Genre: Horror/Supernatural/Western
Director: Scott Cooper
Writer: Jack Slipter
Cast: Emma Stone, Dakota Johnson, Shailene Woodley, Olivia Cooke, Logan Lerman, Clayne Crawford, Sofia Carson, Jackson Robert Scott, Cam Gigandet
Plot: The story begins in a small Alabama town in 1862. It is evening and a woman, Annabelle Chase (Emma Stone) is in her house, preparing dinner with a thoughtful face. The camera shows his swollen arm. Her thoughts are stopped by the arrival of her husband John (Cam Gigandet) visibly altered by alcohol. The two have dinner without saying a word. As Annabelle is clearing the table, a glass falls on the floor making the man angry. Annabelle tells him she made a mistake but John approaches her and squeezes her arm making her understand that she has to shut up. The woman wriggles away from him by pushing him away telling him that he is hurting her. John smiles mockingly and slaps the woman several times. After beating her several times, he goes into the bedroom telling Annabelle, who is now kneeling on the floor, to fix the mess. Annabelle gets up and wets her bloody face and looks at her husband intently without saying anything, then sits down in a chair looking at a sharp knife on the table. A couple of hours later it is late at night and the woman slowly enters the room, brandishing the knife. She climbs onto the bed and slowly slits her sleeping husband's throat whispering in his ear "You must die you damn bastard." At the same time, in another house, a girl, Molly Simms (Shailene Woodley), watches her fat, sick old husband sleep. There is a feeling that a man finds it hard to breathe during sleep. Suddenly she grabs her pillow and as a tear falls on her face she kills him by suffocating him. Then, when he's dead, he strokes her forehead and leaves. In another house Elizabeth Sanders (Dakota Johnson) struggles and snorts off the ground while having an arm injury. Her clothes are torn and the body of her husband stabbed in the heart lies on the ground next to her. There is so much mess and so many broken things as if to signal that there has been a great fight between the two. Then she goes to the bathroom, bandages her wound, changes or ripped clothes, puts her hair in a ponytail and finally looks in the mirror taking a deep breath. In another home, young Georgia Shaw (Olivia Cooke) puts a letter on the nightstand, looking at her sleeping man for a moment and walking out of the house. The camera follows Georgia on the trail, being careful not to be seen by anyone, and reaches an old abandoned hut.
The girl walks in shyly and is greeted by Annabelle and Elizabeth's frowning looks as Molly gives her a shy wave of her hand. Before she can say anything she is reprimanded by Annabelle for being late but at that moment Molly intervenes saying that the important thing is that she has arrived. On the table is a map lit by a candle. At that point Annabelle takes the floor making it clear that the four women had agreed to kill their bad husbands and to flee the town and take refuge in another part of the United States to completely change their lives. During the speech Georgia looks down and this behavior makes Elizabeth suspicious. Elizabeth walks over to Georgia and with a swipe to the side says, "You didn't, did you?". Georgia tries to justify herself by stammering by making Elizabeth snort who walks away shaking her head. At this point Annabelle approaches the young woman and slaps her, calling her weak and useless. Georgia cries making Annabelle even more angry. Annabelle takes a knife from her pocket and almost giving the feeling that she could hit Georgia kills a rat that had just come out of her lair. Then he looks at Georgia and tells her that he will keep an eye on her and that she won't have to do nonsense anymore. Then Annabelle shows the other three women where they should go and looks at Elizabeth. Elizabeth nods saying that she has already obtained a carriage in the previous days and points to the place where she has hidden it. She says the supplies are already inside. Then the four women prepare to leave while Annabelle blows out the candle.
A week later the four women are on the road until a wheel of their carriage breaks. As the women try to figure out what to do, they realize that the sheriff is probably still looking for them and they have to get out of there. Meanwhile, Georgia had moved a few feet and started looking down the hill. In the distance, a series of stagecoaches approached until they were surrounded by many bandits on horseback. Georgia then attracted the attention of the other three women, who hurry to watch. Between the men of the stagecoaches and bandits there was a great shooting that caused a massacre on both sides. From above, the women perceived that those people were almost all dead and those few survivors looked badly injured. Georgia notes that the stagecoaches were probably carrying something valuable. Annabelle smiles and convinces the other women to go and see the situation. Arriving there, Annabelle quickly kills a couple of badly injured bandits crawling to the ground as Molly begins looking into an overturned carriage on the ground to find a good amount of gold bars. The women pick it up and put it in one of the men's carriages. The women are happy and collect as much gold as they can bring. As they prepare to leave, they hear the complaints of a survivor. The boy is sitting with his hand on his chest where a gunshot wound can be seen. The survivor is a boy who was one of the men who protected the gold. He says his name is James Collins (Logan Lerman) and begs the women not to leave him there to die like a dog alone. Annabelle approaches to kill him, but is eventually convinced by Georgia and Molly to take him with them, at least for a while until her condition improves. James thanks the women several times saying he wouldn't bother them and then looks at Georgia with a smile. The abdominal injuries appear severe but Georgia, who had studied as a nurse, offers to try to cure him. The women transfer their supplies to one of the stagecoaches and then set off again.
