MovieChat Forums > Marebito (2005) Discussion > So is it all about the Prozac?

So is it all about the Prozac?

posted 18 years ago by alan-389
46 replies | jump to latest

Just watched this last night. I see he's an obsessive, unable to connect with reality except thru a camera... He's on Prozac, numb to everything until that guy does the deed with the knife...

But the 'visions' of creatures and the underground don't occur until he mentions he's thrown away his meds...

So are we seeing simply an unhinged man who was on antidepressants following the divorce of his wife, who then kidnaps his daughter?

And am I right in thinking we only see what the main character does while he's carrying a camera?

Or is this film all beyond explanation?

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

At the begining of the movie, he was talking about a paranoid and psychopath person. He was talking about himself. Immediately he starts talking about the man that commits suicide, to confuse us.

As someone pointed in the forums, the main character experience life through his camera, or other cameras. He does not have or does not feel direct emotional connection with the real word. Thats why he is so interested about the man that killed himself in the news. He wants to feel, and like any depressive person, he prefers to feel the bad and awful things. But TV is not real. When he stopped taking the Prozac, things gets worse.

He is obsessed with fear, obsessed with feeling fear, so he uses aliens, monsters, urban legends, that would make any average person feel scared, but not him, again, he is a psychopath.

Without Prozac, his paranoia increases, and doesnt recognize his own wife, and thinks "that" woman is following him. The same happens with the big man in the black coat, that may or not exist.

We are lead to suppose that he is divorced and that his wife had the custody of her daughter. He decides to go and take his daugther back.

At sometimes his sense of reality is really bad, other times he is aware of the real world, but he looks bored and keeps thinking about his dream world, and only one time in the movie, he is completely aware of the real world: thats when he tells us that he killed his wife, a stranger and his daugther.

-

Imagine this:
You have never seen a dead person in you whole life, but then you see a video of a person killing himself, but you are not that impressed. Ironically, you feel like commiting suicide, but you are scared of doing it (Remember the scene when the main character looks like he is going to jump off the bridge, but doesnt do it?). So you start to wonder, how he (the man in the video) was capable of committing suicide. Then you think "Well, he looks like he is scared of something. Maybe if im that scared, then ill be brave enough to kill myself"

Watch again the first 30 minutes of the movie, and it will make perfect sense.

-

It seems that the protagonist is sexually attracted to his daugther. Thats why his daughter is naked, then dresses her, but he still look at her legs, and keeps remembering her naked. Also he tells us that he likes when she drink his blood, "it feels good", at the end of the movie, he finally kisses her, making his fantasy come true.

When her daughter runs out, the man in the black coat calls him, expressing his dissapointment. Then when the daughter gets healthy, he calls him back and the man in the black coat says "no complains". Actually the man in the black coat doesnt exist. He was trying to prove that he can take care of his daughter witout the help of his wife.

As human beings we need blood to live. In todays world we need money, food, entertainment, parents, etc. But our protagonist is a bad father and a daughter
askin him all of that, bothers him, his wife doesnt like it and asks to divorce, he accepts, but gets depressed by it. So her daughter is not actually drinking blood from him, the blood represents money, food, clothes and taking care of her. Taht would be perfectly normal to anyone, but for him its like she is sucking him out.

Any other questions?
Write them down and ill try to answer them.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

Hopefully, Silent Hill wiil be much better, and hopefully it will be hte best movie. :P

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] donniedarkooct31 18 years ago

JESUS Lovelyx.... either im completely retardewd..or you are a genius my friend..

[–] mandymarie_c 18 years ago

Well what I dont understand is Prozac is an antidepressant...Not an antipsychotic, and for him to stop taking prozac is not going to make him start killing or imagine a bunch of crazy *beep* like that, prozac wouldnt have done anything for him really except possibly make him a little bit happier.

[–] blazenthor1 18 years ago

And going off Prozac makes one suicidal, not homicidal.

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

Yes, Prozac is an antidepressant, however psychopaths do need antidepressant. Psychopaths often suffer from depression too, and also Prozac helps them to control other symptoms.

Depression makes you feel bad; feeling bad can make bad and angry thoughts come to your mind. When you feel so bad and you cant do nothing about it, the mind instead of trying to heal itself, it will try to hurt others.

