Genre: Drama/Horror
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Writer: John Malone
Based on the comic series
Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Tye Sheridan, Sydney Sweeney, Toby Wallace, Skyler Gisondo, Ty Simpkins, Jack Kilmer, Annalisa Cochrane, Topher Grace, Tucker Albrizzi, Pauline Chalamet, Nancy Travis
Plot: In biology class, Keith Pearson (Tye Sheridan) is half asleep when the teacher starts splitting the class up into lab partners. Keith is partnered with Chris Rhodes (Thomasin McKenzie) - "a total fox". Today's lab is a frog dissection. Keith takes the lead and cuts open the frog, but quickly faints. He wakes up to words like "dipshit", "wimp" and "pussy" being thrown around while the teacher tries to maintain order. Everyone in the class is laughing except for Chris. After school, Keith heads out to "Planet Xeno" - an isolated clearing in the woods on the outskirts of town - "the perfect place to get stoned". While passing a joint around, Chris' friend Todd (Ty Simpkins) tells him about "the bug", a gnarly STD that's going around. Keith doesn't believe Todd, so Todd regales him with a story. Todd was taking a leak and saw a guy at school checking himself out in the mirror in a weird way. Todd assumed the guy was popping a zit or something but once he got a better look there was a little mouth on the guy's chest - teeth and all. Keith stops Todd’s story and points out someone creeping around in the woods. Todd thinks Keith is just hallucinating on account of the "really good" weed, but Keith is adamant someone was there. Keith and Todd go to investigate and find a dismembered baby doll tied to a tree. Keith hears twigs snapping and turns around to see a face so hideous that it looks like a cheap rubber Halloween mask - "too fucked up to be human" - but yet was. The hideous guy's mouth was all busted up with broken sticking out of his mouth. It starts yelling at Keith: "GOWAH OHHWAH!" Keith runs back to Planet Xeno but doesn't know how to explain what he saw to Todd and just suggests they leave for the night.
Chris is at a house party where she’s getting a lot of attention from various guys at the party, but after a while she begins focusing on Rob Rob Fancicani (Toby Wallace). She finds an open seat near him as he proclaims to anyone who will listen that punk rock is the future of music even if it hasn't quite caught on in the Pacific Northwest yet. Chris is drawn to Rob - there's something "dark" and "sexy" about him, more edgy than the other boys she knows. After his punk rock proclamations, Rob turns to Chris and asks her if she wants to step outside - he could use a smoke. As they walk toward the door, Rob grabs a bottle of wine to take with them. Outside they leave the noise and craziness of the party behind. Rob struggles to light them a couple of cigarettes with his matches as the wind keeps blowing them out. Chris tries to make a joke about Rob smoking Kools. Rob jokes back, "smoke what you are". Rob pops open the wine and they trade swigs as they walk down the dark road. They walk to the cemetery and sit down on a bench. Chris and Rob begin kissing. Rob tries to stop her and tell her something, but Chris doesn't stop kissing him. She climbs up onto his lap. They fall off the bench and onto the damp grass. They take off their pants. It is quiet except for the wind blowing through the trees and their heavy breathing. While Rob thrusts into her, Chris begins kissing his neck. She pulls his shirt open and finds a creepy little mouth gasping for air. Chris screams. Rob asks what's wrong and pulls out of her. Chris stands up, frightened. In a daze, Chris brushes dirt and grass from her naked form and walks back to the party. When she arrives, a group led by Rick Ames (Jack Kilmer) announces that they're going skinny-dipping. Chris decides to tag along to the lake. When they arrive, they find the lake is freezing cold. Chris is the first to strip down. Everybody else simply stares at her back, revealing a long, thin wound developing on her back that runs along her spine. Chris dives in the water oblivious.
Rob dreams that he is walking through the cemetery and finds Chris, naked. She asks him to light her cigarette. He apologizes to her. Rob snaps out of his dream. He's in the middle of having sex with Lisa (Annalisa Cochrane). She asks who Chris is. He pretends to not know what she's talking about. She tells him that he may be able to hide the truth but the mouth on his chest isn’t. Lisa, crying, holds up her hands, showing that webbing has grown between her fingers. She asks Rob if he's moving on from her and on to a "clean” girl. Rob says he thought everything was fine between them. She says it was, but then that other mouth started talking - not just moaning and groaning like usual - but actually talking. Lisa kicks Rob out of her parents' house. He asks where he's supposed to sleep. She says she doesn't care.
