♪
Someone decided we should all play this game for real.
Someone like you.
Someone with an EMP bomb!
Jesus, it's hot.
Déja vu.
This thing is just happening in more than one city.
No one can help.
Because no one outside knows there's been a pulse bomb.
It's much more bigger than that.
Solar storms. Solar flare. Coronal mass ejections!
Do you smell that?
It's fucking dope.
With weed psychosis, more ramped up paranoia.
Hello Santa.
Merry Christmas.
-Aaah!
It's Eddie Coetse.
The game has changed,
the players in it... they're Papa Dube's
Who's Papa Dube?
The Witch Doctor.
Ghost-Dancer...
...to see his face, is to die.
Papa runs the bottom three floors and we've
got to get through them all.
I'm so tired, all these fucking people.
I'm going to kill them all.
The hunt is on.
Do you hear that baby cry?
Cotard's Syndrome, did this shit.
What the fuck are you talking about?
People who prefer the dead for company.
For fuck's sake.
What do you want us to do, Meadow?
They're in the House.
Our House.
We will have to go back the way we came.
What's happening to her?
She's slipping away.
♪
From what?
From him...
all this,
from us.
Can you hear a baby cry?
Can you?
No.
"We're all mad here", said the Cheshire Cat.
Is this Wonderland, or is this hell?
It's hell.
Well, if hell is a cheesy fairground horror house.
Maybe it is at that.
No, it's just faker's props, Jaz.
It's just white paint, and black wire.
We're in Papa's 'Divination House'.
What's happened to her?
Ask him.
Mm-mm!
Ghost-Dancer moves in the finest cloth of many col.
In flashes of light and darkness between life and death.
He draws the possessed to him.
To me.
Ghost-Dancer,
will cast his judgement.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
That's because it is.
No!
It's just a cheap show, Jaz.
Whole place has been rigged.
With illusions, Carny tricks.
It's as old as the hills.
This place, spiritualism with a local twist.
It's no good going back to yesterday.
Because I was a different person.
It's a secret passageway.
"I'm afraid I can't explan myself, sirs", said Alice.
Jaz?
"Because I'm not myself, you see?"
Jaz, can you hear me? You're alive.
Jaz?
Jaz!
Where is she?
She's gone.
Jaz!
You're nothing but a shell.
You're nothing but a phony.
Here!
She's bait, Dom.
He wants you to follow him.
He's luring you in.
Don't you want to play?
It's Jaz.
The show goes on then.
It moved!
Jaz!
Well, look at you, Pumpkin.
We've got to save Jaz!
Hm-mm!
Yeah.
Jaz!
Do you smell that?
That's death.
Am I rotting already?
I was looking at something,
I was holding it in my hands and he could see I was upset,
but he just kept on pushing.
But I'm alright now.
It wasn't a real baby.
I can hear the real one, but I haven't found it yet.
Huh! I wonder if I ever will.
There's no other doors.
We can't go back.
There is no "going back".
We're all dead.
Papa was right, we're shell's.
Empty Avatars for the strangers in our heads.
Making our moves...
Getting us killed.
Doomed to lose the same second-rate "survival horror" game,
over and over.
There is no escape.
This is where we are.
Where I am, where I deserve to be.
"Hell" is the "horror" we never survive.
The dance is done.
♪
Life has been judged.
Ghost-Dancer brought you to me.
And here we are.
Just more damn theater.
Where the hell did he go?
Where else?
Down.
Jaz.
What is all this?
"Spirit-traps".
Protection from trespassers.
I don't like it.
You're not supposed to.
Papa's got enemies, and secrets to keep.
♪
That's the way down.
No.
You better get your fucking limp dicks down there
or become part of the furniture.
Now!
Jesus.
A whole dope farm.
Right under our nose.
Paranoia Central.
Looks like they piggy-backed the electrical system.
Everything blew with the pulse.
Got to find a way out.
There's a stairwell.
Must be locked from the outside.
Jaz, what are you doing?
She's playing dead.
"Dead Alice in Wonderland".
With the right trigger,
people can step out of Cotard's spontaneously.
What?
We can get her back.
The same way Alice got out of Wonderland.
Well, how?
I never read the fucking book.
It's a nonsense story really.
You can interpret it any way you like.
Violates convention, frustrates expectation.
It's the perfect game-play environment.
I don't play video games either.
I know.
Alice's adventures take place in her head.
She's in a dream.
A nightmare of absurdity with a constant underlying threat of death.
