Jay Height is a University Student who lives in Detroit with her sister, Kelly and their widowed mother. During a date with her new boyfriend, Hugh, they have sex in the back of his car. He then chloroforms her and ties her to a wheelchair. When she comes to, he tells her that she will be pursued by an entity that will kill her if it catches her. It will take the form of a human, in some cases it may be someone she knows. A few days later, Jay notices an old woman in the corridor at school that no one else can see, and it’s coming straight at her.
Not only is this a very creative plot, but it may explain every slasher movie ever made, where the villain kills those who have sex. That’s right, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees are killer STDs. I’ve heard that posed as a theory anyway.
First let’s talk about the plot. There are so many elements to this that make the film so good. The only way to get rid of the entity is to pass it on to someone else via sex. Then you have to pray that they don’t die, otherwise it comes back to you. Once you’ve passed it on, the entity loses interest in you, but you can still see it.
I like the whole idea that it can appear as someone you know. Now the Cinemasins Everything Wrong with states that they mention it but don’t utilise it. That’s not true. Here are all the forms of people Jay knows:
Jay’s father is the final form towards the end
The first time you see the entity is as Hugh’s mother
It takes the shape of Greg’s mother at his house
Jay’s neighbour shows up at Greg’s lake house
The entity breaks into Greg’s house as him before changing into his mother
It takes the form of Yara before becoming the neighbour kid at the lake house
I think the reason that Cinemasins didn’t notice these forms is because it can be hard to tell. I took screenshots from the film (and by the way this is the first time I have had to censor out nudity) and these are the best shots I could get. The only time you see Greg’s mum’s face is after Jay is infected, and she is talking to Jay’s mother, who you don’t really see either. It’s also difficult to see both Jay’s dad, Hugh’s mum, and Greg because they’re all seen from a distance in the dark. I didn’t even realise that it took the form of Greg or the kid next door who’s always peeping at Jay. I found that out today.
Something that has been regularly pointed out by fans of this movie is the lack of time indication. We assume that it’s set in present day, but there are many things that suggest different time periods. Some of the clothes look 70s/80s, as does Hugh’s car. Greg looks like he’s stepped off the set of Stranger Things. They have landline cord telephones and watch a lot of classic movies on a retro TV. The soundtrack also has an 80s synthesizer sound to it, which is awesome by the way. But then there’s Yara’s weird seashell e-reader device, that seems to connect to wi-fi. I think the only thing we’ve seen it used for is reading, and the light from the screen is used as a flashlight. It also appears that Annie is using a flip cell phone when she calls her Dad, which isn’t has common in a world with smartphones. All of the appliances used at the pool at the end look rather vintage, mostly 70s/80s. It’s also hard to tell the season, which looks like both Summer and Fall. Apparently, the time frame was deliberately kept ambiguous to give it a dreamlike quality. Now it makes sense.
The entity itself takes some really weird and disturbing forms. I find it funny when they find Hugh later and he asks them if he sees this girl walking casually past them like she’s just come from soccer practice. Of course they can, she’s clearly a normal person. Most of the forms the entity takes are very out of place. They are usually wearing white and are sometimes partially (or completely) naked. One of them is even wetting themselves in Jay’s house. And don’t even get me started on the naked guy standing on her roof.
The movie provides us with a really good and unexpected scare in the form of a tall man walking through the door way towards Jay. It’s very understated, similar to the scene in The Strangers where the man in the mask is just standing behind Liv Tyler and watching her. It’s not a jump scare, it’s an unexpected presence. That’s better than a jump scare. Jump scares are cheap. It’s like if a comedy tickled you to make you laugh (thanks to Cinemasins for that one!).
The characters are likable enough. I haven’t watched the movie and wanted any of them to die, so that’s good. I’ve seen Keir Gilchrist in a couple of other teen thrillers (The Good Neighbor, Dark Summer and Heartthrob). His performances in all four of these are excellent.
This movie is unique, engaging, and full of tense moments. It leaves you with a lot of dread in the end, which is ambiguous. There is talk of a sequel, so fingers crossed it becomes more than just that.
Where to watch: Justwatch
Bonus Extras (aka overthinking the details of the movie) *Heavy Spoilers*
Links to other opinions and theories about this movie
Fan information about the Entity
Interview with the director – Spoilers
Cinemassacre’s Monster Madness 9 with James & Mike
Cinemasins’ Everything Wrong With
My theories, questions I have, and information I have learned while researching this movie
When Jeff (Hugh) points out the girl in the yellow dress and discovers that Jay can’t see her, it seems to take him a moment to process that she’s the Entity. It’s almost like he wasn’t expecting it. This happens just after Annie dies in the beginning, so did he give it to her? Was he expecting her to pass it on so he would never have to see it again? If that’s the case then why did he hook up with Jay to begin with? He’s obviously been planning this for a while since they’re dating. Plus he’s had a house while seeing her. How did all of this work? Did his mum ever wonder where he was or did he have a cover story for her? When Jay and her friends track him down, his mother answers the door, leading us to believe he lives with her. If he’s 21 does that mean he’s in college? It really makes you wonder about his motives.
Speaking of his motives, did he lie to Jay? The Reddit fan theory made this point. When he tells her after they track him down that he doesn’t remember the name of the girl who gave it to him, was he telling the truth? Either one of two things happened. 1. The girl in question slept with him and left, leaving him with no information and he figured it out through time. Or 2. She told him everything, but didn’t give him her name. Did he have any reason to lie about the girl’s name? Did he think they would track her down? We could have gone into a Scooby-Doo like mystery where they trace down the line to find the original carrier. Instead they work on survival and possibly defeating the Entity.