If I remember correctly, in the last scene, both the father and the daughter return to the cave, and we can suppose they will stay there. Meaning: the father chose to reject reality and lock himself with the daughter, staying away from the world.

There is no way to know if he was caught by the police after that, or both died.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] masuka-fan 18 years ago

Brilliant. Thanks for taking the time to write this.

[–] Disastorm 18 years ago

what does the last scene represent ??

[–] GingerSnaped 18 years ago

But what does he appear so terrified in the last scene then?
If that really is his daughter...he should be happy to be with her.
Not have the same expression on his face that the man in the station had.

[–] DimensionKeeper 18 years ago

The last scene is an inversion of what is happening earlier: in "his" world, F is like a pet and depends on him, he is the active-dominant part filming her while she is weak and terrified by her surrounding. When they move down again, note how she is holding the camera and assuming the active part. In the final scene, in her realm, he looks like her pet, in terror and powerless, while she smiles happily at him. So he got what he was looking for the whole movie, the very same terror the man that stabbed himself experienced. And in case it's all an illusion, maybe that guy saw something similiar in his mind while he killed himself (in real)?

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ugh_the_boot 18 years ago

Lovelyx ~> You're a legend! Are you by any chance Takashi Shimizu?! I was soooo confused and everything you have written makes perfect sense. And yes....thank you for taking the time to write this! Everything makes soooo much sense now!

I've got one glaring questiong though...basically why does the movie start with him looking scared as hell.....then the movie goes into his search for the ultimate fear....and it finishes with the scene the movie starts with....the terrified look on his face. What has he seen/done? Is it just him off his nut cuz he's not on the prozac anymore? I understand he is now the pet but he shouldn't be terrified.

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

I think the very first scene is to tell us that in fact the movie is jut about this man and his perspective of the world.
At the end he feels what he was looking for, the terror. He realizes what he is, what he did and what he became. The last thing he says is:

"I wont talk anymore, becuase I no longer need human words"

He is ready to die or anything to come.
As I said in the first post, he wants to commit suicide, but he is not capable of doing it until he feels the terror, but actually that terror for him means the acceptance of what he is, to realize he is now the one on the other side of the camera.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] BOWi 18 years ago

There's something about the ending... The look on the face of F is not very... natural when she's holding her father... Maybe it is just a representation, a mask that the guy put on the face of his daughter... Anyway, I will have to watch it again and again... Good for me, I was able to find it dubbed in french! Whoohoo!(French IS my mother tongue)

[–] fogenthedemon 18 years ago

So whats with the subteranian world?

[–] yellowmask73 18 years ago

Thanx so much lovelyx, you are brillant and a real genius!
I am curious too about the world underground...
I watch MArebito yesterday night and I barely sleep, try figure out was was all about.
Find today your explanation and damn, lovelix you are great!

[–] diamondsaremoisbf 18 years ago

Thank you! Me and my friend wathced this movie last night, and we kind of got it, but then we were just totally lost.

[–] ltheclashl 17 years ago

The guy isn't just a psychopath, he's obviously also schizophrenic.

Where do you get the idea that he's unimpressed by seeing this guy commit suicide? On the contrary, I'd say it does a great deal to him neurologically, and his feelings manifest themselves by his being impressed artistically.
Watch again the manner in which he analyzes the snuff he's watching, how he compares the girls behavior and expression-- the lack of seeing "real terror" on her face unlike the look on the face suicidal man-- he says he'd go so far as to imitate a psychopath to record the terror of the victim on his retina and video tape. He becomes obsessed with finding it, and I definitely don't think it's because he's trying to find something that will scare him into killing himself.

I don't think this guy has any desire to kill himself whatsoever, nor is afraid to do it- again, to the contrary, he couldn't feel fear yet. When he's on the bridge, I don't think he's contemplating suicide, but exactly as he says, he's actually just trying to feel afraid. Fear being such a strong emotion that doesn't require the complexity a sociopath or psycopath lacks in order to be felt, unlike love, it appealed to him as attainable- which it was, ultimately- which is characteristic of his further mental disease.

