.....I feel dumb as hell. I just don't get it. Or is it one of those that's left down to your own interpretation. Was Clay always a "Phoner" and the whole movie was a fantasy in his head? Was Clay transformed at arrival to the tower and just the end explosion was in his head? Who the hell was the red hoodie guy. Guess I should've paid more attention throughout what was quite a disappointing movie. Still....I gotta know. Please help lol.
shareClay was the Raggedy Man all along. He created him, after the brutal murder of his son. He's not a part of the "phoners" because they don't exist, except as a construct in his insane mind. Clay is just another patient in a hospital for the violently insane, having lashed out and killed several people at the airport after he received a phone call from his wife as she shot and killed his son, then turned the gun on herself (hence the horror coming from the cell phone). This causes a psychotic break (a familiar theme for King - see "The Shining") and plunges Clay into despair and depravity.
Tom and Alice were actually his first two victims.
The entire journey is very reminiscent of Jack's descent at the Overlook, complete with the brief, false respite at the bar with the English bartender and not-quite-right patrons (again, I remind you, they are figments of his own mind)
The night amongst the other lost souls at the end represents his struggle for sanity, the vision of his son is his glimmer of hope.
I hope all of you are satisfied with yourselves, for condemning a movie you clearly do not have the intellect to understand. This was perhaps deeper than any Stephen King movie ever made, including The Green Mile. Thought-provoking at the loftiest levels or story-telling. A true masterpiece.
It didn't seem to make sense because the entire movie was from the Clay's fractured view of reality. Brilliant. Just Brilliant.
Is your understanding of the film a little too lofty. Not trying to be rude or anything but from one who has read the book the concepts you were pose were never posed in the book. It is a simple end of the world story. The reason for the end of the world is where the complications come in. I think your interpretation is brilliant, and if I saw any eveidence of this through the film I would have to agree.
sharethats a very interesting take on it all.... King does have a way of doing it 'mind out of mind, imagineering' style...
shareNice try. In fact, the whole thing is the fever dream of Daniel Rey from Paranormal Activity 2. During the opening scenes in the airport, you can hear him talking in the public restroom:
"Put security cameras in the whole house. Except the bedroom... Kristi wouldn't go for that. My pool cleaner's even gone rogue. No, I'm serious. Yeah, it's jumping out of the pool on its own."
Moments later, you hear an announcement regarding a change to Gate A6 - a reference to the Superflu from The Stand. At this point, Daniel is already infected, and the entirety of the film (and possibly the ongoing events of PA2) are the result of the delerium caused by the flu.
Alternatively, this is an interpretation I pulled out of thin air, just like yours.
While you're entirely free to make up your own story about the meaning of the film, the fact that others don't agree with you doesn't automatically make them your intellectual inferiors.
That's, um, creative. I really don't see any supporting evidence for your take on it, but points for original.
shareI thought the movie was great but terrible sound issues. It was a tricky way of figuring it out and I am not quite sure how it goes. I can't tell you how the ending is either. One of those movies that makes you really think. I usually don't like them but I did like this one. Not everyone likes the same movies. I think the sound editing was way bad, when that guy tells Clay to follow him and to talk to him and then blow himself up.
I think the whole movie was Clay's mind after he was already turned at the beginning showing him what it could of been but he was in the trance all the way through the movie, while whatever turned him had control of his mind. I think it was just an interpretation of what his mind is doing throughout the whole movie. He really was a infected from the beginning.
Oh well, I still liked it. Not his best adaptations but it was okay to me. If they fixed the sound, then I would like it more.
No more IMDB boards for me!
Clay was the Raggedy Man all along. He created him, after the brutal murder of his son. He's not a part of the "phoners" because they don't exist, except as a construct in his insane mind. Clay is just another patient in a hospital for the violently insane....I hope all of you are satisfied with yourselves, for condemning a movie you clearly do not have the intellect to understand...It didn't seem to make sense because the entire movie was from the Clay's fractured view of reality. Brilliant. Just Brilliant.Are you trolling? If not, you clearly didn't read the book then because ALL of that is wrong.
İ like the ending best. The ending was not explained because you need to complete it as you wish or how you understand about the film. Because books are always like this. İt doesnt necessarlily a clear ending. İt ends as you get from the movie. For example in my opinion at the end the man became like his kid. Because he had thought if he calls as he was said to everything would be allright (it was a trick to tell him to have a call at the end) or second guess of me is that at the time he realizes there is nothing to bring his son back maybe he had a call to be like his son instead of to be killed by them. Or we had better read the book :-)
shareTO address as others have addressed the movie ends with tom killing or thinking he kills the red hoodies guy. Then his son having been converted converts him as the people in the bar were convered through the sound out of his mouth. He never blew the bus to destroy the tower and he and his son never escaped. this was a his last thought before converstion. In the book and I belive in the Stacey keach scene they discuss about the human brain being a hard drive and they imply that the hard drive has been whipped. they go into more detail in the book about this.
shareThe ending was the only part of this snoozefest that was kind of interesting. Everything before it was an amatuerish watered down version of 28 days later. I fell asleep halfway through the first viewing.
shareyeah, its pretty confusing. Its not a good move from this movie, bad twist. I dont think its worth to think about.
