A voice from the sink, a creature under the bed, a zombie child: the meaning of the frightening images of the film Terrified (2017): ending explanation, meaning of the film, detailed description of the plot, similar films.
Country: Argentina
Genre: horror
Year of production: 2017
Director: Demian Runya
Actors: Maximiliano Ghione, Norberto Gonzalo, Elvira Onetto
Slogan: “Who will stop the invasion from the astral plane?”
According to critics and ordinary viewers, the main “diagnosis” of modern cinema is the lack of fresh and original ideas. The horror genre has long been built on cliches, but this is not so bad – because you can always successfully beat even the most hackneyed clichés.
This is exactly what director and screenwriter Demian Runya proved in his work. The plot of the film Terrified (Aterrados) consists of three short stories, united by a common meaning. Each of them is capable of not only scaring, but also making you think seriously about the nature of evil.
What is the movie about
Brief description of the contents of the picture. The plot of the first novella tells about the Blumetti family. It all starts when a young woman hears strange voices coming from her kitchen sink drain. They talk about how they are about to kill her. The girl tells her husband about this, but he just brushes it off.
At night, the man is awakened by a strange knocking behind the wall – there is another house very close by. He goes to his neighbor, Walter Carabajal, but he does not open up to him. Mr. Blumetti irritably demands to stop knocking and returns home.
He soon realizes that the noise that woke him up is not coming from the wall, but from the bathroom. Upon entering, he sees his wife flying around the room and banging her head against the walls. In a panic, he tries to stop the nightmare and help her, but it is useless – the girl dies.
Blumetti goes to the investigator and tells him everything. Servants of the law report that they cannot charge him with anything and say that something similar already happened several years ago. One of the specialists asks the man to remember if anything strange happened at home before the tragedy. He gloomily replies that all the knocks he had heard so far were of a completely material nature – his neighbor is doing repairs.
But Blumetti’s neighbor Walter regularly encounters devilry – every night he hears strange sounds, and a mysterious something appears from the closet. Having had enough fun, by morning the poltergeist leaves the destroyed apartment and disappears. Against this background, the unfortunate man developed insomnia. Walter is sure: he is not crazy. To prove this, he sets up a camera at night that records a creepy humanoid creature…
The next day, a boy who lived next door to Walter and Blumetti dies under the wheels of a car. His death is being investigated by police inspector Funes. He soon realizes that he is faced with a difficult case and asks for help from his old friend, a former pathologist, Dr. Hano.
But the fact is that the dead boy suddenly returned home. He looks like a corpse and at the moment shows no signs of life. According to Alyssia’s mother, the boy actually came on his own and immediately sat down at the table. One might think that the child’s corpse was dug up by a mother distraught with grief, but Hano does not like this interpretation. He soon meets Dr. Maura Albrek, who has been dealing with supernatural problems for a long time and asks her for help. After this, Hano puts the boy’s body in the freezer, and a little later everyone present hears a plaintive cry from there.
Meanwhile, the plot returns to Blumetti. Hano and Mora say that in order to understand what happened, they need to live in his house for a while. They are joined by a third paranormal specialist, Dr. Rosentok. They decide to split up. Mora moves into the house where Mrs. Blumetti died, Doctor Rosentok and investigator Funes go to Walter (the owner of the house has disappeared by this time), and Hano goes to the house where the boy who rose from the dead came.
Rosentok is sure that all three houses are in a place that attracts evil spirits and he takes the first blow. Next, the disturbed evil spirits begin to actively manifest themselves in the other two houses. In the end, Inspector Funes’s nerves give out and he is about to leave the terrible place. However, Rosentok tells him that he seems to understand the reason for everything that is happening. The point is about certain “entities” who decided to make themselves known. Why they do this is still unclear.
Funes goes to check on Hano and finds him seriously wounded – there are shards of glass in his eyes… The frightened inspector runs to Mora for help, but she calms him down. This night the evil spirits were running wild and you definitely shouldn’t trust your eyes and ears. The doctor is surprisingly calm – not that she has found the answer to everything that is happening, but she does have some kind of theoretical justification.
She and her colleagues study different dimensions that touch each other “like orange slices.” In each of these dimensions there is life – the creatures living there gather together and multiply… Alas, she doesn’t have time to say the most important thing – how to stop the paranormal madness, because at that moment a monster’s hand comes out of the wall and grabs her.
