(2017)

Submitted by Anonymous

Short pooper:
Everything that happens to Steven’s (Colin Farrell) family in the movie is, in essence, a revenge curse from Martin (Barry Keoghan) due to his father dying on Steve’s operating table and can only be reversed by one of Steven’s family members dying, thus “establishing the balance” (sort of eye-for-an-eye). Steven’s son, Bob (Sunny Suljic) dies and the curse is reversed.

Long version:
The strange events Steven’s children, Bob and Kim (Raffey Cassidy), go through -being paralyzed, not wanting to eat and, eventually, Bob bleeding from his eyes as a prelude to a likely imminent death- are basically a revenge curse bestowed by Martin upon Steven and his family, in retribution for Martin’s father dying while being operated on his heart by Steven. When questioned about it by his wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman), he denies any wrongdoing -Anna suspects him because of a previous drinking problem-. Then, she inquires the anesthesiologist and family friend Matthew (Bill Camp) who -in exchange for being masturbated by Anna, which he had wanted before- reveals Steven had indeed drunk the morning of the surgery.

Desperate to make the whole calamity to stop, Steven abducts Martin, keeps him confined in his basement and periodically berates, beats and tries to torture him, to coerce him to stop; unfortunately, Martin is unmoved and apathetic -throughout the movie, he shows an eerie calm, almost sociopathic, behaviour- and goes as far as biting off a chunk of his own arm to prove the point that he doesn’t care, the kidnapping won’t change Steven’s family’s impending fate and, as he also says, “time is running out”. Anna, convinced that Martin indeed has the upper hand in this matter, lets him go, to Steven’s dismay.

The whole family comes to the point in which they agree one of them will have to die and alternatively debate who it should be -the children do it between themselves, while the parents decide it must be one of the kids, since they are easily replaceable-; the whole time, meanwhile, Kim is shown as having a crush on Martin and even offers to escape with him as a possible sacrifice to stop the curse.

Eventually, Bob reaches the third stage of the curse and starts bleeding from his eyes, which means he’d be the first one to die. At this point, Steve decides to just choose randomly who to send off; he binds them all in the living room, loads a rifle, blindfolds himself with a wool hat and starts spinning around while firing. Two shots are fired with no effect; but the third one hits Bob in the chest, killing him.

Some time later, Martin runs into the three surviving family members at a diner and they all lock eyes in an intense gaze at each other -it is worthy of mention that, during this sequence, Martin sits towards the back of the joint, in a dark place, while Steven and his family are closer to the front entrance, where there is light, and Bach’s religious hymn “St. John’s Passion” plays over, possibly symbolizing a test from the Devil the family underwent and survived, as atonement for a misdeed-. The movie ends as the family leaves, Martin sees them go, Kim turns and looks at him with a shy smile -she obviously still had feelings for him- and he stares back at them with a dreary expression.