Genre: Horror/Supernatural
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writer: Andrew Doster
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Amanda Seyfried, Scoot McNairy, Olivia Wilde, Patricia Clarkson, Alison Brie, David Giuntoli, Iain Armitage, Jessica De Gouw, Anthony LaPaglia
The story takes place in a small town, Lumberton, in North Dakota. We see a man, Walt, (Anthony LaPaglia) who, after feeding his cat, starts developing photos in his cellar. Suddenly a photo portrays a black figure in front of a building. The man is hit by a heart attack and dies.
A couple, Alex Stoker (Taylor Kitsch) and Veronica, a six weeks pregnant woman (Amanda Seyfried), must go to the town to visit Martha (Olivia Wilde), the sister of the woman. When they arrive in Lumberton, the woman tries to call Martha but the phone only makes strange noises. Later they manage to reach Martha who is owner of a bar and it is understood that there is no good relationship between the sisters and they have not seen each other for a long time. The couple thought Martha would host them but when she shows up she says she can't and they are eventually forced to take a room in an old motel. After settling in the small motel they decide to take a walk. Once in the square, the couple, while taking pictures, is confronted and insulted by three men with a beer in hand and they are told to go away because they don't want journalists to browse in Lumberton. The couple initially does not respond and tries to explain themselves but at the umpteenth insult by the three men, Alex gets angry and starts pushing with those people. One of the three reacts and tries to hit Alex with a punch but he manages to dodge it.
Before the situation worsens further Andrew (Scoot McNairy), the town's priest, manages to calm the situation. He explains that he has known Veronica for a long time and that they are not journalists. The three fools drift away. At that point Andrew hugs Veronica, saying that she missed her in all those years when they haven't seen each other and condolences the woman. It is thus understood that the couple is there for the death of Walt, the girl's uncle, although the funeral was already done a few days before. After finding out where they are staying, Andrew helps the two to settle down with Julia (Alison Brie) and Nico (David Giuntoli), Veronica's old acquaintances who offer to host them. The couple also have a son, Simon, the reserved and silent Simon (Iain Armitage). Julia prepares the room while Nico helps Alex with the luggage. During dinner it is clear that the town has had some disappearances of children and murders of some adults in the past and that the relationship between Nico and Julia is no longer as good as in the past. Alex tries to find out more about these mysterious facts but a stupid quarrel between Julia and Nico causes dinner to end earlier than expected.
The next day Veronica and Julia go for a walk and get something to eat. Julia complains about her husband, saying that in recent times he seems to have regretted having married and started a family, Veronica advises her to split up but Julia says no however stating that it would be wrong for Simon to grow up without a united family. Afterwards Veronica and Alex go to the house of their deceased uncle to collect the objects that the man had left behind. The woman says that the man had been very important to her, that he had helped her a lot when she was little, after the death of her parents. The girl says she had a hobby of photography and that she spent hours in her basement looking at the photos Walt took as a child. The couple joke and decide to go down to the cellar. Until they go down the stairs, the man briefly tickles Veronica's hips, making her chuckle until suddenly Alex says he heard something coming from the upper floor. The man goes upstairs to check despite the girl had not heard anything. Meanwhile, Veronica begins to make a video with her cell phone as a reminder of that place she had seen so many times as a child, also taking pictures hung until suddenly a strange black figure seems to approach her through the phone screen. The girl jumps in fright and raises her head but there was nothing left at that point. Meanwhile, Marion (Patricia Clarkson), sister of Walt, a woman who seems a little crazy, bizarre and says rambling phrases, suddenly appears on the raping plan and thanks Alex for bringing Veronica back to the country, even giving him a kiss on the forehead despite not had ever known the man. The man smiles a little embarrassed. At that moment Veronica comes back upstairs after hearing Marion's voice. At that point, after congratulating Veronica on the pregnancy, she says that something had been stopped in that house and hugs Veronica tightly. Meanwhile, Veronica and Alex exchange an amused look at the woman's behavior.
At dinner Alex asks Julia and Nico why there were containers full of salt in front of the doors and windows of many houses. Julia changes expression and looks more nervous.
