I wasn't sure what to expect. Just picked it at random and damn....it was completely up my street. I'm not even sure whether to class it as a horror or not, though it certainly was horrifying.
The whole atmosphere was relentlessly bizarre and hopeful and utterly bleak at the same time, and I loved that. It would have been so easy to throw in more action like we see in the last bit of the movie, but I like they didn't. It made you really feel you were living the drudge and despair along with Gemma and Tom, while keeping you guessing.
As much as I wished for the Big Reveal of exactly who the kid was, what the whole setup was - aliens or monsters or (as I've heard online since, and quite like the interpretation of,) fae, it seemed fitting that we never actually find out.
Nonetheless, if anyone wants to try and translate that damn book and see if it makes any linguistic sense, I'd be fascinated!
I wondered if the tv "programme" was indoctrinating the kid like hypnotism, or if it actually was a language/message learning etc. Or a mission being deployed?
Also curious if he could ever have grown up to be more human. Would that even have been possible? He seemed pretty programmed into his freaky ways from the moment we see him as a boy, like he already knew what the deal was, and maybe already was older than he seemed.
Gotta admit I saw Tom's death coming. Or rather I fully expected one of them to die. Him digging that hole was a neon sign of "digging his own grave".
There's so much of the lore I want to know though. Do those couples that Gemma saw live underneath Yonder? Is it all stacked ? Are they next door but they never see each other? Are they memories of other people that have become imprinted on the place? Like the troubled souls trapped there - I mean original Martin did say that Yonder was "forever". Ugh. So maybe no one ever fully leaves, even in death? But then they do use the term "released' so.. maybe their souls are allowed to leave.
Still absolutely fucked up though. A nicer version would be that the couples be allowed to genuinely leave Yonder but with memories wiped. I presume they only kill them because they don't want them telling stories back in the human world??
For a really fucked up moment, I thought after Tom died, the Boy (or Man at that point) was going to become replacement Tom (given he had been imitating Tom the whole way along,) and either assault Gemma, forcing her to birth the next baby to be raised by the next human couple, or genuinely make a move on her if he genuinely gave a damn (unlikely!) or just simply take her with him into the alien/fae realm.
Those body bags though. Ffffffff.... and the Boy/Man's imitation of Gemma's appalled expression and sounds was absolutely horrifying. One of the worst moments actually and the moment I just threw my hands up like "Yep. She fucked too."
Finally, I couldnt stop thinking how good one of those green houses would look in cake form lol 😋
