A Couple Gets Trapped in a MazeLike Neighborhood And The Only Way Out is to Raise The Given Child
A Couple Gets Trapped in a MazeLike Neighborhood And The Only Way Out is to Raise The Given Child
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00:00 Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a comedy/horror/mystery film from 2019, titled "Vivarium". Spoilers ahead. Watch out and take care.
00:09 The movie begins by showing us the life cycle of Cuckoos. These birds put their eggs in other birds' nests, then the chick pushes the other babies out of the nests so the surrogate mothers only feed them.
00:18 Then we cut to a primary school class under the care of Miss Gemma, whose game ideas are well received by the kids.
00:24 Some hours later, after classes have ended, one of the mothers approaches Gemma when she's leaving the building to say hi and ask her how house hunting is going.
00:31 Gemma says it's been going on and on and that they'll be seeing some estate agents later.
00:35 After saying her goodbyes to the mom, Gemma notices one of her students nearby, staring at something on the ground.
00:41 She comes closer and finds that something on the ground is a dead bird, the little girl asks who could have done this to a chick.
00:47 Gemma explains Cuckoos to her, and when the girl wonders why they can't make their own nests, Gemma says that's nature, that's just the way things are.
00:53 The girl replies that's terrible before her mother calls her over, and as soon as the girl is done, a funny voice coming from the tree asks Gemma to come closer.
01:00 Gemma laughs and kicks the tree, the voice pretends to be hurt by this before showing his face, descending from the tree is Tom, a handyman and Gemma's boyfriend.
01:08 After kissing her hello, Tom finds the dead bird on the ground and buries it.
01:12 A moment later, Tom is putting his tools back in his car.
01:15 Since he stinks, Gemma tells him to change his t-shirt before she gets in the car.
01:19 Tom joins her shortly after, wearing a nude t-shirt and together they drive downtown to meet with the estate agent.
01:25 The agency they enter is clean and orderly, but the house mockups all look the same.
01:29 There's also only one agent, Martin, who approaches Gemma and Tom as soon as they step inside.
01:34 After introducing himself, Martin tells them about a suburban development called Yonder, which is tranquil and accommodating but also very cheap.
01:41 Gemma asks where it's located, Martin says it's just the right distance.
01:45 His demeanor is rather weird and off-putting but he's also very convincing, so when he asks the couple if they have a vehicle they can use to visit Yonder, they accept after some initial hesitation.
01:54 Martin gets in his car, and Gemma and Tom follow him in their own vehicle.
01:58 Soon enough they make it to Yonder where they notice the houses match the mockups of the agency, they all look exactly the same.
02:03 No other people or cars are seen around.
02:06 They park in front of house 9, where Martin is already waiting for them.
02:10 He quickly takes them inside and shows them around the fully furnished house, even taking out a gift of champagne and strawberries from the fridge when they make it to the kitchen.
02:17 Tom and Gemma turn down the gift under the excuse they're driving, which disappoints Martin.
02:22 He takes them upstairs next, where he shows them a nursery already painted in blue and mentions this isn't a starter home, it's a forever house.
02:28 When he asks them if they have children, Gemma says not yet, and Martin mimics her voice and gestures perfectly as he repeats her answer.
02:35 Next they go to the master room, where there are two outfits folded by the bed, but as soon as they enter Martin is taking them out again to move to the back garden.
02:42 They return downstairs and Martin opens the back door for them, but he doesn't follow them outside.
02:47 Gemma and Tom look around the garden and check out the neighbor's house, which is empty.
02:51 When Gemma turns around to ask Martin when people will be moving in, they realize he isn't there with them.
02:56 They return to the house to look for him to no avail, and when they make it to the street, they notice his car is gone.
03:01 Tom tells Gemma to use this chance to get out of there, so they get in their car with Gemma at the wheel and drive away.
03:06 It only takes them seconds to get lost, since no matter where they turn, they always end up back at number 9.
03:12 After a few failed tries, Gemma and Tom change places, so it's Tom who tries to drive them out of town this time while Gemma checks their phones and finds neither of them has a signal.
03:21 Tom doesn't do better than Gemma with his driving, he also keeps looping back to house 9.
03:25 They spend the whole day driving and arguing over which is the correct way out, and when night falls, their car stops right in front of house 9 when it runs out of gas.
03:33 Seeing as they have no other choice, they decide to spend the night in the house.
03:36 They enter the building and retrieve the gift from the fridge, but as soon as they taste the strawberries, they notice they have no taste.
