There's nothing better than a good horror movie.
But it's easy to get so distracted by the blood and guts that you don't really take
the time to analyze what might have been going on in the filmmaker's head.
Fortunately, there are plenty of people on the internet who do exactly that sort of thing,
and they've come up with some wild ideas that make some of our favorite horror movies even
scarier.
Donnie Darko's driving message
Released in 2001, Donnie Darko became a cult hit mostly because no one knew what the heck
it was actually supposed to be about.
Over the years since Donnie Darko's release, a huge number of fan theories have popped
up.
Was he gone the whole time?
Was it all a hallucination?
Those are interesting ideas, but there's one theory that suggests the message of the entire
movie was actually a condemnation of drunk driving.
The theory started on Reddit, where a user argued that the movie's message about drunk
driving is pretty clear, if you listen to it.
The Halloween carnival is sponsored by M.A.D.D.
— Mothers Against Drunk Driving — and then, of course, there's the reveal of Frank
and the demise of Gretchen, after she's hit by a car driven by someone who, it's safe
to say, was driving drunk.
If you think it's far-fetched, writer/director Richard Kelly was asked about the theory around
the film's 15th anniversary, and he didn't disagree.
He said: "I'm very against drunk driving, and if people want to take that away from
it, I hope people call an Uber."
Home Alone is Jigsaw's origin
If you tried to pick two movies with as little in common as possible, Home Alone and the
Saw series would be legitimate choices.
Only...not so fast.
There's a fan theory that suggests the Home Alone movies actually serve as the origin
story of Jigsaw, and it makes both franchises so much cooler to think they could be linked.
Macaulay Culkin's Kevin McCallister has some serious anger issues, and he sets a whole
series of elaborate traps designed not just to protect his home, but to do serious damage
to would-be burglars … traps that are triggered by the victims.
Now, add in his hallucinations about the furnace monster in the basement, which happens to
be a very similar trap in Saw II.
Heck, Macauley Culkin and Tobin Bell even look alike.
Yeah.
We're sold.
Sacrifice in The Mist
The ending of 2007's The Mist was one of the most gut-twisting climaxes ever.
Lost in the mist, Tom Jane's character, Drayton, hits everyone in the car, including his
son, to save them from a horrible end at the hands — or claws — of the mist monsters.
Moments later, the mist clears, the army rolls up, and the crisis is over.
If he'd waited only a few more minutes, everyone would have lived.
Yeah, it's super depressing.
But one theory changes the entire theme of the ending.
When the group is trapped in the grocery store, the town's resident religious nut, Mrs. Carmody,
tries to sacrifice Drayton's son to appease God.
Mrs. Carmody is obviously insane, but at the same time...what if she was right?
As soon as Drayton finishes the job at the end, the mist lifts.
What if Drayton's execution of his son was really what raised the mist?
The Blair Witch Project's time loop
There were two schools of thought when The Blair Witch Project came out: some people
honestly bought the idea that it was real, found footage, and the other group left the
theater with a headache.
But while The Blair Witch Project seems like a simple movie about people lost out in the
woods, one theory suggests that the characters couldn't find their way out not because of
the witch's supernatural shenanigans, but because they were actually caught in a time
loop.
The biggest piece of evidence was the Sci-Fi Channel's pseudo-documentary Curse of the
Blair Witch, which showed that the house in the film had burned to the ground in the 1940s.
Of all the possible explanations, the idea that there's some kind of time warp out in
the woods actually makes the most sense.
Whether or not the filmmakers had that idea from the beginning is unknown.
But in 2016's Blair Witch, the film's characters know for a fact that there's something not
right with time and the continuity of the reality they're experiencing.
And that's even more terrifying than the idea that there's a real Blair Witch after them.
How do you fight a time warp?
Willy Wonka's hell factory
1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is supposed to be a kids' movie, which explains
a lot about an entire generation, really, if they think that a terrifying descent into
the depth of Wonka's chocolate factory was suitable for kids.
And that brings us to the theory.
Some think the chocolate factory isn't actually a candy factory at all — it's Hell, and
that boat ride is the trip across the River Styx.
"Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes!"
The theory says that it's all based on the idea of Dante's Inferno, which describes a
journey through the circles of Hell.
Each circle contains a different punishment based on a given crime.
Just like in Willy Wonka, where each child is punished based on his or her specific crime.
Meaning that when Charlie wins the factory at the end...he really wins the Underworld.
Uh...thanks?
Demonic Signs
Signs had plenty of potential, but for a lot of people, the whole thing was derailed when
the aliens turned out to be vulnerable to water.
Did these highly advanced aliens really decide to invade a planet that could destroy them
all with a rainy day?
But there's one theory that closes up a lot of the plot holes.
They're not aliens at all — they're demons.
That would explain why we never see any technology, why there aren't any spaceships, and why they're
on this water-filled world in the first place.
And then there's the part where Mel Gibson's character tells his daughter, Bo, that he
thought she was an angel when she was born.
So when Bo says something like this…
"there's a monster outside my room can I have a glass of water?"
...she's really trying to fill the house up with holy water.
You know, for all the demons.
Hey, it's not perfect, but it's better than super-advanced aliens that just happened to
forget about their one weakness being one of the major building blocks of life on Earth.
Drag Me To...Dinner?
Once you hear this one, you won't be able to unsee it.
Sam Raimi's 2009 thriller Drag Me To Hell wasn't about demons at all: it was all the
overactive imagination of a starving woman who was struggling with an eating disorder.
Stick with us on this one.
The main character, Christine, admits that she was overweight as a child, and most of
the horrible things that happen to Christine can be connected to an eating disorder.
She's constantly being vomited on, attacked in the mouth, and getting things forced down
her throat, and just about everyone eats and drinks stuff through the entire movie … except
for Christine.
Once you watch with that in mind, it's almost impossible not to see.
Pennywise is Bob from Twin Peaks
One It theory that might even creepier than the movie itself is the idea that Pennywise
the Clown is actually double-dipping as another creepy villain: Bob from Twin Peaks.
For one thing, they're both, well, named Bob.
In the original Stephen King book, Pennywise mentions that his real name is Robert "Bob"
Gray.
If the name thing isn't enough, there's the fact that they're both evil, interdimensional
beings.
Bob came from the Black Lodge, while Pennywise came from the Macroverse.
Since we humans only know of our own dimension, there's no reason the Lodge and the Macroverse
can't be the same thing.
Finally, they both feed on fear and suffering.
Like Monsters Inc., but a little less cute.
Thanks for watching!
Click the Grunge icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!