Is it just me who thinks that the punishment was not fair? They say: "you're not Claire, you're Duke, and you have to pay for what you did".
But this creature has Claire's memories, Claire's feelings and recognizes itself as Claire - so I'd say it's actually Claire. So it's like endlessly torturing Claire for what Duke did. Poor girl, not only she was killed by serial killer, she also has to suffer eternally. Do you call that a justice?
I think the directors were trying to show that "Hell" for Duke is continuously experiencing what he did to his victim from the victim's perspective.
"It Rub's The Lotion On It's Skin Or Else It Get's The Ho(r)se Again"I Can (aka ThrownMuse)
Yeah, I got that, but if they give Duke Claire's perspective of view, memories, feelings, everything - it is the same as to torture Claire.
The punishment doesn't make any sense if Duke doesn't even know he's Duke. They eternally torture poor Claire who doesn't understand what's going on and why she suffers.
Claire is dead. Her "soul" or whatever is elsewhere. Duke's soul is trapped in Claire's existence. Claire has no idea any of this is going on--her "soul" is elsewhere. That's what I got from it anyway.
"It Rub's The Lotion On It's Skin Or Else It Get's The Ho(r)se Again"I Can (aka ThrownMuse)
THANK YOU!!! I didn't catch the last few seconds and you helped make sense out of a very confusing ending...
Land of the Free because of the Brave!!!
I concur.
Spider-Man 3 = A Gift and A Curse
..Looking forward to POTC 3: At World's End
we are not the sum of our memories, experiences and feelings
shareAre we not? What if one day somebody says to you - "hey, roxalien, you're not actually roxalien - you're Hitler's soul with all of roxalien's memories, experiences and feelings! so let's have your fingers cut off one by one!" - I guess you would change your mind :) (don't take it personally)
shareyeah but it isnt claire anymore, shes dead, he just takes on what she had to go through, now he has to go through it as her. and he finally finds that out at the end.
shareGood point, which I didn't think of! Now that Duke finds out that he's Duke in the body of Claire (and if he will keep remembering it during the further tortures), it makes much more sense and justice indeed.
shareSure he does find out, for a moment claire's appearance changes to Duke's. I think this is a great idea to deal with "hell".
The thing I didn't really get is the mother's role. At first I thought she might not be claire's real mother but kinda angel of revenge, but it confused me when she said "My daughter's dead. You are not my daughter." Has she died too and Duke fell into her revengeful soul's clutches? And why isn't Claire herself present? Is she perhaps "Duke"? Any ideas?
My opinion is that this is not Claire's mother, but a revenging daemon, playing role of Claire's mother. This might explain why she said "my daughter" - daemon is still playing the role. Claire is not present because she's probably in Heaven, and daemons don't want to introduce duplicate character in the torture play - Claire is played by Duke's soul.
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I loved the idea of justice/hell here.
I nearly turned the movie off several times because of it's low production value, but it was just interesting enough to keep watching. The payoff ending was worth the wait.
I'll gladly watch this one again the next time it's on cable.
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one of the best ending in a horror movie I have ever seen it gave me chills when you learned that clare was really butch and he was in hell and this was his price for murdering her.
shareI like the end, too. I like how it doesn't end in the basement. I like that it ends with Claire/that dude waking up back at work again. Also, i agreee with Jonah. In my opinion, even though b horror flicks are usually cheap and dumb, the cheap and low budget look gives a more... gritty and unsettling feeling lol.
shareYea, I like the cheap look, too. Come to think of it, all my favorite horrors have cheap/low budget looks. The Descent, 28 Days Later, this one. And the ending was the best part, it stuck with me long after the movie was over.
shareMy take on it was that after Duke finds out that he's really just reliving Claire's death, It will be from that point on that he'll always be aware of the fact that his punishment is to relive her death over and over again. That's why her face looks dreadful in the end when she wakes up in the store, because now he knows that he has to go through that horrible day, everyday of his eternal life, It's not like he's made to forget what he's found out and have to make the discovery all over again. The point of hell is to know that he has to relive claire's death. Of course in the beginning of the movie he doesn't know the truth because he's just been killed by that sheriff and isn't aware of the fact that he's dead and running around as claire. He finds out in the end just like we as the audience finds out and afterward it can be assumed that he'll now be aware of the fact that he has to relive claire's death again and again.
shareWell, if THAT is really what the ending is supposed to mean, I think this movie rocked. As I said in another post about this movie, I watched it a couple of months ago when it was on the Sundance channel or something like that, and I STILL think about the end of it to this day. I just didn't get it and it haunted me that bad! And, I don't even watch horror movies that much because I have anxiety attacks from them.
And to the posters who said that the low budget look of this film made it that much more scary, I agree with you. I think that is what made me watch this movie to begin with. The description said something like "a girl is made to relive her death daily", I think...and then I clicked select and was like "hey..this may not be half bad"..then all the gruesome stuff started, but I couldn't look away..it held my attention that much!