He says it's a custom to keep "her" away. Alex asks who it is and Veronica answers the witch, with a half smile. Nico says that the legend tells that the witch moves and is dangerous only at night at night and if she goes to a house and finds salt in front of the door, she takes an insatiable curiosity, she is forced to count the grains of salt ( so time passes and the sunrise comes) instead of entering the house and doing bad deeds. Alex tries to temper the climate with a joke but is silenced by Nico. Shortly after the man leaves and tells his wife not to stay up. Nico and Julia's son Simon was also on the table, a boy who appears very taciturn and immersed in his thoughts and with his cell phone. During the night, Veronica goes down to drink a glass of water and accidentally drops the container, placed on the windowsill, with the salt on the ground. While Veronica searches for more salt to fill the container, Simon also arrives, saying that they are all nonsense and that you don't need to take the salt. Then the scene moves outside, frightening whispers are heard.
Veronica goes back to bed and has strange nightmares all night until she dreams that she wakes up in a wood where she sees in the vegetation a woman cradling a child until a hand with long yellow nails and wrinkled skin takes Veronica by the hair. The girl wakes up screaming all sweaty. As Alex hugs her, Julia's screams are heard, everyone rushes and finds Simon devoid of consciousness. He has a wound on his arm and his face looks a little deformed. The ambulance arrives immediately, the boy seems to be in a coma for unknown reasons. Feeling the confusion many curious people gathered on the street including Andrew who is approached by Marion, says that the boy has seen Janara in the eyes, Andrew calms her down and sends her away. Then Andrew invites Veronica and Alex to spend the night with him. The next day Veronica is still shaken by what happened and asks her boyfriend to meet with Martha to discuss issues related to the inheritance for Walt's house. Alex reaches Martha's house and she says she's changing in the bathroom. The bathroom door is half open and Alex looks in for a moment unwittingly and sees the woman turned from her back in front of the mirror wearing only her bra and underwear. The woman sees the man's attitude in the mirror and smiles to herself. When she leaves she wears a sexy dress and warmly greets the man. later he begins to flirt with him. Meanwhile Andrew offers Veronica a hot tea stating that there is nothing better to relax. Meanwhile Martha tells Alex to pay attention to Andrew because he is not a good man and is not really a priest (he only acts as such.) Meanwhile there is a conversation between Andrew and Veronica about the alleged Janara, Veronica in fact not believes in legend. The priest says that the police don't know what to do about the missing children twenty years earlier, there have never been any clues or suspects and tells a story. He says that in 1803 there was a woman (Jessica De Gouw) who lived in the woods, she seemed to have magical powers and one day she showed up in the country with a swollen belly and said she had created the son of Satan and asked the citizens for a huge sum of money to leave from the country. The legend tells, however, that the citizens rebelled and sought an inquisitor who later managed to take the woman by the hair with a special glove made of iron and steel and burned her at the stake but before dying she cursed all the children in the country. These scenes are narrated through a flashback with Andrew's voice telling the story.
Then he says that he will have to go to the woods to do a kind of ritual, a kind of exorcism, against Janara and asks Veronica if she would like to accompany him. A large group of people gathered at that point in the woods and during the ritual Veronica hears people making unpleasant comments about her. At that point he moves to the bottom of the group, isolated from the others. She begins to hear strange voices and whispers and begins to follow the noises until she sees a frightening figure dressed in black walking through the greenery through her cell phone screen. Meanwhile Martha and Alex return to Andrew's house and do not find Veronica despite the fact that she said she was not very well. Alex is angry and Martha starts stroking his hair and then gives him a kiss. Initially he resisted but eventually gave up and had sex. At that point she has severe pain in the belly and faint, the mysterious figure is seen approaching the fainted body. Meanwhile Alex, as long as she gets dressed, tells Martha that it was a mistake, but as long as she buttoned her blouse she says "No, it was just a good sex." After a search Andrew finds Veronica who is waking up after passing out and takes her home. Alex gets angry with the priest for carrying her around in her health and the two have an argument. Veronica tries to calm them down and has a slight shortcoming again and they decide to put her to bed and she falls asleep shortly after Andrew gives her a cup of tea. After several strange dreams the woman wakes up, Martha welcomes her with a smile saying that she has slept for 17 hours and then they start preparing dinner. Meanwhile, they talk about their past and apologize for the various events that have made them move away over the years (betrayals, various jealousies ...), while Alex had gone for a walk after having looked after her for many hours. Martha says that she discovered from little that can never have children and the two sisters hug each other.
