Genre: Thriller/Horror
Director: Andy Muschietti
Writer: Ben Collins
Plot: Lily Collins, Kevin Bacon, Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Dylan O'Brien, Anna Camp, Linda Cardellini, Rashida Jones, Skyler Samuels, Patton Oswalt
Plot: The movie starts in a big house in an isolated place from the big cities. In this place a community was born, the Unity Fields which preaches the beauty of death understood as liberation from the captivity of life. The group members are all gathered in the hall and smile and talk about eternal happiness as they hold their children close in what appears to be a strange baptismal ceremony. The community is run by Mark Harris (Kevin Bacon) who, next to some kind of altar, waits for all the people to approach one at a time. At this point he gives them a pat on the cheek and then uses a liquid to bless them. Among these people are Charlotte Edelstein (Linda Cardellini) and her daughter, little Cynthia. Cynthia looks at her mother, who tells her not to worry. At this point Cynthia hesitantly approaches the man and lets herself be bathed by the liquid. At the end of the ceremony all the people sing and pray with joy. Then the camera frames the outside of the house and suddenly a big fire breaks out. Desperate screams and screams are heard and the flames spread very quickly. Then there are many firefighters who are intent on putting out the flames and one of them finds a girl alive in a state of unconsciousness despite severe burns that have injured her in various parts of her body. Cynthia is the only survivor, the other people in the Unity Fields group have all passed away.
The story then moves a few years later in which Cynthia (Lily Collins), now grown up, after a period of coma followed by a long period of rehabilitation tries to recover a normal life despite the burns spread throughout her body. Unfortunately for her, despite the daily physical improvement, she has severe memory problems and insomnia. One night she has a terrible nightmare in which the hospital she is in is completely engulfed in flames and sees many people burn alive and die in excruciating suffering. The girl wakes up screaming when she discovers that she was the author of the disaster in the dream. The girl is then convinced to try therapies more suitable for her and is sent to an experimental facility. After visiting the facility with the head nurse, Miss Holly Peters (Rashida Jones), she settles in her room. Along the way she met some patients and the two doctors who would follow her during the treatments, Dr. Alex Karred (Patrick Wilson) together with her friend and colleague Dr. James Berrisford (Billy Crudup). There was also a third doctor working there part-time that day, Angela Croft (Anna Camp) who approaches Cynthia with a big smile wishing her a good stay and saying they would help her overcome her problems. Cynthia smiles as an answer. Later Angela leaves kissing Dr. Karred on the cheek and stroking Berrisford's shoulder while Cynthia watched the scene. In the afternoon, therefore, Cynthia begins to participate in the experimental group therapy sessions for borderline personality disorder conducted by Dr. Karred and Dr. Berrisford. Group therapies and new pills prescribed by doctors are initially functional for Cynthia and slowly begin to bring back memories of her childhood. The first memories are sincere and happy with her mother Charlotte and remember that they lived in a place called Unity Fields, a peaceful community dedicated to universal love and remember the leader Mark Harris as a helpful and good man. She then remembers other times when she rides a pony and picks fruit with other kids. The two doctors are happy with the girl's rather fast progress.