Actually I agree with the first notion. I understand Duke's "soul" is suffering, but if "he" is not conscious of what "he" did and why "he" is suffering, than who is being punished? He really thinks he is Claire, he really thinks he is going crazy, his own conscious should be somewhere in "her" body. Just my oppinion.
shareMaybe I'm just over simplifying the ending but it seems pretty simple to me. He murdered 2 innocent kids and was killed, so his punishment in hell is going through what he inflicted. The other "people" in his hell don't really exist because they aren't taking place on a terrestrial plane. It's just his "soul" suffering for what he did and it involves nobody else. Quite a excellent ending actually since I usually figure these kind of movies out in the first 10 minutes.
shareI just finished watching this film and am wondering if I can hang around for three more hours, meaning that by the time "Salvage" comes back around and I watch it, it will be about 7 a.m. Or, I could tape it and try watching it when it might be a bit less overpowering.
Having an unknown cast and looking low-budget DOES give it immediacy. It FEELS real! The intruder is my most persistent and terrifying nightmare, so this one truly hit home. About a week ago, while watching TV late in the evening, I decided to get something to drink. By the time I reached the dining room, I could feel a cold draft and wondered where it could be coming from. By the time I reached the center of the kitchen, I saw something that made me feel as if my heart would stop: The back door was half-open! I wanted to freeze in place, but I also needed to shut that door and lock it again once I saw that no one was near it. Once that was done, I turned to look through the open door to the garage, where we had left the light on, my heart pounding, my body trembling, terrified of who might be there and wondering what I would do. There was no one around, but I did one of those stupid things that people say they would never do. Brandishing a mop like a quarterstaff, an impromptu weapon that probably wouldn't do much good, I walked to the back of the garage, making certain that no one had hidden by the shelves on either side. Still, I was terrified as to how a locked door had been opened. With some experimentation, we learned that we had some problems with the lock and had to be extra-careful. Now, my mother has teased me unmercifully, even scornfully, but when I watched "Salvage", it truly hit home. I understood the terror, and she did the best job of conveying that fear that I have EVER seen in ANY film! Lauren Currie Lewis is so believable in this film. Trust me, I've been watching all sorts of films, particularly horror, for 50 years. This little movie that I almost didn't watch impressed me greatly.
Also impressive is the use of suggestion, especially in the face-removal scene. I was cringing, looking sideways with my eyes squinted, my body tensed up! But, they did a very good sleight of hand~very convincing.
One thing that might have been intriguing is if, when he woke up, he was the teenage boy this time around. Or, is it that that death was speedier, with less fear involved? Is it that she's his last kill? Or, did she suffer more? I was uneasy about the film till that ending, feeling badly for a tormented girl. It was satisfying to see that "she" was the murderer, facing himself but worse since no injury could stop this demonic stalker.
That truly was a Hell any murderer deserves. I, too, believe that the girl's soul is elsewhere and that the killer is being tortured by having her memories and emotional responses. He experienced all that he took from her AND what he put her through. This is so much better than if she had been a ghost reliving the day, which is what I feared.
I will be suggesting this film to others.
Here is my problem with the ending:
When the fake killer tells the fake Claire that she is actually Duke, it seems like "she" is thinking, "Oh, well, that's news to me!!" "She" doesn't actually remember doing this--someone just told her that it happened. It would be different if she remembered, but since she doesn't, it doesn't seem genuine that "she" is the killer and deserves to be punished. "She" is just a fake person created so that Duke can become the victim and be punished, but it's not Duke, the murderer, that is being punished. It is the fake, innocent person.
Yet this fake person has very real feelings and memories and a real personality that has NOTHING to do with the aggressive serial killer. "She" did not murder anyone. Again, this is a new person and she is truly innocent.
So how can it be fair to punish someone for murder when their actions, memories, and personality have been replaced with those of another person? Duke has simply vanished, and a brand new person has been created--a person who has no recollection of any personal details about her previous self (schizophrenia and an aggressive personality) or that self's previous actions (murder) until they are revealed to her in dreams. (But she doesn't *remember* them as details about herself--she sees them as details about the killer!)
So why should this new person, one who is not capable of murder, be tortured? You are essentially creating another Claire and then punishing her, even though this new Claire has done nothing to deserve the punishment. Meanwhile, Duke himself, the one who murdered people, has escaped all punishment by dying.
The only way to justify this is to say that the soul is the same, and that soul is the one that committed an unforgivable crime, and that soul is not pure. But the fake Claire's soul seems pretty innocent to me, and I am not convinced that it deserves punishment. It cannot be the same soul as Duke's. Aren't souls supposed to transcend physical bodies and exist with the same amount of good/evil wherever they are? Even if "she" or "he" or "it" eventually remembers this crime, there was still an innocent person punished in the beginning! It doesn't add up to a valid punishment and that disturbs me.
But the idea has gotten me thinking and I appreciate the movie for that. ;)
I found your post very interesting...and yet I still like the ending and think it is even more effective because of the points you raise. This is a theme that sometimes comes up in discussions of reincarnation...how you continue with the karma from your previous life even though you don't remember it.