THRILLER IS MY FOOD!
Might help >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXCxFqO4e7g
shareWhy do people have to refer to 28DL at all? they are nothing alike. STOP IT !! ;)
Anyway, simple fact here is that the phone lines are polluted/infected/broken - how would he make a call?
What astounds me is that if the people in the bar are that easily infected with the pulse, i.e. without phones, why werent they all infected? It makes zero sense to let him get further and further up the tracks, to his ex wifes house, to the tower etc.
Don't get me wrong, i enjoyed the film to the extent i rated it a 4, it was an ok watch. However, it was a crap conversion (book to movie) and overall a botched job that was visually lazy, poorly scripted, executed with neolithic incompetence and rushed from start to finish.
Oh and one more thing - to those two 'dumbasses' who had a playground squabble earlier in this thread, grow up. I wasted time reading through your petty row, this is a message board not a locker room.
Your last paragraph: YES! Locker room, lol.
"When Life Gives You Lemons"
Ezra: write a book about the lemons
My take on it:
Yes - all in his head. the "devil"/"demon" was repaying it's creator with a sense of happiness rather than just nothingness/emptiness the rest had.
How much is in his head is debatable. We know the ending is - he's walking into the sunset with his son... while he's mindlessly walking with the rest of the flock.
I think the whole film, perhaps even the time before the film, is in his head.
Working backwards:
We know the ending is a construction.
The bit where he pumps the shotgun shells into the red-hoodie demon is a construct (the flock don't stop when the demon "dies", also the demon is alive when Cusack is walking the walk)
I think the meeting (working back still) with his son is a construct - how else would the son suddenly appear out of 100 000s of walkers?
Moving on back - the bit with Alice (the beautiful Isabelle Fuhrman, Mmmmmm)... She was (perhaps) created by the demon to provide a "replacement" for his wife.
She states that she saw him and his son and wanted to be part of that, hated seeing him with the GF "Liz"... she wanted to be with Cusack's character but he... not so much rejected but ignored the overtures.
So he she was killed off (in the construct) so as not to mucky up the end happiness.
The same with the ex-wife - she was killed off in the construct to provide him with "closure" - why else was she in the attic cupboard (how would the son even get her in there?)
And the son - was already a "phoner" when he put the note on the fridge - again, how else would the ex be in the cupboard, how would the son know about the "safe zone" place?
It was all part of the constructed reality - to lead him to that place where he could "be the hero and walk into the sunset" while still being the mindless walker.
The demon was still trying to thank his creator - thank him with a sense of happiness (notice how all the colours were bright and punchy in the pre-end sequence, the walk into the sunset with his son, going to see his friends?) (maybe that's what "heaven" is?)
Cusack's character was, at the end, deep in the middle of the walkers - he'd been there a long time (in the construct, he's outside of the circle of walkers).
It's possible he created the demon by the very act of writing about it (there's a fantasy-viewpoint that the writing of a story actually creates a new realm/dimension/reality where that story really exists - that's why it is actually quite difficult for first-time writers to start and create a realistic/believable story... they are creating an entire reality).
Then demon wanted the thank/appease his creator with that feeling of happiness - he needed to be deep in the *beep* (the start of the film) then fight his way out and then be the "hero" of the day and do the walk in the sunset... that was Cusack's character's "heaven".
Also to note - I consider this an allegory for religions to:
Mindless following of a proscribed "ethos"; the joining of individuals into the conglomerate; the loss of "self", the promise of "do as we say and you'll be rewarded in 'heaven'"... even the "jesus and his FLOCK" bit..
As an aside - I used to like that "never walk alone" song, sort-of "uplifting"... now I see the dark side of it, the loss of "self" into the great human communal body, the "Flock"...
I'd rather be entirely alone, just be and my kittehs and no one else, on a farm in the hills.. no humans for miles..
@ caseyfluffbutt
That makes no sense, when he is revealed to be one of them, you can see the truck parked there. If he was part of that walking crowd all the movie through, there is no reason for that truck to be there, as we see him, and it, outside of his mind.
I think the intention was that the kid got to him before he could blow it, but they make him think he did blow it and survived.
Hmm.. yes.
Your idea there makes sense. I was thinking that the truck could be an extension of that reality to the film-viewer..
But, Occam's Razor, your one is simpler.
Sad then, that some of the sillier things were in (film) real life.
The cell signal controls you by making you see whatever you want to see. The ending is the cell signal doing that. He blows the tower and saves the day, but it's all in his mind. The reality is that he was infected shortly after he arrived at the tower.
It was a terrible movie with a bad ending. I've never really liked John Cusack as an actor, and it blows my mind that Samuel L Jackson is even in this.
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