Inspector Funes begins to have a heart attack from everything he sees. Meanwhile, the monster is approaching him, but is distracted by a noise outside the window – Alicia, the mother of the zombie boy, has come to the neighboring house. A policeman approaches her and she accuses him of stealing her son’s body. Unable to argue with her and prove that there was no point in this, he asks to be taken to the hospital because he is very ill.
The boy’s body is discovered in the woman’s car… Seeing him, Funes immediately gets into his car and drives away. At this moment, an assistant contacts him and reports that he sees Dr. Hano, who, according to him, is behaving strangely. Funes tells his assistant to quickly leave the terrible place, and he returns to burn all three houses with evil spirits.
Returning to the zombie boy’s house, he sees that his mother has hanged herself, and then meets Hano with his eyes gouged out… The inspector realizes that this is no longer his friend and sets the house on fire.
Terrified Ending explained
Explanation of the ending of the picture. In the finale, other investigators come to Mr. Blumetti. One of them shows him photos of Hano, Mora and Rosentok and asks if he knows them. The man says all he knows is that they wanted to help him. The investigator says that they are all missing – as is Inspector Funes.
The man suddenly changes his face and says that behind the investigator is Dr. Rozentok, who did not come alone… The meaning of the ending of the film Terrified is that Funes and three specialists died, and the evil spirits continued to commit outrages and mischief. The essence of paranormal phenomena has remained unsolved and it is likely that there will be many more tragedies in the future…
The meaning of the film Terrified
In their analysis, many viewers note another unsuccessful translation of the original title of the film. In their opinion, the phrase Terrified is associated with some cheap b-movie, but this film is completely different. Translated from Spanish, “Aterrados” means “Horror” and this is quite consistent with what is happening on the screen.
Argentina also has its dark territories. They are located in cozy suburbs, beyond the border, away from the problems of the social world. And one day it becomes clear to the inhabitants: evil lives nearby, and it is real. The firm belief that they are safe in their own homes soon disappears – and evil comes out…
The topic that director Demian Runya took on is quite hackneyed. However, he managed to reveal it from a slightly different angle. By the way, one cannot say that there is some hidden meaning in this picture – everything lies on the surface. However, it is also not a passable one.
The film Terrified differs from other similar films in that the director skillfully resorts to optical deception – more precisely, to deception of the sense of reality of the main characters. He perfectly copes with the fact that sometimes things may not be at all what they seem, plays with the deceptiveness of perception and thereby constantly makes the viewer doubt the reality of what he sees on the screen.
At a certain moment, the sense of reality fails, and the director reveals the truth. It lies in the fact that even completely obvious things can be “not what they seem.” But still, when the forces of evil take possession of a person, it becomes very difficult for him to distinguish a mirage from the truth. The consequences of his actions, unfortunately, are always very sad.
To understand the essence of the film, you need not analyze each story separately, but look at the picture as a whole. Terrified is not a story about people struggling with supernatural forces. To a greater extent, this film talks about the defenselessness of human knowledge and technology in the face of the unknown. Evil here remains mysterious and incomprehensible – it just appeared and nothing can be done about it.
The locomotive of the narrative here is not the story itself, but the horror elements – a terrible creature under the bed, something that killed a young woman and (the worst thing) – a little dead boy who “came home” and sits silently in front of a glass of milk. That is, it turns out that “Terrified” is just a very suitable horror attraction.
The film doesn’t try to be anything more in content than it actually is, but it does its job (to scare) perfectly. By the way, soon after the release of this film, Americans started talking about a remake, but it was never filmed. They were probably afraid of not being able to cope with the plot. And it’s good that this happened.
Similar films
Here are several films similar to the film Terrified in plot and meaning:
- “Astral” (USA, 2010). A family moves to a new house, where something strange begins to happen.
- “The Conjuring” (USA, 2013). The picture tells about a married couple. which investigates cases related to paranormal phenomena.
- “Secret Experiment” (USA, Germany, 2012). A journalist is investigating the case of her friend’s disappearance without a trace. She has to learn the terrible truth…
- “The Demon Within” (USA, UK). Two coroners, father and son, are trying to understand the cause of death of a beautiful young girl.