The film very quickly shows a succession of scenes showing Cynthia's first good days and her happy childhood memories becoming more and more flourishing. In addition, Cynthia becomes a point of support for other patients because they see her improve day after day, especially for two. One was her roommate, the young, shy and kind Miriam (Skyler Samuels) who has a deep scar on her face that starts from her forehead, crosses her right eye and ends near her mouth. This scar was the result of a failed suicide attempt that happened a couple of years earlier. The second is the lonely and silent Ralph (Dylan O'Brien), a young man with masochism problems who is shown with injured hands after punching the walls. From what the boy says, however, he should also have other wounds in his body. The three soon become good friends. During a lunch, the three laugh and joke until they notice the three doctors talking softly in front of the coffee machine. Dr. Karred is next to Dr. Croft and holds her side. From their attitudes they seem to be in fact a couple. Cynthia says that someday she too hopes to find a boyfriend and be as united as Dr. Croft and Dr. Karred, says Dr. Karred is always kind and caring to Dr. Croft and vice versa. Miriam and Ralph giggle and Cynthia looks at them in confusion with a half smile. Ralph says he had seen Dr. Croft and Dr. Berrisford kissing each other in the office one night a few weeks ago. After the reveal, Cynthia snorted comically, making her two friends laugh again. Then their laughter was interrupted by the arrival of Nurse Peters who quietly told them to make little noise because they disturbed the other patients and gave them the pills and then checked that the patients were taking them. Then she goes away saying that she likes to see the three so amused. In the afternoon, during a group session, new memories come to Cynthia's mind. Cynthia begins to remember that there was a day full of prayer, song and dance and that there was some kind of ceremony. A moment later the memory of the night of the fire explodes in Cynthia's eyes. Cynthia has a sudden flashback in which she remembers everything. She sees Mark Harris, who turns out to be a mad religious fanatic, in whom on the night of the fire he baptized all followers with a ladle of gasoline instead of traditional holy water, locked the door and then set the place. Luckily Cynthia had hid in a hole in the room and luckily managed to survive. Cynthia's last memory is that of her mother, who is engulfed in flames who approaches her asking for help. Cynthia then realizes that everyone had died as a result of a terrible collective suicide. At the end of the flashback, Cynthia is shocked, screams desperately crying and is taken by Dr. Karred before she passes out. The other patients listened and watched the scene with a little fear, gaping even though Ralph and Miriam had approached her to cheer her up. Cynthia is then taken to her room. Later Cynthia wakes up in her room and receives a visit from nurse Holly Peters who gently strokes her hair whispering that everything is quiet now and that she needn't worry. In the room there is also Dr. Karred who asks her if she is better and Cynthia answers yes in a low voice. The doctor tells the girl not to worry and to call him immediately if necessary. The girl thanks. Then the doctor is called to the pager because two patients are hitting each other and he leaves. Soon after, Harris suddenly appears behind Holly with a scary burned face with burned skin almost falling off his face. Harris holds a large kitchen knife and approaches Holly's back. Cynthia, after a moment of amazement, yells at the nurse to be careful. Holly turns around but everything seems calm and tries to calm the poor girl who keeps screaming until she sees that Harris was not there. Then she cries in despair, comforted by the woman. Since then, however, the girl begins to have strange and disturbing visions that include Harris, who often appears with a burnt face or body. Towards evening Berrisford is in his office signing the documents until at a certain point Angela enters and smiling, closes the door and approaches the doctor with a smile, unbuttoning her blouse. Then the two start having sex. A couple of days later Cynthia's roommate Miriam is released from the hospital. Cynthia is sorry to lose her friend but she is also happy for her. The two greet each other with a long hug, hoping to see each other soon. Miriam takes the elevator and as the doors close Cynthia notices Harris behind Miriam saying he was going to kill Miriam. At this point Cynthia starts screaming and continually pressing the buttons to call the elevator before being blocked by the nurses and cannot warn her friend. Shortly thereafter Miriam is found dead on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, after jumping out of a window in what appears to be a suicide. On the same day, Nurse Peters is in the facility's pharmacy checking out documents and medicines with a slightly confused face. At that moment she is interrupted for a few moments by Dr. Croft to ask her about a patient. So Dr. Croft leaves the room. Soon after, Holly comes out with a straight face. Later, an orderly finds Holly on the ground, dead, with a large head wound at the base of a flight of stairs. Holly's death appears to be accidental and is labeled as an unfortunate accident. The next day, another patient dies under mysterious circumstances killed by the blades of an industrial fan in a hospital service room. Despite Karred's treatment, for which she begins to feel a similar affection to a father she never had, Cynthia also attributes the other two deaths to Harris, saying that he had told her that he killed the nurse during a nightmare. Cynthia believes Harris has returned from the dead to kill everyone around her. Ralph, the only one who seems to believe Cynthia, begins to have a strong feeling for her. Ralph as he listens to Cynthia and tries to console her and takes her hands. Then he says some sweet words and tries to kiss her. Despite Cynthia's strong desire to accept the kiss, she freezes and rejects it when she sees Harris's face laughing at her near the door. In despair and ashamed of being rejected, Ralph runs away from the room despite Cynthia trying to stop him by trying to explain what he had seen. Shortly thereafter we see him stabbed many times self-inflicted with a stolen item in the operator's cart with Cynthia arriving too late to rescue him. The girl takes him in her arms and screams apologizing before being helped by the staff. Upon awakening, after being sedated by the nurses following the accident, Cynthia finds Harris sitting in her room. He calls Cynthia "My beloved daughter" and after stroking her cheek and kissing her forehead, he pushes her to commit suicide with a hammer lying on the desk in her room. Harris continues to urge her to commit suicide. Cynthia tries to plug her ears but continues to hear Harris's voice. At one point the girl gives in to temptation and takes the hammer and starts hitting her head with the object. The girl, however, soon discovers that the hammer was a vision and had nothing in her hand and gets out of bed, standing in a corner crying while Harris taunts her. Outside the room, Dr. Croft watches the scene with a sad face. Meanwhile, Berrisford argues with Karred, saying his experimental therapies are unnecessary and are only worsening the situation for all patients. He also says he has already informed the medical committee of all the strange deaths among Karred's patients.
