Plot Summary: Following a stroke, Judith is sent to a nursing home by her family where she starts to believe that something supernatural is killing the residents.
I have a great appreciation for stories well told; truly they are the essence of every movie.
A good story can make or break a movie. But an excellent execution of the story will guarantee the success of a movie.
The Manor suffers from terrible execution to an actually decent story. Part of the Welcome to the Blumhouse series which takes place every October on Amazon Prime, The Manor was the one movie that I thought looked decent from the lot and picked to see it first.
The issue with Welcome to the Blumhouse series is that more importance is given to showcasing diversity rather than on the movie itself. Literally all the movies so far start off decently, it's intriguing even. The second half begins and you are still entertained. And then the story leads to the climax and that's when the plot holes emerge and where a decent story unravels. The ending, in literally all these movies, is always campy.
THE MANOR Movie Plot
Judith lives with her daughter and grandson and is having fun at a party when she suffers a stroke.
In the next scene she is sent off to a nursing home. We aren't shown her being taken to the hospital or how much time she spent there before her daughter decided to get rid of her.
Judith has accepted that she was there when her daughter needed her but it isn't going to be there for her.
Her grandson Josh is the light of her life and is the only one who is concerned about her. He roams around with a skateboard but we never see him use it. He says his goodbyes, promises to visit everyday and leaves.
Judith finds out she's sharing a room with another invalid Annette. She introduces herself to her but the woman merely screams and looks away.
Judith goes out for a walk with her nurse Liesel who introduces her to a trio: Roland, Ruth and Trish.
They invite her to boring activities and Judith pretty much flinches at the word 'Bridge'. For some reason every old person must know that game.
Judith realizes this is her life now are agrees to be a part of their group. She talks about how she was a dancer and misses her husband.
When she's served tea, another senior member, Imogen, gestures to not consume it. Judith looks at her defiantly as she does drink her tea.
She imagines seeing her husband play the piano, and at night sees a weird dark figure roaming about her room. We are made to understand that the tea may be spiked.
There's also a black cat roving about whose job is to indicate the next person about to croak. Annette screams every time the cat jumps on her.
Judith's stay is livened by Josh's visits and she complains to him about how she never gets to go out whenever she wants to. Josh happily gives her the code to the door. All visitors are first and foremost given the code to the front door so that they can write it on the arms of their grandparents who never bathe.
Judith ventures out at night and sees three young adults roaming about the property. The minute they come on screen is when everything falls into place. Clearly they aren't just random people. Based on the camaderie they share, they have been friends for a very long time. And I mean, decades.
Judith returns to the house, dreams about strange creatures entering her room, is sent to the doctor who prohibits all visits and announces that she is suffering from dementia. Annette dies one night and Judith has the room to herself but she keeps seeing a strange being in her room.
Before Annette dies, however, she gives out a warning, to look for it.
Clearly Annette's bed is never made because the second Judith moves her mattress, she finds pieces of cloth and a list that Annette had been keeping. According to that, Imogen is next after which it is Judith.
Fearing she would be killed, she escapes from the house once again. She had pleaded with Josh to take her out for a Sunday lunch and since he refused and made excuses about the doctor saying it was a bad idea, she takes it upon herself to coerce her family to spend time with her by running away.
No one at the nursing home is able to find her but Josh and his mother are able to in a matter of seconds.
Judith is given her breakfast and told by her daughter to return for her treatment. Judith excuses herself, sees a photo on the wall and creates a fuss.
By then her daughter has already contacted the nursing home and two men come and haul her away. She begs her family to look at the photo that is behind them but they are like, nope, she has dementia, we don't want to turn around.
THE MANOR Ending Explained
Judith gives up all hope especially when Imogen dies and the black cat then comes to jump on her bed and circle her.
She decides she wants to end her life.
Meanwhile Josh doesn't want to eat his colorful cereal and ponders on what his grandmother said.
He decides to go see the photograph in the diner, because it is the only place in the whole town where food is available and everywhere goes there to take pictures. He sees the photo that made Judith go berserk and sees it was a photo of Roland, Trish and Ruth all looking exactly the way they do now even though the photo was taken in 1986.
Literally, it is the only photo on the wall with a prominent date mark and that too large enough to take up the whole corner of the photo.
Josh realizes his grandmother may be in danger and runs to the nursing home, is somehow given the new code and stops Judith from taking the sleeping pills.
He tells her he believes her ridiculous stories about disappearing lab reports and her ability to tell whether brain scans are different or not or can show presence of dementia.
They concoct a plan to do a recon on Roland who is conveniently out, probably to hit on other women after Judith rejected him.
They find the file he had stolen from Judith's room, and also a can with bunches of hair in it. Judith remembers the time when her hairbrush had gotten lost and realizes Roland stole it to gather all the hair from the brush to make a small bunch and keep it.
They hear Roland approach and Josh hides under the bed. Judith takes her time tossing away the bunch of what she knows with certainty is her hair, and replaces the hair with Roland's from his brush. Two can play the same game. Then she slowly makes her way under the bed and that is cue for Roland to enter. They see him remove his shoes ans cover their noses and mouths immediately.
Then Roland disappears and they look out the window to see him crawl down the building.
They follow him into the woods, not even deep into the woods.
An area so close to the house any visitor would have spotted weird skulls hanging from trees or someone may have noticed a bonfire at night. But nope. Nobody notices anything.
They see the trio wearing black robes and dancing around the fire. Something creeps out of the tree and heads over to Roland who hands him some rolled up hair. Josh, believing it to be his grandmother's, tries to stop the sacrificial ritual and Judith us unable to tell him of the switch.
Roland captures Josh and throws the hair into the bonfire. Josh is too weak to shake off the old women and watches helplessly and then with fear as the tree man comes over to Judith, sniffs her hair, realizes it doesn't smell like the offering and then comes after Roland. He spits his roots into his mouth, sucking the life out of him. He had done the same with Judith in her room but she survived. Or was it all a dream or hallucination caused by the spiked tea?
Ruth and Trish are horrified to see their partner in crime disintegrate as the Oak tree monster returns to pose near the tree. They quickly bargain with Judith and Josh to join them. Judith gets her youth back and can dance again. Clearly she misses it as she kept mentioning to everyone over and over during her stay. And Josh doesn't get to lose his grandmother. Ever. His mother is clearly emotionally distant.
They both agree to join the covenant.
Later, Judith is celebrating her 70th birthday. Her daughter finally comes to visit because she wanted cake. Josh is working at the nursing home.
Late at night, the witches regroup to watch Judyith, young now, prancing around the woods in her ballet shoes.
The ending clearly ruined the movie. It was too rushed and things seemed to fall into place conveniently. Judith was clearly missing her dancing days and she did keep obsession about it, but is she really ready to sacrifice residents in the nursing home to attain youth. Seemed a bit out of character for her.
Scare scale: 2.5/5
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