After a couple of days of travel, in which James seems to be improving his condition, the women realize that they have probably gone the wrong way and are looking for a quiet place to spend the night. At one point they reach a vast, visibly abandoned wheat plantation and in the distance they see a large and majestic colonial house. The group takes the gold and leaves the carriage using only the horses. They enter the dried corn to reach the house until Elizabeth catches everyone's attention. In fact, she notices the presence of a wooden cross on which a body is hoisted, with a sack on top of the head. The body appears to be in an advanced state of decomposition even though the group initially thought it was a scarecrow. The group assumed he was either a thief or a deserter. Georgia is quite disgusted by the vision and James offers to take him down but she shakes her head as if to say no. Annabelle looks at the two with a less than happy face and then gestures for everyone to move. As they approach the house they hear strange noises coming from the wheat. Suddenly they see that some kind of white hairless animal is running towards them. Elizabeth fires a few shots at the unknown animal and it runs into the wheat dying a few hundred meters ahead. The group looks confused, having never seen anything like it. The group speculates how it could be a cougar or a mountain lion, although none of them have ever seen one and don't know what they look like. Then Annabelle invites everyone to move as the sky is darkening and lightning begins to illuminate the sky in the distance. They reach the house, collect their belongings, including gold, and enter and notice that the house appears to be uninhabited for a long time after searching the various rooms. At the entrance there is also a painting on the ground that portrays a family consisting of a man, a young woman much younger than him and two children, probably their children.
Meanwhile, Georgia makes James lie down on a table and begins cleaning and disinfecting James's wounds by teasing him about his painful reactions. Georgia, however, is quite optimistic about the wound's progress. In the end the two, after joking, hold hands for a few moments. Annabelle who has passed through the corridor sees the scene. Shortly thereafter Annabelle sends Molly and Elizabeth to check if there is anything interesting in the area where the slaves lived. Then she calls Georgia smiling into another room saying she has to help her with something. When Georgia catches up with her, Annabelle violently pushes her against the wall and threatens her with the knife to her throat telling her that she saw how she and James look at each other and then paranoidly says that if they wanted to escape with the gold she would be looking for them forever and there he would have killed them with atrocious suffering. A scared Georgia says she would never allow herself to do this because she is grateful to Annabelle for taking her away from the sad life with her husband. Meanwhile, Molly and Elizabeth are checking out the slave quarters. The place is dusty, many rats and big spiders roam there. While they are browsing they find bones and a book with unknown words where there were also scary and macabre drawings. Elizabeth says with a serious expression that those recorded in the book were voodoo spells that the slaves knew how to use to bring the dead back to life. Then seeing the scared face of her friend, she bursts out laughing saying that those are just legends and nonsense. Molly also finds a pendant with a green stone and decides to put it in her pocket despite immediately creating a strange feeling for her. Then they go back into the house.
During dinner the atmosphere in the group appears calm and peaceful for a few minutes. Everyone jokes and laughs. After a look between Georgia and James, Annabelle gets up, then walks over to James and starts whispering things in his ear that seem to make the boy horny. Meanwhile Georgia sadly watches the scene, holding tight to what she is holding. Then Annabelle takes the boy by the arm and then they head to one of the upstairs bedrooms. As they go up, Annabelle looks at Georgia with a satisfied look and smile. When the two disappear from Georgia's sight, she bangs her fists on the table and walks away leaving Elizabeth and Molly alone. Molly watches the girl walk out with a dejected look as Elizabeth shakes her head muttering that little children are smarter and then continues to eat comically taking the leftover food from others. Molly is amused by her friend's appetite. Georgia is in a corridor pacing back and forth kicking an empty jar and cursing several times at Annabelle in a low voice. She also notices footprints on the dusty floor. The footprints were of various types, some looking human and some not. However, Georgia does not give much weight to this fact. The storm is coming and the thunder is starting to be felt in the sky. She is then joined by Molly and Elizabeth. Molly, Elizabeth and Georgia go out to shelter the horses under a shed. Molly and Georgia re-enter as Elizabeth says she has to go to the bathroom pointing at him with her index finger. The woman runs and enters the bathroom. Elizabeth scratches her forehead looking at him with contempt given the dirt and the stinking, nauseating smell. She starts shaking her head with a smirk and says that rather than pissing there she will do it in the grain. As she is about to leave, a shadow begins to surround the bathroom. Elizabeth takes her gun in hand and opens the door but it seems that there is nothing but a few seconds later she is pushed backwards to the ground pushed almost by an invisible force. The woman covers her mouth, looks and listens carefully. Then seeing that everything is quiet, she runs into the house.
