months, when the mom stops her, saying that she doesn’t recognize the song, and she asks Fonzie who wrote the song. Fonzie says that he honestly doesn’t know, so instead the little girl picks “Jesse’s Girl.” That night, Thymes tells everyone he is going to leave the jukebox. Everyone is in shock. Thymes says that his song is never played and there is no reason to stick around the jukebox. Jesse’s Girl tells him to stop whining and to be happy he still has a home. Thymes sess no reason to keep living peacefully and unplayed without knowing who his creator is.

 

Yakkity Yak interrupts, saying he has heard of someone who can help with Thymes’ plight. If they travel to the radio station WISE, there is a musical mastermind who lives there, the Wayward Son. Mrs. Robinson calls his bluff, saying such a place is just an urban legend, but Yakkity Yak insists it’s real. Hound Dog backs him up, saying he’s heard of it too. Sgt. Pepper says that none of them are really being played anymore, and American Pie remembers nostalgically when her song was often played and called “lyrical genius.” Jesse’s Girl yawns but Mrs. Robinson’s decision is made.

 

She stands up, saying that they should all go to WISE to help Thymes achieve his dream, and they can make it back to the Jukebox before next opening. Everyone agrees, even Jesse’s Girl, who is reluctant, but then Hound Dog points out that since it is Sunday night, they have two days to make it there and back, since the Diner is closed on Mondays. Jesse’s Girl is then convinced. Thymes is pleased, even overjoyed. Sgt. Pepper begins strategizing a plan of attack. They will travel through the telephone wires to WISE, which is supposedly a whopping five miles away. The seven set off on their journey through the telephone wires. The wires appear to be a long endless tube but American Pie figures out they should reach WISE within five hours, thanks to the electrical current pushing them along.

 

However, soon after this statement, giant words fly over them. Thymes asks what they are, and Yakkity Yak says fearfully that people must be yakking on the phone. Cut to two girls talking on the phone, when they hear “Yakkity Yak” playing faintly in the background. They shrug it off. Back with the group, Mrs. Robinson tells them in a panic to avoid being hit by the words since the words will push them back in a completely wrong direction, which will make them be lost forever. They begin dodging the words carefully, with Hound Dog bounding over them, American Pie crawling beneath them, Sgt. Pepper -crawling behind American Pie, Sir Thymes dancing across them, and Mrs. Robinson sneaking past them.

 

However, disaster strikes when Jesse’s Girl is hit with the words “I like, totally, think he’s cute.” She screams in utter terror. Cut to the phone, where the girl hears the aforementioned message, but it’s suddenly followed with the blaring of “I wish that I had Jesse’s Girl; where can I find a woman like that!” Back with the group, the words stop flying past them, and Thymes realizes that Jesse’s Girl is missing. They look around, and American Pie gravely says she may be gone forever. They mourn the loss of Jesse’s Girl, but Mrs. Robinson cuts the mourning short, saying they need to keep moving. Sgt. Pepper sadly agrees, but Yakkity Yak insists in fear that they no longer use the telephone lines to travel.

 

Sgt. Pepper retorts that as far as he knows, there is no other way to travel without using the phone lines, but Hound Dog says he’s heard of something called “riding the sound wave.” Mrs. Robinson, for once, is apprehensive, but Thymes is all for it. He asks Hound Dog how to do it, and Hound Dog says they need to pound the sides of the wire all while singing their own songs, They all line up begin singing a beautiful medley of all six songs together. When the medley finishes, the background sifts from the wire; and they are now suddenly in a large rectangular room.

 

Thymes says that this doesn’t look like a radio station. Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” is playing. We cut to the outside of the box, seeing it is a speaker at a high school dance during the signature slow dance. Sgt. Pepper begins yelling at Hound Dog that they’re in the wrong area, but Mrs. Robinson points out there is a school right next to the WISE station. Thymes is overjoyed, but everyone else begins wondering how to get there. They look around and Yakkity Yak finds a tube that looks like a direct wire to WISE.

 

They begin going through the wire when we cut to the dance when suddenly, the characters’ songs begin blaring in and out at random points of the Aerosmith song. The kids start booing, and the DJ begins hitting his equipment in hope of making it stop. Inside the wire, something similar to an earthquake is occurring. They quickly run through the wire, escaping the DJ’s machine and into the direct wire to WISE. They continue walking when they are welcomed by the protectors of WISE, Soul Sister and Despacito.

 

The two lead the group into the central mainframe of the station, where the characters, for the first time ever in their lives, see CDs. They stare in awe at the massive number of songs, but then are surprised to see that there are only two with characters, those being “Hey Soul Sister” by Train and “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber. Soul Sister and Despacito reveal that they are the only characters in all of WISE. Thymes asks about the Wayward Son, and the two say that he is just an urban legend.

 

The group, utterly dejected, attempt to leave but are prevented by Soul Sister and Despacito, who say they’re the second visitors of the day, and they sure aren’t letting them get away. Yakkity Yak is confused, but then walks in... Jesse’s Girl! Everyone is bewildered to see her alive, but Jesse’s Girl is happy to explain. The phone line she was sent to took her directly to the head WISE DJ’s daughter, who picked up the song for the station in response. Jesse’s Girl is furious that they continued their journey after her “death” and demand that Soul Sister and Despacito lock them up in the “Jailhouse Rock.”

