Deadline (2009)

NOVEMBER 17, 2009

GENRE: GHOST (or PSYCHOLOGICAL)
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

A long-ass time ago, I interviewed Thora Birch for Train (which was finally released today, oddly enough), and she talked briefly about her next horror film, Deadline. Ms. Birch said, quote, “Brittany Murphy needs to write a book, she goes and stays in this house for a while to do it, and she discovers that there’s something in the house. And then she finds these tapes, and she’s watching this husband film his pregnant wife, and that’s me.” I was so confused by that that I had to keep rewinding the tape to make sure I was hearing her right. And it wasn’t until about halfway through the film that I remembered “Oh THIS was that baffling movie she was talking about!”, which unsurprisingly was about the time I started getting baffled as to what was going on.

Unfortunately it never quite recovers, and the ending could be considered a fine-able offense in some cultures. It’s an ambiguous ending, which is fine - but either outcome you accept as the “right” one means that other stuff in the film doesn’t make any goddamn sense, and that’s a big problem. (SPOILERS AHEAD) As the lady said, throughout the film Brittany Murphy is playing videos of Birch and Marc Blucas, a guy with major esteem issues who films his new bride seemingly 24 hours a day, and sees the deterioration of their relationship, ultimately leading to murder. Fine, but then the end suggests that they never existed and that everything was a figment of Murphy’s imagination. If so, how did she end up in the bathtub, and how did it get drained (we see Blucas put her in there, and then saved by Birch’s ghost)? Why does she have the necklace? So then, OK - then they are REAL, right? OK, then where did Blucas’ body go? And why does Murphy’s girlfriend see herself on the tape, instead of Blucas and Birch? See what I mean?

But even if the ending made total sense, the movie would still be largely pointless. It’s far too slow, for one thing, and I think there should be a rule that if your movie is about one person alone in a house for half its running time, then that person should be a good actor delivering an engaging performance. Murphy can be accused of neither. She was a bubbly and cute presence in stuff like Clueless, and wasn’t even that bad in Sin City, but she is positively dreadful here, walking around like a zombie, not bothering to have a genuine reaction to the occasional creepy shit she sees, and delivering what few lines she has with all the conviction of a deli guy calling the next number. And she even LOOKS like ass nowadays; not sure what the hell happened to her but I was kind of appalled at her appearance.

Birch and Blucas fare no better. This is Blucas’ third strike for HMAD (after the equally dull Killing Floor and the mind-blowingly awful Animals), and since the guy is also the focal point of the worst season of Buffy, I think I’m just going to avoid him from now on. Birch, on the other hand, is playing a character who makes little sense (why did she even marry this guy in the first place?) but is at least somewhat sympathetic, and is the source of the only all out ghost scene in the entire movie. And it’s better than Train, so she’s got that going for her. Still, I wouldn’t turn down Patrick’s Monkey Trouble 2 pitch if it ever presents itself again...

I think we also need to put a stop to any movie or book that involves an author isolating themselves in order to write his/her next book, and how bad this turns out for them. Seriously, how many times have we seen this plot setup? Yes, The Shining is a classic in both mediums, but for every Shining, there are a dozen Final Drafts and Deadlines. Ditto for characters "creepily" playing "Moonlight Sonata" (usually in the middle of the night, waking another character). Last I checked, there are hundreds of pieces of classical music to play on the piano, I don't know why filmmakers constantly feel the need to fall back on this one.

And this is of no issue to the filmmakers (as far as I know), but the DVD ratio is as big of a mystery as the film’s conclusion. It’s not anamorphic (even though the trailer at the top of the disc is), and at full-frame it appears to be a 1.85:1 ratio. But it looked vertically stretched, so I stretched it to fit the screen, giving it an approximate 2.35:1 ratio, which looked better but now slightly stretched horizontally. So my guess is that it was shot at 2.20:1 for some reason (a very rare shooting aspect) and the DVD screener folk didn’t know what to make of it. But I’ll be damned if wondering about that wasn’t more entertaining than anything on-screen.

