The Indonesian thriller Monster is a remake of the film, The Boy Behind the Door. It showcases the horrifying experience of two school kids who are kidnapped and try to escape their captors. It is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Monster opens at a school, where friends Alana and Rabin are seen being followed by a car while riding their bicycle.
They stop at a gaming zone, where Alana plays inside while Rabin steps outside.
When the latter does not return, Alana goes to look for him and notices a bearded man named Jack closing the boot of the same car with somebody struggling inside it.
Before Alana can escape, Jack captures her and puts her in the trunk as well.
He drives the children to a secluded location, a house in the middle of nowhere.
He takes a struggling Rabin inside, leaving Alana tied up in the car’s boot. Both children have duct tape over their eyes and mouths and their hands tied behind their backs.
Alana manages to open the boot and uses a nail to cut through the tape binding her hands. Despite contemplating running away, she decides to head back inside to save her friend.
Sneaking around the house, Alana observes Jack going about his daily routine, eating, drinking, and playing video games.
Meanwhile, Rabin can be heard screaming, tied up inside a room. Alana cautiously makes her way upstairs to search for her friend but fails to locate him when she hears Jack coming up.
She hides inside a room that has a camera pointing towards a bed, hinting at something sinister. Underneath the bed, she discovers the body of another boy.
Jack notices the light in the room switched on and bolts in to search for intruders.
Alana succeeds in hiding and evading him. Jack then takes the body of the unknown boy into a butchering room and decapitates it using a chainsaw.
Alana witnesses this and is shocked. Jack puts the body parts inside an ice box and drags it downstairs, handing it to another man waiting at the door.
Alana waits for Jack to fall asleep. When he finally lies down for a nap on the sofa, Alana tries to steal his keys.
Unfortunately, he wakes up and the two get into a tussle. The chase ends with Alana accidentally stabbing and killing the kidnapper with a kitchen knife.
She cleans up and tries to unlock Jack’s phone but fails. She searches the house and finds pictures of former victims.
Despite her efforts, she is unable to locate the keys to the room where Rabin is tied up.
Ending explained:
Another threat
Soon, another car pulls up outside the house, and Alana notices a woman, Murni, coming out with bags of groceries.
Recognizing her as Jack’s partner from a photo on his phone wallpaper, Murni calls out for Jack and hears Rabin making noise upstairs.
She heads to his room to threaten him as Alana locates a retro dial telephone and connects it to a socket in the wall.
As Murni searches for her partner upstairs, Alana hastily cleans the blood, sneakily opens the kitchen door, and drags Jack’s body out into the woods.
Murni gets suspicious and calls Jack’s phone, hearing it ring outside. She finds the body and, in a fit of anguish and rage, breaks things in the house.
She then grabs an axe and heads upstairs to pack a suitcase.
No more hiding
Alana follows Murni, and when she enters the bathroom, Alana accidentally knocks over the suitcase.
Murni steps out of the bathroom to find the source of the sound, and Alana hides under the bed.
Sadly, the girl is discovered. The woman tries to grab her, but Alana runs into the bathroom and locks herself inside.
Murni uses the axe to break down the door. As she is about to get through, she hears police sirens in the distance and leaves. This confirms that Alana was able to get a message to the cops.
The woman locks Alana inside the room, but she escapes by jumping out the window.
A police officer searches the house but is stabbed and killed by Murni.
She then gets hold of the officer’s gun and tries to shoot Alana but fails to do so as the girl runs and hides, and Murni runs out of bullets.
Alana runs upstairs and as Murni slowly climbs up, she appears with a vase and breaks it over her head.
Fortunately, the vase also contains the keys to the room where Rabin is held.
Escape to freedom
As Murni lies unconscious, Alana runs upstairs and frees Rabin. They head downstairs and Murni attacks them once again.
The kids punch and kick and finally escape the house through a window.
They hide inside the dead police officer’s car and lock themselves inside. Alana uses the radio to alert the backup.
Murni climbs onto the car and uses the axe to break the windshield. Alana releases the handbrake, causing the car to roll backward and hit a rock.
Murni loses her balance and falls, allowing the kids to escape on foot.
The woman gets into her vehicle and chases them as they run through the woods.
They manage to enter a stream that is ankle-deep, and Murni crashes her car into the water trying to get to them.
As day breaks, the kids slowly move on, but Rabin’s ankle gets stuck between rocks in the water.
Murni locates them and is about to murder them but is shot by the police who arrive just in time. The film ends with the children being rescued.
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