Eli-- My Take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: A boy with an autoimmune disorder believes there is a miracle cure for his disease when he is invited by a doctor to come to live at her house. Once there, things aren't what they seem. 

What are three things that every person desires?

Health, wealth, and love. These are the three basic things everyone requires to live a fulfilling life, and a wish we give on important occasions.

Love once received, and then gone doesn’t diminish the hope that you will never get it again.

Wealth too can be gained as lost, then gained again.

Health: once you catch a chronic illness, may not necessarily heal you to the point that you feel completely fit again.

ELI Movie Plot 

Eli is about, well, Eli, a boy suffering from an autoimmune disorder. The air that we breathe and take for granted is toxic for him and he must remain in a suit at all times.

Then comes the miracle the parents have been hoping for. Dr Horn invites them to her clean house where Eli can be treated.

With hopes that he will heal and be able to breathe in the fresh air, Eli shows extreme courage as he is out through treatments where the doctor informs him that she will inject a virus into him that will modify the defective gene causing his disorder.

Now wouldn’t it be great if a simple procedure can heal the most complex diseases?

Clearly, Dr Horn is up to something. She seems overly determined to keep the family in the house.

It is when Eli starts hallucinating about ghosts that he starts feeling that something is off.

Then he meets Haley who tells him about the other kids who never made it to stage three of Dr Horn’s treatment.

Eli keeps getting clues wherein someone writes the word “LIE” on the foggy windows. He is practically thrown out of the house and risked exposure to the outside but is saved just in time.

When he is attacked in his closet that he sees the scratched LIE on the wood. Turns out, when inverted the word also becomes a number. 317.

Now we start seeing some signs ourselves if we haven’t already since Eli arrives through the decontamination door which clearly has a cross on it.

317 too has a religious significance apart from being the passcode to the doctor’s operating room.

Certain that he’s being conned and at risk of being killed, Eli confronts his parents and the doctor but they all tell him he’s having a reaction to the treatment.

Eli gets locked into the basement where there are more religious symbols and passes out. When he awakens, he finds he can breathe the outside air without suffocation.

His mother appears and begs him to continue the treatment but Eli wants the truth. He is forcefully taken to the room where he is strapped to a chair that resembles the cross.

When the doctor puts on her robes and starts sprinkling holy water on him, it is then that all is revealed.

ELI Ending Explained with Spoilers!

Eli never had an autoimmune disorder. He is in fact the son of the devil. His mother couldn’t conceive, and after her prayer was rejected by God, or so she felt, she turned to the Devil who helped but lied about her son being nothing like him.

Eli is enraged and his skin turns red as do his eyes. He gets out of his straps, burns the doctor and nurses who were actually nuns, and kills his father.

The mother whimpers the truth to him, explaining how she had to convince Eli that he was sick.

Perhaps his first killing was the dog the family had that caused his parents to worry that he was turning evil.

His parents had convinced him he couldn’t breathe fresh air or go outside because they were worried he would kill people. Eli’s mind was brainwashed into thinking he had the disease which caused his skin to flare up.

Apart from all this, his mother reveals that they were using holy water and tannis root to subdue him.

Eli’s mother was made to believe that an exorcism could save his son’s soul, but when she sees the bodies of the other children, she is shocked to discover her son may not survive and rushes in to save him.

Maybe that is why Eli spares her. In the end, the house is set on fire. Haley is revealed to be another child of the devil and wants Eli to meet the father. They order Eli’s mother to drive them there.

This was an interesting movie with a nice surprising twist. But you wonder, why did it take three treatment stages for Eli? Were they trying to weaken him because he was too strong?

His mind was weak at the beginning because he trusted his parents, the doctor, and believed in his disease. Couldn’t something have been done then to suppress his evilness?

Were the flare-ups we see in the beginning a result of Eli’s parents using holy water on him or his reaction to anxiety and anger?

After all, in the climax, his skin does red when he feels threatened.

All in all, a good movie with enough frightening scenes to make you feel like you’re on a ride which flips your stomach over and over.

Scare scale: 4/5