Back to Annie. If Jeff did give it to her, when? When the Scooby Gang (yes that’s what I’ll refer to them as from now on) goes to the abandoned house he had been staying at, they find a picture of him with a girl that looks like it could be Annie. More censoring required due to the open naked lady magazine.
Now I’m not 100% so don’t quote me on this. It’s just a theory. Also, Annie does appear as one of the Entity’s forms
If you’re not convinced, here I’ll show my work…
These are two screenshots I took from IMDB and pasted together to make one image. The idea first came from the Reddit theory, where the OP said that it could be Annie as that, although another Redditor had said it wasn’t. I can now officially say that it is her.
My other theory is that the naked man on Jay’s roof is her Grandfather. Here’s my work…
After Jay’s ordeal, Greg’s mother is over talking to Jay’s mother in the kitchen. The camera then changes to over her mother’s shoulder, where we see a wall covered in photographs. The camera zooms into one photo in particular, which is in the centre of them all and very prominent, and lingers on it for a few seconds. It’s an elderly couple with a young blonde girl. This leads me to believe that the girl is Jay and those are her Grandparents. Now look at the naked man. Don’t worry, I’ve covered him up.
Now unfortunately you don’t see it any closer, especially in this image, but I can definitely see the resemblance. That coupled with both the lingering shot on the photograph and Jay’s emotional reaction to seeing it.
It can’t be the surprise of seeing it because she knows that Greg is dead and it will be coming back for her. I’m telling you, there’s a reason that the camera focused on the photograph for 4-5 seconds. Especially when it ignores all of the others. It has done this a few times. It focuses on the photo in Jay’s room of her swimming just before Paul has the idea to lure it to the swimming pool for the finale. After that, Jay is lying in bed and her mother is there with her. The camera zooms into a family photo of them, which shows that the final form of the Entity was of Jay and Kelly’s father. It also gives you the only view of their mother’s face.
Let’s look at their mother. Every time we see her she’s both obscured and drinking alcohol. One of the theories about Jay’s family is that the father committed suicide, which has driven their mother to drink. Greg’s mother even comments that the family is a mess. The first time we see Jay’s mother, her face is obscured by a phone, and is drinking a glass of wine. Then when she’s talking to Greg’s mother, her face is obscured by her hair and she’s pouring some kind of liquor into her coffee cup. We see a reflection of her passed out in her bed with a wine bottle and glass on the drawers. Finally the aforementioned family photo in Jay’s room has a glass of wine next to it and her mother’s face is out of focus.
The movie has made it clear that its main focus is on the main teen cast. There is minimal adult involvement in the plot. You only see Greg’s mother twice and only the second time do you get a good look at her face. Not including Greg’s death scene of course. A lot of the adults have their backs to the camera or are only shown for a brief moment. You never see Yara or Paul’s parents (not the same, they’re not related) and the only mention of them is when Yara tells the group that when she was a kid her mother wouldn’t let her leave the suburbs. There’s also no mention of Greg’s father. When they go to the high school to find Hugh, the lady they talk to has her back to the camera. The police officer that talks to Jay after Hugh drops her off is offscreen. When Jay is in hospital later, you see a pan through all of these hospital windows showing doctors, nurses and other patients, but it’s very brief. You even see a doctor flirting with a nurse (at least that’s what it looks like), showing their lack of involvement, too. There are plenty of other examples. The film really lacks an adult presence and it’s all the better for it.
Back to the lack of time frame. Although it appears to be Autumn with all of the leaves, and Annie runs past a house with pumpkins on the front steps, there is a lot of conflicting wardrobes with the main characters. Some characters are wearing shorts, some are wearing coats. In the scene where Jay and her sister Kelly are walking down the street, Kelly is dressed for later Summer/early Autumn, and Jay is dressed like it’s Winter. When she’s in her college class she’s wearing a Fall cardigan. At the beach, Yara is wearing a swimsuit, Kelly is wearing shorts and a bikini top, Jay is wearing shorts and a hoodie, and Paul is wearing long shorts and a denim jacket. Greg can frequently be seen wearing a large fur-lined denim jacket as well. Maybe it is Autumn but it’s in a place where it’s warm during the day and colder at night?
One thing that I noticed after rewatching is there are a lot of sleeping scenes. Seriously these kids sleep a lot. It’s mostly all they do aside from sitting around silently. Except Yara, who always seems to be eating something and using her e-reader, as well as sleeping and sitting. Plus why would you choose to read on that? It’s so small. Is that why she needs glasses? It seems like such an inconvenient piece of tech.
Why doesn’t Greg believe? Well, for a start he doesn’t see the attack on Jay at the beach. Everyone else sees a chunk of Jay’s hair being pulled at by something invisible. Then Paul hits it with a chair but is sent flying when it hits/shoves him away, leaving him with a nasty mark.
When watching the movie, I noticed a similarity with the exterior shots in some areas with the exteriors of Don’t Breathe. That’s because they were both filmed in Detroit (exteriors only in Don’t Breathe). Not only that but Daniel Zovatto, who played Greg, also played Money in Don’t Breathe. A nice little connection there, I think. I guess that makes these movies buddies and a great double feature.
I think I’ve waffled long enough, so I’m going to leave it there. What are some of your theories? Did you learn anything new from reading this? Comment below and share your thoughts.
Linsey Loves Horror 