“Double Blind” is a story of participants who volunteered to participate in a drug trial. All is normal, with many familiar faces who often do the drug trials, and then we have Claire, who is doing this for the first time and is slightly nervous. She takes this path as she desperately needs money. The drug trials go smoothly until all the participants start having some side effects. The Blackwood Pharma conducting the drug trials is hiding something serious, which puts all the participants in a life-and-death situation.
This article contains spoilers.
Double Blind (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film opens with a pre-recorded message inside the Blackwood Pharma building. A woman’s voice says that they specialize in understanding how a drug affects the human body before its release to the public. In the elevator, Claire listens to the pre-recorded message. She is assigned a room, and it is a shared space. She shares the room with two other girls. One of the girls is called Alison. Alison cannot stop talking, and this annoys Claire.
All the participants in the drug trial are called to a common area. They all await further instructions and realize the Wi-Fi does not work. The person supervising the trial is Dr. Burke. The trial was for stage one Abexetine BRN14 and will be conducted over the next five days. The dosage begins with 25mg and goes up to 85mg. The trial is called the Double Blind, and the participants are closely monitored.
Each participant is given the first pill. During lunch, Claire gets to know the other participants and learns that many of them have volunteered for such trials before. Paul tells Claire that Vanessa is a home-schooled kid with orthodox religious parents. They are closely monitored for side effects, and at one point, Claire refuses to give her urine sample as it was a lot. Claire has her first side effect, and she starts vomiting.
She goes out for some fresh air and meets Amir, who is also in the same situation. He tells her that Blackwood contacted him about the trial and decided to take it to showcase himself as a team player because he wanted to intern with the company. That night, Claire is struggling to sleep and wakes up to find the beds next to hers empty. She enters another room and finds the gang as none can sleep. Dr. Burke administers an injection to all of them, calling it slight insomnia.
Alison and Claire play a game of chess. She sees a notepad and asks Alison if they are her sketches, and she answers affirmatively. Claire realizes a lot of the sketches are of Paul, and she teases Alison. Dr. Burke talks to the higher-ups as she notices severe brain inflammation in the participants. Claire and Alison find the lab rats, and Claire believes it’s good they have a roof over their head, but Alison disagrees, saying they don’t have freedom. Alison realises Claire has nobody to return to once the trial is done.
Dr. Burke tells the participants that the trial has changed course, and now the objective is to see how long each participant can go without sleeping. Claire is getting a scan, and she starts hearing voices. Subsequently, Claire and Alison begin to bond. They increase the dosage a lot more, and the participants don’t want to take it. However, all of them are tempted when Dr. Burke says there is going to be an additional payment of 30k each if they continue, and they all succumb to the offer.
The group decides to party by dancing and drinking. Alison and Claire also dance together. Claire starts to feel tired, and she decides to inform Dr. Burke. She is also begging the higher-ups to stop the trial as the participant’s immune system is getting destroyed. The group is sitting around talking when Claire is insensitive towards Alison. Alison decides to get away and sit by herself. Meanwhile, Amir sneaks into Dr. Burke’s office.
Amir is a medical student who sees the brain scans and realizes their situation. Claire decides to apologize to Alison, only to find her bleeding and having a seizure before she dies. Dr. Burke is in a state of shock after seeing Alison. There is a security breach, and the entire floor is in lockdown. Everyone, including Dr. Burke, is trying to get out, but as the door closes, Dr. Burke gets stabbed by the door spikes. The last thing she says before she dies is, ‘I’m Sorry.’
The entire floor is on a 24-hour lockdown. Amir tells the group they need to be awake because they will die if they fall asleep. He means they must fight the urge to sleep for the next 24 hours. The others try to break the door open, but he tells them it’s an automated system and it won’t hurt. He gives each of them five smelling salts and tells them to use it only in an emergency. He also asks them not to take any stimulants as that will make matters worse.
Paul makes a video talking about everything happening inside Blackwood Pharma. Amir tests the brain waves on Claire, finds something scary, shuts his laptop down, and does not say anything to her. Claire records a video on her phone, a message to her mother, and deletes it after recording it. Ray is getting overly suspicious and quotes the bible to Vanessa, who gets annoyed, saying she does not believe in God.
Amir is starting to hallucinate as well. Claire sees the scans of the brain inflammation but can’t make out much. She then sees a list of the participants, and in her case history, it is mentioned that she is perfect for extreme drug trials because of her complex background. She then talks to Vanessa and realizes she has had a difficult life. One more participant dies because of the hallucination. Claire starts to lose herself but burns her hand to stay awake. She tells the rest of them they need to break down the walls and try to escape, but Amir says it’s impossible, but the group tries anyway.
There is hope for a second when they think they found a way out, but it is blocked just like the door. Claire decides to talk to Amir while she is gone. Ray and others think Amir is one of the people from Blackwood Pharma. Claire talks to Amir, and he says he can devise a solution to help push the time to stay awake. He also confesses that it is because of him they are stuck inside. They enter the room, and Ray and others explain they can’t trust Amir and tie him up.
Claire then volunteers to take the solution, and Amir instructs Paul on how to make it, but Vanessa dies. Once Vanessa dies, Amir laughs like a maniac, and Claire threatens him with a knife to his neck. Claire tells Amir she will return for him and Paul and Claire set out and find a secret room. Amir starts to hallucinate. He sees Dr. Burke convincing him that the others have left him to die and that he needs to fight and get out.
Double Blind (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
Will Claire survive the drug trial?
Claire and Paul contemplate if they should escape without others and hear terrifying screams. They rush to find Amir stabbing Ray to death. He can still see and hear Dr Burke saying he has to kill two more people. Claire and Paul start running. Paul begins to record another video for proof, but he is burning in the room. Claire manages to escape from Amir, and the countdown before the doors open is 30 seconds. Amir collapses, and in a few seconds, an entry is available, and three people are in the doctor’s coat.
Amir wakes up and wonders if it’s real, but he is shot dead. The team goes around checking if everyone is dead. Claire pretends to be dead, covering herself in a deceased person’s blood. The bodies are being taken out, and Claire escapes from the vehicle. In the next scene, we see Claire in a hospital with a message from Blackwood. They say Dr. Burke was conducting rogue experiments, and Blackwood didn’t know about it. They also say they focus on creating a brighter tomorrow with medicine. The camera zooms into Claire’s face, and she opens her eyes.
The ending of the film leaves room for speculation. Claire opening her eyes may indicate that if there is a second part to the film, it will be a revenge tale solely focusing on Claire’s payback. The film’s opening scene holds a lot of value as the entire movie was about how the participants of drug trials were treated like lab rats. The film gives a vibe of the film “Exam” in terms of being locked up in a room and trying to find your way out, but this gets brutal, like “Battle Royale.” Like the two movies, even this film has an element of paranoia where the participants turn on each other to survive.
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