Since the DVD has no extras, I went online to see if I could dig up any information on it (for example, why it existed in the first place), but found nothing. I DID find some hilarious rumors about Murphy though, such as a press conference where she began singing and putting napkins over her face as she laid down on the floor, and how she also lost the role of Tinkerbell in Disney’s new franchise, due to her dating ex-cons (the article also mentions that the film itself needed work, due to having “too many” lesbian innuendos - what the?) and being possibly hooked on drugs. But worse than all of that, I also learned that her next horror movie is directed by Mike Feifer, which is possibly the saddest fate of all.

What say you?

HorrorBlips: vote it up!

75 comments:

  1. Thank you for this enlightening blog on a new movie with two great actresses, Thora Birch and Brittany Murphy. Since I love psychological thrillers and the paranormal, I will definitely check this out. I will try to form my own opinions on this one, but thanks for yours.

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    1. This review by the author was poorly written and sucked in my opinion.

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    2. I concur with the comment on 11/14/22.

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    3. I thoroughly enjoyed the sarcasm in this dead on review!

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  2. most candid and exact review i felt the same abt the movie :)

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  3. DUDE! I was online looking for some kind of explanation for that mega-confusing ending of The Deadline when I found you're review. I had as much luck as you did with my search, but at least I know I'm not the only one who thought nothing added up in that movie, lol.

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  4. I just finished watching it. Horrible waste of time. Murphy is terrible. Unfortunately Birch is terrible too. Kinda sleepwalking through the whole mess.

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  5. I just got done watching the movie, and decided to go online for some kind of explanation...Everything you asked was LITERALLY the questions I sought answers for!!!
    I, personally, think Brittany Murphy;s appearance fir her role...She looked a little disturbed!! However, I agree with you on Thora Birch's appearance...Although, I feel she's looked washed out for years!! She really let herself go... I remember Monkey Trouble, Hocus Pocus days...She was a cute kid!! What the hell happened to her?! Hahaha.

    I'm a Psych. major...So apart of me is interested in the movie, and figuring it all out!! But the other part of me is angry with it, because it could have been so much better...

    Idk, but your blog made for good reading! Kudos//Props!!

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  6. so this is what i think...

    in the movie it starts out murphy really did get attacked by her ex boyfriend, ben. she then does go to an isolated house to write a movie. as she is on her way there her girlfriend (who she has been seeing while with her boyfriend) suggests "writing a movie on her own life"

    murphy is then looking back at her tapes (ones she taped of herself and her girlfriend) and thinks of creating two charecters, the man and women it switches scenes to, for her movie. murphy thinksof ideas for her movies, which are the scenes it shows.

    when murphys girlfirend shows up, murphy is in the bathtub, and had dunked her head in the water to create the vision of being lucy, the man had never fallen down the stairs and the women and never died.

    when the girlfriend looks at the tape she realizes murphy tapes her, and she is the lucy in the movie, while murphy is the creepy man.

    if anyone can understand all that ^

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    1. I think that brittney murphy IS david..and she killed lucy and is just realizing it. And I know this is 13 years too late

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    2. Like that answer ,at least say a prayer πŸ™ for Murphy ,she is no longer with us ,

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  7. yeah ok, I guess I could buy that sceanario, however if that is what they were going for it's poorly executed. Also, what about the necklace?

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  8. I kind of took the ending to mean Alice and Ben were Lucy and David, and Rebecca (the girlfriend) was the one who dreamed it all up. Or something like that. Atleast that explanation makes my brain hurt a little less.

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  9. RIP Brittany Murphy

    And fuck you for making fun of her while she had obviously been ill!

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    1. I'm glad someone said it honestly I came here to say just that & im far from anonymous.🀷🏼‍♀️ I shared similar thoughts on everything stated EXCEPT the Brittany Murphy BS. She was a highly talented girl who was taken far too soon! Rumors r spread like wildfire do u take them all that serious? Some have no concept of the golden rule anymore.πŸ™„Rip beautiful girl!!πŸ™πŸ’ž

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    2. Okay but do either of you understand how the concept of time works? This review was posted before she died, of a movie she made that was already released and on video. Which means it was shot *a long long time before* she died. So instead of yelling at me 13 years later, why don't you track down the people in her life that were obviously doing nothing to help her when she was obviously in need of help, and yell at them instead?