I think he's a misdiagnosed sociopath and schizophrenic who only got antidepressants rather than the antipsychotics he really needed. They served to boost his seratonin levels without actually ridding him of his callous disregard for pain and lack of empathy and obsession with self-serving and macabre. Witnessing the suicide and/or watching it repeatedly might have triggered his actual deterioration into full on schizophrenia.

[–] Distorty 18 years ago

Great great great explaination, thanks so much Lovelix cant wait to tell my girlfriend who was also very confused by this beautiful but mind boggling film.

[–] bluemacondo 18 years ago

sheesh. lovelyx, I liked some parts of your description here but it's a little too final. I don't think the film is as obvious as you describe it. I fully agree with the poster who indicated that coming off of Prozac would not subsequently inspire paranoid delusions. His desire to shrug off his medication was simply an experiment to experience existence without the medicated glaze. I don't think that prozac supressed his psychosis.

My own view of this character describes a disassociative video artist (which I think is pretty common, though probably not to this extreme). There's a lot of Lovecraft in this film, though obviously modernized to appeal to contemporary modes of "writing." Masuoka's wanderings are an attempt to draw a narrative whose end is the absolute terror he seeks. In this way, he becomes a kind of new H.P. Lovecraft, attempting to write and experience the horror with both eyes open, to experience an enormous truth, even though insanity (rather than just plain ol' death) is the likeliest result of this journey.

I don't think Masuoka is a stranger to violence or death. I thought the earlier portions of the film were evidence that he's seen snuff films in an attempt to break through the thick skin of his desensitized self, and that he's done some camera work for news in videotaping scenes of true crime and other forms of mainstream-lined morbidity (something which we the viewers swallow helpings of on a daily basis). It's just that these experiences have failed to truly terrorize him (remember what he said about "fear of death being merely mediocre.").

Rather than discard the reality of this film, I think we'll find more if we attempt to sift through what's real and what's hallucinated. F. "bleeding her father dry" so to speak? I'm sorry but that cliche sounds unlikely and far from the last word on the matter. The vampirism this pet demon of his describes could arguably be an approximation of the way he himself makes a living with his camera, if anything.

an interesting question for anyone who's got the DVD close at hand (I mailed mine back to netflix, so give me a hand here):

did the suicide only stare at the lens of Masuoka's camera during the last viewing he made of the recorded scene? The way I remember it, Masuoka watched the scene quite a few times, but the exact dawn of his psychotic break was the last viewing, when he noticed the suicide-to-be clearly stared at this own camera as he recorded his final moments. During the earlier viewings of the tape, the suicidal man did not look at the camera. Let me know if you can assert this to be true or not. If I remember correctly, this is also before he stops taking his prozac.

Look, I don't want to sound like a flamer @sshole, but I can't believe we're eating up this analytical synopsis of the film as the last word on the matter. In my opinion, it's WAAAAY too simple.

Watch it again.

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

Dear bluemacondo,

The interpretation I posted here and all the subsequent posts by me, are merely a wrapped-up simple explanation of the plot in this movie. I could attempt to make a full explanation/interpreatation, that would take too much space for a forum, but even so, the plot of this movie is not that complicated, what is complicated is the mind of this psychopath that plays the role of the main character. Complicated is too, the way the movie shows this to us.

As I explained before, the prozac doesnt erraticate or stops psychopath behaviour, although depression and panic attacks are often symptoms within the psychothic disease. So the prozac does help to control psychopathic behaviour, and I know this because one friend is beign controlled from reaching critic levels psychopathy with high doses of prozac. Final state or the "pure" state of psychopathy is not controllable with any kind of medicine, but the movie hints us several times that this man was on medication before the events presented in the movie.

The relation between this man and his camera is meant to show us how disconnected he is from reality, thats why he tries to live experiences and feel through his camera, trying to capture and comprehend the real and common world.

He is very unhappy and unsatisfied with the day-to-day world, he wants something extreme, something spectacular, something out of this world, and his mind helps him a lot, imaging homeless as underworld creatures, and watching strange alien-like animals that walk around the city and nobody noticing them.

Another characteristic of the protagonist is that he is shy and coward; a completely disfunctional member of the society. As I said he is a psychopath, and like a lot of other psychos he is depressed too, he hates his life and wants to kill himself, but he is afraid of doing it, and keeps himself alive, feeling there is nothing else for him in this life and thats the catalyst to his psychotic break.

