Ok, as people in this particular movie's board seem a little aggressive, I will ask right away, hahaha. When did she get the truck?? I mean, most things in the film are explainable by saying she was just imagining everything... but... the truck? How did it appear out of nowhere??
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EL GATO
The truck was at the farmhouse. Aja shot a scene with Marie discovering it, but decided to cut it because it made the twist too obvious.
shareIt's a valid question and I wondered that too. I suppose by not including the scene mentioned by the last poster, Aja leaves it more up to the viewer's imagination to figure out where the truck came from
shareIf you completely exclude what the director said about the truck...a lot of people will say (myself included) that the truck was a figment of Marie's imagination. Just as she made up the killer in her head to be like what most people would think a killer would look like (dirty, grungy, overalls, dishelved look, trudging boots) she also made up the truck that the killer was driving in to be what she imagined a killer would drive (an old dirty, rusty looking truck).
shareWell at the beginning of the movie, the killer is in the van and throws the head out of the window. Then Marie is seen in a long drive to the farm, a real long drive. It makes no sense that she found the van nearby, as we don't see it. Also, the gaspump attendant knew the guy, not Marie. Makes no sense that he would be scared or talked the way he did.
We, the viewer were unfairly deceived. In fight club, or the sixth sense, we can see that no other character speaks to the main character. That is, brad pit and Edward Norton are never interacting with others, not in the sense that others acknowledges both sides of the same guy. It feels like I was cheated and that is not how we should feel.
You can feel cheated all you want...I did not. And lots of other people that agree with me did not either.
shareYou have to remember that all the events are told from Marie´s perpective, as she "remembered" them. She actually thought that the killer was talking to Jimmy, just as she saw everybody getting killed as well. It´s all in her head.
shareI feel cheated
shareI feel like some loose ends were never tied up in this movie. I feel cheated. The loose ends make me frustrated and sad :(
sharethe only "real" loose-end was why and what triggered her to go on a killing spree?
the family was nice enough to accept her for the summer so that she could earn money.
There was never any signs of separating her from Alex.....HUGE PLOTHOLE
See thats what happens when you "masturbate" ;) god kills a kitten every time ahaha
In my opinion the truck was real. It was probably an old truck on the farm that wasn't used very often. How else would they have got to the gas station? (Which they did because the killing of Jimmy was very real).
I also think that people get confused by the 'getting head' scene. I know that Cali's opinion is that this scene was just included for the shock factor, which is possible. But, in my opinion, the purpose of it is to show how the short-haired chick imagined the serial killer to be. She wanted to save the girl from this brutal, disgusting dude so she had her own little character going on in her head. Same with the mementos (the pictures of the other girls) in the truck. They were there because a typical movie serial killer would keep them there.
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It does make sense. The blowjob scene is the "birth" of the killer in Marie's head.
The gas station scene... well you know, we get to see what Marie is telling, but actually it's Alex who hides in the station, and it's Marie who talks to the gaspump attendant and kills him. Simple as that.
Wait how does Alex hide in the gas station while still in the chains?
More to the general subject - I kinda feel that the ending was an afterthought after a lot of the movie was already either written or shot. And if that wasn't the case, then the writer is simply lazy. So many things that don't makes sense.
Alex and Marie were great friends for years, and suddenly Marie becomes a schizophrenic serial killer simply because of repressed sexuality. Take at least a 30 minute psychology seminar before writing this kind of *beep* This is a frat boy's understanding of Freud.
I was thinking about this and came upon a possibility. It might not make perfect sense and I'm not saying that this is what definately happened, but it is an interesting possibility.
Alex and Marie were never friends and possibly never even knew each other. Marie never actually traveled with Alex in her car, didn't really meet her parents and never stayed in their house. All of these events shown were really only being played out in Marie's mind.