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    3. It is kinda weird how she passed away rip

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    4. What's weird is how she died in her creepy house and just a few months after her husband died of the same stuff even down to having pneumonia, R.I.P.
      And I personally loved the movie it does make u think a lot and makes ur brain hurt, but all in a good way.

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  10. What is the song being played on the piano in that movie? Its a really pretty song that Lucy plays.

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    1. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

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  11. I completely agree with "anonymous said..." in that Murphy created two charecters and in the end the girlfriend realizes Murphey is the "Lucy". Look at the girlfriends face when she is watching the camara video. She is... REALLY!!! OMFG!!!! Nicely done "anonymous said..."!!! can't believe I had to google the ending of that long movie.......but today is Brittney Murphey tribute day for me. She will be missed RIP and my fav by her was "don't say a word"

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  12. Says it above but the song she plays on the piano is Moonlight Sonata.

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  13. i still dont get the ending lol

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  14. The character theory does make sense but what does the scene mean when she is outside where Lucy is buried? If it didn't happen then why was she out there?

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  15. OK, this is what I think it was about. Alice's character had some psych issues related to her trauma when her bf tried to kill her. When she went off her meds she relived that trauma through the delusional character of Lucy, since she could not process the trauma in reality. We got a big foreshadowing when she and her friend were driving up to the house and her friend suggested she write about her experience to help her process it. I think the necklace was real, found in an old suitcase in the attic belonging to some random person that Alice incorporated into her delusional processing. When she went to Lucy's "grave" she found flat shoes, in an earlier scene the director made sure to overfocus on Alice's flat shoes while she walked, so I think they were Alice's shoes that she put there. When her ex boyfriend called (in reality) and said he would never call her again she told Lucy "We're free now". But her delusion wasn't ready to let go and incorporated what her ex boyfriend said about being with his mother into her delusion (mother saved David & he was still alive), causing her to continue to process her trauma through the final death of David (because she could be safe now). I think the ending with the video tape of Alice's friend sleeping was weird but I think it was just to show that the last thing in the camcorder was of footage taken before Alice left for the empty house. I think it also showed that Alice was already starting to have this delusion before she came to the house... which was scary to her friend. That's what I think it was all about. And let's also take note that the name "Alice" pays omage to Alice in Wonderland, probably cluing us into some alteration of reality and to there being some symbolic meaning to her "journey".

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    1. I think this is totally it! Thank you!

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    2. my take is that the david and lucy were real, and both were dead when the movie starts. David likely killed himself after he murdered his wife. It was David's ghost who tried to kill alice, and that's why his body wasn't there. Yes he looked human and Lucy looked like a movie ghost. I don't pretend to know the rules governing ghosts, but such disparities are common in movies with ghosts appearing differently at different times. There was never anything of David and Lucy on the tapes, that was an illusion from the ghost of David, doomed forever to re-enact these scenes via the tape, with David always trying to kill his wife again. Mental illness is a misleadingly quick and easy explanation, usually misused by people who don't understand how mental illness works. This perpetuates the myths and stigmas about the mentally ill. Yeah, I'm bipolar, and you have my word on it.

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    3. I agree Anon Jan 2. This is it. Except I think that the girlfriend was a lover that was a "safe" relationship for Alice while she was going through this trauma.

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    4. Your explanation of the movie makes the most sense to me. You got it right on the nose. Jan 2,2010 @1025pm thanks so much! This plays out much better than any other attempt to explain the movie that I have read. I suggest everyone read this theory. I watched this movie before but it always had missing pieces for me until now. I loved Brittany Murphy as an actress RIP. She had me ever since Clueless. Apparently toward the end she had a controlling partner who insisted on doing her hair, makeup, taking all her calls and he was a nightmare on set. Her career was thriving before hand.

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  16. this movie made no sense. if lucy and david were made up then how could the girlfriend look up david and get all of that information about him and lucy going missing?

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  17. the girlfirend stated they hadnt talked in a week so she never knew about anything that was going on

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  18. Just watched the DVD. OMG. I'm still so confused!!
    Thank you for your theories as to what in the heck just happened on my TV.

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  19. I've been all over the net trying to figure out the end. People make all these complicated remarks, but I seem to be the only one who notices that the videos are impossible. They show David holding the camera! And what we see is not video taped. Way too high quality.