03:42 After this improvised dinner, they go to sleep in the master bedroom, where Gemma mentions she's never heard such a complete silence.
03:48 The next morning, Tom grabs his stairs from the car and uses them to climb to the roof of the house, but the only thing he can see from there is an endless sea of identical houses.
03:57 As he comes down from the roof, Tom decides to try something different, following the sign.
04:01 They cut through gardens and jump over fences but never stop walking, no matter how tired they get.
04:06 This takes them the whole day, and it isn't until night falls that they find a house with the lights on.
04:10 They hurry inside only to find the strawberries and glasses from the previous night on the table.
04:15 Not believing what they're seeing, they run to the door and confirm their suspicions; they're back on house 9.
04:20 This time, however, there's a box waiting for them on the street.
04:23 Gemma opens it and finds lots of tasteless vacuum-packed food plus some personal hygiene products.
04:28 Getting angry, she walks to the middle of the street, yelling at their mysterious provider to come back.
04:33 Meanwhile, Tom takes the box inside the house and tears off a flap that he proceeds to set on fire with his lighter.
04:39 Then he uses it to set alight the curtains, starting a whole house fire before getting out.
04:43 When he meets Gemma outside, he tells her he's sending a smoke signal.
04:47 They watch the house burn while sitting across the street, and they fall asleep there as well.
04:51 The next morning they wake up covered in ash to the sound of a baby cooing.
04:54 There's another box in the middle of the street and when Gemma opens it, there's a baby inside and a message on the flap, "raise the child and be released."
05:01 Gemma picks the baby up and points out it's a boy as the ash and smoke clear out; when the couple turns around, they discover the house is intact.
05:08 98 days pass.
05:09 The word "help" has been painted on the roof of house 9.
05:12 Tom and Gemma have been living there and raising the child, who's grown into 10-year-old.
05:16 This morning, the boy is standing in front of their bed, waiting for them to wake up.
05:20 When they do, he first imitates their gestures, then he starts mimicking their arguments with their exact voices, just like Martin.
05:27 Tom calls him a "creepy little mutant" but the boy doesn't care, he just asks to be measured.
05:31 They go downstairs and Gemma marks the boy's hide on the wall, where we can see tons of similar marks.
05:36 The boy says he's growing like a dog and asks Gemma what a dog is, she responds they've already explained that.
05:41 After running around the living room woofing, the boy stops in front of them and asks his mother if she's overwhelmed again.
05:47 Gemma tells him she's not his mother and when he asks who his mother is, she replies only God knows.
05:52 The boys goes back to running and woofing then, only to stop again a moment later to start screaming.
05:56 Gemma and Tom know what this means, so they rush to prepare breakfast for him.
06:00 The boy stops only screaming when his cereal is ready.
06:03 The three of them eat together and it's time to clean up, Tom throws all leftovers and empty packages in the box, which he takes out and leaves on the street afterward.
06:11 While the boy stares at the box, Tom and Gemma sit in the garden with a pickaxe in hand, although Gemma thinks it's useless,
06:16 because whoever brings their food never shows up when they can see them.
06:19 After getting unnerved by the boys staring, Gemma goes back into the house to make some coffee.
06:24 Meanwhile, Tom lights up a cigarette which, after smoking it all, he throws at the boy.
06:28 The cigarette butt bounces on the boy's chest and falls on the ground, instantly burning away a full circle of grass.
06:34 Tom immediately notices, so he grabs the pickaxe and sticks it on the uncovered ground, finding some different materials in it.
06:40 This gives him an idea, he goes to his car and retrieves his tools to start digging a hole.
06:45 At first Gemma helps him, but soon she decides it's pointless.
06:48 When she looks up, she realizes the box is gone.
06:51 She turns to the boy and asks him if he moved it, but he shakes his head to say no.
06:55 Then she asks Tom, but he only cares about digging because it's something he can actually do, so she leaves him to it.
07:01 Later that night, Gemma is in bed, waiting for Tom to get in as well.
07:04 She asks him why he spent the whole day digging, he replies there's got to be a bottom that leads somewhere.
07:09 After Tom takes a shower, they make love without noticing the boy spying on them.
07:13 The next morning, they start going through the usual routine, but this time Tom leaves them after breakfast to keep digging.
07:19 Gemma offers to help, but Tom wants to do it alone, so she works on washing the clothes instead.
07:24 The boy entertains himself by running and woofing again, but then he turns on the TV where he watches some bizarre, fractal-like patterns.
07:31 Night falls, and while digging, Tom notices that Gemma has gotten in their car, so he decides to join her.