Upstairs, meanwhile, James wakes up with a start, thinking about Georgia and cursing himself for following Annabelle, who is sleeping naked next to him right now. Suddenly a child (Jackson Robert Scott) suddenly appears in front of him. James tries to say something but doesn't seem to be able to do it for some strange reason. The child begins to tell that his mother died there in that sick bed. James turns his head to the side and notices that Annabelle is gone and sees next to her an attractive young woman with dark hair who says her name is Mary (Sofia Carson). As long as she speaks, the woman begins to disturbingly change her physical appearance as if to demonstrate the progress of a disease. Eventually Mary is very pale with dull, glassy eyes and a sunken face. The child then begins to transform into an older man with a mustache (Clayne Crawford) who claims to be the owner of that house and that he had to do what he did. The man shows James that after the death of his wife, he tried to bring her back to life by sacrificing his children, slaves and animals, practicing black magic rituals learned from his slaves but that he had been deceived and that the demons had take over the house. Finally he shows James that when the people of the village found out what he had done, he was crucified (the man found crucified in the field was him). Then, when the man approaches the face with a knife, James closes his eyes in fear opening his mouth to scream but no sound comes out of his mouth.
Strange things are starting to happen to others too. As Georgia sits thinking about what Annabelle and James are doing Molly has some kind of vision when she picks up the pendant she found earlier and some kind of vision assails her. Witness a ritual performed on a black slave in the basement. By the end of the ritual, the farmer's family and slaves had transformed into demonic entities similar to the strange creature the group had killed in the wheat when they arrived in that house. Elisabetta, on the other hand, as soon as she returned to the house after the strange occurrence in the external bathroom, hears childish giggles coming from a room, even though there was no one inside. Elizabeth slaps herself inviting herself to reason and those are all jokes of her imagination. At that moment, a scream draws everyone's attention upstairs. Next to Annabelle is James's battered body. Annabelle defends herself by saying that she found him like this. Georgia runs to meet him holding him in her arms. For the first time, Annabelle has a touch of humanity and apologizes to Georgia for treating her badly. Everyone says that something strange and dangerous is happening and they tell about the visions and what is happening. The group decides to escape quickly. When they reach the stable, the four find the horses dead, torn to pieces. The group decides to leave on foot. But Annabelle refuses to leave without the gold and, accompanied by Elizabeth, they return home despite Molly and Georgia having strongly suggested that they leave him there and that the situation was dangerous.
Once inside the house they discover that James's body is gone. Also disturbing noises are approaching them. Meanwhile on the field Molly and Georgia are walking quickly looking over their shoulders hoping to be soon joined by the other two women until they find James resurrected, as possessed by one of the spirits present in the house. James attacks Molly and Georgia trying to kill them. Georgia is pushed to the ground and hits her head on the ground and almost loses consciousness for a moment. When Georgia opens her eyes she sees Molly being strangled by James. Georgia gets up and goes to James and manages to knock him down and almost kill him until he politely asks not to and the girl in a moment of hesitation loses the moment and James, possessed, turns the situation around trying to kill her. Georgia manages to escape and hiding in the slave quarters where she finds the book with spells. Meanwhile, other monsters inside the house surrounded Elizabeth and Annabelle. One of the monsters tries to bite Elizabeth's arm but Annabelle shoots her making her head explode. Another creature tries to attack them but they defend themselves. In the fight, the lighted candles fall to the ground causing a fire that begins to spread rapidly. The two women are inside and cannot get out and are also surrounded by fire. Outside the house, Georgia notices the fire and tries to call them and tries to find a way to save them by entering the house until James attacks her again. Georgia manages to defend herself and pushes the possessed boy into the fire. Elizabeth and Annabelle order the girls to get out of there. Suddenly there is a fire-induced explosion that has reached gunpowder barrels or something similar that appears to kill the remaining creatures and the two women while Georgia manages to escape just in time. The next morning, Georgia finally leaves the bodies of the three traveling companions covered in blankets and enters the cornfield. The rain had put out the flames caused by the explosion but the house was badly damaged. When the girl finally leaves the camp, she is hit by a barrage of bullets fired by the authorities that kill her. The camera rises to reveal that she herself had transformed into a demonic creature and that the authorities had mistaken her for a deformed animal. The authorities had been summoned by the explosion and flames. They then enter the mansion and find three other dead creatures covered near the door. Next to them is the open book with spells.
No comments:
Post a Comment