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  20. r.i.p brit you sexy dead cougar

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  21. That film is so damn confusing.
    I enjoyed it a bit though I must say that I was expecting something different.
    Thanks for your explanations, now Ive been able to make up my own conclusions out of all that mess xD

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  22. this movie sucks balls.

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  23. This was by far the MOST disorienting film I've ever seen in my entire life. Now I'm going to go wonder around my house with a camcorder and hallucinate that Im a giant spaghetti monster who has issues with lesbianism.

    Ill bet if Murphy knew this was going to be her last film, she might have thought twice about doing it.

    At any rate, may she rest in peace.

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  24. Hey there .. I had to google for an explanation too, so I found this site here. I think the "real" thing that happened was:

    Alice was taken to this house, and startet writing her book. She didn t take her pills, so she was getting delusional. She did never call her gf, that was all in her imagination. She constructed this story to get off her trauma, ending up like the Lucy character. Maybe she had some strange behaviours with filming and stalking her gf, so she implanted this in her story. As seen at the beginning, she keeps always filming her. The last on the tape should be the gf leaving with the car. In the first night she rewinds the tape (or changes) and watches a scene on the bed, as the two were talking about ben.. and that she was dreaming that he killed her. Maybe the scene seen at the end was filmed after the "bed talking scene". This is the only way this movie makes sense to me.

    Sorry for my english, its late. Michael, Germany

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  25. Some movies you are not meant to fully understand this is one of them

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  26. hmmmmm. i still dont get the necklace with "lucy"
    whos house was she staying at?

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  27. Evelin is a puuks.

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  28. yer i watched the movie and omggg it was so confusing i dnt even get anything and i was thinking of checing it up now bt then i came onto this site first and yer so im ifnding out thats it hards to find the website to explain the movie.... no offe3nce i dnt get how they can make a movie without people understanding it... its like writing a bbook how do yo0h expect people to read it and understand it unless the person who wrote the book is near yo0h if i make any sense at all

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  29. Wow. It seems that a lot of people really want to be told about how a movie ends and what everything means. Maybe part of what the story is the fact that you have to think about it, piece things together, take a journey with the characters and come to your own conclusions. It's the journey, not the destination sort of thing. I too was a bit thrown off, but as I think about it, things sink in and the angles change and parts are revealed. I do believe I'll watch it again.

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  30. Some things you see happen in the movie are meant to be real and some things you see are meant to be Alice's delusions. You have to think about it and decide for yourself. I love these types of movies,where you get to think about it and there is no right or wrong answer. Why must everything be spoon fed?

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  31. Being a bit of a writer myself, I know how your characters can become real. I was confused by the ending until the next day when it dawned on me.... What if Rebecca was the actual writer (as Alice, Lucy, and David were in the screen play). Would it not explain things? She could use herself as a small part in the screen play, but took herself out for the most part. And the entire screen play was a work of fiction, but Rebecca was the one with the frail mind who actually became so attached to Alice that she became totally real to her..... Psychological thrillers are MEANT to be this way. Not just be sit back and enjoy movies, but ones that can be analyzed and talked about after it's over to add to the fun. You have to enjoy that part of it to enjoy them. You either love em or hate em.

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  32. One more thing, the reason I came to the conclusion that the only REAL person in the movie is Rebecca is from her being the one on the camcorder. If it had been anyone else, then this would have made no sense to me. But because it was her, it made me realize that it was the only way this could make sense. Rebecca is the writer and her character Alice has become a real person to her. Her putting the screen play down and covering up Alice and then walking away from her and leaving her alone (WHO would do that?), seemed to be her putting her away till the next time she needs to write.

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  33. you mean beethoven - moonlight sonata

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQVeaIHWWck

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  34. I'll have to watch it again to see if this would fit, but I thought that possibly Alice was actually "David" and her girlfriend was "Lucy". This may be a far fetched idea, but there was one point where it was implied that Lucy had attempted to leave David and he became suicidal and tried to kill himself, so she stayed with him. At the end of the movie, Rebecca pulls Alice out of the tub, gives her the meds, and promises to never leave her again. Then she watches the tape where Alice is filming her sleeping much like David did to Lucy. Obviously there would still need to be some explanation about the necklace but who knows... just my thoughts.

