i guess he goes crazy....obviously.
but if harry green was dead all along, who instigated the riots? or was George going a big looney before the whole thing started?
"Silence will fall when the question ia asked" "She will bring the silence"
5CREAM
same thing i was wondering. Was he already in the asylum from the beginning and he was the one instigating? I guess the movie wasnt bad though
shareThats the question we've all been trying to figure out. There is something we are missing, I'm almost certain of it. I think the key to figuring it out is Harry Green and George. They share a mutual fixation with each other throughout the film.
I'd like to believe that George just couldn't cope with the reality of the event and went insane at the end, suffering from severe post traumatic stress. Another theory which I don't like much is that Harry Green is his alter ego, and George was an inmate all along, being the actual ring leader. The problem with the latter is that there would be too many plotholes and no possible explanations for some key events and scenes.
The flesh is weak, Johnny. Only the soul is immortal.
Nobody thinks it was that suspect load of food they received? They did point it out nonchalantly in the beginning. I'd love to ask the director what his vision was...
I have another totally different theory than nobody mentioned: When George volunteered to walk the inmates to their cells & he got into that fight with the naked guy maybe he got knocked out, because his girlfriend was saying "It was just an accident it could have happened to anyone I wish I was there" why would she want to be there of all places? Just another theory with no answer
My Identity's been stolen,I'm waiting for another one
Glad to see that I'm not the only one confused by the ending. I think George was a patient from the beginning, imagining that he was a cook. I think his girlfriend and his relationship with the 3 other cooks was just in his mind. I'm not sure of these things, just trying to piece it together.
Frank was dead at the end, with a mangled hand. Perhaps Frank was just another patient, and was killed by George during the riot. Lastly, perhaps Frank's chewing off his own finger was a figment of George's imagination and conscience, as Frank's dead body still had the finger he had chewed off.
I might be totally wrong on all of this. Love to read more opinions and ideas.
Confusing ending or not, a hell of a good independent horror film. The earlier poster who said mainstream Hollywood horror films suck was spot on. I haven't seen a good one in years.
Interesting to read other interpretations... here was what I finally decided. I posted this on another thread, what the hell, I'll keep the spoiler tags in.
I had to watch it twice to catch a couple things. At first I thought that George's mind had simply snapped after seeing and going through all the horrible ghastly shlt that he did. I was too busy being horrified to figure out if HG was biting off his own finger, or George's, then I re-watched it. Watched HG bite off his own finger, then when they were getting George out of there, George looked over and stopped to stare as he saw a guy laying dead whose fingers were all *beep* -up and twisted, then when they shine the light over him, you see it's HG (I missed that at first, since I was wincing at the sprained, twisted-up fingers) and all his fingers are intact.
THEN I watched it again because hey, I paid $7.99 for a 48-hr rental on Comcast. This time I noticed something-when they're in the office and some guy conks George on the head and knocks him out, (whoever the only other guy in the band that was left's name was, helping him try to carry out Max, I think his name was Will) decides to take off, and when he runs down a hall you can see him run by a body whose fingers are all twisted and bent in the exact same position HG was found in as they rescued George.
Soooooo, basically every time after George wakes up in the kitchen and sees HG f-cking with him,he's not really there. When the two guys first carry poor Max in to put him on the stove burners, HG is standing behind them grinning, then he vanishes-it was just the two insane guys that burned Max (plus Pete), that did everything in the kitchen.
It looked like George realized after he saw HG's body (they make a point of showing his fingers all there) that he realized he'd lost his shlt, and didn't know what was real and what was fake.From what George's girlfriend was telling him when he was sitting up in the hospital bed, (per the subtitles/closed captions). it all happened, she says 'what happened to you was terrible, but I'm going to be here for you, I'll get you through this, I love you.' For what it's worth, I think he was probably in DEEP post-trauma shock, but it wasn't going to be permanent. He had an IV in his arm so he was in a hospital (not the place he worked at, though), probably going to be staying there to get treatment for a few months ...and on meds himself. That shot where he opened the door to the kitchen (in that last hallucination) and saw all the patients standing there with glowing eyes, scared the hell out of me.
I actually kind of regretted watching it 3 (maybe 4) times during my rental period. I realized I was starting to feel off-kilter and turned it off to watch WB cartoons! I wanted to jot down some quotes for my website, plus like I said, wanted to get my $7.99 worth. When there's reports of someone fainting at a screening I just assume it's probably PR. I see why the chick fainted during this one. The movie gets so intense and unrelenting a few times I had to stop and take some deep breaths because I was starting to get the feeling I get before a panic attack, starting to hyperventilate, etc. I see a ton of very horrifying movies and they usually don't cause panic attacks. I didn't get to the panic attack stage but if I'd seen it in a theater and not at home On Demand, I probably would have had to take a Xanax.
