Mars Horodyski’s “Deadbolt” is a film so drenched in banalities that it feels terribly unsure of itself. There are obvious clutches toward generating horror and tickling dread. However, the narrative keeps second-guessing itself while ferreting out the oldest card in the book, i.e., threading in a constant indication that a lot of the kooky stuff that the heroine is experiencing might just be entirely imaginary on account of her psychologically delicate tendencies. This inclusion is persistently distracting, irrespective of its legitimacy and its contestation by the end. Michael Rinaldi’s screenplay is too loose and inchoate, drawing from a scattering of generic template-driven plot points, pervasively reducing the characters to being merely associated with their circumstances and never for once betraying a wider glimpse.
Any sense of their holistic selves, beyond the framework of the film’s central events, feels utterly absent. It might not be a mandate, but such absence inevitably strips the film of characters who can display sparks of genuine growth. So, when the protagonist does realize some sort of growth or progress in the end, it’s entirely lacking in credibility, feeling sorely unearned.
Deadbolt (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The entire film is strewn with an embarrassing barrage of downright unpersuasive turns in its story, no matter that they are so derivative. It is colossally disappointing on too many counts that reconciling convincing plot points with understandable character development holds almost no ground. Then, when it also has to grapple with stitching in climactic revelations designed to shake up its foundations, its case worsens further, slipping into a mush of extreme silliness.
The film starts on the most been-there-done-that note. Amelia (Rebecca Liddiard) is moving into a new place, away from home and the familiarity of her town. The main reason why she is relocating is that she seeks an escape from her relationship, which has turned horrid. She has long been in its grip, unable to put her foot down. When she finally called it quits on her manipulative, toxic boyfriend, she needed a change of place that would offer her a fresh start.
The house she moves into has low rent, which is why she instantly considers it. Her roommate, Melinda (Camille Stopps), is a terrifically enthusiastic, clingy kind. Immediately, Melinda has a desire for a deep, intimate friendship with a stranger like Amelia. Melinda is flamboyant and super-extroverted, pushing the shy, repressed Amelia to go out with her to clubs. Amelia does try initially until she gets sure she can’t really gel in as well and easily as Melinda does.
How does Amelia meet David?
Amelia is an aspiring artist, eking out a modest livelihood by doing online transcription work and saving up until she hopes to apply to art school the next year. Quickly after moving into the new locality, she keeps having a series of uncanny experiences. There’s the odd old couple, Karla (Kyra Harper) and her husband Bruno (Bill MacDonald). The husband is perennially looking for his lost cat. Amelia swears she can hear weird noises in the house. The front door turns out to be unlatched frequently, although she can strongly recall having locked it.
Amelia kindles a bond with a local, David ( Jamie Spilchuk), meeting him at a cafe. Their first point of connection is that they are both readers and neither very eager to be amidst a group of people. Amelia softens towards him, seeing both care and loving attention in him. Their equation deepens as they start meeting frequently. But Amelia is still guilt-tripped by her mother for abandoning her boyfriend. She also feels that in many situations, she is being followed. Some of the strange noise she hears she tries to explain them away by the presence of lurking rats.
The first crisis happens when Melinda’s boyfriend, Mark (Thomas Duplessie), overdoses while visiting their house. Soon, the girls’ rent disappears. One day, Melinda starts developing peculiar rashes. Amelia looks after her until she takes a break and hooks up with David. The morning after, the cops inform Amelia that Melinda has been found dead on the street. A deeply distressed Amelia is reassured by David that he can stay with her as long as she wants.
Deadbolt (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Who is Living in the Attic?
Amelia also discovers that it was her boyfriend, Colin (Joey Belfiore), who was stalking her. She warns him to firmly stay away. Karla invites her over to have a cup of tea, which is when Amelia is confronted with a whole gallery of horrors that have been witnessed and perpetrated in the house. The original residents of the house were a family with a father prone to vacillating moods. Presumably, he was suffering from deep-lodged psychological issues and took it out on his kids and wife. One day, he killed them and himself. Only his son survived, hiding in the basement.
Going back to the house, she is accosted by Colin, who tells her that he has seen a guy living upstairs in the attic. Once she is back in the house, David shows up. In a slip-up of his, it turns out that David is the son who survived the attack. David also ends up killing Colin, who was trying to enter the house. Terrified at the realization that it was David behind the odd happenings and Melinda’s death, she escapes to the attic, which she discovered a little earlier in the narrative. David pleads with her, insisting that they share an inimitable, special bond. He wants to be with her and tells her he means no harm to her. He killed Melinda because she had found out about him.
There is a good bit of scuffle between Amelia and David. Finally, Amelia decides she should no longer hide and retreat but go all out at him. Overwhelmed by her lunge at him, he staggers back and falls out the window to his death. The film ends with a confident Amelia moving out of the house, prepared to embrace and accept whatever new challenge life hurls at her. However, her revitalized strength of spirit feels starkly unearned and terribly contrived for a pat conclusion.
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