The ending????
What did I just watch??? I'm
Confused or dumbed myself down in watching this. But what is happening to the female lead when the movie abruptly ends???
IMO, its portraying "hell",
Several times it is specifically stated--
"Hell" is not a PLACE, "Hell" is a beautiful confusion... and there is pain.
Once again, this ^^same statement^^ is made in the final scenes..driving home the point that "hell" is not a place you go, but rather it is a plane of existence that is of "beautiful confusion", and that "there is pain".
I saw it as saying hell is different for everyone, and once you've died and crossed over into this plane of existence it is eternal, it is forever, and there is no escape... thus, the reason why we saw that Chloe finally realized this upon looking down at the street while attempting to cry out for help from down below..at that point she sees that the people down below at the stop sign are the 4 of them when they first arrived in L.A.(they'd gotten lost, Chloe looked up, and saw, someone yelling down from the top floor of the building, and she snaps a pic).
Upon Chloe realizing that was herself, and her 3 friends, she frantically attempts to get them to turn back, leave L.A. immediately. The scene, IMO, represented the first major crossroads that they'd come upon over the course of the next 24+ hours...She so desperately, in retrospect, was trying to make "them"(herself+3 friends), turn back at that very first crossroad..
But, as we saw, it was all for naught due to the fact that the 4 friends had already sealed, permanently, their fates the moment that they willingly chose to join Alice in the 5 points of the Pentagram circle/ritual in the motel room.
The final scenes were representing the "hell" that was spoken about several times throughout the movie. share
As as it is with so many movies, much is left to the interpretation of each viewer..but, I do believe that my ^above^ post is a fair explanation of what the final scenes were meant to portray. Throughout much of the final scene there is voiceover work that is once again driving home the fact that the 4 friends are in fact dead, and that they are in hell, and that this hell is eternal, and there is no escape from it due to the fact that each one of the 4 made a choice of their own free will. Their willingly joining Alice in the ritual is what permanently bound them straight to hell.
Alice had joined the "Satanist" group(the one with the occult shop), and all of the Satanists had rejected her when they'd learned of her intentions..those intentions being, to complete the summoning ritual(the ritual that we saw eventually take place in Room 204). The initial ceremony that the 4 friends witnessed when they'd secretly tailed the Satanists, wasnt any type of summoning ritual, it was a ritual that was being done to sever all ties with Alice. The group wanted nothing to do with Alice, and they were excommunicating her from their group.
The 4 friends totally misinterpreted what was happening, and wrongly believed that the Satanists were the "bad guys", and that Alice was the victim in the situation. Their misinterpretation is what led to their misplaced sympathy for Alice, their willingness to "help her" by letting her stay the night in their hotel room.. all of this is what led to their becoming "willing" participants in the "summoning ritual"... in other words, manipulation at its finest.
Alice had already gone the route of seeking out a group of Satanists(who were well versed in knowledge of the occult), who, in the end, were UNwilling to participate in Alice's ritual. Choosing of one's own free will is necessary in order for the ritual to work. So, after having struck out with those she thought were like-minded(the Satanists), she went the route of manipulating the 4 friends to UNKNOWINGLY be the willing participants she so desperately needed for the summoning ritual. The naive 4 hadnt a clue that their willing participation was a permanent sealing of each of their fates(that fate being..death and transition into an eternal, inescapable hell).
Just as Alice so politely says when Elise asks if she knows how to do an actual summoning ritual, Alice tells her she can do many things, but for all of them she needs "people willing to help"...and what does Elise reply?.. that the 4 friends were "people willing to help".
1(I)-
Alice represented the 1st soul/1st point on the pentagram
2(II)-
Elise represented the 2nd soul/2nd point on the pentagram
3(III)-
Seth represented the 3rd soul/3rd point on the pentagram
4(IIII)-
David represented the 4th soul/4th point on the pentagram
5(IIII{with a / over the 4 Roman Numeral I's})-
Chloe represented the final 5th soul/5th point on the pentagram
The 5 together completed the summoning ritual, and they each from that point were marked with their number(via crude type of Roman numerals), that would appear bloodily scratched into their flesh immediately prior to each of their deaths/transitions into eternal hell.
jswindter01 you definitely described what happened well. I knew when they all became willing to help their deaths were coming sooner than later. I just didn't realize it would happen in the fashion it did. I think this movie was average at best for sure and would have preferred the deaths of each of the remaining four to happen differently. Anyway a watchable movie but definitely nothing to recommend to someone and definitely not anything special.
shareSpot on - It had good premise and a decent start but ran out of ideas after about 30 mins!
Its uncle Frank Kirsty!
Its time to play!
Those aren't Roman numerals, they're tally marks, used, potentially to count forever. After III the next Roman numeral is IV, after that it's V. Tally marks are used to simply talley things up in groups of five, you'll often see them in TV and movies in places like prisons or with people lost at sea, trying to figure out how much time has passed. I don't know why the director chose talley marks, but that's what they are.
shareBut, as we saw, it was all for naught due to the fact that the 4 friends had already sealed, permanently, their fates the moment that they willingly chose to join Alice in the 5 points of the Pentagram circle/ritual in the motel room.
Not bad but not quite.
They saw the girl in the window at the beginning. That implies their "fate" was already sealed before the movie even got started. That implies no free will at all and no possible way for them to choose or not choose.
The "time loop back to see yourself" *beep* ruins many a decent film. This was one. Not saying it was a decent one....it was rehjashed crap....but the time loop sealed its fate when they chose to use it.
I gave this load of tripe a 3. It sucks and it blows at the same time. It even loops back upon itself and sucks its own blow and blows its own suck. The end was that bad. share
The loop back didn't bother me. The fact they padded the run time with a bunch of songs bothered me.
The loop back may not have been real. Part of her hell could be believing she had a chance to stop the group or teaching them not to mock others.
Will that room she is trapped fill up with future versions of herself?