PLOT SUMMARY: Harper goes on vacation to heal following her husband's suicide. However, she encounters something bizarre that forces her to confront her past.
At first glance, the poster depicting a grinning man with the stamp MEN over him seems more like something someone would say when one is exasperated.
You know, like, "Ugh! Men!"
This is usually said when women encounter men who have been insulting or derogatory or simply annoying.
So you wonder, is the movie going to be bashing Men in general? Is that the movie I want to watch?
The trailer puts most fears to rest. Oh, so it is going to be a horror/thriller. Okay, not bad. Pretty intriguing actually.
Then you watch the movie and gape as it ends. Just what was it that you watched?
Men is actually a pretty decent movie but it is heavily laden with symbolism that is never really explained clearly.
We get hints about the forbidden fruit, the green man that is supposed to represent fertility, and then a birthing scene that vomits out characters the protagonist has already met.
And then there's this thing with the one actor playing various male characters. Just what is that supposed to depict? That underneath the surface, all men are alike? And that each of the characters actually depicts a layer of the male psyche?
Layer One is supposed to be the caretaker Geoffery who is nice and chivalrous. He doesn't let Harper help with the luggage. He comes over when she thinks there is an intruder and when he sees it is a bird, euthanizes it.
Layer Two is the vicar who doles out comforting words but also blames Harper for her husband's suicide. He may be religious but he also lusts after Harper.
Layer Three is a childlike man who wears masks and just wants to play. When Harper refuses, he pretty much pouts and curses her.
Layer Four is the policeman who is supposed to protect women, and Harper, but he barely believes her and can be condescending.
Layer Five is the green man who keeps stalking her. Since he symbolizes rebirth, he probably wants Harper to procreate. She's a woman. That is all she should be concerned about.
All the male characters that Harper encounters, represent a layer and each of them disrespect Harper in some way.
This seems a plausible explanation of what is going on considering that in the end, the birthing sequence ends with her husband James being spitted out. He is the final product, the compilation of all these layers.
In order for Harper to heal, she had to confront each of James's layers. When in the end, she asks what he wants, he replies Love. Harper sure isn't going to give her that after realizing just why wasn't she happy with James.
MEN Movie Plot
The movie opens with music playing and Harper standing in her apartment and looking out the window. In the next instant, she witnesses her husband James falling down. She screams.
Realizing the only way to heal from this trauma is by going on a vacation, Harper rents a home in the countryside.
The house is magnificent and the gardens lush, and the apple trees full of apples.
She doesn't think twice before plucking an apple and biting into it. At that exact moment we see Geoffery looking at her through the window. He's clearly being judgmental.
Harper roams around the house, all the while munching on the apple. Eventually, she puts the apple down on the kitchen counter just as Geoffery comes in.
Clearly there are no trash bins around. Geoffery remarks about the apple being the forbidden fruit, makes an unfunny joke and tells her she would be better off making chutney out of the apples rather than have them rot in the garden and attract wasps.
Harper gets the tour of the large house after which Geoffrey lingers for a bit. Harper gestures for him to leave and he informs her he lives nearby and she could contact him should she need anything.
Harper settles down in her house and we have yet to see if the half-eaten apple has found its way into the trash bin or not.
The first thing Harper does is take a walk outside. Now Geoffrey did warn her to wear her boots while doing so and not to track mud everywhere. Hopefully she doesn’t do that.
Of course it starts raining and we see Harper finally smile. As she is returning, she comes across a tunnel and begins to call out. She plays with her own echo and makes a symphony of sorts.
Now the tunnel features greatly in the posters. Does it signify anything? Possibly. The tagline does say that what haunts you will find you.
And all that comes true when Harper, who thinks she can heal from her past, sees someone at the end of the tunnel.
When the stranger starts to run towards her, she flees in the other direction.
Later, realizing she may he safe, she uses her phone to take a picture of houses only to see a naked man photobomb her.
Her walk and mood ruined, and she heads back to the house.
The naked man hasn't given up yet and while Harper is working, she sees the naked man loitering about her garden. Shocked, she calls the police who are able to find the naked man and restrain him.
One of the policemen bears resemblance to Geoffery.
Harper recalls her conversation with James wherein he blackmails her by threatening to commit suicide if she divorced him. Harper tries to tell him that she would be very upset if he did so but that she still wants to leave him.