Sound familiar?
Super cop?
So how did she get out?
She woke up.
Guys...
Someone else there.
Jaz stop, step back!
I'm so sorry that the baby is dead.
Please listen to me.
We're all dead.
I can see that now.
Jaz, you're not dead.
Yes, I am. I died. See?
We're all dead. Everyone's dead and in hell.
But it's okay.
It means nothing can hurt us anymore.
I'll show you.
You're crazy.
There is no baby.
No dead baby. It's an eel.
It's alive...
Swirling in my belly.
I'm letting it out. So no one thinks I'm mad.
I'm not dead.
Everybody's dead.
Jaz...
Hey...
Hey!
♪
They're over there.
I will cut off your children's toes
and feed them to you.
Move.
Oh!
We swapped the fucking hotbox for the Temple of Doom.
Some serious "spirit-traps" down here, Dom.
Serious secrets to keep.
Maybe we are dead, and in hell.
Careful now, Pumpkin.
Walls have ears.
Papa plies a trade in body parts,
stolen from local hospitals.
For those 'rituals',
those "spirit-traps".
Ooh! Ghost-cop on the case!
Fuck you, Eddie!
Papa sells more than prophecies, potions and dope.
He sells power.
And fear.
He binds human traffickers to their victims.
He "spell-binds" them.
Now, I've been searching for this place for months.
And if they believe...
well, then the magic's real.
And so true! Hey, Errol?
Papa has got his "spirit-traps".
I'm guessing you conjured one all on your own.
And for me. Ain't that right, Eddie?
You trapped Jaz no less than Papa trapped all these kids.
With lies.
Oh, yeah?
Got to wake her up, Errol.
Exactly how were you going to do that?
With a little harsh reality.
No, he can do that.
I've already tried that.
You don't wake her up
by de-bunking a few of Papa's parlor tricks!
What is real anymore, in this place?
Her backstory.
Take a good look.
She isn't telling it.
She doesn't have to.
He does.
Errol Jones...
'‘The Great Pretender'.
Her story is wrapped up in his.
He's the one who gets to tell it.
He's the one who gets to clear her guilt with the truth.
He's the only one that can.
There it is.
Finally!
The real fucking reason why you joined us.
It's the backstory that makes or breaks the game.
Oh, you remember, I'm touched.
Fucking backstory.
You just had to unveil them all.
Even your own!
Let's face it.
Her's is the only one left.
And yours?
Don't be modest.
That's it, isn't it?
Just like you and fuckin' Captain Marvel over here.
Can't get the one story without the other.
That you can't get either until you're right in there
with us, making it happen.
Jaz.
It's a booby-trap.
There's a second wire.
What happened, where's everyone?
Gone or dead.
Your magic, isn't real.
I'll protect you.
I don't need your protection.
I can protect myself.
Uh-mm.
I'm gonna find the guy who killed Stretch. Then I'm done.
You will do as I say.
Let's go.
Errol Jones!
Psychopath.
Says the guy with the axe and the bigger death toll.
Forget the pulse.
You always were...
will always be,
a psychopath.
All you ever get is old.
Life... A game to play, till boredom kicks in.
Until it's replaced.
The workplace, a chair...
A lover.
All the same to a man with no real goals but '‘control'.
No bond with anything, anyone.
Only a use... a need...
until the day there isn't any.
A guy like Errol, he'll trash you and has.
He'll smear anyone, everyone's credibility,
before they can expose him for who he is.
You said you were unstable.
Unreliable.
You said you were a workplace liability.
I need to find, my baby.
Now, that's what this is all about.
A baby.
Tell her the truth.
♪
He won't hurt anyone anymore.
Burn in hell motherfucker.
So that's it?
The axe wielding,
killer maniac ain't the worst guy here.
No, no, no, no, no!
Errol-fucking-Jones is the bad guy.
Sums you up in a nutshell.
Tell her the truth.
I'd like to hear it...
If it will save her.
Why not?
Come with me, Sweetheart.
Let's take a walk down memory lane.
I don't do empathy.
I don't feel love, Jaz.
I never have.
Don't need it.
Fuck it. I can't even describe it.
Our relationship,
was over and we both knew it.
The game still wasn't ready.
And what with the pressure and the arguing.
And you suddenly finding yourself all pregnant.
You tell your mom the happy news.
I'm keeping it.
If you're so sure, then why not tell her?
I gotta hear you tell your mom.