Rick arrives as Planet Xeno and tells Keith and Todd about Chris' back, stating it is evidence that she has "the bug". Keith tries to argue that it could be something else - it's not like any of them have ever seen her back before - it could have always looked like that. Rick scoffs at the suggestion. Keith walks off. Todd hits Rick in the arm and reminds him that Keith has had a thing for Chris since kindergarten. Keith walks into the woods. He is disappointed that Chris apparently has "the bug" and everybody knows that the only way to catch it is by having sex with another teen sick with it. Keith wanders into the woods. He then sees Chris walking through the woods, putting her clothes back on. He watches her from the darkness. Chris then steps on a shard of glass and falls to the ground clutching her foot. Instinctively, Keith emerges from the darkness and offers to help. Keith takes a look at her. He pulls the glass out of her foot. He rips off half his t-shirt and fashions a bandage for her shirt out of it. Chris thanks Keith for being sweet and starts walking away. Keith waves goodbye to her. When she is out of sight, Keith looks down at his hands and notices that they are stained with Chris' blood. That night, Keith masturbates to his memory of seeing Chris walking naked through the woods.
Keith and Todd arrive at a rundown house on the edge of town and ring the doorbell. They are let in and led to a sitting room filled with psychedelic rock music posters. The drug dealer, Burt (Topher Grace), excitedly pulls out a cigar box full of packaged bags of marijuana, telling them it's "total kick ass weed", best on the market. Todd and Keith pool together their money. They are about to leave with their purchase, but Burt continues to describe the weed and insists they roll a joint and try it out before they leave. Burt's friends come out of the other room and roll some joints of their own. Keith spaces out. Burt asks Todd what's wrong with Keith. Keith apologizes and says he was just thinking about how the weed is making him thirsty. Burt laughs, saying he was thinking the same thing. Burt then tells Keith to go to the kitchen and bring out a bunch of beers for everyone. Keith gets up and walks down the hall to the kitchen. There Keith finds a beautiful woman, Eliza (Sydney Sweeney), wearing nothing but a nearly transparent white tank top. Eliza realizes she isn't wearing anything else and apologizes to Keith. She grabs a towel and makes a joke about it looking a little like a hula skirt. As she does a little dance to help land her joke, Keith notices a tail sticking out from beneath the towel. Keith goes to grab some more beers for Burt and his friends, but Eliza says they can wait because she wants to show him her room. She takes his hand and leads him into another room. The room is filled with artwork and drawings of various monsters. Eliza tells him that it is her artwork. Eliza leads Keith to her bed and tells him to lay beside her. Eliza begins to massage Keith's back. She whispers into Keith's ear asking if he likes her tail. He admits that he really does. Eliza begins to bite Keith's ear when Burt barges into the room. He apologizes for interrupting and tells Keith that Todd is about to leave. Keith gets up. Eliza says he should stay, but Keith says that Todd is his ride home.
Rob leaves Lisa's house and walks into the woods, past Planet Xeno and toward the distant light of a campfire. Around the fire are Richard Holstrom (Tucker Albrizzi) - who Keith thought looked like a Halloween mask earlier - and Dave Barnes (Skyler Gisondo) whose mouth and nose have turned almost catlike due to a mutation caused by "the bug". They tell Rob he scared the shit out of them. Rob apologizes and explains that Lisa kicked him out. Rob sits down by the fire and asks what's new with them. Dave tells Rob that he and Richard have been finding strange objects tied to and hanging from trees around the woods which has them a bit spooked about staying in the woods much longer - "the bug" be damned.
Chris is smoking a cigarette in a stall in the girls restroom at school. She hears some other girls gossiping about her and Rob disappearing from the party the other night. One jokes that they were probably giving each other "the bug". Chris puts out her smoke and leaves the stall. The other girls apologize for talking about her behind her back. Chris points out that they are only apologizing because they were caught and leaves the restroom. Chris finds Rob waiting for her in the hallway. He asks to talk to her. Against her instincts to tell him off Chris agrees and they leave the building. They walk down a dirt trail to a park. Rob says that he thought Chris knew about his condition. He feels terrible for possibly giving her "the bug" without her knowledge and wishes he could go back to make things better. Suddenly it begins pouring rain. They run for shelter under a massive pine tree. Chris takes off her top and shows her strange, open wound-like mutation that runs along her spine. Rob notices that the skin is loose around the wound and points it out to Chris. She begins peeling away at the skin, peeling off an entire layer of skin over her body in one large piece. Chris then pulls down Rob's shirt, exposing the mouth on his chest. She kisses the mouth which opens, exposing a small tongue that begins fluttering against her own.