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  35. oh my god that is exactly what i think. Just watched the movie tonight. My conclusion is that ben and lucy (the girlfriend rebecca) were together and she was preganant but left ben to be with alice. However alice was paranoid she would levae her to go back with ben. When lucy tries to leave alice she tries to drown her in the bath and although lucy survives the baby doesnt. To deal with her guilt she creates the characters david and lucy (the girl in the movie) and re-runs the past story but she is the victim not the perpretrator! That is why at the end you see the girlfriend (lucy) watching a video of herself filmed by alice! Jenna, Newcastle, England

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  36. I think the most coherent version is the one in which Rebecca is paranoid and invented all the characters. She is the real author of the story. A friend brought her to the house to end the story and taped her before leaving.

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  37. I believe that (Murphy)is lucy, rebecca (lesbian friend) is lucy's "female friend" on the phone that she couldnt wait to tell she was pregnant, ben is david. Throughout the entire movie (murphy) had not taken her prescription, the camera makes it stand out when rebecca shows up in the end and shakes the FULL prescription bottle.
    -What happened in reality was that (murphy)had a baby with ben, ben found out about (murphy)having a lesbian affair with friend(rebecca) so ben tried drowning (murphy) to die. So (murphy)is going through a mental stage because she has not taken her medication, When she says that her and lucy are "free" was because ben had called (murphy) and said that he is sorry and he wont ever bother her again. **Jail for ben was a metaphor of David dead, Ben being out of jail meant David never died he was in the house, Ben apologizing meant David died falling down the stair case. The viewer knows that everything that happened was (murphy) not taking her medication because rebecca told her she had never called her, when in the movie it showed them talking on the phone when david was chasing after her. The lucy necklace was just randomly found, thats how she got the lucy name to her story. (Murphy) was so obssesed with her story and making up that david would always record lucy that she became obssesed with recording rebecca.**

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  38. Okay i got i1!!
    **Alice was Lucy, Rebecca was Lucys female "friend" on the phone that she couldn't wait to tell her in person she was pregnant,Ben was david.
    What happened in reality: Ben found out that pregnant Alice was having an affair with her lesbian friend Rebecca. He tried drowning her, but was unsuccesful in killing her. Since then Alice has had mental problems about that episode in her life.
    HINTS: When the movie begun Rebecca & Alice talk about why Alice has never really presented her to her friends and does not want Ben to know that they are still "close friends"

    Alices Mental Illusion: When Alice moves to the house, she stops taking her medication. This is where the Lucy&David story come about. Lucy & David Never happened.Alice writes her own story substituting her ,ben, & rebeccas names.
    *Hints:Towards the end Rebecca tells Alice she had never received the phone call that Alice claims to have made when david was after her. Camera focuses on Rebecca shaking the medication container and it being FULL.

    METAPHORS: Ben being in jail = David dead
    Ben being out = David never died Alice saw him alive in the home
    Ben Calling Telling Alice he is sorry = David is dead down the stairs "they are free"

    *As for the last recording, just shows in the beginning how alice is a camcord junkie. She became so obssesed with her story, she interpreted the camera in her story. Alice becomes so obssesed with her script she started to get a bit looney and record rebecca.

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  39. This movie is absolutely brilliant.... but only if you know anything about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the fact that it can contribute to Dissociative Identity Disorder. For many people this film will not make any sense. For those of us who are ill fated with D.I.D. it can be a serious trigger.

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  40. I think that all the stuff she found existed (the necklace, clothes, etc). She was wearing these things and her friend acknowledged it. However, it seems like she lost touch with reality at a point. Since the cam had a video of of her friend on it at the end, it seems like there never were any tapes of Lucy. This is where the script/novel comes in. All the scenes we saw her viewing through tapes were actually imagined by her and put into her book. Her being in the bathtub when her friend found her doesn't justify anyone else being there at all. For all we know, she could have filled the tub up on her own and drained it as well.

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  41. Ok i found this on a website.