The fascination with the video is that he realized that if you are so frightened by something, a person prefers to die rather than being reached or killed or whatever thats making you frighten. Thats the way he can commit suicide, being more afraid of something than in commiting suicide, just to distract the mind.

The film is presented only through the eyes of the main character so its impossible to know whats real and whats not, its more accurate to try to realize why the character is seeing what he sees and why he wants to see it the way he sees.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] MrE2Me 18 years ago

did the suicide only stare at the lens of Masuoka's camera during the last viewing he made of the recorded scene? The way I remember it, Masuoka watched the scene quite a few times, but the exact dawn of his psychotic break was the last viewing, when he noticed the suicide-to-be clearly stared at this own camera as he recorded his final moments. During the earlier viewings of the tape, the suicidal man did not look at the camera. Let me know if you can assert this to be true or not. If I remember correctly, this is also before he stops taking his prozac.

You are correct on both counts - the suicide only looked at the camera during Masuoka's last viewing (and from what I can tell, he doesn't do it at all in the previous viewings, which means it's possible it's not what actually happened), and he throws out the Prozac in the very next scene.

I'm also inclined to agree with the rest of your post. I think in some respects people are over-analyzing certain events, while simplifying others. I think when he says he's throwing out the Prozac so his mind is as clear as possible, that's exactly why he does it. Not everything in this movie is a symbol of something much deeper, IMO.

This sounds a bit cliche, but here's one of my theories: Masuoka is always the guy behind the camera, the guy either in control or at least in the position of looking, instead of being looked at, analyzed, filmed, studied. Any time we see him on film, he is the one doing it (or he's just set the camera down somewhere). The first time in the film where someone else has completely flipped the roles around is in the very last scene, with his daughter (?) kneeling on him, grinning, relentlessly shoving the camera in his face. Now he is the helpless one, he is the proverbial snuff victim, and the one person who was always at his mercy is now in charge. Seeing as his life revolves around images and cameras, I do think there's something to the fact that he loses it entirely when his own camera is turned against him.

What about the 12 seconds where the video goes blank? Sticking with the child-abuse theory, it's possible that he was the one who did something to her during that time, which left her in such a terrible state. Perhaps he literally turned off the cameras to do it, or his mind just blocked out that portion of the tape... Just a theory.

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

"I think when he says he's throwing out the Prozac so his mind is as clear as possible, that's exactly why he does it."

Throwing away the prozac does exactly the opposite thing. Prozac is for "clearing" your mind, in other words: it produces serotonin, because without it, the pacient percive things negatively and lacks the capacity of joy. So throwing away the prozac doesn't help to clear the mind at all.

But, MrE2Me, you are correct in everything else. But like "Santa Sangre" half of the movie is about symbols and the other half about the distorted perception of reality by the subject. And just a tiny part of actual events that we can see as they realy occured.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] MrE2Me 18 years ago

Throwing away the prozac does exactly the opposite thing. Prozac is for "clearing" your mind, in other words: it produces serotonin, because without it, the pacient percive things negatively and lacks the capacity of joy. So throwing away the prozac doesn't help to clear the mind at all.

That may well be the case, but the point is HE thinks it will help, so he does it for that reason. All I'm saying is it may just be that simple - guy thinks getting rid of Prozac will help his mind stay clear, so he does it. The end. It doesn't necessarily mean anything more than that.

I've taken Prozac, and I honestly didn't notice any additional "clarity" of the mind. Also, when I stopped taking it, I didn't go on a killing spree (not yet, anyway). But it's different for everyone.

[–] x_screaming_your_name_x 18 years ago

lovelyx i appreciate your theories on this aspect of the movie but you are explaining the most obvious part of the film yes he throws his prozac away to clear his head and see things witout a medicationl block but what should be explained is the real confusing part of the movie and that is not his relationship with the camera for that is fairly simple but his relationship with his daughter. For example. .

1. Why was his daughter in the underground 'fantasy world'?
2. The fact that she was chained i think has a bigger part in the plot. .
3. why was she seen as a vamparic creature even without him looking through the camera?
4. Why would his daughter let him take her through the undergrounds and away from reality?
5. Why did he say he killed his wife and daughter if she was there with him?

this is the area that should should be considered more carefully. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

p.s. who was the woman that he was recording at the window she was in it a couple of times yet i dont understand why?

