A Dark Song(2016)

Submitted by Evan B

Pooper:
Joseph dies from a knife wound, but Sophia completes the ritual and summons her angel. Instead of asking the angel for vengeance on the people that murdered her son, she asks the angel to bestow upon her the ability to forgive them.

Long Ending:
A woman named Sophia (Catherine Walker) rents a large mansion in the countryside. She tells her sister not to interrupt what she plans to do. Sophia then picks up an occultist named Joseph (Steve Oram) at the train station and brings him to the house. Sophia wants Joseph to help her engage in a ritual that will summon forth her guardian angel. Although initially hesitant due to the great risk they will face during the ritual, Joseph agrees to help once Sophia says she will ask the angel to allow her to speak with her murdered son.

Joseph explains that once the ritual is started, they will not be able to leave the house until it is over. The ritual will involve many unpleasant things, including starvation and sleep deprivation. The ritual may take an entire year and may not even ultimately work. If it does work, however, they will summon Sophia’s angel and each of them will be able to make a wish that it will grant. Sophia agrees to move forward. Torturous months go by and Sophia begins doubting the efficacy of Joseph’s work. She becomes enraged when he tricks her into stripping naked so he can masturbate to her (getting revenge by pouring her urine into a soup she makes for him). A few potentially supernatural things occur such as unexplained noises, an invisible dog barking, and a bird slamming itself against the window. But after they finally try to summon the angel (months after they began), it doesn’t work.

Sophia almost leaves after the failure of the ritual, but Joseph eventually convinces her to stay and try again. He says that he suspects the ritual failed because Sophia has been hiding her true motive for summoning the angel. Sophia finally tells Joseph the truth, that she intends to wish for vengeance on the people that abducted and murdered her son (the culprits were never found). With her true motive known, Joseph says he needs to change a few parts of the ritual to get it to work. In the middle of the night, Joseph awakens Sophia and brings her to the bathtub and demands she gets in. He says that to make the ritual work, she needs to be “reborn.” Joseph then forcibly drowns Sophia until she loses consciousness, and then manages to resuscitate her. An enraged Sophia later attacks Joseph in the kitchen. In the skirmish, Joseph is accidentally impaled on a knife. He says this is a sign that his efforts to make her “reborn” worked and that being stabbed was the price he had to pay for engaging in such a strong spell. Realizing that Sophia doesn’t trust him, Joseph reveals his wish to restore her trust. He wants to become invisible as he’s lived a hard life and wants to find peace before he someday dies.

With no more secrets between them, the ritual begins working in earnest. Sophia begins witnessing supernatural events, such as spectres wandering the house and leaves falling from the ceiling. The pair also begin growing close and treating each other more kindly. Although Sophia stitches Joseph’s knife wound, it becomes infected. Unable to leave the house due to the ritual, Joseph grows weaker by the day. Meanwhile, the spectres become very aggressive towards Sophia. An unseen spectre with her son’s voice taunts Sophia. The spectre asks if she’s really seeking for her son’s forgiveness (it’s revealed she was late to pick him up the day he was abducted), but she affirms again she just wants vengeance. One night, she finds Joseph weeping in bed. She comforts him as he passes away. Sophia then takes his books in hopes of completing the ritual, only to find that they have all been covered over in black marker (ostensibly by the spectres). Sophia leaves the house, but after walking for hours through the countryside, finds herself back at the mansion (the ritual has her trapped). With no other choice, she goes back inside.

That night, the spectres chase and catch Sophia. They drag her to the basement where they chop off one of her fingers. She manages to escape and runs for the stairs, but is captured again halfway up them. Sophia cries out that she’s sorry, and a bright light suddenly shines from the doorway above. The light forces the spectres to retreat, and Sophia returns upstairs. There, she finds a gigantic angel waiting for her. She walks up to it and the angel asks what her request is. In awe, Sophia asks the angel for the power to forgive (including those that murdered her son). The angel smiles and its light grows. Sophia leaves the mansion, submerges Joseph’s body in the nearby lake where it can rest in peace, and drives away in her car. As she drives away, she sheds tears.