They Remain - Story Explained - Full Spoilers
I watch movies with subtitles on and what cracked me up with They Remain is that every minute the subtitles would just read ominous music plays. Near the end of the film that changed to eerie music plays. There’s not a tone of dialogue in this flick, but there’s a lot of ominous music and I think that really sums up this movie. Directed by Philip Gelatt, it stars Rebecca Henderson and William Jackson Harper.
Premise:
Keith and Jessica are working in a large area of land to research and discover if there is an environmental factor that can cause mass murders. On this land a long time ago, a cult ruled and killed a lot of people, burying their bodies in the “killing field”. Keith and Jessica are determining if there is something in the soil, the water, the air, or even an animal secretion that could cause this kind of violence. They are isolated, only able to talk to a company representative named Tex over the phone to give them updates, and of course each other.
As the project continues strange things happen; Jessica hears knocks on the walls of their compound, Keith is having strange dreams of the cult, and they find some strange things in the land.
“The world is large and unknowable.”
What I loved (full spoilers):
This movie is based on a very complicated and dreamy short story called -30- by author Laird Barron. Adapting something like this is no easy feat. But Gelatt did a fucking incredible job. First off – this is not a movie with a black and white narrative. It does not have an answer. This story is, when you lay it all out, a study of the descent into madness. There’s no AHA IT WAS A MONSTER or AHA IT WAS MENTAL ILLNESS, your hand is not held in this movie and when it finishes you need to mull over the story and see what you take out of it. And it’s fucking brilliant.
Here’s how I interpreted it: the company that sends our two main characters to this land are actually examining human isolation, using the land investigation as a scapegoat. We learn throughout the film that there was a previous group that had been sent down, the leader had gone crazy and tried to kill other members. When Keith is freaking out, thinking that Jessica is trying to sabotage him, he calls Tex and asks for an EVAC and Tex refuses. What type of organization refuses to evacuate their members when their lives are clearly in danger? Unless the secret reason they’re down there is to watch how people descend into madness. I don’t think the cult really has much to do with it other than to be the coverup story. Was there even a cult there originally? They don’t actually find any evidence of one. Perhaps this is just a story fed to the scientists to see how they react to scenarios around them. Ultimately, a scientist is trained to looked for logic, to look for evidence, to prove a theory. If you place a scientist in an environment asking them to solve a problem, but secretly knowing there is no answer to the problem, that scientist will realistically work to madness trying to solve it. And that’s what I think the movie is about – studying a descent into madness with two people placed into a controlled environment. Is this only the second team to be there? Maybe. Maybe this is the 15th team to be sent down there.
I just loved this strange little movie you guys. Everything is so beautifully shot with long, lingering shots in the forest, strange nightmare segments, and bizarre imagery. The acting was outstanding, especially by Rebecca Henderson who starts off as a sort of no-nonsense scientist and has this complicated but slow-moving descent into insanity. We see her only from Keith’s perspective so who knows what’s really going on. But Jessica is so intense. She’ll just go “someone was knocking on the wall last night…” and leave it at that. I think you could genuinely say to her, “I just murdered someone in the woods” and she’d just nod and continue her experiment. I was obsessed with her. Not to take away of course from William Jackson Harper who carries this movie as the main lead. Outstanding work, especially as his paranoia grows near the end and he accuses Jessica of poisoning him.
So, is there horror? Yes. It’s not a jump scare movie. It’s the slowest of slow burns. It’s one of the movies where you just know something is wrong but can’t say why. But the horror does gradually arrive. There’s a dog constantly showing up in the woods, throwing Keith off guard. There’s the strange nightmares that get more and more graphic and violent. There’s a strange cavern in the woods that plays a huge plot point in this strange tale. And there’s some pretty excellent effects. At the end of the film Jessica throws a vile of acid in Keith’s face. We watch as his skin melts down the side of his face and arm, the camera does not shy away. It’s absolutely disgusting. And watching Keith stumble through the woods with his face and arm melted in the bright sunlight is something I will think about for a long time.
“The decline of human civilization continues apace.”
Overall:
This is absolutely not for everyone. This will not give you answers, it will not hold your hand, it will not jump out and scare you. This is for someone who wants to spend an hour and a half being unnerved and confused and scared but not sure why. A really beautiful achievement in slow burn bizarre horror. Ominous music plays.
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