(2015)

Submitted by Evan B

Pooper:
All of the monsters besides Vine are killed, but Vine is able to convince the demon to bring Sara back to life. Having embraced his love of humans, Vine becomes a heroic protector of the city and, particularly, of abused children. 

Long Ending:
In this movie, monsters that can take human form live amongst regular people and feed upon human despair. Atum Vine (Tobias Jelinek) is a collector, who sows discord amongst the humans in his apartment building, collects the despair, and sells it to the other monsters living in the building. One day, Vine witnesses a young girl that lives in the building named Sara (Keely Aloña) being menaced by her mother’s boyfriend. After some hesitation, he intercedes and chases the boyfriend away. 

The next morning the monsters notice a change has come over the human tenants and they are no longer able to feel despair. A monster seer, aka an interpreter, named Cornelia (Mary-Margaret Humes in human form/Danielle Chuchran in monster form) casts a spell keeping all the monsters trapped in the building until they can break the curse that has eliminated despair. Cornelia is concerned that the curse will spread if the monsters leave, i.e., all humanity will no longer be able to despair. Vine eventually discovers that a demon is responsible for the change to the humans, but is unable to discover the demon’s identity. 

Many of the monsters die from hunger or otherwise are killed in fights with each other. Cornelia eventually learns that the demon is there because Vine cares for Sara and his feelings have broken the balance between monsters and humans. The Demon seeks to restore balance by killing off all the monsters. Cornelia attempts to kill Sara in an effort to lift the curse. But Vine is able to kill Cornelia before she can kill Sara. Sara then reveals that she is actually the demon who has taken Sara’s form. It turns out that Vine also has the powers of an interpreter and that his decision to save Sara from her mother’s boyfriend was actually a vision. In reality, Vine ignored Sara’s plight and she was killed by the boyfriend. Vine weeps at his failure to act when he had the chance and implores the demon to fix his mistakes before passing out. The demon relents, saying that Vine will usher in a new era between monsters and humans.

Vine awakens in the past at the moment where Sara is being menaced (though the monsters who had been killed remain dead). This time, he really does beat up the boyfriend and saves Sara’s life. We jump ahead to see that Vine has befriended Sara and her mom, and is using his powers as an interpreter and strength as a monster to find and stop other people who threaten other children’s lives.