07:36 They like it there because unlike the house, the car has an actual smell.
07:40 While trying to relax, Tom accidentally hits the radio, turning it on.
07:44 They realize that the battery is still working, so they turn on the front lights and get out of the car to dance on the street.
07:49 Hearing the loud music, the boy leaves the house and watches them for a moment before joining them.
07:54 In his dancing, he accidentally pushes Tom to the floor, and he retaliates by hitting the boy.
07:58 Tom rushes back into the house while a worried Gemma checks on the boy, who stands up without trouble and continues to dance without music.
08:05 Moments later, we see Gemma putting the boy to bed and asking him to give her and Tom some privacy sometimes, but the boy doesn't understand.
08:12 He calls her mother again when he wishes her goodnight, Gemma reminds him she isn't his mother before closing the door.
08:17 The boy immediately starts screaming and Gemma rushes back in to grab him by the shoulders and ask him what he wants.
08:22 After repeatedly being told to shut up, the boy stops screaming and starts mimicking Tom, Gemma gets angry and after calling him disgusting, she leaves the room.
08:30 She joins Tom in their bed, cuddling him and kissing him with the intention of intimacy, but Tom apologizes because he's too tired for it.
08:37 Days continue to pass with the three of them going through the same routine over and over.
08:41 Tom's hole is getting bigger and one morning, he can hear a noise coming from under the soil, which encourages him to keep digging.
08:47 He discovers later one night that the same noise is coming from the weird TV show the boy watches.
08:52 They try to turn the TV off but the boy takes the remote control back and turns it on again.
08:56 Not knowing what else to do, they decide to leave him to it and go back to bed.
09:00 After more days of excruciating routine pass, one morning Tom finally snaps.
09:04 He grabs the boy's cereal bowl and throws it against the wall before grabbing the screaming child and taking him to the car, where he locks him up with the intention of starving him to death.
09:12 Gemma takes pity on the boy and asks Tom for the key, but Tom pushes her back into the house and to the floor, where he reminds her they're not the kid's parents and they shouldn't take care of him anymore, maybe if the kid is about to die, someone will come to rescue him.
09:24 Gemma pushes Tom off her and after thinking about it, she asks him what happens if nobody comes for him.
09:29 Tom corrects her and says it's an "it", not "am", and if it dies, maybe they'll be freed.
09:33 Gemma can't stand the idea of waiting for the boy to die so she quickly snatches the car keys from Tom's hand and runs to the street to free the boy from the car.
09:41 He accepts to go with her after she promises she won't allow Tom to hurt him again.
09:45 More days pass.
09:46 One evening, while Tom continues to dig, Gemma puts the boy to bed and explains to him what dreams are, since he never had one.
09:53 After he lays down, she decides to stay there and sleep next to him.
09:56 The boy takes the chance to cuddle her while Tom starts sleeping inside the hole.
10:00 Since the car incident, Gemma and the boy ignore Tom, and now he must have his meals alone.
10:05 Gemma and the boy spend time together, playing and having picnics, but at night, Gemma cries alone in her bed.
10:10 One particular morning, after washing and changing, Gemma goes to awaken the boy, but she doesn't find him in his bed.
10:16 After searching the whole house, she goes out and asks Tom, but he hasn't seen him either and doesn't care he's gone missing, he only wants to dig.
10:23 Gemma decides to walk around the town in search of him and, after a couple of hours when the loop inevitably takes her back to house 9,
10:29 she finds that the boy has returned and is standing by the hole with a book in his hands, which Gemma takes and tries to read later at night.
10:35 The book is filled with symbols she doesn't recognize and various weird drawings that include the fractals from the TV, a human family and images of humanoids with throat sacks.
10:44 While Tom stays in the hole again, Gemma approaches the boy who is watching TV and asks him where he had gone earlier.
10:49 He replies he's been solving a mystery, and when Gemma asks what he's discovered, he only says "lots and lots".
10:55 She also asks if he's met anyone new, to which he replies "yes" but isn't allowed to say whom.
10:59 Gemma comes up with a plan then, she turns off the TV and tells the boy they're going to play pretend.
11:04 She asks him to mimic her, Tom and a dog, the boy does them all perfectly.
11:08 Then she tells him to mimic the person he met today, and the boy freaks her out when he suddenly starts making the noises from the TV as he inflates his throat sacks.
11:16 Scared and crying, Gemma backs away, and the boy checks on her by calling her mother.
11:20 Gemma reminds him yet again that she isn't his mother, she only wants to go home, but the boy calls her silly because she's already home.