    Rebecca is Alice, Alice is Lucy, Lucy is Rebecca, David is Ben and Ben is Rebecca. And Davids mum is the writer. alice filled the tub but lucy emptied it after she drowned and came back to life and the put rebecca in just before she chucked david off the stairs lucy then went to buy new batteries for the camcorder and then came back and gave them to rebecca!!! Awesome movie loved every minute and still have no fucking idea what the fuck happened!!!

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  42. Lucy and David did exist. Rebecca looked David's name up on the Internet and found that they both went missing. That's the only truth about them - they went missing. Some of their things were left in the house (i.e. the red dress and gold necklace), and Alice found out their names from looking around in the house. The fact that they went missing just helped feed her delusions. Alice was having many psychological problems after her boyfriend tried to drown her and killed the baby, and in her mind, she created the whole story of David murdering Lucy. It mirrored what Ben did to her. She was reliving it. The cries and moans she kept hearing were her own from when Ben tried to murder her, but she had not processed what happened to her, and her flashbacks became delusions and hallucinations. David constantly videoing Lucy was a reflection of Alice that became entwined in the delusions she was having. She always videoed Rebecca, and Rebecca didn't like it. I think Marie may have been the name of a real-life friend Alice had, or she could have represented Rebecca in her life while she was with her boyfriend Ben. Her traumatizing experience and her current reality became mixed up in her delusions. Lucy was not really buried outside, David was never in the house watching her, and David never tried drowning her in the tub. She put herself in the tub while having a delusion that David put her there. I think Alice acted out the part of each person as she had her hallucinations. The camera was found on the floor because she put it there while in her mind she thought David dropped it there as he fell. Then when Lucy's ghost came into the bathroom, turned off the water, and unstopped the drain, Alice acted that out too. Lucy wrapped the chain of the stopper around the faucet twice, just like Alice did in an earlier scene. I think Alice then got in the tub as she believed she was there after almost being drowned. The more I think about it, the more connections I see. Ben got out of jail and came looking for her - David never really died, and he stayed in the house watching her. I'd like to watch it again to see what other connections I see.

    And Brittany Murphy did not look that bad in real life. They made her look bad to fit what she was going through in the movie. I really liked it myself. RIP Brittany Murphy.

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  43. It is all kinda crazy if you ask me. Even reading through all of these conclusions it still does not make complete sense. If someone makes a movie and then needs everyone to go onto a site to have an open discussion about what it all means to make some sense of it, shouldnt it be in the warnings somewhere in the beginning or even the ending. Im just saying.....

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  44. The movie was a mess and was really slow. Rest in peace Britney Murphy.

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  45. I just finished watching Dealine twice, I believe Lucy and David were Rebecca and Alice. I think Alice stopped taking her medication and became dilusional and made up the story about David and Lucy incorporating her own traumatizing experience into her own story. I think a David and Lucy lived there however the story was not theirs it was Alice's. I think Brittany Murphy was brillant in this movie and her appearance was consistent with the character. Shame on all of you commenting on her appearanc,what did you expect her to look like, just fresh off the runway? RIP Brittany

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  46. brittney Murphey looked hella hot in the movie kinda sexy

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  47. Alice was attacked by her jealous boyfriend, Ben, in the past whereby she lost their child. That much is true. She has a very close relationship with her girlfriend Rebecca, probably a lesbian one. Ben went to jail, leaving Rebecca with psych issues. She probably had these psych issues prior to the attack. She is on medication for her disease of the mind. She likes to videotape scenes of her relationship with Rebecca. She goes away to escape reminders of Ben and to write a movie script in peace. She creates the characters Lucy and David, probably names of people who lived in the house in the past. They moved out or sold the house a while back. She used her horrific past experience(as suggested by Rebecca in the car ride) to create this fiction. She forgets or decides to skip her meds, and becomes delusional as she enters the fictional world of her script. She uses herself as the character David, Rebecca as Lucy. At the end Rebecca sees herself in a video that Alice had taped while Rebecca was sleeping, and realizes that Alice created the script based on their own life. Now who is this friend that Alice got the house for free from? Maybe he knows the history of the previous owners and told Alice about it before she went there. If her delusions were true wouldn't she have called this friend to ask him about the house possibly being hunted? I enjoyed the movie. I think it's supposed to keep you guessing at the end. This seemed the most plausible explanation to me.