It wasn't a flawless movie, but it succeeded at being disturbing and hard to shake, even after one viewing. Also liked that the protagonists did sensible things (refreshing in a horror movie) to stay alive and in one piece, plus no fake jumps.
Everything that you see, I owe to spaghetti.
-Sophia Loren
You watched it that many times and missed the actual first time they show Harry's corpse. When George and Will walk into the dining room there's no corpse on the ground or blood on the window. They go to the kitchen to meet up with Max and Ricky. Max sees the inmates in the dining room and now there is blood on the window. When the 3 of them jump out of the kitchen window into the dining room it shows Harry's mangled hand below where the blood was. So it looks like he was killed right before the inmates began breaking the window.
This means that every time after that it was not really him. The first time George sees imaginary Harry is immediately after Ricky is killed with that crowbar, so I think that's when he started going crazy, and he definitely was reliving it in his head at the end.
The cause of the incident? The food thing did really seem out of place, but it's hard to tie it to anything. The inmates not taking pills, maybe. I think they are typically calm because of the monotony of the place. The lights going out and being free is enough of a reason for me for criminally insane people to become violent. If it was unusual for them to show aggression then the cooks and the guard should have been suspect when the two incidents happened while they were serving food.
What a crappy asylum though. The place had as many guards as it did cooks.
You watched it that many times and missed the actual first time they show Harry's corpse. When George and Will walk into the dining room there's no corpse on the ground or blood on the window. They go to the kitchen to meet up with Max and Ricky. Max sees the inmates in the dining room and now there is blood on the window. When the 3 of them jump out of the kitchen window into the dining room it shows Harry's mangled hand below where the blood was.
TribalWho: "who instigated the riots?"
I've watched certain scenes over & over, they show Harry Green & the dude next to him spit out the pill, but that was all they gave us. I know from being locked down in maximum security SHU and there was always a space under the door to yell out of & I'd imagine that facility is designed the same. If so HG could have told everyone in his block to do it so that means 1/2 could definitely have been off their pills. Being a prison with just two blocks it would have been easy to get a message to the other block, but still 1/2 of them nuts would be enough to start massive repressed violent outbursts.
Still my money is on the meat, a different truck driver, meat with chickens heads still on, George spills out a bag of what looked like the the entire contents of a human, organs, intestines & other questionable stuff, maybe they put some Chrystal Meth in it? I hope to God that a blue-ray gets released & the director will let us all know, probably have to wait 2 years to find out. I know this film will get more attention just by word of mouth & there is going to be a ton of people that want an answer or two. The director did this purposely no doubt, sonofabitch
My Identity's been stolen,I'm waiting for another one
The ending seems to be the culmination of the use of the fingers as some sort of symbol. There are many points where the director wants the viewer to be aware of the fingers on screen: at the beginning when George cuts his own finger slicing meat, the numerous times the rigor mortised hand shows up, the idea of a rack band where the instruments rely heavily on strong and limber fingers, and finally when HG eats George's own fingers.
The director also stresses the head. Starting with the entire asylum, where those that reside there are believed to be messed up in the head (I am tickled at the choice of naming it Sans Asylum, as the inmates certainly are without asylum due to the harsh guards and the workers find themselves without asylum after the power goes out). Then we are disturbed by the delivery of dead chickens whose heads remain attached (somewhere in there is an allusion to the expression "running around like chickens with their heads cut off). The concept of decapitation shows up often in this movie; although many gory horror movies will feature it, few will actually have characters that say decapitation like Blackout Asylum has. George also gets hit on the head and the ending implies he experienced some sort of head trauma perhaps. Just as disturbing was the scene where the bandmate is excorted in the hall with his head covered in foil, where upon he is stabbed in the chest in front of George. And lastly Max's head is on one of the final burner lit by the inmates.
However I am still left with one question: what does it all mean!
Forgive if already stated, but I think one of the keys to the whole movie is where he cuts his finger with the knife at the start. He gets a little stressed because his buddy is dogging him, and he slices his finger. I assume it is the same finger he thinks he doesn't have, the one that he bit off at the end. In essence, his subconscious doesn't think that finger is there. Maybe he had had this whole biting of the finger off hallucination before? I am a proponent of the Green character being some kind of imaginary double personality. I'm not making any sense, but maybe the movie didn't?
I also think that funky load of leaking food was a key. The chickens with the heads? That meant something?? The plot keys seem to have been very subtle, which is cool actually. Since he was the cook, maybe he spiked all the food with some weird meds? Anyway.... i hope to figure it out, would probably have to watch it again, that's my weak 2 cents.
Very well done. I loved the locations and the lighting and feel. The establishing shot of the asylum were just fantastic. Great little movie.
I'll come back and read the rest of the theories later, have no time now.
