He didn't bring her home...

after reading the whole thread i am wondering if we're watching the same movie.

at the end, she wasn't biten/turned, she was stabbed by JT. When she spits on Rickie's face she said "****ing grow up.". Obviously, Rickie "turned" her into a zombie, whether or not he was ****ing her, it's up to one's interpretation.

That was exactly my impression. Ricky is the textbook 'nice guy' who chooses an object of obsession, commences the obsessing, and seems to believe that helping her out or saving her from this/that means she has to go out/have sex with him. Scene one that perfectly exemplifies this is he just chats with JT, machete in hand, instead of freeing Joann and ensuring her escape. It takes Wheeler to start actually touching Joann to make him do anything.

Second - she's dying, you moron, and there's every chance she hasn't been bitten. If you love her, "you'll help me instead of whittering on about your feelings!"

His stalker-like uber-crush, noticeable by everybody around him, and his constant hang-up on her do not point to a healthy mindset - not to mention the fact that had Ricky been as nice of a guy as he thought he was, he'd call 911 on the Patient Zero and not wait for things to affect his obsession.

Not that Joann was the nicest person in the world, mind. Like it, or not, there is only one person willing to help you when the chips are WAY down, and all you can do is tell him to frakking grow up!? Admittedly, he wasn't the best of choices, but just spitting back on his face his attempt to save you (AFTER you have stonewalled his attempt to warn you) and then begging him to save you is just... I don't know.

Bottom line? The only sympathetic character was Ricky's mom's "friend."

I actually really liked that the kidnap victim ACTED like a kidnap victim. She was just as terrified of Ricky as of the other two (and for good reason, frankly).

In my eyes, the movie has two different problems that make it not really "click" for me. First, Ricky and J.T.'s relationship doesn't work as well as it needs to. The only way the movie works is that the two of them are such close friends that you believe that Ricky would give J.T. a free pass while being deeply disgusted by the whole enterprise. Sure, we GOT the "I should call the cops" scene, but it just kind of rings hollow. The main relationship not working makes every scene Ricky is in that doesn't involve calling the cops makes him look more and more like a psychopath. Secondly, the ending is extremely ambivalent to the point where two completely different interpretations of it exist. That' not inherently a problem, but the fact that the two interpretations are so different that they change the entire meaning of the movie is problematic.

The reveal at the end that the deadgirl did indeed have some form of intelligence really affects the meaning of Ricky's actions. On the one hand, Ricky may have genuinely wanted to save "the love of his life" by any means necessary (regardless of what she wanted) and turned her into a deadgirl in order to save some small part of her. The other side is that he let his anger boil over after she rejected him for the last time and turned her so that he could own her. He would then feel awful about his decision and try his best to treat her well as an apology.

Sure, the two aren't THAT different, but the movie presents both as equally plausible and makes it hard for us to get our head around who Ricky WAS at the end.

I think this is a good way to show that misogynistic culture and rape culture affects men as well as women. Rickie did want to help and he did want to call the cops, but after being taunted about his masculinity by JT and having a weird conversation about being a man with his mom's boyfriend, he lost his courage. He was a victim, too, but certainly not to the degree that Joann and the deadgirl were victims.

I also find it odd that people call Joann a b**ch for not being all sweet and docile to Rickie at the end...let's think about what Joann knows:

-Her boyfriend is really sick after doing some shady crap with Rickie and his friends
-She is kidnapped and tied up in a creepy old basement by two guys she doesn't really know or trust
-She knows there is a sick and creepy person tied up behind her, but she can't see her so she doesn't know what in the world is going on (for all she knows, she might be next)
-She was literally stabbed, and as she panics, dying in the arms of another boy who she knows has feelings for her who showed up in the creepy rape basement and chopped a guy's hand off, she is expected to show him love and gratitude?

Ugh and ugh to anyone who would not sympathize with a character like Joann. She's the ultimate victim of this film...we see the deadgirl, who is silent, naked, vulnerable, and without agency, and then we see Joann, who is smiling, alive, speaking, vibrant, but they are both treated in the same way by the boys--they are possessed, coveted, and seen as passive *beep* toys. They both end up at the "perfect" women--completely passive and without control.

All I have to say is that he didn't love Joanne, he was infatuated with her. There's a huge difference, if he truly loved her he wouldn't have done that to her, end of.

bitch deserved it