11:27 Even more days pass.
11:28 The message on the roof has changed from "help" to the "f" word, and while the routine has stayed the same, the boy has grown into a young adult that looks very similar to Martin.
11:36 Gemma prepares him dinner and leaves him eating alone at the table.
11:39 She takes her and Tom's dishes to their barricaded bedroom, where they eat in private.
11:43 When Tom asks him what's in her mind, she says she should've let him kill the boy when he was still young.
11:48 Tom tells her she didn't because she's a good person.
11:50 While he takes a shower, we're shown all the bruises he has from digging, he's become sick, so Gemma has to help him wash.
11:56 The next morning, the boy is leaving the house with his book as he's been doing every day lately.
12:01 Gemma tries to follow him, but it doesn't take her long to get lost in the loop that always takes her back to house 9.
12:06 Meanwhile, Tom is still digging and finally manages to find something, but he freaks out when he realizes what it is, a big vacuum bag with a body inside.
12:14 Scared, Tom climbs out of the hole and hears Gemma calling out for him, so he calls her name in return.
12:19 He's having trouble breathing though, so he has to lower himself on the ground.
12:22 That's how Gemma finds him, so after kissing him, she helps him stand up again and walks him to the house, only to find the door is locked.
12:29 After lowering Tom on the ground again, she goes to look through the window, where she sees the boy watching TV and ignoring her begging him to open the door.
12:36 They have no other choice but to sleep in the car.
12:39 When Gemma wakes up hours later, she finds Tom's sickness has gotten incredibly worse.
12:43 She rushes out of the car and fiercely knocks on the door, when the boy comes out, she pleads for help for Tom.
12:48 The boy just replies it's maybe time for him to be released before leaving as usual.
12:52 Feeling defeated, Gemma sits on the pavement with Tom, helping him light his last cigarette and reminiscing about the day they met as the sun comes down.
12:59 After finishing the story of their first meeting, Tom tells her being with her is being home and then passes away.
13:05 Gemma cries as she clings to his body.
13:07 Later in the evening, the boy returns with a box in his hands and finds Gemma sleeping on Tom's body.
13:12 She wakes up when she hears him and checks the contents of the box, it's one of those big vacuum bags.
13:17 Appalled and crying, she backs off, and the boy proceeds to put Tom's body inside the bag before throwing it into the hole.
13:23 Gemma follows him, but she can do nothing but watch.
13:26 The next morning, we find Gemma hiding inside the car, waiting for the boy to come out of the house.
13:31 When he shows up and starts searching for her, she waits for him to turn around and attacks him from behind with a pickaxe, but only manages to slightly wound him.
13:38 The boy hisses and runs away on all fours, crawling into a labyrinth under the pavement.
13:42 Gemma follows him and falls into a red-tinted house where she finds a family in the same situation as hers, a strange boy watching the weird TV and a woman sobbing in the kitchen.
13:51 Suddenly the floor starts swallowing him and she sinks into another room, this one green-tinted.
13:55 Here a couple is making love while the weird boy watches and claps.
13:59 Next she sucked through a wall and into a purple bathroom, where she finds a man that killed himself in the tub.
14:04 When she steps back in shock, she abruptly finds herself rolling down the stairs and back in house 9.
14:09 She slowly makes her way outside, only to fall to the floor after a few steps, wailing in pain.
14:14 We cut to the boy, who is painting over his measurement marks on the wall and fixing details around the house to make it brand new again.
14:20 Then he's shown putting Gemma inside a vacuum bag and telling her she's a mother, and what mothers do is die.
14:25 Gemma mentions all they wanted was a home, the boy calls her silly mother and tells her she's already home.
14:30 Gemma's last words are, once again, that she isn't his mother.
14:34 Without a care, the boy closes the bag and drags it outside to throw it in the hole, then proceeds to cover it with the dirt Tom had dug up.
14:40 Grass automatically appears on it when he's done.
14:43 Afterward, the boy refills the tank of Gemma's car and drives to the city.
14:47 He makes it to the real estate agency, where he finds Martin who has grown old dying on his chair.
14:52 Martin gives the boy his name tag before taking his last breath, and the boy puts the tag on his own shirt before retrieving a vacuum bag from a drawer and putting the old Martin in it.
15:00 He staples a receipt to the bag then starts rolling it up with the body still inside.
15:04 The rolled bag is put away in a bigger drawer.
15:06 The movie ends with the boy sitting at the desk, ready to welcome the new couple that is now entering the office.
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15:17 Thanks for watching.