I watched this last night, purely to drool over Emily Blunt. To be fair, I was expecting a "They were dead all along" cliché ending, but then she found the gas station and I don't know what the p!ss happened. Felt very rushed.
Happy or romantic? Nahhh.....wouldn't have worked for this type of film. But I liked how the script kept me guessing as to the nature of the menace. As the story starts, the guy comes off as creepy-weird, and I assumed it was a road where maybe he killed women who rejected him. Then, with all the ghosts, I wasn't sure WHO the real villain was, lol. I just wish some of the more ambiguous questions had been addressed during the movie:
-Why did the people at the rest stop ignore her cries for help?
-Why were the frozen bodies still there, and so well preserved?
-When she saw the story in the old newspaper, did anyone else think she and "the guy" were the couple the article was about?? I was kind of hoping that was the twist, with all of their discussions of philosophy, religion, death etc.
Other than that, though, I loved it. It was like a really creepy Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episode!!
Why were the frozen bodies still there, and so well preserved? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My theory is that they weren't. I mean, several times we saw those crosses marking graves along the roadside. I assume the priests were buried there. I suspect that the priests just manifested themselves like that, recreating their deaths. Perhaps as a warning. It wouldn't make sense for them not to be buried. And they wouldn't be so well-preserved, because that isn't Siberia; it would be warm in the summer and the bodies would decompose.
I just read the script and it's clear from it that the bodies weren't really in the house, it was only a vision. When the Guy turns around again (after seeing them and being scared by them), they're gone.
The crosses along the road are little mementos for the victims that the cop killed along the road, they're not for the priests. (It's clear from the script.)