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.
No Country For Old Men
No Country For Old Men ends on a rather calm note, with a long monologue from Sheriff Bell, where the policeman discusses his dreams. However, his speech isn’t just about filling some empty space.
Instead, Bell recognizes that he tried to make a difference but that he’s now too old and tired to fix the world around him. He let Anton Chigurh get away and failed to make the world a better place. His monologue about his dreams outlines his own feelings about his failures, drawing out the true meaning of the film.
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.
It Follows
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.
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.