 

Soul Sister and the Despacito comply, putting them each into a separate cell, and all are dejected, that since they won’t make it back to the jukebox in time, then their records won’t play. The records will be thrown out and they will all disappear forever. Thymes apologizes to everyone, blaming himself for their troubles, but American Pie tells him not to worry about it, it’s everyone’s fault for trusting Jesse’s Girl. Suddenly, Thyme’s cell is unlocked, and before he can say anything, he is knocked out.

 

He wakes up in the arms of Stacy’s Mom. Thymes speaks out, but Stacy’s Mom begins explaining that there are two stories of WISE and thus two WISE stations. She’s taking him to the Oldies Station. Thymes doesn’t know why, but the she just says that the Wayward Son wants to see him. She takes Thymes to the Wayward Son, who tells Thymes he has been following Thymes’ journey. Thymes asks who wrote “Sir Thymes Time,” and the Wayward Son asks him if he really wants to know. The Wayward Son continues, saying that there exists only one copy of the song “Sir Thymes Time” in existence, and it is at Fonzie’s Diner.

 

Thymes asks who wrote it, and the Wayward Son tells Thymes that he did. Rather, in the 1974, there was a local band known as Sir Thymes. They had just got signed with a huge label and recorded “Sir Thymes Time.” Only one record of the song was produced, since right after the song was made, the band’s van was in a car crash which killed everyone inside. The Wayward Son says that their collective spirit lives on in Sir Thymes. Thymes asks what this means, and the Wayward Son tells Thymes that he is the only song character ever who can write his own music. The Wayward Son tells Thymes that this is important to his near future, and then tells him to go downstairs; he needs to get his friends back to the Diner.

 

Sir Thymes runs down the stairs, overjoyed at knowing his origin. He sees Soul Sister and Despacito crying together, and he asks them why. They say that Jesse’s Girl ran away back to the Diner, leaving them alone. Thymes tells them they give them a place at the Diner where they can live with them and be their friends, but only if they come with them to the Diner. Soul Sister and Despacito realize they have nothing to lose, and begin breaking the other characters out of the jail. They are all broken out when suddenly one of Yakkity Yak’s horns disappear. Thymes realizes that Jesse’s Girl must be wrecking the records so she is the only character who will be from the Diner.

 

Thymes tells Sgt. Pepper and Mrs. Robinson to lead the way back home, he’ll be there when they arrive. Thymes goes into the wire and begins singing a new verse to his songs, “Sir Thymes Time means going really fast, Faster than a huge rocket blast.” He then is catapulted a huge speed that he arrives back in the jukebox within ten seconds. Thymes is thrilled it worked, but then sees Jesse’s Girl wrecking the records.

 

He calls to her, and she is enraged. Thymes asks why she is doing this, and Jesse’s Girl responds by asking him if anyone ever noticed how exhausted she was. She’s the only song character to get constant play; thus, she has become overplayed. She was tired of Thymes always complaining about not knowing his origins and the other characters never noticing her plight. When they left her behind in the phone wires, it was the last straw. She was going to ruin all the records in the jukebox except her own, so they’ll have to remove the jukebox, and her record would go on sale at high prices thanks to it being so famous.

 

Thymes apologizes to Jesse’s Girl, saying he never realized that she was overplayed. Jesse’s Girl does not accept it and she runs over to Sir Thymes’ record, but cannot scratch it, thanks to it being the song’s only copy. They begin an epic song fight, where they each sing a verse of their song to upstage the other. After a minute and a half of this, Thymes wins, erasing the Jesse’s Girl track from its record, and Jesse’s Girl disappears in rage.

 

An hour later, thanks to leftover speed from Sir Thymes’ song, the seven characters arrive, and Thymes asks if he can sing Soul Sister and Despacito’s song with them. They do, and the Jesse’s Girl album is overwritten with the two songs. Yakkity Yak and Hound Dog ask Thymes if the journey was worth it, and Thymes responds jokingly, saying he’s never leaving the jukebox again. Everyone laughs, and then they throw a party for Soul Sister and Despacito. The film ends on a narration by Thymes, saying that the journey changed him forever, and that he would have never done it without his friends, and overall, enjoying the present with your friends is more important than worrying about the past without them.

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Blankments

[YM!]

15 hours ago, YourMother the Edgelord said:

@cayommagazine

 

Endless Entertainment plays musical chairs with it’s releases. 

 

Can You Imagine? moves to November 25th Y4,

 

True Love looks for love in all the right places on July 24th, Y4.

@Xillix

Edited July 24, 2018 by YourMother the Edgelord

[Electric]

Title: Post-College Blues

Director: Judd Apatow

Genre: Comedy

Release Date: June 5, Year 4

Major Cast:  Jesse Eisenberg (Chuck Lewis), Amy Poehler (Professor Debbie Windstrom), Chloe Grace Moretz (Jennifer Martin)

Theater Count: 3,291

MPAA Rating: R (Sexuality, Language)

Runtime: 134 min (2 hr 14 min)

Production Budget: $50 million

Plot Summary: I'm woikin' on it

Edited July 24, 2018 by Electric