[–] dj-anon 18 years ago

About the woman at the window, my guess is his wife or a "ghost". I'll check it later.

I never said "he throws his prozac away to clear his head and see things witout a medicationl block". Actually I always said it was the opposite because:

a)Prozac doesn't cause any kind of "medicational block" since it's not a drug that dopes you like morphine.

b)The movie leds us to belive that he takes exact dosis at specific times. So the only adverse effects could be anxiety or nervousness.

c)The only purpose of Prozac is to generate the serotonin that's not being produced by the body.

Since I firmly belive that psychopathy/schizophrenia is the main subject of this movie, the relationship with his daughter is only a way to understand better the character.

During the whole movie we see the events that occur through his eyes and percive things just like he percives them, so we can only guess why he percives and sees them that way.

For example, he find his daughter in the fantasy world because he decided to kidnap her during a psychotic episode. Why she was chained and other stuff have symbolic meaning that are subject to multiple interpretations, and I do not attempt to establish only one interpretation. If you want to know what I think those symbols mean, I can share my thoughts with you (and actualy I have written them earlier in this thread.)

So how can the chain have a bigger role in the plot or how the relationship with his daughter can alter the core and basic meaning of the movie? I don't know... is up to you to make a new theory.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] x_screaming_your_name_x 18 years ago

im not saying that the chain is important i just think that it may mean something for example she was chained when he found her that could mean that she was not happy about where she was or that she was restricted to certain things like money or clothes, or it could resemble the relationship between the mother and daughter if you know what i mean, something like that.

i just think that some things like the daughter could be more to the point of the movie and could be explored a bit more so any thoughts would be a help x

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] xanyk 17 years ago

I'll have a go at this, but mind you I saw this movie as a bit more abstract than the explanations above...

1. Because she's probably not real, she's a representation of the protagonist's desire to feel something.

2. She's been chained up in his brain for a long time, he's that desensitized.

3. I think the camera was closer to showing us an objective reality up to a point... but then we see his POV of what is on the videos, so that kind of makes the camera unreliable. Even "real-life" has video distortion in it as the movie progresses. I think the vampire daughter is representative of his desire to experience something that will provoke some sort of reaction in himself. With her there's blood, there's sexuality, there's even love.

4. Because that's how far he ended up going in his pursuit... totally nutty-bang-bonkers and she's the tour guide.

5. I think that was just a possibilty he entertained, trying to make sense of what was going on in a realistic fashion. It might have something to do with reality or it might not. I think that bit of dialogue is just there to reinforce the confusion between reality and fantasy, and I don't think there is enough reliable information in the film to make a definitive statement as to what happened in "reality".

So I'd say it's not all about the Prozac, it's about what happens when you don't ease up on the snuff movies and tentacle-porn.

[–] kittenmalibu 17 years ago

"Throwing away the prozac does exactly the opposite thing. Prozac is for "clearing" your mind, in other words: it produces serotonin, because without it, the pacient percive things negatively and lacks the capacity of joy. So throwing away the prozac doesn't help to clear the mind at all."

You have some valid points, But are wrong IMHO about the Prozac. Have you ever been on Prozac?? If not, then you can't really comment about it. My guess is no. I was on it for 3 months, and I can say that my mind was NEVER clear on it. In fact, I was at a point once where I thought "everything will just work out" and I made no efforts to work through problems, I was a bit too "don't worry, be happy". So the drug--whilst helping with depression and anxiety attacks--impaired my judgement, and made me a bit numb. He threw the drugs away because he wanted to know how it was to actually have feelings, with fear being the one he had not felt since being on them. It is essentially allowing his mind to be open to what was killed off with the Prozac. I don't think "clearing" it is the way I'd put it, but I can see what MrE2Me is trying to convey.

Does anyone have any opinions on the bit where he takes a train to anywhere to get away?

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it...

www.myspace.com/kickasskunoichi

[–] xanyk 17 years ago

Totally agree with you on that count: Prozac evens you out a bit too much. And doesn't produce Seratonin, it's a Seratonin reuptake inhibitor. Ecstacy is closer to producing Seratonin. Anyway, IMHO neither one has anything to do with making your mind clearer.