Keith is anxiously waiting for Todd and Rick to show up. He paces around the front room of his house while his parents watch a televised debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He finally hears the familiar sounds of a car horn and rushes outside and hops in the backseat of Todd's car. Keith complains that they were late. Todd says he and Rick are about an hour ahead of him and hands him something small and sticky - a hit of acid. Keith sticks it on his tongue. As Todd starts driving, Keith asks where they're going. Rick tells him some girls invited them over. Keith rolls his eyes at them. When they arrive at the house, Keith finds himself entranced by the radiant green of the front lawn as the acid begins to take hold. As they guys all sit down around a table, Jill (Pauline Chalamet) brings them beers and a bowl of Cheetos. Rick takes a gulp of beer and shoves a handful of Cheetos into his mouth. He then looks over at Jill and says that he thinks he is in love. Keith and Todd crack up laughing. Jill looks at them and asks what they're on. Todd says that they are on acid. Jill takes a drag on her cigarette and says that she tried acid once, but didn't care for it - found it "too trippy" - she prefers qualudes - "the perfect buzz". Jill calls her friend Janet and tells her to come over. Before you know it, Rick and Jill are making out in front of the TV that is still broadcasting the Carter-Reagan debate. Rick and Jill end up retiring to a bedroom while Keith and Todd sit around waiting for Janet or Karen or literally any other girl to show up. Keith excuses himself to go to the restroom, but instead sneaks out of the house. He follows what seems like a silver road to him into the woods. He comes across the baby doll tied to a tree again. The sight frightens him and he trips as he begins to run away from the strange display. As he gets up, Keith finds a severed human arm on the ground next to him. He tries to tell himself to snap out of it and that it is just a hallucination, but the arm is really there. He starts running until he finds himself next to Richard and Dave's campfire. They recognize him, but he doesn't recognize them due to their deformities. They offer him some grape soda, which Keith chugs, thirsty from the acid. He tells them about the human arm he saw. He is surprised how interested they are in what he has to say and insist he tell them everything. Realizing how scared and confused he is, the others invite Keith to spend the night in their camp.
Chris and Rob drive out to a secluded beach along the coast. Chris is excited to show Rob her favorite place in the world, where she and her family would always camp when she was growing up. Once they pull over the car, Chris immediately begins running toward the water. Rob hustles to keep up. The two undress and run into the water naked. As they swim around, Rob stops for a moment and looks Chris in the eyes. He tells her that he loves her. Chris tells him that he shouldn't say that unless he really means it. Rob says he means it. Chris tells Rob that she loves him to. They finally get out of the water, freezing. They run back to they parked and start a campfire to warm up. They roll out a sleeping bag and lay looking up at the stars. In the morning, they pack up their gear and drive back to town. Rob drops Chris off up the street from her house. When Chris enters the house she finds her mother Marcia (Nancy Travis) waiting for her. Marcia tells Chris that she got a call from the school about how many classes Chris has been skipping recently. Marcia quickly asks there is some boy. Chris yells at her mom about how she could never understand what she's going through right now. Marcia tells Chris that she is grounded and also reminds Chris that she has a doctor's appointment the next afternoon. Chris begins panicking and packing up a bag of clothes and belongings. She sits down on her bed and begins writing a letter for her parents. She tosses the bag out the window and climbs out after it. Chris meets back up with Rob and together they drive out to the woods. They start walking toward Dave and Richard's campsite. Along the way Rob warns Chris about how "the bug" has affected his friends. When they arrive at the camp, Dave kindly helps them carry and set up their gear. Chris goes off into the woods to take a piss. As she squats down, she finds the dismembered baby doll. She gives out a scream. Rob races to get to her. He hugs her. She tells him she is scared and asks Rob to tell her everything will be alright. Rob holds her and assures her that everything will be okay. That night, Rob is walking through the woods when figure emerges from the shadows and begins beating Rob in the face with a metal pipe until he is a limp, bloody mess.
Keith is walking down the street as the weather is starting to turn toward summer. He stops off to buy a popsicle at a convenience store before continuing on his way. He eventually makes his way to Burt's house where Eliza is sitting on the porch. She says it's nice that he finally came back to see her. Keith fumbles his words and Eliza says she knows that he just came by to buy some weed but it is still nice to see him. Eliza tells Keith that Burt isn't around and invites him inside. When they get to her bedroom, Eliza lays on the bed and asks Keith to roll them a joint. Keith sits at the edge of her bed carefully rolling a joint. Eliza climbs onto his lap. Keith gets nervous and asks to use the restroom quickly before they do anything. Eliza laughs and tells him the way. In the bathroom, Keith splashes water on his face and takes some deep breaths. When he leaves the bathroom, Burt spots him and begins yelling at him. Burt clearly doesn't recognize Keith and accuses him of being some junky thief trying to find his stash. Keith tries to remind him that they met. Burt finally does remember and offers Keith a joint. Eliza emerges from her room completely naked and tells Keith to come in. Keith goes back into the bedroom and Eliza locks the door behind them. She lit candles to set the mood while Keith was in the restroom. Eliza undresses Keith and pushes him down onto the bed. She then climbs on top of Keith and begins riding him. After a while, she slows down and tells Keith she wants to finish with him doing her from behind. Keith obliges, but Eliza's tail keeps getting in the way. She tells him to grab the tail, but not to stop. As they both finish, Eliza's tail snaps in half in Keith's hand. Keith looks in his hand in shock as the broken off tail continues moving. Eliza says it's not a big deal - it'll grow back.