At that point Veronica remembers the woman dressed in black that she has seen several times through the mobile phone screen. She runs out of the house to go to Walt's house and meets Alex who is returning. She struggles to convince him that Janara exists and that Walt somehow used the photos to keep her trapped before he died. Arrived in the house they start looking for something that can help them solve the mystery. Veronica notes that many photos depict an old ruin.She passes the photos to her boyfriend and asks him to check her well. At that point he is frightened because in all the photos a woman appears and seems to move. Veronica says that the only way to possibly defeat the witch is to cut the photo with an iron object (as Andrew had said when he had told her the story). Alex finds old scissors and they cut all the photos quickly. Alex puts the scissors in his pocket and Veronica hopes she has made the right choice. The two return to Andrew's home and find the town that has plunged into chaos. Almost everyone seems nervous and strange.
From that moment, on that night, some disturbing events occur, the death of Nico due to a bad neck injury, a walk without clothes by Julia while some elderly people whip her and the abortion of a woman in the country. In the inhabitants, a kind of mass hysteria begins to grow, everyone screams and they are afraid that the witch will kill them all. Veronica begins to walk away from Alex when she begins to have visions with many sad children who ask her for help. At some point Marion touches her and Veronica returns to reality. She tells her that the seals are now open and that it hasn't helped to cut the photo. Alex joins them and says she wants to get out of there as soon as possible despite Marion trying to oppose it. Li also Martha who railed at Marion saying she is crazy and that she had to put her in a mental hospital when she had the opportunity. While Veronica is getting into the car, Marion reveals the betrayal between Martha and Alex. Veronica goes away cursing with Andrew who then dissuades the girl from returning to Alex when she wants to return to her boyfriend to discuss this. Suddenly while drinking the tea offered by the priest, Veronica has the vision of two blonde girls who with a disturbing voice and bloody eyes that tell her not to drink the tea, which is drugged and that Andrew is deceiving and betraying her. Veronica throws the tea on the wall and slaps Andrew and runs away.
She continues to receive calls from Alex to which she does not answer, is joined by Marion who says that she knows how she feels and knows about the visions. Marion reveals that she also sees the kidnapped children and other things and that this has led her to be only an outcast and considered crazy. Then she says that she knows how to destroy Janara and that she needs help. Meanwhile, mass hysteria is spreading and a group of people try to attack Martha by calling her a whore and is saved by Alex who was looking for Veronica. The two start looking for Veronica. Martha says she could be with Marion and says that twenty years earlier when the children started disappearing, the woman had started to have an obsession with her and for this reason she was close to ending up in an asylum. Martha suggests that they may have gone to the old ruin. Alex tells Martha to take refuge in church while he goes to save Veronica. Martha reaches the church and Andrew says it is not safe. Meanwhile, an angry crowd wants to break through the doors of the church shouting that the whore must die. Andrew takes the woman to the basement and points to the woman for underground tunnels to go out to a safe area.
Veronica and Marion walk to reach the ruin that was often in the photos and Marion says that it was built where the Janara had been burned at the stake and is a cursed place. The two enter the ruin and Marion begins to recite words. Suddenly shadows begin to appear on the walls followed by frightening noises similar to crying and moaning. Marion warns Veronica that Janara will arrive shortly. Meanwhile Andrew leaves the church and tries to calm the crowd unsuccessfully. At one point a man pours petrol on him and a moment later the priest catches fire.
In the ruin, Marion takes a knife and injures the palm of her and Veronica's hand. Then she takes the two wounded hands they take each other's hands and recites some Latin words. Veronica senses that it looks like an initiation rite and understands that Marion is also a Janara. Suddenly, however, Veronica has very strong pains and falls to the ground. Marion starts screaming, slamming her hand on the wall realizing that Veronica is pregnant. Marion yells that the Janaras cannot be pregnant. At that moment Alex arrives threatening Marion with a knife. Marion looks at the man with a disturbing face and the man begins to have pain in his chest and bleed from his nose and mouth. In one last gasp of energy, the man manages to plant the iron scissors in his pocket in Marion's leg and stops bleeding. At that point the candles in the ruin go out and noises are heard. Marion says that the original Janara is free and nobody can be saved anymore. A moment later she is dragged into the dark by something and her terrified screams are heard. At that point the two look at the dark with fear holding hands seeing the figure of Janara advancing towards them. Veronica gets up and approaches Janara telling her that she knows she is angry about the terrible punishment she has had (the stake) but also tells her to turn around to see what her actions have led to. At that point we see that behind her there is a long line of sad children. Janara reaches for Veronica's womb and a moment later Janara backs away slowly while holding a baby in her hand and cradling it. Finally Alex embraces Veronica who is crying.
No comments:
Post a Comment