We know that they went to the same college and that Marie had a crush on Alex just as we know that Marie drifts in and out between her own consciousness and the trucker's. But imagine the possibility that Marie only admired Alex from afar and obsessed over her like a stalker until eventually convincing herself that they were great friends. The truck belonged to Marie the entire time. Marie only secretly followed Alex home in her truck believing the entire time that they were riding together. All other events (meeting her family, the picture on the mantle, masturbating in the guest room,...) were delusions that existed only in Marie's demented imagination. Marie never actually enters the house until the "Trucker" arrives.
When we see Marie trying to free Ales from her restraints, Alex is probably wondering why the stranger that chained her up just moments ago is now trying to free her while simultaneously keeping an eye out for NOBODY (or this possibly never really happened either).
Marie leaves the gas station driving the truck with Alex in the back. She never did take "Jimmy's" car and never did flip it in the woods. From Alex's perspective, Marie just suddenly started driving the truck erratically for no apparent reason.
Alex never knows who Marie is (if anything, she might recognize her as a random familiar face from college). At the end, both in the woods and in the asylum, Alex is not looking in fear upon her close friend whom she now realizes has gone crazy as would seem apparent, but instead is looking in fear upon a complete and total stranger whom she knows as nothing more than a raving homicidal maniac.
As I've stated before, I'm not saying this is definately what happened. In fact it probably isn't. I'm sure this is probably nothing at all like what the filmmakers had in mind, but I do find it to be an interesting theory worth at least a thought.
This actually makes more sense to me than anything else. If it's not what the director intended then it should have been. However it's the only way the movie makes sense to me at all, it explains more than just the truck.
Explains instead of why answering if there was a working phone, Alex just screamed like crazy which would have drawn the attention of the "trucker". (That scene pissed me off, but makes a lot of sense with this theory). Also it explains why Alex never said anything like "Marie, please, why are you doing this" which most people would do while trying to reason with their best friend out of crazy stuff.
I agree too at the end she didn't look concerned about her friend at all, she looked terrified of a complete stranger who massacred her family.
The entire "killer" plot is Marie fictionalized explanation for what happened that night. It makes no sense because it's her desperate and/or delusional attempt to prove her innocence. Around halfway through, we start to see what really happened mixed in with Marie's story.
This is why a lot of it makes no sense, even real life murderers make up over-the-top alibis to try and get out of trouble. The killer is just an amalgamation of all the horrible things you would think of a person who would murder a family on a farm in the middle of nowhere and kidnap a young woman.
So it's all lies. It makes perfect sense to me with that knowledge and doesn't bother me one bit. I see no conventional plot holes outside of intentional ones based on unreliable character narrative. This is why the Doctors are letting Alex watch Marie through a two way mirror. It's basically to let her see how absolutely twisted her version of the story is. Like saying "look the girl is mental and that's about all we can tell you about why any of this happened to you and your family...".
Unfortunately, there are countless murders that have even less explanation in the real world. Even if the killer is caught, sometimes we never ever know there true motivation. All we get is lies, even in the face of cold hard facts to prove otherwise.
Utter guff. Still deeper than the film's actual explanation though.
shareI like this theory. Way to think outside the box (or old rusty truck)!
You will have to speak up, I am wearing a towel
Four years after your response, I'm just watching this movie. As others have said, only your explanation makes any sense. The ONLY error I may point out with your explanation is, at the gas station, the gas attendant, Jimmy, speaks to and interacts with BOTH Marie and the male killer. This can't be possible if the male killer is a figment of Marie's imagination. This I think is the pothole that causes that crumbles the entire film.
Indeed, gore aside, the movie seems like a waste of time for me.
Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. - Mr Glass
Alexia places her hand on the glass in the end because she feels sorry for her good friend who is insane, so no to this theory. And "you killed my whole family!!" is not something you'd say to a murderous stranger but a person who you thought was your friend. And besides, if this were the case the flashback/reveal montage would've at least implied it.
shareI think enterprise rent-a-car has a serial killer van option now, it is less expensive than the SUV but more than the midsize sedan. She probably got it from them.
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