[–] ltheclashl 17 years ago

Agreed, it's numbing as hell.

[–] Neffys 14 years ago

Yes antidepressivs are numbing, to the point (obviously different person to person) but can make you totally emotionless...which is scary in itself too.

"I'd like to keep Spike as my pet"- Illyria, Angel S. 5

[–] MrE2Me 17 years ago

dea chick wrote:

I don't think "clearing" it is the way I'd put it, but I can see what MrE2Me is trying to convey.

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it...

www.myspace.com/kickasskunoichi

Just for the record, I don't claim Prozac "clears" anything, I was just quoting the character in the film. In fact, you and I are on the same page with regards to that drug.

[–] dj-anon 17 years ago

Well, technically, Prozac makes serotonin stay in your body for a larger period of time, meaning its not absorbed that quickly.

I have been on a drug very similar to Prozac, actually it was said to be a little better than prozac, but its a SSRI too. I dont remember the name but Im trying to contact my former psychiatrist, though I think she lives in Australia now.

While at the beginning the drug might cause unstable moods, it works much better after the first four months, and a relative of me agrees that you experience the results after at least six months, he is on fluoxetine.

Either way we are not told how much time he has been on prozac (the protagonist), and actually that was not the point, he throws away the prozac because he thinks its gonna help him, I think we all agree on that.

The point was that everything gets worse and he starts to lose control of himself after throwing the prozac. When I saw that I though that would be the normal consequence for a paranoid/schyzophrenic/psychopath, since another relative of mine (lol) has to be always on prozac to not hit the dementia level, and it helps him even if the prozac is not designed for his illness.

Therefore my theory of all of it being a BIG psychotic episode, showing lots of paranoia patterns, plus it being a movie, we get a lot of symbolic and surrealist images for us to interpret the way we think it fits better.

I dont find rare or unique the whole concept of a BIG psychotic episode, with Silent Hill (the games) being another great example.

I want downloadable suicide.

[–] xanyk 17 years ago

I think your "cinematic gaze" theory works pretty well for this one. He spends the whole movie trying to see something horrific through his camera... in the end, when it's turned back on him, that's when his camera catches something truly horrific.

[–] cotorch 17 years ago

Just to elaborate on Bluemacondo's question (though months after it was asked) I think the moment when the suicide turns toward the camera the video was actually paused. That's the reason the starring character has that "WTF?!?" look and immediately thereafter, the hallucination begins.

[–] Muffin-Monster 18 years ago

This may have been said already, but I don't have time to read all the replies right now. If you read up on richard shaver, the entire movie becomes so much clearer. Just read what wikipedia has to offer on the Shaver mystery and you'll come a little closer to "figuring out" the movie.

...personally, I don't think there are answers to half the questions one should ask after seeing this movie. Just like the main character, a need to understand is left with whoever sees it.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The Shaver Mystery. Take ten minutes and, if you haven't before, read up on it a little. The metaphors and parts of the plot become a little clearer. For instance, Shaver claimed the Deros would take humans underground and torture/rape them for prolonged periods of time. That they actually placed outside thoughts/images into the minds of humans. (Once you read his claims, it is easier to just consider him a paranoid schizophrenic, which are ironically the symptoms he claims the Deros induce on their victims)

The Marebito official site even has some info on Shaver and his claims of a prehistoric, underground city/race.

[–] Banana_Flavoured_Pants 17 years ago

Having just read up a little on Shaver I'm going to go with nothing being delusion, symbolism or subtext, everything that's shown actually occurred.

I think the things that push that conclusion for me beyond Shaver's work is the fact Shimizu gets one over on the audience, thinking it's a more "arty" piece than it actually is. Secondly it explains Shinya’s final expression far better than "Oh, he's terrified because of the role reversal" which I’d imagine he wouldn’t care about all that much after believing he did all that he did in an attempt to become insane. Where as him being manipulated by another force then being tortured/raped by it in the imminent future being a little more worrisome. Also I think the near perfect set of events in the film are more likely to be set-up than spontaneous. But we’ll never know.