I think that the director does not give enough clues for anybody to come up with anything solid, which is a real shame because I absolutely loved the first 45 minutes of this film. There are loads of hints that do not lead to anything and some loose ends (where are the doctors? why does it take the police longer than an hour, and why is the operator so unsympathetic when George explains that people have been killed? power is out and all doors open?) I know this is 1989 and things were no as secure as they are today, but still...
Overall, I wanted to love this film...couldnt!
One thing I did like is that the characters behave in a believable way and not rambo-style, which is what we are used to in films...; i friend of mine said about them: "man they are useless, I'd just grab a knife from the kitchen and cut my way through"
I turned to him and said: if you were in that place at that time with those people, you would have shat your pants as the lights went out, even BEFORE the rioting...!
^^
Le beau est bizarre
One thing I did like is that the characters behave in a believable way and not rambo-style, which is what we are used to in films..
There was also a scene where George mentioned about the water being dirty. It is probably a combination of food poisoning and inmates not taking their pills and then George losing it when he started having headaches, stressed out, bloody finger, bloody food, bloody organs etc. and not to mention being confined with a bunch of crazy inmates. Then blackout and a riot, friend being burned.. He just lost it. I wouldn't be surprised if he still relieved everything in his head and when he said "they got in!" it's like they are all in his head now. What I don't understand though why would his gf say that it is not his fault that it was an accident. Maybe she is not talking about the blackout but what happened in whole like the riot, what happened with his friend Max and another guy who was stabbed. She probably thinks he is blaming himself.
With regards to Harry I think he just made that strong impression to him. Especially that time where he was really stressed out.
I have a couple of theories:
1. It's all a dream, when he's dozing in the pantry.
2. In his tiredness he left the gas on, killing his workmates and many of the staff/inmates. One of them said they'd heard 'an explosion' before they woke him up, so he could have heard that subsconsciously. He could have hallucinated the rest due to gas inhalation or a head injury suffered during the blast, but perhaps being in the pantry shielded him from the blast, and it also explains why he smelt gas and then passed out again as well as his charred friend.
Bit flimsy I know, but there were a few clues in there which pointed towards the whole thing being a dream/hallucination.
Great movie - I love that it's shot in Belgium with an almost entire English cast, and an Aussie gal thrown in for good measure.
It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!
I think is all in his head. There is a moment went he is giving the food to the inmates that the head of Green and his reflection superpose together.There are many hints that some parts of the movie are not real.
One thing that troubled me was the nurse missing. The rest of the guards were showed how they end but not the nurse.
It seems like some parts of the movie were cut out.
You do see her - she's sobbing against the wall, raped and beaten up, and all the other guards are dead. I think the camera pans over her later on when the two lads are trying to bring out their injured mate, but I can't remember if she's still alive at that point, but she's in the same spot.
It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!
She's still alive at that point, it's because of her George wanders off, and the surving guy (can't remember his name, but not a bandmember) has to dump Max and run away alone.
But before George can get to her, he gets knocked unconscious by a random prisoner, and then wakes up tied naked in the kitchen.
Its not the same woman. There is the nurse that gives the blue pills and the one at the reception desk , more skinny and older. The second one is raped and we see her later when they are trying to scape..
The nurse disappears misteriously.Thats why i think it was cut out.
Oh yeah, my bad - completely forgot about her. I don't think the pill-giving nurse was present at the incident, actually. I think she was just there to give the patients their pills, and then she left, as she's not a part of the kitchen-crew as such, and didn't have to be there for the remainder of the meal-time.
But the receptionist-nurse was definitely there, raped but still alive the last time we see her in the middle of all the mayhem.
2. In his tiredness he left the gas on, killing his workmates and many of the staff/inmates.
I feel like most of the characters in the film are multiple personalities of George. The Bandmates have distinct personalities. Max is the smartass tough guy who gets the job done. Ricky was the scared cowardly kid type. Harry Green the plotting cold unsympathetic, was also a personality of George's. You can tell because they appear and disappear at will. The Girlfriend might even be one... as in the end where she's talking to him but he doesn't even look at her. He's watching the scene playing out in front of him like it's a movie and Max is cutting his fingers off (no blood).
The Director shows that he and Harry Green are the same in the reflection scene.
I think he's undergoing a "riot" in his own head and killing off his identities in the film in his mind.
but in the end he opens the door and the dark figures(more personalities) and he freaks out cuz they are "getting in".
There's much more but its been awhile since I've seen the movie. all I know is if you watch it with that basic idea (multiple personalities) it all falls together.
Pretty sure the whole asylum riot was a hallucination. He got into a wreck that killed his bandmates going to or from their last show- thus why his girlfriend at the end says it wasn't his fault, it was an accident, and that she wished she had been there (the show). He was likely going crazy long before that- dead end job, dead end band- and the accident sent him over the edge ("They got in").
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