Hope this makes sense...it's late and I just finished watching "Salvage." I'm so glad I stuck with it...I can't imagine a more terrifying vision of Hell.
remember when duke says to "claire" in the truck - something along the lines of existence is "everything you feel." it's what duke (in claire's body) is feeling and experiencing - he is FEELING what claire experienced. the real claire is dead and who knows where she is, i guess if in this movie there's a hell, then maybe she's in a heaven type of place, i hope.
shareI agree with the poster above. The killer must experience the life he cut short: her time in class, her boredom at work, the moments she could be with her boyfriend, her friends and her mother~all of the good and not-so-good moments that culminated in his savage murder. He has to live this girl's life again and again through varying patterns that might give her (him) hope that she (he) will escape being murdered. He also feels her loss of the boy she cares about. Each time he is condemned to arrive at the revelation of what he is.
After several viewings, there also is some replay of his own death. Are these hints for him along the way? Are they his own memories trying to break through?
I've watched this film 10 times, and it is just as powerful as the second time through. Nothing can match the first time of course, when you believe this poor girl is being tormented.
I agree that Claire is somewhere beyond her pain and suffering. Perhaps her own memories are wiped clean of whichever death she experienced. After all, Claire died just one time. Duke has to experience all of those variations.
~~MystMoonstruck~~
Really makes me wonder how the real Claire actually died, did Duke really pretend to be Jimmy's friend and then creep in the back door, or was that just a fake scenario.
Carpe Diem ~ Seize the day!
I had assumed that the scenario we saw first was the real one - that he killed Jimmy at the salvage yard and then picked up Claire and killed her in her basement (although how he'd really know to go pick her up and where is a little eh). I think he had to have killed Claire in her basement, otherwise it would not have been the staging ground for the reveal.
I think some people are getting a little hung up on the visual representation of Claire, because we empathize with "her" so much for the entire film. It's Duke, and Duke's soul, as his reflection in the mirror about halfway through shows. "Fake Claire" is not a separate entity. It's just an amnesiac Duke, and eventually he remembers who he is and what he did, but he's been made to remember from a different perspective. He had to feel the terror and pain of an innocent person who has no idea what's happening to them or why. It had to be that way so that he is truly forced to experience what Claire experienced.
He's being brutally punished, but she was murdered in cold blood for no reason. If he was his evil killer self from the get-go and just being poked and sliced by demons, it would be unpleasant, but that's not the same as the torture he put her through. I think it was most effective to make him truly experience the horror of what he did - get HIM sympathizing with the victim the way we did - and then remind him that he was the perpetrator. He is gradually waking up to it for at least half the film - you hear the demons talking about how he/she's catching on, and he has flashbacks of the cop shooting him that "Claire" wouldn't have, as she was already dead and not there. On a first view you assume she's just having dreams/visions that are supernatural, but they were Duke's own memories.
Just to add a bit to yourpost, he would have known to pick up Claire because he actually did work at the Salvage yard, so he probably talked to Jimmy about it before the voices took over.
"No man is just a number"
at the end, when claire/duke realizes she/he is really duke and transforms into duke to be murdered by himself, i took it to mean that during subsequent relivings, duke would know that he could do nothing to escape being eternally re-murdered by himself. the movie was about that realization. during each reliving, he retained the previous memories as some horrible nightmare. the sheriff told him over the phone that he'd soon know what's happening. and the very last scene, of him (as claire once again) re-awakening, showed claire with a look of realization.
shareyes he has Claire's memories, Claire's feelings and recognises himself as Claire. that's the point. Duke was turned into Claire and made to experience what he put Claire through from her perspective. over and over again. he was even given the chance to put up some futile resistance to increase his torment. the movie is not about Claire suffering, she's already dead, it's about Duke experiencing what it's like to be his victim, it's Duke killing Duke
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I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me...
rayvio.wordpress.com
"yes he has Claire's memories, Claire's feelings and recognises himself as Claire. that's the point."
Well, that makes him Claire. It's memories, feelings and identity that make you you.
"Duke was turned into Claire"
If he has no memories of Duke and doesn't recognize himself as Duke, it's not Duke anymore. It's just Claire.
"the movie is not about Claire suffering, she's already dead"
Doesn't matter. It's an identical copy of Claire, so there's no real difference from original Claire suffering.
If you'd catch Adolf Hitler alive and completely rewrite his brain to have memories and feelings of Anne Frank, you'd be torturing Anne Frank, not Hitler. Hitler wouldn't exist anymore.
that would only be the case if it was a permanent change and the Hitler personality was destroyed in the process. the ending shows that Duke is still in there and is occasionally allowed to learn the truth and be Duke with the memory of all the suffering his Claire personality went through. the Claire who suffers is a part of Duke which has temporarily forgotten that it is Duke but once forced to remember it's Duke who takes on all that pain and suffering but without the defence mechanisms that he would normally have and having the vulnerability of Claire instead
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I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me...
rayvio.wordpress.com
That's good point. So Duke's personality only reappears in the end, very briefly. That's a very brief time interval when the punishment is actually just. He suffers, but he is Duke, so it's fair.
While his memory and identity are absent and there's only Claire's memory and identity however, it's Claire who's being tormented. Unless you believe that there's a soul and we are more than a sum of our memories, feelings and thinking, of course.