Chris wakes up alone in her tent. Rob still hasn't returned. Scared, she decides to go over to Richard and Dave's campsite where they are hanging out. Dave tells Chris that he hasn't seen Rob, but that if she ever needs anything he is around. Keith then shows up with a bag of groceries for them. Keith smiles at Chris when he sees her. Keith tells Chris that he is housesitting for some family friends - the McCrosky's - and she can crash there if she doesn't want to sleep in the woods or at the very least she can use the shower and do some laundry. They take a walk down to the house so he can show her where the spare key is hidden. Chris thanks Keith, but admits that all she can think about is where Rob could be since he's been gone way too long and nobody's heard from him. In the morning, Keith heads over to the McCrosky house to bring in the mail and water the plants, but the spare key is gone. Assuming Chris took him up on his offer, Keith enters the unlocked house. Inside he finds Dave , Richard and bunch of other "sick" kids. Keith goes out into the garage to smoke a joint away from the others. He finds the McCrosky's have left one of their cars in the garage with the keys inside. Keith eyes the car as he smokes. When he's done with his joint, Keith goes inside and finds Chris in one of the bedrooms. He opens the door. Chris is naked in the middle of the room peeling off her skin. She yells at Keith to go away. Keith quickly closes the door and sits on the other side listening to Chris cry as she rips away the skin. Keith goes to the bathroom. He takes his shirt off in front of a mirror and notices strange sores rapidly developing along his ribs. At first they look like purplish bumps, but they grow before his eyes until they almost look like tadpole tails. While he's in the bathroom, Keith hears a series of gunshots. When he goes back downstairs he finds all the "sick" kids are dead with bullets in their heads - all except for Dave who is nowhere to be seen. Keith runs back upstairs to check on Chris. The bedroom door is locked. He calls out for her, but there is no answer. He breaks down the door, but finds the room empty and window open.
Chris goes back out to the woods as it begins pouring rain. As she is calling out Rob's name repeatedly, Dave emerges and invites her into his fort where it is dry. Chris agrees and follows him out of the rain. Once inside, Dave immediately lunges at Chris, trying to kiss her. Chris pushes him off of her. Dave begins crying, saying that he wants her to be with him not Rob, that's why he got rid of Rob. Chris realizes that Dave killed Rob and hits Dave over the head with a piece of wood and runs away. When Dave finally gets up, Chris is long gone and the rain has stopped. He walks through the woods until he comes to a pile of branches and leaves. He moves them, revealing Rob's rotting body underneath. Dave decides to dig a hole and drags Rob's body into it. Dave then pulls out his gun and shoots himself in the head. Dave's lifeless body falls into the hole next to Rob's.
Keith calls Eliza and tells her some heavy shit is going on and he wants to run away from it all. He then asks Eliza if she'll come away with him. Keith goes to the McCrosky's house and steals their car. He goes to pick up Eliza. She excitedly runs from Burt's house - carrying nothing but a big bag of weed - and jumps into the car. She kisses Keith on the cheek as he pulls away. In the morning they stop, they're in California now. Keith is exhausted from driving, so they pull over next to a rural field. Keith and Eliza fall asleep in the back seat. When Keith wakes up, he finds Eliza sitting in the sun, naked. Her tail moves slowly back and forth. Eliza holds out a joint and calls him over. Keith asks Eliza where she would like to go. She tells him she has always dreamed of going to Monument Valley after seeing it in old western movies with her grandfather. Keith smiles and says "Monument Valley it is". Eliza leans into Keith and says she loves him. He smiles and says he loves her too, he'll love her forever - no matter what.
Chris walks along the highway, drinking from a bottle of vodka. When she sees headlights emerge from the darkness, she sticks her thumb out to hitchhike. She tells the driver that she's trying to get to the coast. The driver lets her out down the road from her favorite place in the world. She walks onto the beach and strips off her clothes. Chris looks out at the black ocean. She dives in and begins swimming as hard and fast as she can, out beyond the breakers. After a while, she rolls over and floats on her back. She stares up at the stars in the sky.
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