[–] necroempire 17 years ago

So I'd say it's not all about the Prozac, it's about what happens when you don't ease up on the snuff movies and tentacle-porn.

ahahahahahahahaahaha good one! ahahahahahahahahahaha

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Excuse my spelling mistakes, englist isn't my native language...

[–] morbid_misanthrope 17 years ago

I think this movie is quite clear. Briefly:

The old fellow in the subway killed himself because he had an eyelash stuck in his eye that, try as he might, he couldn’t get out. He wasn’t terrified, rather super annoyed. This is why he killed himself--much like someone with a gnarly case of long-lasting hiccups might.

The protagonist of the movie went crazy due to some seriously expired Pocky combined with an M. Night Shyamalan movie marathon. He made it through “The Village” okay, but after “Lady in the Water” he completely lost it.

F, as the protagonist called her, was actually a rare type of humanoid-looking amphibious lamprey that can be found off the coast of Indonesia. Only the most skilled Asian fishermen/wizards are able to capture them. Very few people know the ritual required to summon and trap this strange and deceptively naked-chick-looking creature, but some scholars believe it involves chanting the lyrics to the song “Afternoon Delight” backwards, ritual Mayan penis blood rope, and an ant farm full of mosquito larvae.

That really was the protagonist’s ex-wife he killed. And although he was nuts by that time, this action could be considered his “moment of clarity.” Initially he was just going to kill her and use her blood for lamprey-lady food, but then he remembered what a nagging harpy she was and how she got the house in the divorce (and his comic book collection, which she only took because she knew he loved it). This snapped him out of his insanity long enough to enjoy killing her.

The protagonist was all scared at the end because he realized he left backup batteries for his video camera at his apartment. His look of sheer terror was more of a dawning realization that he would have to walk back up all those stairs to get the batteries. It’s really rather anticlimactic, but therein lies the horror and mental anguish.

I hope this helps.

[–] prayformojo180 17 years ago

Regarding the part about the Prozac...I think that either the writer used Prozac out of lack of knowledge on the subject or simply because it is one of the most recognized drugs in the world today.

The main character does show a lot of signs of Schizophrenia (delusions, out of touch with reality, some paranoia, etc), but if he were actually to get to the point where he would be having the delusions he was having (visual delusions are actually extremely rare among schizophrenics), then he would have to be on an anti-psychotic like thorazine in order to retain any sense of normalcy.

I know some of you have said you know people on Prozac that are using it for schizophrenia, which I can see happening with certain, mild types of it and is sometimes even used in combination with stuff like lithium in certain circumstances, but it honestly won't do much for the "psychopath" or paranoid variety of schizophrenics.

The way I look at this movie, either the main character is suffering from some form of schizophrenia or everything is really happening as we see it. I believe the former to be the case. I think using the term Prozac is ultimately just a mistake or only relevant to show the state of mind and desire to feel and understand terror, that the main character is in.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] sdblosom 13 years ago

This is the best explanation so far!

If I understand you correctly, it was a game of cat and mouse. He realized too late that he was the mouse all along and that was why he was so terrified.

[–] pmdawn 12 years ago

I'm a weird guy who has a beef with shrinks who don't know *beep*.

I probably have some mental malfunction - I call it depression. I might be bipolar or something else, no one knows for sure.

I'd just like to add that I took Prozac twice. 5 years ago, a few drops - I went completely manic, for the first and perhaps only time in my life. I felt like Superman, invincible. And had I gone out of my house I'd probably do something really stupid.

This year my new "doc" tried to convince me it wasn't such a bad idea and try again. OK I said. I took half a pill (the minimum possible, I guess) for two days. I had headaches and started vomiting, so I decided, to hell with this.

The worst part - and I'm, not sure this movie addresses it - is that you can't just quit "cold turkey". If you do that, you'll be free, but prepare to go through hell. I was really ill for a week right after I stopped taking the Prozac. Now I'm fine.

Some people have no problems at all, but most need "tapering off", slowly stopping the med. I didn't have that choice, only a worthless psychiatrist unreachable on vacation.

If the guy was anything like me regarding the side effects of the med, and specially if he was on high doses, him quitting cold turkey could certainly make one psychotic and definitely suicidal (I was for a few days). I'd say the sickest things on this film are a joyride compared to how you feel when you get off these drugs.

I don't think the film-makers were trying to go that far, though.