The Next Day: The Boy (2015) Edition

That's right, it's another episode of The Next Day! And this time, it's also a movie called 'The Boy', which I agree is a little weird!

Enjoy!

Next time, a movie not called The Boy!

New Video Project! The Next Day: The Boy (2016)

That's right, 'The Next Day' is back - in video form! The stars of TheAvod bring the aftermath of prominent horror films to life, or at least audio!

The first installment is 2016's 'The Boy'!

The Next Day: Intruders Edition

Welcome to 'The Next Day', a recurring feature which explains what happens immediately after the end of films with ambiguous finales!

This time we're talking about Intruders, the film about (spoiler alert) a home invasion which goes awry when the house's inhabitant, a shut-in, turns out to be a crazed serial killer!

At the climax of the film, after she's murdered all of the Intruders (hey, I just got the title!), and the house she hasn't left in a decade is set on fire, the serial killer wanders off into the woods as the credits roll and police sirens approach.

Yeah, turns out that I'm really fond of auto-balancing.

So, what happened next?

She was immediately arrested. Like five seconds later. This is a 23-year-old woman who hasn't left her house in a decade. She can't drive, has no social skills, resources, or idea how to avoid the police. Also she was pretty badly beaten during her fights with each of the three home invaders.

Honestly, it would have made more sense for the character, and been a better ending for the movie, had she stood at the front door and looked out into the world, then walked back into her burning house, going down with the ship. Whether it was because she honestly couldn't leave or because burning to death was preferable to life in jail could have been up to the audience, who would have left with a more logical, character-based resolution.

The Next Day: ATM Edition

For the entire length of the film ATM, the killer remains maddeningly outside of the ATM kiosk where he has trapped three yuppies on a supposedly-cold Christmas night. For most of the film this is a puzzling decision, as it seems to be born of his desire to avoid being caught on a security camera. Which is normally an understandable thing for criminals to avoid, but in this case it doesn't make the most sense, as the killer's wearing both a hooded parka and a ski mask, ensuring that his identity is well-secured.

Finally the meaning behind his baffling decision is revealed when the film asks us to believe that the killer could have successfully framed one of his surviving victims for all of his crimes. Which include three murders, a negligent homicide (at least), and extensive acts of vandalism. The film implies that the killer will get away with this solely because he never actually appears on the ATM's security camera footage.

So, what would happen the next day?

Examining the footage and listening to the survivor's story, the police would conclude that yes, they're obviously looking at video of three people who are besieged by a maniac who trapped them with a car and then tried to cause them to freeze to death by flooding the kiosk with water from a nearby firehose. There's nothing in the tapes that supports any other interpretation of the evidence, especially because the three victims are constantly looking and yelling out the windows, desperately trying to figure out what's happening to them. Not to mention the fact that none of the implements used in the film's murders have fingerprints on them, since the killer - unlike any of the three main victims - was wearing gloves.

Which would a cop more likely believe - that an unknown madman killed a bunch of people at an ATM, or that some random banker hung out in an ATM kiosk for three hours with his co-workers for no reason, then tried to flood the place before driving two separate cars into it?

Yes, the survivor would be on the hook for that janitor that the two of them killed, but given the situation (a man dressed like a murderer barged into an ATM kiosk without warning, then said nothing in his defense while being attacked in response) the most he could realistically be charged with is involuntary manslaughter, and he likely wouldn't serve any time (assuming no prior convictions).

The Next Day: The Tapes Edition

Welcome to the first installment of a new feature here at TheAvod: The Next Day! What is the purpose of this feature, you ask? Simple - as I'm sure most cineastes are aware, horror movies only have one ending - the monster gets away - despite the fact that studies have conclusively proven that everyone hates open-ended horror movies. The plague of open-endedness went so far as to drive producers to alter the TV version of 'The Thing', adding a blatant 'the monster gets away' ending to the film's famous ambiguous one.

This assumption that all horror films must be so rigidly formulaic has caused the people who make them to grow incredibly lazy when constructing their narratives, ending every film by tacking on the 'and then the killer got away with it' resolution even when the facts presented in the film in no way allow for the possibility of that happening.

The ridiculous part is that there's no need for this ending - if a situation with believable characters is crafted with enough skill, it's scary enough when they wind up getting killed by a monster. The experience of watching that happen is what people go to horror movies for - not to have the filmmaker - at the supposed 'end' of the story - announce "And the creature is still out there... maybe standing right behind you... right now!" It's as if somehow William Castle became the template for every horror filmmaker's career.

So the methodology of this feature is as follows: I establish the facts of the plot, relate the film's ending, and then explain what would have logically happened next - despite the film's claims or implications.

Now our Inaugural Film: The Tapes!