It's unlikely a wet smartphone will kill you.
Huh, on the other hand..
a wet and charging smartphone.
Shit!
They're coming, they're coming!
Go on, Errol.
So there you were, Sweetheart.
Head already chock-full of syndrome and electrical activity.
And here it is...
way more.
Brain lesions, affected blood flow.
So much worse than a simple nosebleed.
Come on.
Hurry up, Errol!
You were unconscious, about to drown.
Would have drowned.
But I saved you, Sweetheart.
Put you in my debt and bound you to me forever, I guess.
In blood and lies.
Hurry, come on!
Fuck!
Open the door.
Stop!
I know another way.
I lied.
It was me.
I put the phone on charge.
I deliberately put the phone on charge.
It was me.
Lost the baby with the bathwater.
I put '‘Cotards' right in there.
Such a sense of personal loss
that I can't even begin to understand.
You think being dead reunites you?
But it won't. 'Cause you're not dead.
Just chock-full of guilt.
Guilt, that should be mine, Sweetheart.
Eddie knew.
Eddie watched us on that CCTV for weeks.
He heard the same lies,
over that cheap and cheesy fuckin' baby monitor.
I would've been a good mom.
Excuse me?
I said I would have been a good mom!
It's okay, you can still be a good mom, Jaz.
Can you just stop crying.
-You can... -You don't fucking care!
You don't fucking care about the baby!
You can...
You just care about all this shit!
All this shit, is all you care about!
Just stop for a second.
Look at me, Jaz!
Alright, it happens all the time, okay?
Mothers lose babies all the time.
It happens!
He knew all along it was me blaming you.
Well, it's only me in game-play, Sweetheart.
It always is.
♪
It's always me.
It always is!
It's all there is!
Me!
Jaz.
What do you see?
I see you.
Fuck.
Fuck!
And with that reveal,
and all your early work with the axe,
I guess I make '‘chief antagonist'.
You planted the pulse bomb.
Put us all in your world,
playing your bloody game.
And here I am,
thinking this is your love-letter to Jaz.
How did that one turn out, Eddie?
Huh?
The game's monster gets to reinvent himself.
It's tragic loser.
Tragic loser.
Come one, let's go. Let's to the basement. Get out here.
The irony's sweet, huh Eddie?
The repressed yearnings of a solitary man
and no resolution.
Just like love-lorn Lewis Carrol, for '‘Alice'.
Let's face it Eddie,
you're no one's idea of a romantic lead.
No, no, no.
Dom, however...
Still...
Him... her?
That shit will never work.
That poxy janitor can't save her forever.
He won't save her at all.
All I gotta do is kill everyone.
And start the-fuck-over!
The fog.
It goes all the way dow.
Where else was it gonna go?
Huh, Eddie?
A final connection between character and environment.
Good game-play, huh?
You've been a great sport.
Apples...computers. everything...
They're heading towards the basement.
Apples...computers. everything...
Shut her the-fuck-up!
Apples...computers. everything...
Eddie...
Eddie... Eddie.
Go! Save her.
Run!
I'll be fine.
What about Eddie?
Just go, go, go.
Welcome.
That's the guy who killed Stretch.
So you're the fucker with the axe.
And the others.
Oh, they're gone.
What's he doing?
Errol!
Where's Papa?
He's gone.
You deal with me now.
Meadow.
So I do get to fight a Boss-Battle?
You're bleeding like a stuck pig.
I'll make this quick.
And sweet.
You won't win.
Really?
Your little knife doesn't frighten me, Meadow.
Look at me.
I know exactly how it will feel.
I've been cutting flesh for years.
Did you love him?
What is love?
This is...
game over.
There's nothing.
Nothing.
Ain't that some shit?
Eddie didn't make it.
I thought you two weren't close.
Do get over yourself, Dom.
The game is done!
We've just stepped into the sequel.
I need answers.
You're going the wrong.
Maybe you are.
I'm on my way, I promise.
Yes, I'm coming.
The streets are overcrowded here.
I'm coming.
Ready to go.
We need to get help.
There might still be people stuck in our building.
She's really back.
The old Jaz.
Sorry about your brother.
You said you'd save us, and you really did.
Thank you.
♪
The whole world's broken.
Gone mad.
Then we're mad too.
Bad sunshine.
Looks like Felix was right after all.
We're at day one, year zero.
Who knows what we're capable of.
So far a lot.
Action married to environment.
Eddie would have loved this.
♪
Time to get out of the city.