The premise of the 2014 film It Follows is already a little ridiculous. It centers on Jay, who catches a “sexually transmitted ghost” and must pass on her curse by sleeping with someone else. By the end of the film, Jay manages to pass the ghost onto Paul, who then passes it on to a prostitute.
In the final scene, however, Jay and Paul are followed by a dark figure as they walk down the street. The film’s director, David Robert Mitchell, says the scene was purposely created to be open to interpretation.
Hereditary
The plot of Hereditary is somewhat straight-forward, but it leaves viewers with one big question – who are the cultists who appear at the end of the film? Well, the answer is found in the very beginning of the movie, when Annie is confused why so many people showed up at her mother’s funeral.
The cultists are actually friends of Annie’s mother, who all found each other through their shared love of demon worship. That’s certainly one way to bond with your neighbors.
Donnie Darko
Honestly, all of Donnie Darko is pretty confusing. Throughout the film, Donnie is haunted by an evil spirit in a bunny costume. What the movie fails to clear up – and what the director has stated in the aftermath of the film – is that Donnie Darko actually involves parallel universes.
Donnie himself is living in a parallel universe. The film follows him as he tries to fix a time rift in “Universe Prime.” When he dies at the end of the film, he acts as a sacrifice that then saves everyone he loves. It’s really a heroic story.
Looper
In Looper , Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play old and young versions of the same hitman, who are trying to take down a crime boss who ruins their lives in the future.
When they come face-to-face with the crime boss – who at the time is just a child – Levitt’s character realizes that he’ll turn into the monster he becomes if his mother dies. In order to prevent that, Levitt kills himself, thereby killing Willis as well. That way, the boy’s mother survives, and the kid never turns into the crime boss of the future.
Mulholland Drive
When an aspiring actress moves to Los Angeles, her plans are slightly derailed when she finds an amnesiac woman living in her aunt’s home. The film sets itself up for a solid story, but it goes off the rails, especially when it shows random vignette’s about other, seemingly random characters.
Director David Lynch refused to comment on the meaning of the movie, but one critic claimed that the film is meant to be about nothing. Roger Ebert said, “The movie is hypnotic. We’re drawn along as if one thing leads to another, but nothing leads anywhere.”