James reminds her of the wedding vows they took in a church. Harper doesn’t care. He relentlessly pleads but she has made up her mind.
He brings up the message she sent to her friend Riley stating that she was scared.
Harper and James get into a fight and he hits her. The impact is so great she goes sprawling on the floor. She gets up, mad, and throws him out of the house stating she doesn’t care what happens to him.
James then proceeds to throw himself off the roof in slow motion. When Harper goes to see him downstairs, she sees that his arm has been impaled through by a fence, almost bisecting it. And his ankle is badly twisted. He is very much dead.
In the present, Harper has found a church and cries out thinking she's all alone. She is not. A man is always around her, waiting to attack her when she is vulnerable, or so we are supposed to believe.
Outside, she meets a school boy sitting on the steps and wearing a mask. He looks like Geoffery too. Strangely Harper never questions whether Geoffery had an affair which resulted in half the town looking at him. Or perhaps she does a double take too considering the make up and effects are good enough to deceive anyone into thinking a different actor is playing that character.
The schoolboy wants to play hide and seek. Harper doesn't seem keen to indulge him. He calls her a female dog. She is astounded and the vicar, again resembling Geoffrey, comes out and reprimands him. The school boy has enough profanities for him too but finally leaves them alone.
Harper sits down with the vicar and he admits to spying on her as she cried in anguish. She tells him about James and how the incident was perceived as James trying to climb down the upstairs balcony to get into the house but ended up slipping and plunging to his death.
The vicar nods and tells her how she must feel guilty that James is dead because of her. Harper is not ready to hear that. He tells her that she should have tried forgiving James and perhaps then he wouldn’t have foolishly played spiderman and tried to get into the house through the balcony.
Harper takes a note from the schoolboy's book of profanities and tells him the most popular curse word.
The vicar looks like he's used to receiving these kinds of insults.
Harper has had it with the people of this town. She goes to the bar where the policeman informs her that the naked man was let go because there wasn't enough evidence to hold him considering he wasn't being that much of a nuisance to her. Running around naked all over town isn't considered a crime.
Harper is more than disappointed that her problem with stalkers is being made fun of. She heads home.
MEN Ending Explained with spoilers
Harper heads home to have a video call with her friend Riley. Riley tells her that she rented the house so she could heal and so heal she shall. She proposes to come down there and "heal" with her. Harper tries to send her the address but in true horror movie style, there is a disruption.
Harper hears a noise outside and goes out to see the police officer. The lights in the garden and her porch flicker and suddenly he's the schoolboy.
The schoolboy now wants to play catch and goes after her. Harper changes the game to hide and seek and closes the door. She looks around for anything she can use to defend herself when she hears the kitchen window break.
She goes in to see a crow lying on the floor. Geoffery comes along and when he sees the bird, quickly twists its neck.
Geoffery heads out but the lights keep flickering and he keeps morphing into different characters. He eventually turns into the naked man and charges at Harper who slams the door on his face. But an arm reaches out through the mail slot and tries to grab her.
Harper gets a knife and slits his arm just like James' arm had been. However, the schoolboy still gets in and waves his slit arm like a tentacle. He morphs into the vicar who has the same tentacle arm wound.
He goes after Harper and tries to sexually assault her. Harper very nicely shows him that she does know how to use a kitchen knife. The vicar is shocked that he has been stabbed in the gut.
Harper runs away and gets into her car but is accosted by Geoffery. He tosses her out and gets into the car so that he can run her over. But he's a terrible driver and ends up crashing into a statue.
Harper does some running around again but then meets the naked man who looks like he's on the verge of vomiting. Turns out he's just experiencing labor pains and lays down to give birth. Harper doesn’t move closer to help.
The naked man has a slit open in his lower regions from where he births the schoolboy who then becomes pregnant and births the vicar who then turns into Geoffery.
So all the characters represented men in general at different stages in their life?
It ends up with them turning into Geofferies?
Anyway, Geoffrey gives birth to James who comes stumbling out and approaches Harper.
Harper asks what he wants and he replies he wants her love.
Harper says nope, he isn’t going to get that from her. Bye!
Later, Riley has finally made it to the house and finds her friend sitting on the stairs and smiling at a leaf. Riley is concerned about Harper's relationship with that leaf.
The movie ends.
MEN is an interesting tale although the surplus of symbolism almost takes the fun away from the thrilling scenes.
Scare Scale: 3/5
Check out this movie on Amazon Prime Video
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