!!!!SPOILER ALERTS ALL AROUND!!!!
This film is one of my favorite films, but I also see a lot of people struggle with the themes in it. It's understandable, especially due to how we're trained to interpret film language as an audience. This film doesn't use cinematography or colour filters to signify perspectives, but that's what it is: Perspective.
People think that the stuff they see on screen is the stuff the camera sees. It's not. It's the stuff the characters see. All the weird and random spiders, all the wild hallucinations, the paranoia about the generator, and the weird spider wound, all of this is not actually there in objective reality.
You're seeing what the characters see. It's not so much "random" as hallucinatory. What it's meant to do is to add suspense up until the big reveal.
In short, the audience is not intended to be an objective lens, observing a reality hidden to the characters.
Rather, you're experiencing the same reality that they are.
So what is the giant spider then? What was that strange wound?
Short answer: It's not that relevant. The suspense of the film doesn't come from what the illusions hide, but rather the nature of the illusions themselves. The horror is not about giant spiders, but rather a human mind that projects giant spiders into reality.
The horror isn't about the strange generator. But rather the delusions that drove the soldiers of the other listening post to incinerate themselves inside it.
You can't make sense of this film based on what it shows you. In fact, it's not supposed to make sense quite intentionally. Rather, you make sense of it by observing the things it doesn't show you. The subtext.
It's an indie film, the narrative and framing is experimental. But if you pick up on these hints, and see what it tries to do rather than what you're anticipating it to do, then it's really good and does make a lot of sense.
I don't fault anyone for not picking up on this intuitively. I think it'll take some trial and error for this kind of storytelling to work.
If you don't think there's anything to appreciate about this film, then I encourage you to watch it again with this perspective in mind. I promise you it'll be good after that.
This film is one of my favorite films, but I also see a lot of people struggle with the themes in it. It's understandable, especially due to how we're trained to interpret film language as an audience. This film doesn't use cinematography or colour filters to signify perspectives, but that's what it is: Perspective.
People think that the stuff they see on screen is the stuff the camera sees. It's not. It's the stuff the characters see. All the weird and random spiders, all the wild hallucinations, the paranoia about the generator, and the weird spider wound, all of this is not actually there in objective reality.
You're seeing what the characters see. It's not so much "random" as hallucinatory. What it's meant to do is to add suspense up until the big reveal.
In short, the audience is not intended to be an objective lens, observing a reality hidden to the characters.
Rather, you're experiencing the same reality that they are.
So what is the giant spider then? What was that strange wound?
Short answer: It's not that relevant. The suspense of the film doesn't come from what the illusions hide, but rather the nature of the illusions themselves. The horror is not about giant spiders, but rather a human mind that projects giant spiders into reality.
The horror isn't about the strange generator. But rather the delusions that drove the soldiers of the other listening post to incinerate themselves inside it.
You can't make sense of this film based on what it shows you. In fact, it's not supposed to make sense quite intentionally. Rather, you make sense of it by observing the things it doesn't show you. The subtext.
It's an indie film, the narrative and framing is experimental. But if you pick up on these hints, and see what it tries to do rather than what you're anticipating it to do, then it's really good and does make a lot of sense.
I don't fault anyone for not picking up on this intuitively. I think it'll take some trial and error for this kind of storytelling to work.
If you don't think there's anything to appreciate about this film, then I encourage you to watch it again with this perspective in mind. I promise you it'll be good after that.