The next day there is another death, of Jimmy (Patton Oswalt), a patient considered gentle and calm and commits suicide by overdosing on drugs. In fact, during the administration of the drugs, Jimmy had stolen many medicines from the other patients and had taken them all together. Dr. Karred witnesses the scene and seems surprised to see medicines he didn't remember ordering. He tells the story to Angela Croft and the two after further investigation discover that Berresford intentionally linked the drugs of the people in the therapy group with a strange psychogenic substance created by him (in the hopes that the patients could actually commit suicide and thus remove Karred from the facility and become the chief psychiatrist at the hospital.) Angela watches Karred as she uncovers these things and listens to Karred's comments about patients who have killed themselves for a reason. He tells Angela to call the police while she's on her way to settle things with the patients. Angela picks up the phone but doesn't call the police. She telephones James Berrisford, saying that Karred has found out and that she cannot settle the matter with him as she did with Nurse Peters. Then he tells her that what they have to the poor patients was horrible and they would never do anything like that again. Then the woman writes a note and decides to hang herself.
Karred, as he runs into the corridor to warn someone of what is happening, finds poor Cynthia in the grip of visions, in fact he sees Harris everywhere. In fact, we see her on the floor in her room with many Mark Harris around her urging her to kill herself in all possible ways by mocking her. The doctor tries to explain to the girl that Harris is all out of her imagination because of the Berresford pills. In the first moments the girl seems to understand and feel calmer and no longer sees Harris around her. Shortly thereafter, however, he hears Harris's voice and a moment later he sees Harris's face instead of the doctor. The girl struggles and gives him a push causing Dr. Karred to fall to the ground, steals his keys and starts running incessantly and then finds himself on the roof. Shortly thereafter, Karred arrives and finds the girl standing near the precipice. Harris, invisible to Dr. Karred, urges Cynthia to jump. Karred tries to calm the girl by slowly approaching her. When he was about to reach her, the girl jumps and before touching the ground she finds herself in the mansion where the members of Unity Fields committed suicide. She looks at all the people burned, including her mother Charlotte who greets and smiles at her, while Harris invites her to follow her by shaking her hand.
However, it is only a vision and comes back to reality seeing Karred holding her by the arm as she hangs from the ledge. Berrisford, aware that Dr. Karred has uncovered his plot, goes to the roof and tries to push the two downstairs. His attempt is hampered by the arrival of hospital security and Berrisford tries to defend himself by saying that Karred wanted to kill Cynthia but then pulls a gun out of her coat and before she can shoot, Cynthia runs in surprise to him, pushes him and l man falls off the roof and dies.
The film ends a few months later, when on the day of discharge from the hospital and after saying goodbye to Dr. Karred, Cynthia sees a figure leaning against the wall of a person who reminds her of Harris. When the man turns around, the girl realizes it's not Harris. Cynthia sighs in relief and leaves the hospital.
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