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  48. why is it that we could only read the first 2 labels on the videotapes in the box? ( Lucy Cooking and Lucy playing the piano) I think that those were the only actual tapes of Lucy and David, after that the tapes begin to play like a movie. And so after that I believe that they were just figments of Alice's imagination. And OMG could she have moved any slower?

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  49. This is how I think it went..:
    At the end Rebecca shakes the bottle of pills and it's FULL. So Alcie didn't take her pills and made Lucy and David up in her mind. Yes they lived there but they arn't dead, just moved out or something..
    So because Alice didn't take the pills she thought what Lucy and David did was real. But instead David is Alice herself and Lucy is Rebecca.
    When Rebecca reads the book and watched the camera and the end she realises that Alice/David was filming her and she was Lucy.
    The end! :)

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  50. THE FILM DOES NOT MAKE SENSE WTF HAPPENED

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  51. what i get from your sayings is that:
    Alice was married with Ben..she was pregnant but also she had an afair with her friend Rebecca..Ben found out and tried to kill her but without achieving it,alice lost her baby.he get in jail. Alice got traumas and mental problems,since then and was taking pills.She went to live in an old house away from her girlfriend in order to make a book.Allice stop taking her pills so that she could get dillusional,get over her trauma and make the book of her own story.She maybe found cassetes of David and Lucy(just the first too with labels,the others where fictional) and she read about them on the net(she read that they were missing).she took their names to built her story.She used Lucy as a representation of herself,mairy(the one that lucy was talking on the phone) as Rebecca,and Ben as david.All the other stuff(phone calls to her girlfriend,images,etc) was her imagination and dillusions.and from all that she make it and wrote her book.she was also taping her girlfriend.there are 2 explanations for this one: or she had already knew that she was going to write about and the tapes etc so she tapped her..or she began to be dillusional earlier and get obssessed with her girlfriend..but i believe it's the first one..
    my opinion :) Kate,16, from Greece(sorry for my english) :)

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  52. Glad I found this since I couldn't figure out the ending either. I didn't think it was all that bad, if it's late and you're alone and bored.
    The ending is one of those artsy things they do to keep you guessing.
    - Dave in New England

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  53. Sorry over a year later but I just watched it and like so many others apartently, I went looking for an explanation. The comment from Jan 2 2010 at 2:29pm and the one from Jan 26 2010 at 10:52pm were by far the closest to logical explanations so thanks for that. The review was good too so don't take offense, I knew just as little about what was supposed to have happened as you did. I also really appreciated your observation that Shining rip-offs always seem to suck hugely.
    #worstmovieever #IstillmissBrittanyMurphy
    Roxanne Colorado

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  54. I wish that I stumbled onto this forum sooner. I just wasted1hr. 29min. Of my life watching this boring train wreck.:(

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  55. Ok so the movie wasnt half bad until the ending came up . So here I am, With my mom confused as hell about what happened . So I looked it up . It turnes out Blucas and Birch's relationship problems reflected murphy's relationship with her ex boyfriend Ben . So all that stuff really did happen . But now Murphy and doing what Ben did to her, to her girlfriend . Which Blucas also did to Birtch . [Yes that means Murphy is crazy] Which explains the ending . If you still dont get it I dont even blame you cause it was dumb . Oh and shes a terrible acotor . She has NO TYPE of emotion when she hears sounds and sees freaking footsteps . Shes just like "Oh thats perfectly normal " . She pissed me off in this dumb ass movie .

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  56. All I know was that, Rebecca picked the camera off up the floor that was supposed to be of Alice drowning in the bath tub and should have been filming David while falling over the strair case to his second death. But see Rebecca finds it in perfect condition with only of herself being filmed while sleeping. We are tp presume that Alice is filming Rebecca sleeping. Well, I just felt that while Rebecca was watching the film of her at base of stairs that Alice was going to come down and hit Rebecca over the head with a baseball bat

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  57. Let me guess…The reviewer is a failed screenwriter. This review is full of biased opinion and little else.

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    Replies
    1. I'm not, but despite insulting me I'd like to ask a genuine question: why are you and so many other anonymous accounts commenting on this very old review all of a sudden? Was it linked somewhere or something?

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